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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pope County, Arkansas published by Southern Publishing Company in 1891.  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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J. B. Evants is the senior member of the general mercantile firm of Evants & Co., of Russellville, Ark., and was born in Pope County, March 17, 1839, to William Evants and wife, who moved to this county from Middle Tennessee, in 1830, the father’s death occurring here in January, 1884, at the age of seventy-one years. Of a family of ten children born to him and his wife, three sons and five daughters are still living, all but one son and one daughter, who live in Texas, being residents of this county. J. B. Evants was given the advantages of the common schools for a short period each year, the rest of the time being devoted to farm labor. He began earning his own living at the age of seventeen years, and in 1857 started across the plains to California, where he was engaged in mining and stock-raising for ten years. In 1867 he returned to Russellville, Ark., and purchased a farm of eighty acres, on which he settled and began to improve. After attending to its cultivation for one year he opened a store at Dover, but at the end of one year’s residence was married there and moved with his family to California and engaged in the raising of sheep. He started for Nevada with 3,000 head of sheep, but while in one of the passes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains he was overtaken by a snowstorm and every sheep perished. He immediately returned to Arkansas, and here followed merchandising until State troubles in 1872, when his whole stock of goods was taken from him, leaving him involved to the extent of $2,000. He then turned to the soil for a way out of his difficulties, and during the ten years that he devoted to farming he paid off all his indebtedness, and at the end of that time (in 1884) resumed merchandising, and has since received an abundant share of fortune’s favors. He now does an annual business of $20,000, and is the owner of 500 acres of land in this county, 400 of which are under cultivation. In addition to this he has a good home in the west part of Russellville, and a number of tenement houses and store buildings which he rents. He has $1,000 stock in the cotton factory of this place, besides being interested in some other prosperous investments. In January, 1869, he was married to Miss Louisa, a daughter of John Petty, of Dover, and by her he has two sons and two daughters. The eldest, Franklin Q., is attending school in Tennessee, but the other members of the family are attending school in Russellville. The family are members of the Presbyterian Church, and Mr. Evants belongs to the K. of P., and in his political views is a Democrat. Although he has met with many business reverses he has never despaired, but has devoted all his energies to bending circumstances to his will, and the handsome fortune of which he is now the possessor is the result of unswerving fidelity to every detail of his work.

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This family biography is one of 96 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pope County, Arkansas published in 1891.  For the complete description, click here: Pope County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

View additional Pope County, Arkansas family biographies here: Pope County, Arkansas

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