Washington Co., AR - Biographies - Hugh F., J. S. and J. O. Mcdanield

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Hugh F., J. S. and J. O. Mcdanield were born in Muskingum County, 
Ohio, the parents being B. F. and Sarah (Terrell) McDanield. The 
father was born in Frederick, Md., and when a young man immigrated to 
Ohio, where he married and reared his large family of eleven children. 
He and his wife are now enjoying their old age in Wyandotte County, 
Kas. Hugh F., the elder of our three subjects, was born in 1843, and 
died June 29, 1888. His boyhood was spent upon a farm, and upon the 
outbreak of the war, although scarcely of age, he enlisted in the 
Seventy-sixth Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, serving in battle and on 
picket line for three years. Re-enlisting at the end of that time in 
the veteran corps, he served till the close of the war. He then 
returned home, but being of an enterprising nature soon went to Kansas 
City, and until 1873 engaged in mercantile enterprises at that place. 
He then took a contract to build the Kansas Midland Railway from 
Kansas City to Topeka, and after its completion operated a ranch in 
the western portion of Texas some time. He then went to Houston and 
contracted to build the Texas Western Railway, which he completed in 
1877. Returning then to Missouri he engaged in the railroad tie and 
lumber business. In 1881, having learned that the San Francisco 
Railway would build this way, he came to Fayetteville for the purpose 
of furnishing ties for the new division. He located permanently at 
this place, which is in a finely timbered country, and soon began the 
shipment of railroad ties to western markets, increasing their 
business year after year until he accumulated a large fortune. They 
furnished the Santa Fe Railway nearly all its ties, and in 1887 
shipped 15,000 car loads, aggregating a business of $2,000,000. In 
1886 Mr. McDanield began the building of the Fayetteville & Little 
Rock Railway, and in 1887 sold it to the 'Frisco Road, which now 
operates it. He was the founder of the town of St. Paul, which is 
destined to become a famous summer resort of Northwest Arkansas, being 
beautifully situated among the mountains. September 9, 1884, Mr. 
McDanield married Mrs. Emma Coons, of Kirksville, Mo. His death was 
largely and sincerely mourned, the community thereby losing one of its 
most honored men, and the State one of its most enterprising and 
influential citizens. J. O. McDanield was also engaged in farming 
during his boyhood, and for some years farmed in Benton County. Mo. He 
joined his brothers in the railroad business in the West, and 
possesses the same business qualities which contributed to their 
success. October 16, 1879, he married Miss Frances Haberthier, a 
native of Warren County, Mo., who is the mother of two children: John 
and Sarah C. He is a Knight Templar and a Republican.