My Genealogy Hound

George W. Bonner, who is one of the most successful farmers in Spring Creek Township, has been a resident of this county since 1869. He is a native of Tennessee, and the son of Williamson and Maria (Reddith) Bonner, originally from Virginia and North Carolina, respectively. Mr. Bonner was a man of considerable education, and for a number of years followed the occupation of school-teaching, during his latter days being recognized as a public man of considerable importance. For many years he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He was a soldier in the War of 1812. John Bonner, his father, a Virginian by birth, and a farmer and mechanic by occupation, lived to the age of eighty years. He participated in the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Bonner was the daughter of Aquilla Reddith, a native of North Carolina, who lived in that State until his death, at the age of ninety years. The subject of this sketch was born in Wilson County, Tenn., in 1828, but his early boyhood was spent in Shelby County, where his father had moved in 1832. He learned the carpenter’s trade in youth, and followed that occupation for thirty years, but since that time has been engaged in farming. During the Mexican War he served seven months in Taylor’s division. In 1869, moving to Arkansas, Mr. Bonner settled in what was then a part of Phillips (now Lee) County, and three years later located on the farm which he has since occupied. He was married, in 1854, to Miss Oliva A. F. Mason, who died nine years after their marriage, leaving four children, one of whom, Williamson E., only is living. Mr. Bonner was later married to Miss Mary E. Newsom, in 1865, a daughter of David Newsom, of Virginia. She was the mother of seven children at the time of her death, in 1881, six of whom are living: David T., George W., Charles Henry J., Carra A., Claudius H. and Fredonia L. He married his third and present wife, Mrs. Elizabeth J. Robertson (nee Tiller), daughter of Benjamin and Ann Tiller, natives of Alabama, in 1882. Mr. Bonner owns a farm of eighty acres, and has about fifty acres under cultivation, giving his attention to stock-raising to a large extent. Himself and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which he has belonged for over forty years, and of which he has been a local minister for fifteen years. He has also been a member of the Masonic fraternity for thirty-nine years. A Democrat in politics, he takes an active interest in enterprises for the good of the community, to all of which he contributes largely, and is considered one of the leading farmers of Lee County.