Biography of A. J. Lancaster, Saline Co, AR *********************************************************** Submitted by: Leon Rowland Moore Date: 5 Nov 2002 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm *********************************************************** Source: Goodspeed's History of Saline County A. J. Lancaster, farmer and stock raiser of Beaver Township, was born in the southern part of Illinois, February 25, 1830, and is the eldest in a family of thirteen children born to Jesse and Mary (Woods) Lancaster. Jesse Lancaster was a native of Tennessee and his wife of Illinois. They were married in the latter State, and when A. J. was only one year old moved to Missouri, but after a residence of two years, came to Arkansas, settling in Izard County. Mr. Lancaster followed the occupation of farming until his death in 1850, his wife surviving him till 1863. Both great-grandfathers were in the War of 1812. Of the thirteen children born to Mr. And Mrs. Lancaster, only five are living: Allen P., Jesse, Greenbery, Charlotte (Halpain) and A. J., the subject of this memoir, who was reared and educated in Izard County, remaining there until his eighteenth year, when he engaged in farming for himself. In April, 1851, he was married to Miss M. Williams, a native of Missouri, and a daughter of one of the early settlers of Izard County. After his marriage he continued farming in Izard County for three years, when a determination to travel for a time led him to explore the South and especially Texas, but he concluded at last that there was no place lie the State of his adoption. On his return located in Saline County, and has since been a resident of this part of the county. In 1856 he came to Beaver Township, and entered eighty acres of land at 12 « cents per acre, clearing and improving about twelve acres. He afterward sold that and purchased the farm where he now lives. This farm consisted of eighty acres partly improved, and at the present time he has forty acres under cultivation. When Mr. Lancaster took up a home in Beaver Township, it was very thinly settled and game was plentiful. The inhabitants were obliged to depend on their own resources of clothing, and had to go twenty miles to mill. Little Rock was the nearest market, it being at that time a very small village, and Indians were numerous. When the was proclaimed Mr. Lancaster joined the Eleventh Arkansas Regiment (Col. Smith) in July 1861, and participated in the battle of Tiptonville and fight at New Madrid. In the year 1862 he was captured and kept a prisoner of war at Camp Douglas, Chicago, for some months, finally joining the army at Vicksburg, Miss. At Port Hudson in the spring of 1863, he was wounded and from that time was in a great many skirmishes until the close of the war. He was home on a furlough when the surrender was made, so never received his discharge. By his first marriage two children were born: Ambrose (married, living in Union Township) and Susan (Richey, in Beaver Township). Mrs. Lancaster died in 1853, and in 1854 Mr. Lancaster was married to Narcissa A. Wills, a native of Saline County. To this union six children have been born, three of whom lived to be grown: Benjamin, Jessie Rutha and Berris. Mrs. Lancaster's mother, Mrs. Rutha L. Wills, is the daughter of Mathew Carroll, a farmer of South Carolina, where she was born about 1807. Mrs. Wills is at present enjoying very good health for a woman of her age, and expresses a desire to go back to the land of her childhood. She has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for sixty years, and is now living with her children. Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the former has been steward. He is a member of Ionic Lodge No. 374, A. F. & A. M.