Bio: Frank L. Machen, Claiborne Parish, LA
Source: Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana
The Southern Publishing Company, Chicago & Nashville, 1890
Submitted for the LAGenWeb Archives by: Gwen Moran-Hernandez, Jan. 2000


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Frank L. Machen, a member of the firm of Denman & Co., merchants at Homer, La., 
owes his nativity to the Palmetto State, his birth occurring in Newberry District, 
February 25, 1836, and is one of five children-three sons and two daughters-born 
to the union of John and Leah (Renwick) Machen, natives also of South Carolina.  
The parents removed from South Carolina to Arkansas in 1854, located in Columbia 
County, and made their home on a farm, where the father died in 1883, and the 
mother many years previous.  Mr. Machen served in the War of 1812, was under 
Gen. Jackson, and participated in the battle of New Orleans, also many other 
important engagements.  Frank L. Machen and an elder brother are the only 
survivors of the above mentioned family.  His youthful days were spent on the 
farm in Columbia County, Ark., and in addition to a good, practical education 
received in the common school he received a thorough training at Brownwood 
Institute, La Grange, Ga.  After leaving school he enlisted in the Confederate 
Army in May, 1861, in Company G, Sixth Arkansas Infantry, as a private, and was 
promoted to the rank of first lieutenant, serving in that capacity until the 
close of the war.  He was in a great many engagements of the Army of the West, 
among the most important being Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chichamauga, Perryville, 
Franklin, and a great many of less importance.  He never lost a day nor was 
absent from his command during the entire time he was in service.  He surrendered 
at New Salem, N.C., in May, 1865.  Returning to Arkansas after the war he was for 
two years on a farm, and in the fall of 1868 he was engaged in clerking in Columbia 
County, where he continued for two more years.  He then went to Nevada County, 
clerked there from that time up to 1883, and then purchased an interest in the 
present firm of Denman & Co., continuing at Prescott up to 1888.  In September 
of that year the firm established this branch house at Homer, and Mr. Machen has 
taken charge of this house.  He carries a full and complete line of shelf and 
heavy hardware, tinware and machinery of all kinds, and also handles gins, feeders 
and condensers.  He is doing a general hardware, machinery and implement business, 
and has already established a large and increasing trade.  Mr. Machen is a thorough 
business man, and one of the enterprising merchants of Homer.  He was married in 
Columbia County, Ark., in February, 1868, to Miss Mary S. Gladney, a native of 
Tennessee, who was reared and educated in Columbia County, Ark.  Mr. and Mrs. 
Machen are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and he is a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, being a Royal Arch Mason.  He is also a member of the 
I. O. O. F. Fraternity.

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