My Genealogy Hound

William F. Ferguson is the son of Hon. Austin H. Ferguson, a native of Virginia, who moved, when a young man, to Morgan County, Ala., there being married to Miss Catharine Walker. A few years later he went to Marshall County, Miss., where his wife died in 1840. In 1849, coming to Arkansas, he located in this county, and the following year was elected representative to the State legislature from Arkansas, Jefferson and Desha Counties, serving with such distinction that he was re-elected in 1851 and 1856. Subsequently he was chosen State senator from his district, composed of the counties of Arkansas and Monroe, which position he held for four years. His death occurred in 1884, at the age of seventy-two years. He was a member of the A. F. & A. M., and a strong Democrat in politics. William Ferguson, Sr., his father, who was of Irish descent, died in Texas, at the age of eighty-two, when the principal of this sketch was a small boy. William F. Ferguson first saw the light of day in Lawrence County, Ala., in 1836, and is the only child living of his parents’ family. In 1862 he joined the Confederate army, becoming a member of what was first known as Clay’s company, and after the reorganization, as Wheat’s battalion, but was afterward transferred to Gen. Fagan’s escort, and served as courier until the close of the war. Mr. Ferguson was married, in 1860, to Miss Hally, a daughter of Crede P. and Mary Hally, who was born in Fayette County, Tenn. After the war he engaged in farming, has since followed it, and now owns 940 acres of land, with about 200 acres under cultivation. Mr. Ferguson is an outspoken Democrat, and belongs to the Masonic fraternity.