My Genealogy Hound

John Parr, an old resident and farmer of Jefferson Township, owes his nativity to Maury County, Tenn., where his birth occurred on July 21, 1827, and is the son of William and Dolly (Johnson) Parr, the father born in North Carolina, February 11, 1794, and the mother in Tennessee, in 1795. The parents were married in the last-named State, but emigrated to Ouachita County, Ark., in 1844, and were among the earliest settlers of the same. There they passed their last days, the father dying in 1877, and the mother in 1881. The paternal grandfather, John Parr, Sr., was a native of England, and was a soldier in the war of the Revolution. The maternal grandfather, George W. Johnson, was a native of Wales. Brought up as an agriculturist, it was but natural that our subject should permanently adopt that calling as his life occupation, and he has always followed it. He was married in this county in 1852 to Miss Mary A. Mendenhall, a native of Alabama, who died in 1873. To them were born five children, four now living: Thomas M., Medora A. (wife of W. B. Randal), Joannah C. (wife of S. W. Anderson), and John T. On August 29, 1880, Mr. Parr took for his second wife Miss Nannie R. Anderson, who was born in Tennessee, and one child, Jewel, was the result of this union. Mr. Parr has resided in this township since 1844, except about two years, and is the possessor of 160 acres of good land with about fifty acres under cultivation. He served in the Confederate army from 1861 until the close of the war, and was in a number of the principal engagements: Prairie Grove, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Jenkins’ Ferry, and many skirmishes. A few years after his first wife’s death he went to the Lone Star State, and was there engaged in teaching school and peddling tinware, in order to see the country, for over a year. In August, 1879, he joined a party of sixteen men and started to Leadville, Colo., but only got as far as Dodge City, when he gave up the idea of going to that point. He then went from Dodge City to Mexico, a distance of over 400 miles, where he was occupied in viewing the surrounding country. Seeing, however, nothing to compare with the State of Arkansas, he returned to Dodge City, Kas., where he had left his hack, bought two ponies and returned to this State through the Indian Territory. Here he has since resided, and is one of Ouachita County’s best citizens and farmers. He is a Jeffersonian Democrat in politics. He and wife are members of the Christian Church.