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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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Jerry Cockrell, Jr., a rising planter of Dardanelle Township, was born in South Carolina in 1855, and was the sixth in a family of eight children born to Jerry, Sr., and Eliza (Millmore) Cockrell, who were natives of the Palmetto State, where his father was a very prominent man and planter, owning three plantations, 100 slaves, and was also the popular sheriff of Fairfield County. Both he and wife died in their native State, he in 1860 and she in 1867, members of the Presbyterian Church. The great-grandfather, a very extensive planter, was one of the early pioneer settlers of South Carolina. Our subject, who passed his youthful days on a farm and attending school at Louisville and other places, came to Arkansas in 1870 and located in Dardanelle, and in 1883 purchased a tract of land eighty-two and one-half acres in extent, situated in the woods two miles west of town. He immediately began cutting the timber on this land, and now has a clearance of over sixty acres, twenty-two sown to grass, and the rest cultivated. In connection with his farm duties he gives considerable attention to stock-raising, making a specialty of some of the finer grades of cattle, hogs and sheep, including many of the choice varieties of poultry. Our subject began his worldly career with comparatively nothing, but being possessed with a determined will and undaunted courage combined with hard labor, has accumulated his fine, valuable property. He is an earnest and worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and a Good Templar.

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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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