Biography of Thomas Lacy, Arkansas

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Submitted by: Joy Fisher < >
        Date: 16 Dec 2007
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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
BY JOHN HALLUM.
VOL. I.
ALBANY: WEED, PARSON'S AND COMPANY, PRINTERS.
1887.

Entered according to act of Congress in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-seven,
BY JOHN HALLUM, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

NOTE.

  [Before receiving the last twelve sketches by General Albert Pike, the author had
prepared short biographies of some of the same men, to-wit, John Taylor, Thomas J. Lacy,
Edward Cross, David Walker, William Cummins, Archibald Yell and Terrence Farrelly, hence
these characters appear in duplicate; not, however, with the unwarranted assumption that
they will lend any thing to what the greatest of American scholars has written, any
further than to fill in the details omitted by that great man.]


TERRENCE FARRELLY, ARKANSAS POST.

  Terrence Farrelly was born in county Cavan, Ireland, in 1792. When quite young he
immigrated to America and settled at Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he remained a few
years in the avocation of daily laborer. He had a great thirst for knowledge, and with
little assistance acquired during leisure hours and long winter nights the rudiments of a
common school education, which he continued to improve during life. He was a great reader
and embraced in a desultory circuit a vast field of literature, history being his
favorite study. A large stock of good practical common sense supplemented by an
hospitable and genial nature justly entitled him to a high degree of consideration with
the primitive inhabitants of the territory. He was a prominent actor in the section where
he resided for many years; was often elevated to official station, and thus became one of
our early historic characters. He came to the territory of Missouri in 1S18 and settled
on a farm four miles above Arkansas Post, where he continued to reside the remainder of
his long life. He married Mrs. Mary Mosley, a widow, who bore him eight children, but two
of whom now survive, Mrs. Elizabeth J. Langtree and Charles C. Farrelly of Little Rock.
He read law and was admitted to the bar at a late period in life and was enrolled in the
supreme court as a member of "the old bar" of Arkansas. He came to the front as a member
of the territorial legislature from Arkansas county in 1823, and was that session elected
speaker of the house. He stood for re-election in 1S25, but was defeated by Ben
Harrington. He was successively elected to the territorial council in 1827, 1829, 1831,
1833 and 1835, aggregating twelve years' service in the territorial legislature. He was a
member of the constitutional convention of 1836, elected as a floater from Arkansas and
Jefferson counties. This "fine old Irish gentleman," after the inauguration of the State
government, retired from public life and devoted the remainder of his life to the
practice of his profession and his private affairs. He passed quietly to rest at his
country seat in 1865, regretted and honored by his fellow citizens. He was a large
planter, and delighted in dispensing the hospitalities so famous in the south during his
day.