Biography of Rufus A Markham, Greene Co, AR

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Submitted by: Michael Brown
        Date: 5 Sep 1998
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas

page 161

Rufus A. Markham, M. D., an energetic practitioner, is recognized throughout
this State as a friend of and laborer in the cause and advancement of the medical
profession, and has acquired a flattering reputation as a physician. He was born in
Orange County, N. C. (now Durham County), in 1848, and is a son of Benjamin and Rhoda
(Pritchard) Markham, who were born in North Carolina. The father was the eldest of
nine children and grew to maturity in his native State, after which he emigrated
westward to Tennessee, where he was engaged in teaching school for some time. He
returned to the old home place, and at the age of forty years located within three
miles of the old home, where he lived until his death, in 1866, at the age of sixty-
three years, rearing there a family of five children, all of whom are living. His
wife was born in 1807 and died in 1861, and she, as well as her husband, was a member
of the Baptist Church, the latter being a deacon in the same for twenty years. The
grandfather was born and reared in the Carolinas, and the great grandfather was a
soldier in the Revolutionary War: he reared a large family of children. He lived to
be over ninety years of age, and had several sons who also lived to extreme old age,
one lacking seven days of being ninety-nine years old at the time of his death. Dr.
Rufus A. Markham's brothers and sisters are as follows: Eliza Ann. Felix G., James D.
and Martha J. Dr. Markham remained at home until the death of his parents and
acquired a fair education in the district schools and at Durham, N. C. In 1870 he
came to West Tennessee and the following year removed to Greene County, Ark. In 1874
he went to Texas, where he engaged in teaching school. After returning to Arkansas he
was appointed, in 1876, to the office of deputy clerk of Greene County. In 1878 he
began the study of medicine under Dr. M. V. Camp, now of Walnut Ridge, Ark., and soon
after entered the Missouri Medical College, of St. Louis, from which institution he
graduated in 1885, though previous to graduating he had practiced in Greensboro from
1880 until 1884. After graduating he came to Gainesville, where he has since been
engaged in the active practice of his profession, and is ranked among the leading
physicians of the county. He was married in the fall of 1880 to Miss Maggie Steadman,
who was born in Chatham [p.161] County, N. C., in 1845, and died in October, 1888,
having become the mother of three children: Edward L., James C. and Rufus P. The last
child died in infancy, soon after the mother's death. She was an active worker and
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Doctor is a member of the Baptist
Church. He belongs to the A. F. & A. M., and is in every respect a self-made man.