Biography of Robert W Pruet, 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 167

Robert W. Pruet, a well known and successful farmer of the county, was born
in East Tennessee in 1825, and is the third in a family of fifteen children born to
Willis and Mary (Williams) Pruet, who were also Tennesseeans, the paternal and
maternal grandparents being from North Carolina and Virginia, respectively.
Grandfather Pruet was a participant in the Creek war, and was at the battle of
Horseshoe Bend. The maternal grandparents lived to be very old, reaching the age of
ninety and one hundred years. Willis Pruet was an extensive land holder in Tennessee,
and dealt in stock, being a prominent and influential citizen of his time. He died in
August, 1850. Robert W. Pruet was reared to farm labor, attended the common schools,
and after attaining his majority engaged in stock dealing, and also kept a country
store for some time. In 1851 he was married to a Miss Stuart, a native of Illinois,
and in 1853, in company with three brothers, came to Northeast Arkansas and settled
in Greene County, where he entered 120 acres, on which be at once located and began
improving. In 1858 he sold his property with the intention of going to Texas, but
instead purchased 160 acres of wild land in St. Francis Township, 100 acres of which
he now has under excellent cultivation, furnished with good buildings and orchards.
He devotes the most of his land to general farming, and raises cotton, corn, [p.167]
and the smaller grains, the land yielding a good average. He is trying to improve his
stock and is going to cross his cattle with Jersey. In 1872, in partnership with his
brother, C. D. Pruet, he opened a general store on his brother's farm, and they
carried on an extensive business for many years. In 1862 he and two brothers, with
several brothers in-law, enlisted in the Twenty-fifth Arkansas Infantry, but he
served only seven months, when he was discharged on account of illness, at
Georgetown, Ky. In 1870 Mrs. Pruet died, and for several years Mr. Pruet resided with
his brother. In 1877 he married Frances Owens, who was born in West Tennessee, though
reared in Arkansas, to which State she was brought by her father, Dr. Owens, who
practiced in this vicinity for a number of years, and died from an accidental fall
from his horse. Mr. Pruet is an active worker in church and school matters, and is a
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the building in which he worships
being on ground donated by himself; this was erected by means contributed mostly by
the Pruet brothers. Mr. Pruet is one of the original members of the first church
organized in this section in 1858.