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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  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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Dr. Thomas P. Blunt, one of the leading physicians in Pulaski County, was born in that county on August 1, 1856, and is a son of William S. and Polly Ann (Lamb) Blunt, the former a native of Maryland, but reared in Bowling Green, Ky., where his parents died when he was a boy. After the decease of his parents he went to reside with an uncle, with whom he remained until attaining his maturity, when he removed to Pulaski County, Ark., where he was married to his first wife, Miss Elizabeth Kirkpatrick, who died in 1850. The following year he was married to Mrs. Eliza Marshall, who died in 1852, and in 1853 he was married to his third wife, Miss Polly Ann Lamb. This lady also died after a happy married life, and he was married a fourth time, his next wife being Mrs. Elizabeth Lee. He resided in Maumelle Township a great many years, and was a millwright during that time, but the declining years of his life were spent in Little Rock, where he died in September, 1880. He was a valued and highly esteemed citizen during his residence in Pulaski County, and built a great number of mills throughout Central Arkansas. The Doctor’s mother, who died in August, 1861, was a daughter of Judge David R. Lamb, a native of Tennessee, who was one of the earliest settlers of Pulaski County, where he served as judge of the county court for a number of years. The Doctor was the second child in a family of two sons and one daughter. Though early deprived of his mother by death, his subsequent training was most carefully attended to by his stepmother (Mrs. Elizabeth Lee at the time of her marriage to Mr. Blunt), and the Doctor refers tenderly to her kind and earnest efforts to properly guide him, ascribing to her all the credit for whatever position he has reached in later life. He received a common-school education in his youth, and in 1878 began to study medicine in the office of Dr. J. M. Pintle, a well-known physician of Little Rock. Since that time he has practiced with good success, and his name has become a household word in many homes throughout Pulaski County. He was married in 1878 to Lulu, a daughter of John and Mary S. Custer, of Little Rock, Ark., the former a prominent contractor and builder of that city. After a very short married life Mrs. Blunt died, in June, 1879. In 1880 the Doctor met and won Miss Annie Henry, the daughter of George W. and Mary J. (Davis) Henry, of Tennessee, and by this union has had one son and one daughter. After their marriage the Doctor and his wife resided in Little Rock and vicinity until 1889, when he moved to Maumelle Township, where he owns 700 acres of land, in different tracts, and has about 200 acres under cultivation, all of which he has made by his own enterprise, tact and good judgment. As an illustration of his pluck and determination in overcoming all adverse circumstances, and rising superior to those calamities that would utterly prostrate an ordinary man, it would be well to add that, on his marriage, the Doctor was presented with $500, by his father, as a wedding gift. This was all he ever inherited or received outside of what he made himself, but in 1882 he had increased it to such an extent that the loss of his finest farm represented $5,000, which was washed away by the flood in that year. In 1888 his cotton-gin, one of the finest in that section, was devoured by fire; but, despite the misfortune that seemed to follow him, he has gone to work again with a perseverance that is worthy of the highest admiration, and has once more accumulated a comfortable fortune. Doctor Blunt also deals considerably in real estate, and his shrewdness in that line has enabled him to be very successful. He is a Democrat in politics, and, with his wife, attends the Methodist Church.

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This family biography is one of 156 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Pulaski County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Pulaski County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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