My Genealogy Hound

William F. Ross, a farmer and ginner of Totten Township, was born in 1833, in the State of Tennessee, and was a son of Hezekiah H. and Edith (Henry) Ross, of North Carolina. The parents of Hezekiah were natives of Scotland, and immigrated to this country before the Revolutionary War, in which his father took an active part, and settled in Anderson County, N. C., where he engaged in teaching. He died in 1820, at the age of about ninety years. His wife lived to be over one hundred years of age, dying in 1840. They were the parents of four children, of whom Hezekiah was the eldest. He grew up in North Carolina, and was married there. In 1826 he moved to Tennessee, where he farmed until his death, which occurred in 1854. He belonged to the Whig party. His wife afterward came to Arkansas with her family, which consisted of nine children, six of whom are still living. Three of the sons lived to serve the Confederacy in the late war. Mrs. Ross died in 1861, at the age of sixty-five years. William F. was nineteen years of age when he came to Arkansas with his mother, and settled in Prairie County on the farm which he now calls his home. He enlisted in Company I, of the Twenty-fifth Arkansas Infantry, and served under Gens. Johnston and Hood; was wounded in the battles of Jackson, Miss., and at Resaca, Ga. The close of the war found him destitute of everything, with not even a whole suit of clothes on his back, barefooted, and without a hat, etc. He has made all he is now worth by close economy and hard work, and now owns a good improved farm of 160 acres, and 440 acres of wild land. His first wife was Miss Anna Deal, who died in 1862, leaving two children, one of whom, Fannie E., is living. He was married the second time to Mary J. Cormack; she died in 1871, leaving two children, Hezekiah and Hugh, who died soon after their mother. His third and present wife, to whom he was married in 1872, was Lavinia Cormack, of Decatur County, Tenn., born in 1841. They are the parents of four children, all now living: May, Vera K., Thomas C. and Edith. Mrs. Ross is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Ross a member of the Baptist Church, and also of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to the Walter Chapel Lodge No. 237. He built his cotton-gin in 1884, and is doing a large and prosperous business. He is a prominent Democrat, and a highly respected citizen, and is deeply interested in everything relating to school and religious work.