====================================================================== JAMES B. LEDBETTER Goodspeed Biographical History Memoirs of Western Arkansas. Printed 1889 Submitted by: Ron & Darla Rohan [rrohan@email.msn.com] ====================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. ====================================================================== JAMES B. LEDBETTER James B. LEDBETTER, one of the honest and industrious farmers of Union Township and a native of Marshall Co., Tennessee, was born in 1829, being The third of a family of five sons and five daughters. His education was Limited to the country schools prior to the age of thirteen, and at seventeen began for himself as a farm laborer, but in 1847 took unto himself a wife in the person of Miss Cynthia A. Bain, a daughter of Andrew and Margaret Bain. She was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, and died in Lawrence County, Missouri, in 1855 and was the mother of four children, of whom two daughters survive: Margaret, the wife of F. Scroggin, and Edna J., now Mrs. Joseph Bell. Mr. Ledbetter married his present wife in 1859. She was formerly Caroline Thompson, who was born in Bedford County, Tennessee. Her parents were William and Lavina Thompson, the former who died in Bedford County, Tennessee, during the war, and the latter in Missouri after the war. By this latter union Mr. Ledbetter is the father of six children, five living: Mary, wife of Horace Brown; Eliza, wife of Thomas Love; James B.; Charles S.; And Terry M. In 1854 Mr. Ledbetter removed to Lawrence County, Missouri, and In 1861, to Benton County, Arkansas; in 1862 to Pope County, Arkansas, and in 1865 came to Conway County, Arkansas, where he has since lived, and since 1868, a resident of his present farm, five miles southwest of Springfield, containing 160 acres, with about 80 acres under cultivation. In 1864 he was conscripted into the Confederate Army, and served as Orderly Sergeant in Shelby's command, and with General Price on his raid through Missouri. He was reared a Whig, but since the war, has affiliated with the Democratic party. He and his wife are members of the Christian Church. Martin S. Ledbetter, the father of James B., was born in South Carolina in 1805. He married Eliza McKinely and removed to Middle Tennessee, but afterwards returned to South Carolina, thence to Alabama and again to Tennessee. Mrs. Ledbetter died in Memphis, and he in Nashville, Tennessee. Mr. Ledbetter was a farmer and a blacksmith, and was a son of Dr. William Ledbetter, who was probably South Carolinian by birth but died in Mississippi about 1841, a physician, merchant, and farmer, and was of English descent. James B. McKinley, the maternal grandfather of our subject, died in Georgia, a farmer by occupation. ======================================================================