My Genealogy Hound

Eli T. Diamond. Of all the old settlers in Arkansas there is no one more deserving of a place in the history of his State than Eli T. Diamond, who is also a descendant of Revolutionary heroes. His grandfather, John Diamond, was a native of Ireland and came to America in his boyhood days, being one of the first to respond to the call of his adopted country, and serving in the war for freedom until its close. He was a member of Gen. Marion’s famous band in all of its brilliant achievements. After the close of the war he returned to his home in South Carolina, but, being surrounded by Tories, and unpleasantly and dangerously situated, he removed to Georgia and settled on the site of the present city of Milledgeville, once the capital, and where Robert Diamond, the father of our subject, was reared, he having been born in South Carolina during the stormy times of the Revolution. After his marriage Robert Diamond removed to Robertson County, Tenn., and then to Illinois, in 1816, under the Territorial Government, and settled in Bond County, where he died in 1852. He was one of the early settlers of that State. Nancy (Rice) Diamond, the mother of the principal of this sketch, was a daughter of James Rice, an Englishman. She was born in Virginia, on the banks of the Potomac River, and was there reared and educated, but later removed to Georgia, where she met, captured and married the father of Eli T. She died in Illinois in 1857, having borne eleven children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the only survivor. He was born in Robertson County, Tenn., April 22, 1807, and accompanied his parents to Illinois at the age of eight years, where he was brought up and educated. At the age of twenty years he went to Natchez, Miss., and lived with an uncle. Two years later he became employed as an overseer on a Mississippi plantation, being engaged in that occupation for eight years, when he bought an interest in a plantation in Washington County, Miss., but, putting too much confidence in his partner, he was bankrupted. He then moved to Chicot County, Ark., in 1840, where he was employed as overseer of a plantation until 1842, at which time he went to Desha County, again becoming interested in a large plantation. For a while he succeeded very well, but, another financial crash overtaking him, he again lost the greater part of the earnings of years of labor. He then (in 1844) removed to Walnut Bend, on the Mississippi River, in Phillips County. Here he lived for twenty-four years, clearing up one of the best-improved farms in that section of country, owning 700 acres of land, and while here he secured a large tract of land in the western part of Phillips (now Lee) County. A large negro debt swallowed up his Walnut Bend property, and for the third time he was sent adrift in the financial world. He then set out for his wild and untenanted home in the wilderness of Phillips County. In 1860 he bought a family of negroes, expecting to pay for them when he could sell cotton, as he had two crops unsold. When the war came on the cotton was burned by the Confederates, and the debt accumulated during the war. That struggle found him with a good home surrounded by every convenience and comfort. In 1862 Mr. Diamond brought hands to this section, which was then, a wilderness, and improved some of his wild land, where he now lives, but still retained his home on the river. But the ravages of the war and the accumulation of debt compelled him to a compromise in giving up his river place, when he came west. Older in years, and with burdens and misfortunes sufficient to have paralyzed many a younger man, he began anew the work of making a home for his family, and soon the wilderness blossomed under his skill and husbandry. But the guns of Sumter were the death-knell of his high ambitions. The war gave freedom to his most valuable property, the negro, and the close of the war found him destitute of everything but the shattered remains of what had once been a magnificent property, and of which there only remains one-quarter section of land, on which he now lives with his son and his tenants, calmly awaiting the end of a well-spent life. Mr. Diamond has been twice married; first, in 1846, to Elizabeth Hall, a native of North Carolina, who died in 1857, leaving six children, three of whom survive: William H., Eli T. and Alford S. His second marriage was in February, 1868, to Miss Anna Owen, of Phillips County, who died in 1870. Mr. Diamond is a Democrat in politics, is a member of the Masonic order and of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to which he has belonged since twelve years of age. He is esteemed by all who know him for his goodness of heart, and for his Christian character in everyday life. He has kept a diary of public events since 1844, noting down all public events. There are several large volumes of the work, and many are the facts and statements therein contained, which, in time to come, and even now, are very valuable.