My Genealogy Hound

William W. Bowles, the oldest resident of this portion of Desha County, and one of the representative citizens of the same, was born in Fluvanna County, Va., in 1832, and is the son of Oscar and Elizabeth E. Bowles. Oscar Bowles came to this county in 1835, making the trip in a flatboat from Virginia, and landed where Arkansas City now stands, when there were but about four acres cleared and one log-cabin. He brought with him the slaves belonging to John R. Campbell, and was overseer for the last-named gentleman and sons for seventeen years. There were other similar improvements in this section of the county, and Mr. Bowles opened for Mr. Campbell the first farm in this part of the county, which was at that time a vast wilderness, and game abounded in vast numbers throughout the entire country, and what few white male inhabitants there were here at that time were mainly hunters and raftsmen. After leaving the employ of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Bowles and Charles Campbell purchased a farm of land of a Mr. Johnson, one of the early settlers, and immediately engaged in cultivating the soil, remaining in partnership from 1850 to 1860. During the war Mr. Bowles moved his and Campbell’s negroes back on Crooked Bayou, where they remained for one year, and then Mr. Campbell took his negroes to Texas. After the war Mr. Bowles returned to his farm and resumed agricultural pursuits, in which he was quite successful. His death occurred in 1874, when he was drowned by going through a crevasse in the levee in a dug out. His widow still survives, makes her home in Arkansas City on her own property, and as she was born July 3, 1812, she is now seventy-eight years of age. The father was born in Nelson County Va., March 31, 1811. William W. Bowles was principally educated at Washington College, Tenn., and November 26, 1859, he was married to Miss Elmira McMullen, a native of Alabama, but who came with her parents to this county when a little girl. Mr. Bowles has always followed planting and stock-raising, making a specialty of the latter occupation. He is the owner of about 665 acres of good bottom land, with about 100 acres improved, with fair buildings, etc., and aside from this he is the owner of a desirable residence in the city. In 1861 Mr. Bowles enlisted in the Confederate army as a private in Company G, Twenty-third Arkansas, and served east of the Mississippi. He was with Gen. Price, and was at the evacuation and battle of Corinth and the surrender of Port Hudson. He was at the siege of Port Hudson, was here captured, but was paroled after being held a prisoner for only three and a half days. He came home and was exchanged in the fall of 1863, and in 1864 he joined a scouting company in this section, but was not in active service the last six months on account of his eyes, which were injured at Port Hudson. The first three years after the war Mr. Bowles was engaged as book-keeper and salesman for Cabbell, Sappington & Armour as a lumber dealer and saw-mill man at Cypress Bend, and received $75 per month. He had only his place and one mule left to commence work with after the war, and his mother-in-law and wife were weaving and making their own clothing, consequently he accepted the above mentioned position. Mr. Bowles and wife were the parents of nine children, five of whom are now living: Mary E. (wife of J. W. Davis, the present postmaster of Arkansas City), Joseph S., William J., John A. and Jessie E. Mr. Bowles is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Branson Chapter No. 25, Branson Blue Lodge No. 113. Politically he is Democratic in his tendencies. He was constable of Desha and Chicot Counties for four years, and also held the office of justice of the peace for a like number of years in the same counties.