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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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Rev. Nathan E. Fair, local minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was born in Sullivan County, Tenn., December 16, 1849, and came with his parents, Ellis and Nancy H. (Easley) Fair, of South Carolina and Tennessee, respectively, to Benton County, Ark., in 1859. Owing to the Civil War, which began in 1881 and continued four years, causing the death of his father and the breaking up of his mother, his educational advantages were very limited. His father was a farmer by occupation, which he followed up to 1864, when he was killed by the Pin Indians, a branch of the Cherokees, who raided the country, robbing houses and killing all the old men and boys, they could find at home. Being concealed in a thicket of small bushes, Mr. Fair counted the gunshots, eight in all, that brought his father to a most cruel death. He barely escaped discovery as one Indian passed within twenty steps of him. This was the 7th day of May, and in the fall, when he could remain at home no longer, he joined his four brothers in the Confederate Army, where he remained till the close of the war, then went to Texas, and after an absence of sixteen months returned to his mother’s in Benton County, Ark. In the spring of 1868 he was licensed to preach, and in the fall of the same year was admitted on trial by the Arkansas annual conference at Jacksonport, and, although not yet eighteen years of age, he was at once placed in charge of the Bluffton Mission in Yell County. His labors were so blessed that the mission was raised to a circuit, and he was returned the next year. During these two years he applied himself very closely to his school books, as well as to the study of divinity, stopping frequently under the shade of a tree to get up his lessons. The marriage ceremony of our subject and Amada Hamilton, who was born in Red River County, Tex., August 21, 1854, took place December 15, 1870, and to them have been born eight children: Laura A., John E. (deceased), Mary L., Minnie M., Gracie V., Carrie H., Katie E. (deceased), and the baby, Edwin L. In 1885 he moved to Bellville to send his children to school, and taught for some time with Prof. J. G. Smyth, M. A., in the Bellville Academy. In connection with his ministerial duties and school teaching he has bought and improved a small farm adjacent to the town of Bellville, where he and his family are now living very contentedly. While he is a Prohibitionist by faith and practice, he is also a Democrat, and for some years has opposed, both on the rostrum and through the newspapers, the organization of a Prohibition political party, claiming that the Democratic party can, and will do more for the temperance cause in this State than a third party could do. He is also an A. F. & A. M., belonging to Christian Lodge No. 394. He is a man of sterling integrity, and fully qualified to discharge the duties which devolve upon him as a minister of the gospel. While he is fearless in proclaiming what he believes to be right, yet he is always respectful in dealing with the opinions of others, believing that men may differ widely and still both be honest.

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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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