Biography of W. H. COLLAT, Saline Co, AR

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        Date: 25 May 2002
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SOURCE: Goodspeed's History of Saline County

W. H. COLLAT, a farmer of Saline Township, Saline County,
was born in Polk County, GA, in 1846, being the fifth son in a family of eleven
children born to Robert and Eliza (COLLINS) COLLATT. Robert COLLATT was a
native of Georgia, and came to Saline County, Ark., in 1855, settling on a farm
in Shaw Township, on which he lived until his death in 1857. His wife only
survived him two weeks, both dying of pneumonia. Mr. COLLATT was a small boy at
the time of his parents' death. After his father's demise the estate was sold
at an administrator's sale, and the son then went to live with Mr. John PETTON,
where he remained for five years, receiving an education in the district
schools. In 1864 he enlisted for one year in Capt. Tilford's Eleventh Arkansas
Cavalry, and while in service was engaged in many skirmishes, finally being
paroled at Fulton on the Red River in June, 1865. Mr. COLLATT later engaged in
farming in Pulaski County on the Arkansas River in 1867. He was married, in
1873, in Saline County, to Margaret WHITE, daughter of William W. and Elizabeth
(MONTGOMERY) WHITE, who came here from Alabama at an early day. Mrs. WHITE died
in February, 1885. Mr. COLLATT made his first purchase of land in 1872 when he
bought eighty acres of timber which he cleared and in 1888 sold. He now owns a
good farm of thirty acres on the Saline River, and also 156 acres near Benton,
besides a place of 186 acres (100 acres of which are under cultivation) and ten
acres in Benton where he resides. He is a stanch Democrat, though not
especially active politically, and has been a member of the school board for
some six or eight years. He is the father of six children: Oliver Walter, James
Virgil, Hallie Homer, Hattie Hester, Lena Louis and Vinnie Verna. Mr. COLLATT
has witnesses and taken an individual part in the growth and advancement of
Benton from the first. He remembers when only one business house was in the
place, and when the farmers in the neighborhood were obliged to go ten or
fifteen miles on horseback to the mill.