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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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Hon. William L. Howard is a native of Lee County, and has always made this locality his home. Consequently he is well known and the respect accorded him is as wide as his acquaintance. His father, desiring to give his children a thorough education, William was sent to neighborhood common schools until the war, after which a private tutor was employed, who prepared him for college. He then entered Burrett College in Van Buren County, Tenn., where he took a full course. In 1874, the year of his father’s death, he took charge of the old homestead, near La Grange, on which he was born on December 23, 1849, as a son of Robert W. and Malinda (Harris) Howard, natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. Robert W. Howard was born in 1814, being a son of Christopher Howard, also a Virginian by birth, who died in Kentucky. He was a small boy when his father moved to the Blue Grass State, in which he was reared on a farm, remaining there until 1840, when he came to Arkansas and located in what was then Phillips County, on the St. Francis River. After giving his attention to rafting timber to New Orleans for the following two years, he purchased the plantation on which he spent the remainder of his life, dying on March 11, 1874. Mrs. Howard was born in 1824, and is still living on the old homestead. Both were members of the Baptist Church, and the parents of nine children, six of whom survive, all residents of Richland Township, this county: Virginia F. (at home with her mother), William L. (the principal of this sketch), L. G. (a merchant of La Grange, and a partner of William F. Gill, whose biography appears in this work), Addie (wife of N. D. Ramey), E. J. (now justice of the peace of this township) and Robert W. (at home). William L. Howard was married on January 16, 1875, to Miss Emma L. Crook, who was born in White County, Tenn., in 1850, and died in February, 1884, leaving four children, three now living: Ida B., Robert E. and Sallie H. He married his second and present wife, Miss Maggie Broyles, a relative of his first wife, and a native of the same county, January 14, 1886. They have a family of two children, Ethel Lee and William C. Mr. Howard has always taken a leading part in the politics of this county, and is one of its prominent Democrats. He was elected coroner in 1878, and served two years; was afterward elected justice of the peace, and filled that office the same length of time. He was then a candidate before the Democratic Nominating Convention in 1886 for sheriff, but was defeated. In 1888 he was elected to represent Lee County in the State legislature, which office he still acceptably holds. Mr. Howard, while not in public life, has followed agricultural pursuits for a livelihood, and owns a farm of 320 acres of as fine land as can be found in Lee County, besides an interest in the old homestead, consisting of 480 acres. He is a member of the Baptist Church, and Mrs. Howard belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church, as did his first wife. Mr. Howard is also a member of the Royal Arcanum.

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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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