Crawford Co., AR - Biographies - Zachariah Wells

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Zachariah Wells, editor and publisher of the Van Buren Graphic, is a 
native of Pine Bluff, Jefferson Co., Ark., and was born in 1855. He is 
a son of Zachariah and Elizabeth (German) Wells. The father was born 
in Mobile, Ala., in 1828, and during his youth learned the printer's 
trade. In 1850 he immigrated to Pine Bluff, where he established the 
Arkansas Republican, the first publication of that place. He edited 
the paper seven years, and passed the remainder of his life in 
Jefferson County, serving as county judge six years. He died in 1869. 
The mother was born in Pine Bluff in 1835, and died in 1871. She was 
the mother of six children, five of whom are living, our subject being 
the second. He was left an orphan when young, and at the age of 
fourteen began life as an apprentice in a printing office. He served 
there five years, and the next ten years worked as a journeyman at 
Pine Bluff, Little Rock and Memphis, among other places in several of 
the Southern States. In January, 1887, he became a citizen of Van 
Buren, and March 12, 1888, assumed the editorship of the Van Buren 
Graphic, which is a Republican paper, with a weekly circulation of 
900, and is rapidly becoming one of the best papers in the county. In 
1879 Mr. Wells married Miss Fredonia Rutherford, who was born in Upion 
Springs, Ala., in 1860, and is the mother of one child, Frederick 
Clyde.