Washington Co., AR - Biographies - William Mcilroy

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William Mcilroy(deceased), whose early life was one of hardship and 
privation, [p.980] and whose subsequent career shows what can be 
accomplished by industry, economy and perseverance, was born in 
Rockingham County. N. C., July 24, 1812, the son of James and Mary 
(Small) McIlroy, and grandson of William McIlroy, a farmer, whose 
father was a native of Scotland, and whose mother was born in Ireland. 
The parents of the subject of this sketch were natives of Rockingham 
County, N. C., and the father was a shoemaker by trade. The mother 
died in that county when William McIlroy was but five or six years 
old, and of the four children left at her death, none are living. 
William received a limited education, and worked on the farm from 
early boyhood. In 1835 he abandoned farm life and began clerking in 
the store of Col. John P. Long, at Chattanooga, Tenn., where he 
remained two years. Previous to this, in 1832, he married Miss 
Missouri Vandyke, a native of South Carolina, and the daughter of John 
Vandyke, a farmer and slave-holder. Two children blessed this union: 
Andrew Jackson, who was born in Habersham County, Ga., in 1834, and 
died in Little Rock, Ark., in 1863, while serving in the Southern 
army; and Melinda H. Vanhoose, who was born in Washington County, 
Ark., and who died in 1864. Mr. McIlroy was next married to Mrs. Eliza 
Jane Russell, in Kentucky, in 1838. She was a native of Virginia, and 
died in Washington County, Ark., in 1864, at the age of sixty years. 
In June, 1838 Mr. McIlroy settled with his family on a small farm at 
head waters of the White River, Madison County, Ark., and here, in 
connection with farming, carried on merchandising on a small scale for 
about eleven years. He commenced selling goods in Fayetteville in 
1855, on a capital of $7,500, and in 1872 he commenced banking on a 
capital of $25,000, and followed this business up to the time of his 
death, which occurred in 1886. By a partnership, with which he started 
the bank, he lost $40,000 in the year 1875, and after that Mr. McIlroy 
ran the business without a partner. The bank has now a cash capital of 
many thousand dollars, and besides this Mr. McIlroy left real estate 
valued at about $20,000. The amount of bank deposits equals $120,000, 
and a general banking business is done, with correspondents in St. 
Louis, New York and Little Rock. Mr. McIlroy was never engaged in any 
public enterprises, has no military record, and never held an office, 
except that of road overseer in the Boston Mountains; he never 
inherited a cent in his life, and when first starting out for himself 
worked for $7.50 a month. His habits were always good; he never 
gambled, was not dissipated, but amused himself by going to the 
country dances, being very fond of that pastime. He never belonged to 
any secret organization; was a Whig up to the late war, when he cast 
his vote with the Democrats, and after that time affiliated with that 
party. Mr. McIlroy's third wife, whom he married in 1865, and whose 
maiden name was Martha Brooks, was born in Tennessee, and was left an 
orphan when quite young, after which she was partly reared by the 
family of Mr. McIlroy. By his third marriage Mr. McIlroy became the 
father of five children, all born in Fayetteville: William R., James 
H., Charles W., Anna May and Kate. Mr. McIlroy died in full communion 
with the faith of the Episcopal Church, having joined that church in 
1846, and of which he had been vestryman for thirty years. A fellow 
townsman in speaking of him says: "No one surpassed him for industry, 
sobriety and precision in all business transactions. He was discreet 
in all things, and dealt accurately even to a cent. He was a quiet, 
peaceable man, and his reputation is without a stain. He leaned too 
much on certainties not to be a success."