Biography of L B Featherston, St Francis County, AR

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Submitted by: Paul V Isbell
        Date: 14 Nov 2008
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Transcribed by Lisa Hamilton from 
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SOURCE:  Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern 
Arkansas. Chicago:Goodspeed Publishers, 1890.
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FEATHERSTON - L. - B. - - - - 1851 to Unk-

Hon. L. B. Featherston deserves prominent mention in the present volume not only
as the efficient ex-president of the County Wheel at Forrest City, but on
account of his worth as a citizen. A native of Mississippi, he was reared in
Tennessee, and received a thorough, common-school education, and then attending
the Law School at Lebanon, Tenn., which he was obliged to leave and give up the
study of law on account of his eyesight, having lost one eye by hard study. He
was then engaged in farming in Tennessee until 1881, when he removed to Arkansas
and settled in St. Francis County, buying a farm, and now he owns 16, 000 acres
of land, with between 300 and 400 acres under cultivation. In 1886 he was
elected to the State legislature from this county and served for two years. He
entered politics to defeat the influence of the 'American Oil Trust', and
introduced into the legislature the first anti-trust bill ever presented before
any legislative body in the United States. The bill passed the house by a vote
of seventy-two to five, but was defeated in the senate, and not allowed to come
to a vote. Mr. Featherston was the recent nominee for the United States
Congress, of a convention which met at Jonesboro, having for its platform, 'Fair
ballot and free count for every citizen of the United States. ' He is a man of
influence and thought and willingly assists the promotion of what he considers
the best interests of his adopted section. Mr. Featherston was born in 1851,
being a son of Lewis and Elizabeth (Porter) Featherston, natives of Alabama and
Virginia, respectively. The former is of Scotch descent, and removed to Georgia
with his father and brother at an early day, then going to Alabama and later to
Mississippi; he is now a respected resident of Shelby County, Tenn. The subject
of this sketch was married in 1874 to Miss White, a daughter of E. A. White, of
Memphis. They are the parents of five sons: Elbert, Lewis, John D., Paul and
Douglass.