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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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Thomas D. Bumgarner, the genial receiver of the land office of Dardanelle, was born in Lumpkin County, Ga., the second in a family of five born to Woodford and Rebecca C. (Heffnert) Bumgarner, of Kentucky and Georgia, respectively, and now deceased, the father December 24, 1883, and the mother in 1854. The senior Bumgarner, like all early settlers of the pioneer States, followed farming as a means of livelihood. In 1849, thinking to better his fortune,he joined the gold-mining party enroute for California, where he was quite successful, and at the end of two years returned to Arkansas and purchased an immense tract of land, 500 acres in extent, near Danville, which he cleared and made for himself a comfortable home, residing here till his death. The paternal grandparents were early settlers of Kentucky, which was their home till their deaths, which occurred in Russell County, of that State. The maternal grandfather, David, of German ancestry, on his arrival to this country, settled in North Carolina, and later moved to Georgia, thence to Arkansas in 1870, and in a short while returned to Georgia, where he died in 1886, at the advanced age of one hundred and eighteen years. He was always noted for his intense interest in his adopted country’s welfare. Our subject was reared in Yell County, being educated in the country schools, and left school in 1863 to enter the United States Army, joining Company F, Third Arkansas Cavalry, as scout in advance of Gen. Steele’s army; was captured at Arkadelphia, and soon after paroled. On receiving his muster out, June 30, 1865, he resumed his school duties and farmed, and in 1868 was elected sheriff, his term of office expiring in September, 1869; he went to Normal, Ill., and entered the State Normal University, and after the completion of his studies here, became clerk in the county clerk’s office and officiated in that capacity in a store in Danville for a short time, when he purchased eighty acres of land, increasing this to 1,000 of fine valley and timberland, 350 of which are under cultivation, and makes a specialty of some fine grades of stock. He has always voted the Republican ticket and has held several minor offices: Census enumerator in 1880, justice of the peace and notary public, and received his present appointment in the spring of 1889, assuming charge of the office June 1, 1890. Miss Rachel Virginia Pound (daughter of Thomas W. Pound, one of the pioneer settlers of Arkansas, who died December 24, 1884, his wife dying in 1880), became his wife January 29, 1871, and they are the parents of the following family: Virginia (died when two years old), Julia May (wife of Walter Chambers), Lelia (died at the age of two), Rutherford Burchard Hayes, Roscoe Conkling, Thomas Edgar, and Minneola, and all are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

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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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