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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Yell 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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David Nicholas HalliBurton, a citizen of Dardanelle, was born at the Post of Arkansas, Arkansas County, April 18, 1850. His parents, Judge Thomas and Margaret M. (Dameworth) HalliBurton, were natives of Virginia and Tennessee, respectively, and his paternal grandfather, David HalliBurton, was a Scotchman by birth, and while on his way to school, in Edinburgh, in company with his brother, was decoyed on board a ship, bound for America, and upon its landing in Virginia, this country, was put off. Here he married, and upon the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, enlisted in the Virginia line, and was with Greene in his celebrated retreat. The maternal grandfather, George Dameworth, was of sturdy old Pennsylvania-Dutch stock, and emigrated to Tennessee very early in life, and busied himself with farming, and was known as a sound, substantial, honest and industrious citizen. The father of our subject learned the saddler’s trade in Virginia, but married his first wife in North Carolina, and then moved to Tennessee, where she died, leaving him and five children to mourn their loss. He married the second time in Humphreys County, Term., and this wife bore him five children, of whom our subject was the youngest. Soon after this marriage (some time in 1844) he came to the Post of Arkansas, where he engaged in merchandising. He was elected county and probate judge of Arkansas County in 1846. He was a merchant at the post for several years before his removal to Grand Prairie, and later settled on a plantation near Swan Lake, where he spent the remainder of his days in agricultural pursuits, and died in September, 1859, his widow surviving him until 1882, her death occurring in Franklin Parish, La., at the residence of her daughter. Judge HalliBurton was a member of the Baptist Church, and his wife of the Presbyterian Church. Our subject received his early educational training at home, and when seventeen years of age, entered a school at Dewitt, then worked in a printing office for one year, after which he went to Memphis, Tenn., and accepted a position in a railroad office as shipping clerk, and in November, 1869, went to Louisiana, where he was engaged as shipping and receiving clerk for a firm in Madison Parish; thence to Franklin Parish, here teaching school for six months. He was deputy circuit clerk, and afterward deputy sheriff of this parish, and later became a traveling salesman for a wholesale house in Vicksburg, and in 1875 returned to Arkansas, since which time he has followed various pursuits, and in 1878 settled in Dardanelle, Yell County, Ark., and since 1888 has been the special agent of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, of New York. He was married January 7, 1880, to Mattie J. Cotton, daughter of Jesse H. and Rebecca Cotton, who settled in this county in 1861. To this couple have been born the following interesting family: Thomas Jesse (deceased), Fannie Lou Alice, Minnie Margaret, Harold Fordyce, Susan Rebecca and Anna. His wife is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and he is a Mason, affiliating with Bright Star Lodge No. 213, of Dardanelle, also a Knights of Pythias, belonging to Easley Lodge No. 17, of Dardanelle, and is a member of Lodge No. 1233, of the Knights of Honor, of this town. Politically, he is an aggressive Democratic worker, always striving for the interests of his party. He is a courteous and affable gentleman, who extends a hand of welcome to all, and is a liberal supporter of all laudable enterprises.

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This family biography is one of 124 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Yell County, Arkansas published in 1891.  For the complete description, click here: Yell County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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