My Genealogy Hound

J. M. Penix, whose well-improved farm is situated three miles from Jonesboro, is one of the progressive, wide-awake citizens of the county. He was born in Cherokee County, Ala., November 12, 1836, and is the son of John and Sallie (Roach) Penix, the former a native of Alabama, the latter of Shelby County, Tenn. After the death of his wife and in the first year of the Civil War, Mr. Penix came to Arkansas and located in what is now Powell Township, Craighead County, and there resided for three years. In 1865 he moved to Louisiana, where he died in 1867. Of the fourteen children born to them, only four are now living — our immediate subject being the only one in Craighead County. He was reared on a farm, and in 1857 came to Arkansas, and in 1860 married Elizabeth Albright, a native of Tennessee, whose parents were Simpson and Hulda (Snodderly) Albright — the former is deceased, the latter resides with Mr. Penix. In the war of the Rebellion, he gave his support to the Confederate cause, serving in the Thirteenth Arkansas Infantry for about eight months, when he was discharged on account of sickness. He re-enlisted in the Trans-Mississippi department at Little Rock and served another twelve months. At the close of the war he returned to Craighead County and bought eighty acres of his present farm of 100 acres, forty of which are splendidly improved. Mr. and Mrs. Penix are the parents of nine children: Wiley E., William T. S. and an infant (deceased), and Eli Thomas (married to Lucinda Raines), Mary Magdalene, James Cornelius, Midas Ludella, Samuel Elbert and Scott Hinman. Mr. Penix is a Democrat, has been school director for five years, and has given one-half acre of his farm for a school-house site. He and his wife and oldest son and daughter are active members of the Baptist Church.