My Genealogy Hound

Alonzo W. Quinn (deceased). Mr. Quinn was well known and respected by the many residents of Union County, and his reputation as one of the firmest and truest of friends, and the most upright of men, was universal. He was born in Talladega County, Ala., in 1839, and was the son of E. W. and Lucinda (Greenswood) Quinn, the father a native of North Carolina, and the mother of Georgia. The parents removed to Alabama, and in 1849, came to Arkansas and settled near Hillsboro. Mr. E. W. Quinn, becoming one of the well-known teachers in the county. His education for that early day was far above the average, and he held many positions of trust and honor, while a resident of Union County. He died in 1868. His wife had died in February, 1868. Alonzo W. Quinn was reared on the farm and received a fair education in the schools of the county. He was very studious in his habits, and when twenty-one years of age started a flourishing school, in Chicot County. This was in 1861, and at the first outbreak of the war he closed his school, returned to El Dorado, and enlisted in the Confederate army, as a volunteer. He left that, town September 23, 1861, as second lieutenant of his company, was in several battles of the Virginia campaign in the fall and winter of 1861 and 1862. He, with all commissioned officers of his company and battalion, was discharged on the consolidation of his regiment, with the Third Arkansas, and he at once went home, where he had a severe spell of sickness. On his recovery he returned to the army, but not being able to cross the Mississippi River, he proceeded to Little Rock, and entered the clothing department, till strong enough to enter active service. Believing that he could better prosper the cause of the Confederacy by carrying a musket, he left Little Rock, and joined Witherspoon’s battalion of Cabel’s brigade cavalry. He was sergeant-major of this battalion, and served as one of its officers until disbanded in Navarro County, Tex., in May, 1865. The Confederacy had no braver soldier, nor one more devoted to its interests and cause, than this young patriot who dismissed his school to enter her service and to battle for her cause. After the close of the war, Mr. Quinn returned, and taught school for a year, and then went to Memphis, where was engaged in commercial pursuits. He was married in 1869, to Miss Valena Sevier, a native of Lawrence County, Ala., and the daughter of Dr. B. B. Sevier. Her paternal grandfather, Samuel Sevier, was a son of Gov. John Sevier of Tennessee. One branch of the Sevier family came to Arkansas, and Ambrose H. was an early United States Senator of the State. He was the son of Valentine Sevier, whose father came to America from London, in 1740. This illustrious family had its origin in a French village, in the Pyrenees Mountains, Havre, and after the Edict of Nantes they expatriated themselves, and formed an asylum in London, where the name Zavier was Englished to Sevier. In 1740 they came to America and settled in the Shenandoah Valley. One of them, after a short tarry in Baltimore, married a belle who bore him three celebrated sons, one, Valentine, of whom we have just spoken, and another, John, who was the first governor of Tennessee, and the great-grandfather of the wife of our subject. Immediately after his marriage our subject, returned to Arkansas, took up his residence on a farm that he had previously purchased, and was almost constantly engaged in teaching, as well as farming for several years. In 1876 they removed to El Dorado, and he engaged as book-keeper for Smith & Armstrong, with whom he continued until 1880, after which he made arrangements to engage in business for himself. He went to New Orleans, purchased a stock of goods, and immediately after his return was taken with an attack of pneumonia, from which he died in a few days, April 16, 1880. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and a member of the Baptist Church. In the affairs of his private business he was unusually industrious in all things that promised to promote in any way the general good, and was often solicited to accept office, but though earnest in the work of the party, he as often declined. In his death, El Dorado lost a most valued and worthy citizen. He left a widow and four children: Parrie Pearl, Frank Sevier, Samuel Armstrong and Ned Alonzo. Mrs. Quinn still resides at El Dorado, and is giving her children the advantages of the best education in her power. She still owns the farm of 500 acres, seventy acres of which are under cultivation, and the remainder of the place is covered with the best of timber, an excellent farm for stock. Mrs. Quinn is a lady of education and refinement, and her children are growing up embodying the virtues of both parents-bravery and honor, virtue, refinement and grace.