Biography of H W Winthrop, 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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H. W. Winthrop, one of the representative citizens of Forrest City, was born in
New England (Vermont) in 1839, being the son of William and Ann (Herron)
Winthrop. William Winthrop owed his nativity to England, and was of English and
Scotch descent. When quite young he came to America, and became prominently
identified with politics, serving as a member of the legislature, and at the
date of his death, in his eightieth year, was holding the position of county
judge, having acted in that capacity for twelve years. His wife was born in
Ireland, but married in Vermont, and by her marriage with Mr. Winthrop became
the mother of five children. She is now living with her son, H. W. Winthrop,
having passed her eighty-eighth birthday. Grandfather Herron came originally
from Ireland, and after losing his first wife there, emigrated to America about
the year 1800, attaining a place as one of the richest men in Vermont. He left
seventy-two grandchildren, all well-fixed, and the monument erected to his
memory in Vermont is one of the largest in the State. The mother of H. W. (the
subject of this sketch) is his daughter by the first wife. H. W. Winthrop ran
away from home when a boy, but was found in Boston and brought back by his
father. He then concluded that the locality in which he was settled did not suit
him, so went West, and at the date of the war was in Massachusetts. Joining the
Federal army, Company N, Fifty-third Massachusetts Regiment, he served three
years, having been promoted first lieutenant, though not commissioned, and he
did not go to his regiment. Resigning his position he went into the sutler's
department, and was brigade-sutler over the Eleventh New Jersey Cavalry, Second
Iowa and Third United States, finding himself at the close of the war in
Memphis, Tenn. He purchased a steamboat at that place with the  intention of
doing a trading business on the St. Francis River, but after making one trip,
and landing at Madison, this county, he was accosted by familiar faces, who
inquired if he did not recognize them, and whether he was not the man who had
captured them, while serving in an official capacity during the Civil War. He
first hesitated in replying, but finally admitted the soft impeachment, though
not without some fear of results. He indeed was the man, and immediately was at
the mercy of several of his former prisoners.