My Genealogy Hound

William Sills, one of the prominent citizens of this county, is the owner of the Sills’ saw and grist mills and cotton-gin. He was born near Milford, Ohio, January 2, 1836, the son of William and Elmira (Davis) Sills, natives of Ohio. His father’s occupation was that of ship-carpentering up to the time of his death, in 1835, when the rest of the family came to Arkansas with our subject’s grandfather, Mr. William Davis, and settled in Crawford County. In this county William Sills was reared to manhood. He received a very limited education, and at an early age learned the printer’s trade, but his health failing, he was compelled to give that up, and took to farming. At the breaking out of the war Mr. Sills enlisted in Company B, First Arkansas Cavalry, under Capt. Powhatan Perkins and Col. De Rosta Carroll, and went with the regiment to Oak Hill, where he was taken sick, and was discharged. He then returned to Van Buren, Crawford County, and continued farming until 1882, when he sold out, coming to Yell County. Here he invested in 200 acres of land, in company with his son-in-law, J. W. Blevins, who owned 500 acres at the time, well cultivated, and on which he had built a comfortable frame residence, good barns and sheds necessary for his stock. Owing to the fact that Mr. William Sills is the proprietor of the largest mills in his county, he does a large share of the work, and has the contract for furnishing the lumber for the new pontoon bridge to be built across the Arkansas River. His mills are patronized by the farmers from Logan and other counties in the neighborhood, the ginning-mills producing from 325 to 500 bales of cotton. Of his farm land, Mr. Sills has 100 acres under cultivation, forty acres of corn and sixty acres of cotton. The subject of this sketch was married in 1863, to Miss Elenora Bushong, a native of Kentucky, but of French descent. Of a family of nine children born to them, six are now living, viz.: Willie A., Mary E. (wife of J. W. Blevins), James E., Ollie, Renna and Harry. Those deceased are Eugene, Le Roy and Emma. Both he and wife are members of the Christian Church. In politics Mr. William Sills is a Democrat, having been elected sheriff of Crawford County in 1866 on that ticket. He is the supporter of all enterprises of a public nature that would be of benefit to his county, and being a very charitable man is ever ready to help the needy.