Biography of Lafayette McHaney, 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 158

LaFayette McHaney is one of the sturdy sons of the soil of Greene County,
Ark., who has won his property by the sweat of his brow and by good management. He
and his parents, William and Sarah (Word) McHaney, were born in Tennessee, his birth
occurring in Wilson County in 1837, When the latter was three years old he was taken
by his parents to Marion County, Ill., where the father died in 1851 at the age of
sixty-six years, and the mother in 1880, aged seventy-nine years. The father was a
Democrat and he and wife were members of the Baptist Church. They had a family of
thirteen children, ten of whom lived to be grown and seven are yet living. LaFayette
was the eleventh child, and attained his majority in Marion County, Ill. His youthful
days were spent on a farm and in attending the common schools, and after attaining
his twenty-second year he taught one term of school of nine months, later going to
Tennessee, where he was married. In January, 1861, he came to Arkansas and joined the
Confederate army, serving as first lieutenant, and was captured on the 4th of July,
1863, at Helena, Ark., and was taken to Johnson's Island, Ohio, where he was kept a
prisoner from August of that year to January, 1865, when he was exchanged and
returned home. In February, 1865, he began teaching school, continuing twenty months,
and the rest of his time has been devoted to his farm. He first located southeast of
Gainesville, but in 1881 came to his present farm, of which he has about 200 acres
under cultivation. He raises considerable stock. His wife, whose name was Nancy C.
Thorne, was born in Tennessee, [p.158] and when a child moved to Gibson County, of
the same State, where she was married. The following are their children: William W.,
John T., Avey Ann (wife of William Russell), John H., Robert L., Samuel P., Onia A.,
Susan A. A., Melvin M., Maude and Claude (twins), and Edward E. Henry L. died from
the effects of a fall, at the age of seven years. Mr. McHaney is a Democrat, has been
a Master Mason for two years, and he and wife are members of the Baptist Church, in
which he has been a deacon for twelve years.