My Genealogy Hound

A. J. Biship has been a resident of Mississippi County, Ark., all his life, his birth having occurred here in 1846, he being the eldest of two children born to William and Diadema (Bryant) Biship, who were natives of Scott County, Mo., and came to Mississippi County, Ark., at an early day. [For further history of their lives see sketch of William Biship.] A. J. Biship received a fair knowledge of the English branches in the schools of his native county, and was reared to a knowledge of agricultural life on his father’s farm in Chickasawba Township. After his mother’s death, which occurred when he was about eight years of age, his father married again, and he remained with him until he attained his seventeenth year, when he began learning the art of photography, at which he worked for eight years, traveling through the country and on the river. At the age of twenty-five years be engaged in teaching school, and wielded the ferule for four terms in Mississippi County, after which he commenced rafting lumber from Big Lake down the St. Francis River to Helena, continuing this occupation two years. He was married about this time to Miss Maggie Brown, a native of the county, and a daughter of Jack Brown, an old pioneer of this region. In 1869 he began keeping a store on Big Lake, but returned to Chickasawba Township and opened a wagon and blacksmith shop at Cooktown, locating at the end of one year in Jonesboro, where he was engaged in blacksmithing. Sickness in his family made this a disastrous move, and at the end of one year he returned to Chickasawba Township with only $1 with which to start anew. In 1884 he opened a shop in Blythesville, which he is still successfully conducting, and is doing a constantly increasing trade. In 1888 he purchased 120 acres of land one mile from Blythesville, on which property he has erected some good buildings, and has five acres under cultivation. He expects to rapidly continue his improvements until he has reduced it all to a state of cultivation, which day will not be far distant if Mr. Biship evinces his usual energy and perseverance. He, like many of his neighbors, is a member of Chickasawba Lodge No. 134, of the F. & A. M. He is an intelligent and enterprising man, and in all his operations is meeting with substantial evidence of success, results which all concede he fully merits. His union with Miss Brew has resulted in the birth of four children: William Andrew, Major Green, Aurora Lurena and Robert Thaddeus. Mrs. Biship is a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.