My Genealogy Hound

M. J. Bowers, postmaster at Paris, Logan County, Ark., and a representative citizen of the same, was born in Johnson County, of this State, in 1853, and of the seven children born to his parents, he was next to the youngest in order of birth. His father, William Bowers, was a native of the Old Dominion, and was a farmer by pursuit. He came to Arkansas at an early day, and was married in Newton County, to Mrs. Sabary Barnes, nee Christy, a native of Tennessee, who came to Arkansas in 1835. She was a widow, and the mother of two children by her first marriage, she being a descendant from Cherokee Indians. The family moved to Johnson County, Ark., about 1845, and there the father died when M. J. Bowers was a small child. The latter was reared by an elder sister, after the death of his mother in 1862, who moved to Logan County, Ark., in 1858. He was well educated in the common schools of the county, and in 1874 entered the high school at Magazine, where he remained for three years. Then in connection with farming, he began teaching school and continued at this until 1886. In 1887 and 1888 he was deputy sheriff of the county, and for two years he was half owner and manager of the Paris Serpent, which he made a vigorous Republican paper. On July 25, 1889, he was appointed postmaster at Paris. He was married in 1877, to Miss Ellen S. Anderson, a native of this State and county, and a daughter of Capt. C. P. Anderson, of Magazine. This union resulted in the birth of seven children: Etta, Lillie June, Ezra James and Ellen Edna (twins), Charles Dennis, Freda May and Powell Clayton. Mr. Bowers owns a farm adjoining the town of Paris, in which he resides, and he is one of the county’s best citizens. He is a member of the Paul McCobb Lodge No. 65, K. of P.