My Genealogy Hound

Dr. E. G. Wilder, secretary and manager of the Arkadelphia Cotton Mills, was born in Fayette County, Tenn., February 10, 1837, being the third of twelve children born to Nazareth and Sarah (Baker) Wilder, the father born in North Carolina and the mother in Alabama. They both removed to Tennessee at an early day and then to Arkansas, where the mother passed from this life in the year 1870. Nazareth Wilder is still living and is a resident of Texarkana, Ark. In 1844 Mr. Wilder removed to Arkansas and settled near what is now Camden, there being at that time only a few log cabins in the place and a little log store kept by Ezra Hill, and he was one of the first settlers of this region. In 1859 he moved to Miller County, and located near Texarkana, where he is spending his declining years. He has reached the advanced age of eighty years, but he is remarkably well preserved, his memory especially showing no indications of the ravages of time. He has taken a prominent part in the affairs of the different communities in which he has resided, and at one time filled temporarily the position of county and probate judge of Ouachita County. E. G. Wilder's youth was spent in Arkansas, to which State he came when in his seventh year, and here the most of his education was received, it being only such as could be obtained in the primitive log school-house of early times. In 1862 he enlisted in Company C, Sixth Arkansas Regiment, and until the final surrender served as lieutenant and assistant surgeon in Hughey's battery, having been an attendant of the Medical University of Louisville, Ky., in 1855-56 and the University of Louisiana at New Orleans in 1857-58. He was an applicant for the position of hospital student, but as there were only three vacancies and thirteen applicants he did not receive the desired position. After the final surrender he went back to Miller County and practiced medicine on Red River until 1879, and there from a cash capital of $2.50 in gold he built up a lucrative practice. In 1879 he came to Arkadelphia and engaged as a book-keeper, which calling he has made his chief business ever since. Soon after the organization of the Arkadelphia Cotton Mills and upon their completion he was made secretary and general manager, and is now discharging the duties incumbent upon these positions to the satisfaction of all concerned. In the summer of 1886 business became very slow in Arkadelphia, and the Doctor and two others thinking it about time to wake up the citizens, he procured an old auction bell and went through the town ringing it in a very energetic manner, and shouting: "Wake up here, the town is dead and the flies will soon be blowing us, and let us have a railroad or something to infuse new life in us, else we are gone,'' That evening a meeting was held in the mayor's office and the preliminary arrangements were made for the building of the Ultima Thule, Arkadelphia & Mississippi Railroad, of which the Doctor was secretary and treasurer for two years. Thus we may call him one of the originators of this road. He has always been of the pushing and enterprising sort, and almost anything is better to him than stagnation, therefore all worthy enterprises find in him a liberal supporter. He was married in 1866 to Eliza J. Stewart, a native of Georgia, by whom he has four children: Stewart, Tomerwin, Sadie and E. Gabbert. Dr. and Mrs. Wilder are members of the Presbyterian Church, and he has been Sabbath-school superin- tendent for over ten years, as well as an elder in the church. Socially he is a member of the Masonic fraternity and the K. of H.