My Genealogy Hound

J. H. McCargo, the efficient and popular circuit clerk of Yell County, was born in Charlotte County, Va., the seventh in a family of eight born to John M. and Mary Ann (Ellis) McCargo, of Virginia. His parents were planters by occupation. The father died in 1865, just before the surrender of Gen. Lee, at Appomattox, and the mother in 1852, a worthy and consistent member of the Baptist Church. His paternal grandfather, Hezekiah McCargo, an extensive and very prominent planter, died in Virginia, and his maternal grandfather, also a planter, and a descendant of a Scotch-Irish family. Mr. McCargo spent his youth in attendance upon the common schools of his native town, and at the Rockingham High School of North Carolina, where he was a student three years, thus gaining a most excellent education, which fitted him for teaching, which he soon took up. Being prevented through lameness from taking a very active part, yet very anxious to serve in defense of his country, he entered the Confederate Army in 1864, and was assigned to some of the lighter duties of army life. When peace once more reigned, he took up the study of dentistry, and, upon receiving his diploma, established an office and practiced for eight years. On coming to Gravelly Hill, this State, he at once began negotiations for the erection of a building, to be used for school purposes and known as the Piedmont High School, in which he opened one of the best schools in the county, and which he taught for five years. The building is not only an ornament to the county, but reflects great credit on the founder of the institution. In the fall of 1882 he changed his residence to Danville, where for six years he served as circuit clerk, Maj. Gee’s deputy, and at the expiration of Mr. Gee’s term of office, was elected circuit clerk, which office he filled for two years, and again in 1890 he was the successful nominee, being elected without an opposing vote. He was married in July, 1885, to Miss Ellen E. Pound, daughter of the Hon. T. W. Pound, formerly of North Carolina, but since 1841 a resident of Arkansas, and a lawyer of excellent repute, who before the war was circuit clerk for many years, and after its close was circuit judge, and in 1866 was the first Democrat elected to the General Assembly. Prior to his death in 1884, he was a resident and practitioner of Danville. His wife having preceded him to their final home in 1876, after having borne him a family of seven children, three of whom live in Yell County. Mr. and Mrs. McCargo are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and belonging to the Masonic fraternity, he affiliates with the Danville Lodge No. 41. As a public official, he is most exemplary, discharging his duties in a manner befitting the office to which he is called, and he is everywhere recognized as a pleasant, educated and refined gentleman, an acquisition to the community in which he lives.