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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Prairie 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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S. A. Minton is a worthy agriculturist of Prairie County, Ark., and enjoys to an unlimited extent, the confidence and respect of all who know him. He has been a resident of the county since 1867, and at that, date settled on forty acres of land in Center Township, and at the present time has 220 acres, 100 under cultivation. Born in the State of Alabama, in 1844, he is the third child born to J. M. and Nancy (Rainwater) Minton, both of whom were born in the “Palmetto State,” the former’s birth occurring in 1818, and the latter’s in 1816. J. M. Minton settled in Alabama, where he followed farming and tanning, and his marriage occurred about 1836. After residing in Alabama until 1860, he came to Arkansas and settled at Austin, where he worked at the tanner’s trade for about ten years, then moving to Center Township, Prairie County, where he spent his declining years, his death occurring in 1884. Politically he was a Democrat and his wife was a member of the Primitive Baptist Church. They became the parents of the following children: Emily E. (who is the wife of R. N. Sparks and resides in Centre Township), S. B. (who lives in Hazen Township is married and has eight children), S. A. (our subject), Martha G. (wife of R. N. Sparks, Sr.), Adaline (who died young), Matilda S. (died in 1868 in her nineteenth year), John P. (who also died in childhood), and M. M. T. (an infant, deceased). The mother of these children died in the year 1882. The paternal grandparents, Sylvanus and Jennie Minton, became the parents of twenty-three or twenty-four children. S. A. Minton spent his youth in Alabama and came with his father to Arkansas in 1860. The following year he enlisted in Company B, Fourth Arkansas Regiment of Infantry, and the battles in which he participated were: Richmond, Murfreesboro, Atlanta, Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga and Franklin. Upon returning to Arkansas he was married in December, 1866, to Miss Nancy A. Douglas, a daughter of Logan and Patience Douglas, and the year following moved to Prairie County, and as shown above, has become a well-to-do farmer. The children born to his union are: George J. (who died in 1887), Joseph M. (who also died in 1887), Emma C. (who is the wife of R. N. Sparks, Jr.), William F., Thomas W., Burrell S. and Ada B. Mr. Minton is a member of the Primitive Baptist Church and is an enterprising and progressive citizen.

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This family biography is one of 94 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Prairie County, Arkansas published in 1890.  For the complete description, click here: Prairie County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

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