My Genealogy Hound

A. L. Cissell. Among the representative men of this county none are more favorably known or more highly respected than the above-mentioned gentleman. His prominence arises from personal worth, which the public is not slow in recognizing, as well as from distinguished family connections, he being a direct descendant of Sir Robert Cecil, who was an exile from England on account of religion, and who first settled Cecil County, Md. Mr. Cissell was born in Bar Township, Daviess County, Ind., in 1844, and is the son of J. A. Cissell, who came with his father, James S. Cecil, from Nelson County, Ky., when a boy, and settled in Indiana. Here James A. Cissell changed his name from Cecil to Cissell, and so it has since been continued by the Kentucky branch of the descendants. A. L. Cissell was reared at Loogootee, Ind., until eighteen years of age, and upon the bursting of the war cloud which had hovered above the country for so long a time, he enlisted in the Fifty-second Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and served four years, taking part in the campaign from Fort Donelson to Mississippi, or Harrisburg, where in 1864 he was severely wounded. He was then sent to the Overton Hospital in Memphis, and from there home on a furlough. In August, 1864, he returned to the regiment at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., and was afterward in a fight at Franklin, Mo., with Gen. Price. After this, he was put in charge of the wounded and sent to the marine hospital at St. Louis, where he remained for some time, later going home to vote. Subsequently here joined his regiment at St. Louis, just from the raid after Gen. Price in Missouri, and from there accompanied it to Nashville, Tenn., although classed as noncombatant, owing to the wound in his right shoulder. He was sent to the hospital, and rejoined his regiment at Montgomery, Ala., just prior to being mustered out at Indianapolis, Ind., in September, 1865. Mr. Cissell then returned to Loogootee, Ind., where he rented land of his father, and was there united in marriage to Miss Sarah C. Brown, daughter of Felix Brown, of Loogootee. In 1869, in company with his father and brother, Mr. Cissell made a prospecting tour to Mississippi County, Ark., and there bought 213 acres of land, while his father bought 160 acres, mostly timberland. The next year they brought their families and settled on land situated on Carson’s Lake, about six miles southwest of Osceola, where he cleared some 200 acres. There A. L. Cissell remained until 1879, when he engaged in mercantile business at Osceola, and continued in this for two years, when he sold out at a loss of $13,000. After paying every cent he was left in debt to the amount of $928 which, in 1884, he managed to place in the hands of one man. He then resumed agricultural pursuits, and is now the owner of 505 acres, with 165 under cultivation. In 1888 he was a candidate for sheriff of Mississippi County, but was defeated, owing to the fact that he left the field in the heat of the contest to undergo the most trying ordeal which can befall a man, the loss of a true and loving wife. She died July 9, 1888, leaving three children: Maggie is Mrs. O.W. Stacey, and now lives on a farm near her father’s; Nora is the wife of J. H. Meyers, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume, and Tilden is at home. Mr. Cissell is a member of the A. O. U. W., located at Osceola, and is a member of the Catholic Church, as was also his wife, who died in that faith, holding membership in the Church of St. Matthew, at Osceola.