My Genealogy Hound

J. B. Brisendine. The entire life of Mr. Brisendine has been passed in ceaseless activity, and has not been without substantial evidences of success, as will be seen from a glance at his present possessions. He is numbered among those of Georgia nativity now in this county, in which State he was born in 1839, being the third of five children born to James R. and Elizabeth (McDowell) Brisendine, both of whom were natives of the “Old North State,” where they were also reared and married. After the latter event they moved to Georgia, where the father followed the mechanic’s trade until 1860, at which date they removed to Jackson County, Ark., where they both died in January, 1861, within four days of each other. J. B. Brisendine spent his youth in Atlanta, Ga., where he also received his education and learned the bricklayer’s trade; but in 1860 he removed with his parents to Arkansas, and at the opening of the war enlisted in Company I, Matlock’s regiment of the Confederate States Army, and was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi department, afterward taking an active part in the battles of Prairie Grove and Helena, also a number of other engagements of less note. At the cessation of hostilities he went to Memphis, Tenn., and became an employee of Brown, Jones & Co., coal dealers of that place, with whom he remained until the fall of 1866, when he came to Mississippi County, Ark., locating near Frenchman’s Bayou, where he was engaged in making brick for about two years, his being the first establishment of the kind on the Bayou. He then followed the bricklayer’s trade in Tennessee until 1878, after which he returned to Mississippi County, and settled in Chickasawba Township, where he purchased a small farm containing forty acres, on which he resided and made many improvements for two years; then was compelled to vacate owing to defective title. He soon after purchased the farm of 151 acres on which he is now living, it being situated two miles south of Blythesville. The place was a complete wilderness, but during the eight years of Mr. Brisendine’s occupancy he has reduced sixty acres to a high state of cultivation, has erected a substantial dwelling house and barn, and has the trees on fifty acres deadened and ready to be removed. His land is quite productive, and will readily yield a bale of cotton to the acre and forty bushels of corn. January 20, 1869, he was united in the bonds of matrimony to Miss Linda Blackwell, of Tennessee, and the following are the children born to their union: Birdie, who was accidentally burned to death at the age of seven years; Ralph E., Louis A., Chamberlin, Eva and Julius B., Jr. The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he has been school director.