Biography of M W Izard, St Francis County, AR

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Submitted by: Paul V Isbell
        Date: 22 Jan 2009
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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M. W. Izard & Co. are the owners and operators of the largest saw and grist
mills and cottongin in St. Francis County, located near Colt Station. The firm
is composed of Mark Wilson Izard and John N. Cotton, both representative, active
young business men, and thoroughly worthy of the position to which they have
attained. Mr. Izard was born in Fayette County, Tenn., on March 3, 1855, being a
son of F. J. and Sarah E. (Whittaker) Izard. Reared in this county, he attended
public and private schools and received a good education, and at the age of
seventeen was employed as a clerk, which occupation received his attention for
about ten years. Subsequently he went into business for himself as a butcher,
and two years afterward entered in the saw-mill business, later forming a
partnership with his father-in-law, John N. Cotton, in the grist-mill and
cotton-gin business. He also owns a large farm of 190 acres of land, with sixty-
five acres under cultivation, having good improvements, a small orchard, etc.
Mr. Izard was married June 12, 1879, to Miss Emma Cotton, daughter of J. N.
Cotton, his partner in business. They are the parents of two boys: John and Mark
W. Mr. Izard is an outspoken Democrat, and he and wife are members of the K. &
L. of H. John N. Cotton owes his nativity to Western Tennessee, where his birth
occurred March 2, 1834. His parents, John and Easter (Nelson) Cotton, were
natives of Virginia and of English descent, their ancestors coming to this
country in colonial days and taking part in the great struggle for liberty. Mr.
and Mrs. Cotton moved from Virginia to Kentucky, and in 1834 to Arkansas,
settling on a farm in this county, where they both died within two years after
their arrival. John N. worked on a farm, and attended school three months during
the first seventeen years of his life, improving his spare moments and finding
opportunity to prosecute his studies for a few terms after reaching that age.
Thus he acquired a good common-school education. He was then engaged in clerking
in a grocery at Taylor's Creek, now Colt, until the breaking out of the war,
when he enlisted in the Twenty-third Arkansas Infantry and served as first
lieutenant until the close of hostilities. After peace was restored he embarked
in the general mercantile business in Forrest City, followed it for ten or
twelve years, and then entered into the tie and timber business in company with
his son-in-law, M. W. Izard. Mr. Cotton was married on June 20, 1861, to Miss
Taylor, who died in 1865, leaving one daughter, Emma, the wife of Mr. Izard. He
was married the second time, September 2, 1867, to Mrs. Gullett. They are the
parents of three children: Edna, Guy and Willie. Mr. Cotton has held several
important offices since living in Forrest City, among them chief magistrate of
the city, and deputy sheriff of the county. His family are members of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a member of the Masonic and I. O. O. F.
fraternities and of the County Wheel, belonging, too, to the K. & L. of H. He is
also a thorough Knight of Labor. 

Goodspeed Memoirs and Biograhies-1890