YELL COUNTY, AR - JOSEPH MITCHELL - Bio SOURCE: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishers, 1891. -------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free Information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Joseph Mitchell. Samuel and Harriet (Cavinder) Mitchell, parents of him whose name heads this sketch, claim Tennessee as the land of their birth and marriage, Samuel being born in 1815, and his wife in 1817, and were the parents of seven children. Our subject, being fifth in order of birth, was born in Hamilton County, March 20, 1849. The senior Mitchell, being induced by the fertility of the soil and the invigorating climate of the State of Arkansas, emigrated from his native heath in 1854, and settled in this county, where he entered 120 acres of land, built a log cabin and began to improve his land, which, later on, he sold, and bought 200 acres in the same neighborhood, which he cultivated and worked till his death, in 1865, his widow surviving him till 1867, when she passed to her long home, a member of the Baptist Church. Our subject, also a farmer, which calling he has followed all his life, is the owner of three fine tracts of land, 160 acres on his home place, twenty-eight cultivated, and two in orchard of some of the well-known varieties of peaches, apples and plums; has eighty acres on Dutch Creek, with fifty improved and two tenement houses, and 120 in this same neighborhood, lying about three miles from his homestead, and here he has fifty acres broken, a productive orchard, one tenement house, thirty head of cattle, five horses and a number of hogs. On February 21, 1881, he was wedded to Mrs. Margaret A. Gatlin, widow of William Gatlin, who had one daughter by her former marriage, Ursey. To them were born four children: Samuel, Harriet A., James (deceased) and Poley A. His wife and her daughter are members of the Baptist Church, and he is the township's popular justice of the peace, having been elected to this office in 1872; socially is a Mason, belonging to Dutch Creek Lodge No. 269, wherein he has been worshipful master and filled the chair of senior warden and senior deacon for some time.