My Genealogy Hound

William H. Byers, loan and real estate agent at Alma, was born in Fort Smith in 1862, and is a son of W. H. and Ann C. (Williams) Byers, natives of Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, who were married in Nashville, Tenn. In 1855 they settled in Little Rock, Ark., and shortly after went to Fort Smith, where the father engaged in the shoe and tanning business until 1865, and then removed near Alma, where he died in 1885. He was of Irish descent, a strong Whig, and a member of the Masonic fraternity and I. O. O. F. The mother is still living. William H Byers is the youngest of a family of six children, five of whom are living. After attending the common school he spent the winter of 1883-84 at Oxford, Miss., in a law school. He then taught school ten months in Crawford County, but has since devoted his attention to the practice of his profession in connection with the real estate business. He has been very successful, and in 1887 was elected mayor of Alma. He practices in the Crawford County Court and the United States Court at Fort Smith, and has bought a farm of 156 acres, near Alma, which is well improved and cultivated. In 1884 he married Rosie B., daughter of Josiah and Julia C. Foster, and by this marriage has one child. Mr. Foster was a pioneer settler of this county, who came here a poor young man, but steadily accumulated property until he became one of the wealthiest men in the county, owning 2,500 acres at the time of his death, in 1872. He was twice married, and Mrs. Byers is his twenty-sixth child. He was a life-long and zealous Democrat. Mr. and Mrs. Byers belong to the Missionary Baptist Church, and the former is a Mason.