My Genealogy Hound

F. M. Hare, one of the most prominent farmers of Cross County and among its old settlers, is a son of Jacob and Emma M. (Wheeler) Hare, the former of whom was a native of North Carolina, being married about 1826. His wife came originally from New Brunswick. Removing from North Carolina in 1832, they settled in Fayette County, Tenn., thirty-two miles east of Memphis, where Mr. Hare bought a large tract of land (some 6,000 or 8,000 acres), mostly under cultivation, and also owned about seventy negroes. He was a minister of the Methodist Church for nearly twenty-five years. Previous to leaving North Carolina (near 1830) Mr. Hare represented his county and three adjoining counties in the State senate one term. Upon locating in Tennessee he engaged in farming and the prosecution of his ministerial duties. Later, or in 1854, he moved to Arkansas and settled in Cross County, where he bought about 2,000 acres of land, and where he died in 1859. He was one of the best-educated men of the county, having acquired his learning in the leading schools of North Carolina. Mrs. Hare died in 1873, leaving a family of ten children, only two of whom are now living: F. M. (our subject) and Bettie (the widow of the late Dr. Crump, who resides in Jonesboro, Ark.). F. M. Hare was employed as overseer of his father’s slaves for a number of years, and in 1861 organized a company for the army, joining the Fifth Arkansas Infantry; he was appointed first lieutenant. The regiment was commanded first by Col. Cross, but afterward was put under command of Col. Murray, of Pine Bluff, a graduate of West Point, being with Morgan in his raid through Ohio, during which Mr. Hare was captured at Buffington Island, on July 19, 1863. He was taken to Johnson’s Island and kept nine months, and then transferred to Point Lookout and afterward to Fort Delaware, from which place he was exchanged and rejoined his regiment. After the war he returned home and found the farm dilapidated, the negroes set at liberty and fences burned. Mrs. Hare, the mother of our subject, had succeeded in fencing up some forty acres and had a small crop of corn. Mr. Hare took hold of the old place on his return from the army and remained upon it for two years, when he was married, in 1867, to Miss Lizzie Reid, a native of Fayette County, Tenn., and daughter of William and Eda (Brown) Reid, of North Carolina origin. Two years later he bought the farm on which he now lives, a fine place, well under cultivation. Mr. and Mrs. Hare are the parents of ten children, nine still surviving: Pearl, Eda, Emma, Nellie, Birdie, Francis, Sallie B., Thomas R. and Frederick. Mr. Hare was born in Fayette County, Tenn., in 1838, is a member of the A. F. and A. M., and also of the K. of H. He is a Democrat politically, but does not take a very active part in politics. He has a fine farm of 220 acres, with eighty-five acres under cultivation and is one of the leading farmers of the township.