My Genealogy Hound

Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Little River County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1890.  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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Jacob Willard. He whose name heads this sketch is one of the substantial farmers of Red River Township, Little River County, and owes his nativity to Mississippi, where he was born in 1832, being a son of D. B. Willard and wife, nee Nancy Rachel (Weaver) Curry. The former was born in Ohio in 1800, of French descent. Early in life he emigrated to Mississippi, and later to Louisiana, where he passed from life in 1885, in his eighty-fifth year, leaving a widow who still survives and makes her home in Louisiana. Six of their seven children—three sons and four daughters—lived to maturity, and five of them are still living. Jacob Willard passed his life up to the age of ten years in Mississippi, but in 1842 he accompanied his parents to Louisiana, and there he grew to manhood, and obtained a limited education. In 1874 he immigrated to Little Rock County, Ark., and here he has ever since resided on his farm of 400 acres (100 of which are under cultivation), lying on Red River, about seven miles south of Richmond. He farms this land himself and tills it well, getting from thirty-five to fifty bushels of corn and about a bale of cotton to the acre. When he first came to Arkansas, this land was mostly unimproved, and he has since, by his untiring energy and industry, brought it to its present high state of development. In 1884 he had the misfortune to lose his wife, to whom he had been married in 1859. Her maiden name was Miss Laura Ann Yarbaugh, and she was a native of Louisiana. Of the four children born to this marriage, but two are now living: D. B. and Angie. In 1887 he took a second wife in the person of Miss Ida Franks, who was born in Tennessee, but reared to womanhood in Illinois. She is an earnest member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Willard enlisted in the Confederate cause in 1863, joining Company C, Sixth Louisiana Cavalry, in which he served as private until the surrender. He is a Master Mason, affiliating with Red River Lodge No. 74, A. F. & A. M., at Richmond.

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