My Genealogy Hound

Cassius M. Gardner is a progressive farmer and stockman of Cross County, and was born about three miles east of the present village of Vanndale, in 1858, and was the eldest of seven children born to William H. and Martha A. (Malone) Gardner, who were natives of Virginia and Tennessee, respectively. The former, with his father, was among the early pioneers of the State of Tennessee, and there received the most of his rearing. In 1854 he came to Arkansas and settled in what is now Cross County, and here he was married in 1856 to Miss Martha Malone, a daughter of Samuel Malone, one of the pioneers of Arkansas. Mr. Gardner purchased land for a farm and soon opened a store at a place called Pineville, and here held forth for a short time, being one of the first merchants of the place. In 1885 he sold his farm to locate in the village of Vanndale, and here he has since lived in retirement. His son, Cassius M., attended the district schools of Cross County until he was seventeen years of age, and then for a short time was an attendant of the schools of Forrest City and Wittsburg. After clerking in the post office of the former place for a short time he, in 1878, settled in Wittsburg and became an employee of Block Bros. & Co. and remained with them for nearly four years. He then returned to the farm, having previously purchased 240 acres, and here built a nice dwelling-house and made many other valuable improvements, clearing forty acres, and now has ninety acres in an excellent state of cultivation. In 1887 he bought forty acres adjoining Vanndale, on which he erected a handsome cottage the following year, and in the winter moved to his new home. He has a fine property and is rapidly making improvements, and, being enterprising and possessing ideas aside from the beaten track, his labors are always attended with good results. In 1885 he was married to Miss Helen Halk, a daughter of Nathan andAmelia Halk, the former of whom died in 1887. The latter still lives on her fine farm on the Cherry Valley Road. To Mr. and Mrs. Gardner have been born two children: Bertram F. (who died at the age of eighteen months) and Olive V. (who died when seven months old). Mr. Gardner belongs to Pearl Lodge of the K. & L. of H. of Vanndale.