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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lee County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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Rev. Nathaniel L. Willson is a native of North Carolina, and a son of John G. and Sophia (Norfleet) Willson, who also came from that State. J. G. Willson was born in Franklin County in 1782, and was married in September, 1818, his death occurring in Marshall County, Miss., in 1874, aged ninety-two years. His father was a native of North Carolina, and died at the age of fifty-eight, and his grandfather, of Ireland, came to this country in the early part of the eighteenth century, and took part in the Revolutionary War. The father of Mrs. Willson was of Scotland birth, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, being seventy-six years of age at the time of his decease. She was fifty-eight years old when called away from earth. Nathaniel L. Willson, the only one living of a family of eight children, was born in Person County, March 12, 182_ , and remained there until fifteen years of age, at which time he removed to Marshall County, Miss., with his parents. He was engaged in managing his father’s farm, and was employed in surveying a greater part of his time, after which he learned the tanner’s and saddlery trade, following these occupations during the war and until his stock was destroyed by the Federal army. Since that period he has devoted his attention to agricultural pursuits, in connection with his ministerial duties. He was ordained as a minister of the Missionary Baptist Church in 1861, of which he has been a member since 1840. Removing to Arkansas in 1886, Mr. Willson purchased his present farm of 160 acres, situated within a short distance of Moro, Lee County, of which he has sixty acres under cultivation, devoted principally to the raising of horses and cattle. He was married in De Soto County, Miss., in 1857, to Miss Nannie E. Jones, a native of South Carolina, and daughter of William and Rachel Jones. She died April 10, 1884, leaving eight children, five sons and three daughters, six of whom are still living: Priscilla M. (wife of James H. Carmichael, a farmer of De Soto County), Lafayette A. (a farmer of this county), Ethelbert W. (also engaged in farming in this county), Nannie E. (widow of A. J. Biggerstaff, of this county), John Bunyan and Berea B. Mr. Willson married his second and present wife, Mrs. Sarah E. Robbins (nee Elmore), a native of Mississippi, and a daughter of Levi and Elizabeth (Bullin) Elmore, October 11, 1887. She is also a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, which she joined when thirteen years old. Mr. Willson was initiated into the Masonic order in 1855, and has taken the Royal Arch degree. Mrs. Willson married Lee A. Robbins, in July, 1861, a native of Tennessee, who died in Lee County, Ark., in December, 1883, leaving three children, two living: Thomas L. and Shem R. Robbins. Their grandfather, Thomas Robbins, was a native of South Carolina.

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This family biography is one of 104 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lee County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: Lee County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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