My Genealogy Hound

Willis A. Cain, planter, Portland, Ark. The agricultural interests of Portland Township are ably represented by the subject of this sketch, a man whose life has been passed in the calling which now receives his attention. He owes his nativity to Marion, Perry County, Ala., where his birth occurred on July 7, 1845, and remained under the parental roof until March, 1861. Prior to that time he had attended Howard College at Marion, and later entered the military school at Tuscaloosa. Then he, with seventeen others, ran away to Vicksburg, and joined Company F, Twentieth Alabama Infantry, and served three years and four months. He was on detached service at Jackson, and after the parole he was in the battles of Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold, Dalton, and in the spring of 1863 was at Rocky Face Ridge, Resaca, Atlanta, Rough and Ready, Dalton (where they captured 200 negroes), through Huntsville, Ala., to Florence, Columbia, Tenn., Franklin, Nashville, and was then fighting nearly all the time back to Shoal Creek, near Florence. They were then at Bentonville, N. C, were afterward sent to guard some salt at Broad River Bridge, N. C, then went to Blackhawk Station, then to Atlanta, from there to Tallapoosa River, and then Mr. Cain, with one companion, came down that river to the Alabama, and from there to Montgomery, where he was captured. He was held overnight, and then went on foot to Selma, from which place he made his way home after an absence of over three years. Later he began clerking for R. W. Cole in a grocery house, continued with this for six months, and then went to Selma, where he filled the same position for Hanna & Morton for eight months. From there he went to Mobile, thence to Mansfield, De Soto Parish, La., and three months later started for Mexico. He got as far as Quadaloupo River, and then returned to Louisiana. Three months after this he went to Marion, Union Parish, La., clerked for B. B. Thomas for three years, and then, on December 20, 1871, came to the bayou, Portland Township, and here he has resided since. For the first three years he rented land, and then bought eighty acres, to which he has since added forty acres more. He has sixty acres cleared. In 1874 he married Miss Alice Hollaway, daughter of James Hollaway, an old citizen of this county. Five children have been born to this union—four sons and a daughter: Walter A., James E., Benson, Samuel E. and Alma. Mr. Cain has been deputy sheriff nearly ever since he settled in this county, and has also held the position of school director. In politics he adheres closely to the Democratic party, and socially he is a member of the K. of H. Mrs. Cain is a member of the Methodist Church. The parents of Mr. Cain, Anderson and Sarah (Benson) Cain, were natives, respectively, of North Carolina and Alabama. The Cains are of Irish extraction, and the Bensons of Scotch. Wiley Cain, the father of Anderson, and his wife, Sarah, came to America from Ireland early in the present century. Anderson left home when fifteen or sixteen years of age, and came to Alabama. He drove a team during the day, studied law during the night, and was rewarded by being elected clerk of the circuit court, which position he filled for twelve years. He became one of the leading attorneys of the county, and before the war, had accumulated considerable property, being the owner of a large plant and fifty work hands. He died in the spring of 1865, and was buried in that county. He was both a Mason and an Odd Fellow. He left a family of three children—a son and two daughters, his wife having died in 1850. One of the daughters is living in Ashley County, and is the wife of George Franklin. The other sister died in Ashley County in February, 1885.