Goodspeed's Biography of Francis Posey, Grant Co, AR *********************************************************** Submitted by: Jackie Dill Date: 27 Jul 2003 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm *********************************************************** Francis Posey, son of Samuel and Ruth Posey, both natives of South Carolina, was born in Edgefield District of that State, on December 22, 1824. The family moved to Louisiana, in 1828, and located in Natchitoches Parish, where they remained for about ten years. In 1839 they went to East Carroll Parish, La., where, in 1840, the father was drowned in the Mississippi River. In 1841 his widowed mother and her children, Joshua M., Francis, Elizabeth A., and Ellen Posey, located in the territory then embraced in Saline (but now in Grant) County, in the State of Arkansas. After coming to this State, the mother married Edward Calvert, who died in 1865. From that time until her death, which occurred on March 10, 1870, she lived with the subject of this sketch. Mr. Francis Posey married Miss Frances J. Ratcliff, a native of Mississippi, November 29, 1844. She died on November 8, 1845. In January, 1848, he married Sarah L., daughter of John Worthen, with whom he is now living. They have reared a family of nine children, whose names are: Francis R., Josephine (wife of James B. Moore), Martha E. (wife to T. B. Morton, whose name appears elsewhere in this work), Ruth (wife of J. T. Webb), Joshua M., S. H. T., Sarah L. (widow of F.E. Johnson), Ella (wife of W. C. C. Dorough, the present sheriff of Grant County) and William A. [Sketches of Joshua M. Posey and W. C. C. Dorough also appear in this work.] Mrs. Posey is originally from Lafayette County, Tenn. When Mr. Posey came to Arkansas, he was a boy seventeen years of age. Having been brought up to agricultural pursuits, he chose farming as his occupation, and followed it successfully until the winter of 1869, when he began the first mercantile business ever conducted in Sheridan (at that time the newly located county seat of the new county of Grant), taking in with him T. B. Morton as a partner. In 1871 he sold out to Mr. Morton, who had in the meantime become his son-in-law, and again devoted himself exclusively to his farm, which was located six miles west of Sheridan, and on which he had continued to reside, while doing business in that town. He left his farm in 1884, moving to Sheridan, where he has since continued to reside. Mr. Posey is one of the early pioneers of the county. Coming here forty-eight years before the creation of the county, when the territory of which it is composed was sparsely settled, when public highways were almost unknown, and when schools and churches were extremely scarce, he has lived to see the country largely populated, checkered with public thoroughfares, dotted with common schoolhouses, and abounding with church houses accessible to its entire people. During this eventful time he has taken a lively interest in public matters. To him is largely due the passage of the act creating the county of Grant. He and his wife are both members of the Baptist Church. He is a Master Mason of thirty-nine years' standing, having been made such at Pine Bluff, Ark., in 1850.