The HOOD Family History

EARLE, CRITTENDEN COUNTY, ARKANSAS

 

As taken from the “Earle Epic”

compiled by Gladys Wright and committee members

 

Copies of the “Earle Epic” are available from the Crittenden County Museum

Please contact:

 

Crittenden County Museum

c/o Richard Wood, Director

P O Box 644

1112 Main Street

Earle, AR  72331

 

Phone (870) 792-7374

 

The cost is $8.00 per book and contains sketches of many Earle families.

 

 

In these days of scientific farming, we tend to forget the dilemma our ancestors faced when their land was no longer productive.  If they were to remain farmers, it often necessitated leaving family and friends and seeking fulfillment of their dreams in the unclaimed lands of our nation.  It was the promise of land that would be continuously enriched by the over flow of the river that lured the John Richards family to Crittenden County.  They left North Carolina and traveled by flatboat down the rivers settling on the Tyronza River (about 6 miles north of Earle) in 1839.

The Richards boys had to go to Memphis to conduct business and for entertainment.  They would camp at Hopefield and cross the Mississippi River by ferry.  While on one of these trips to Memphis, they met a young man named Sterling Hood.  A friendship developed and they invited him to visit their home.  He accepted the invitation and later married their sister, Rhoda Richards.

Sterling Hood was born in Decatur, Alabama in 1818.  His parents were Frederick and Elizabeth [Isabella Camp] (Mosley) Hood, natives of Virginia, as were his grandparents.  His paternal grandfather, Sterling Hood, and his maternal grandfather, William Mosley, both fought in the Revolutionary War.  His father, Frederick, fought with General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812.

In 1849, Mr. Hood came to this county and bought the land where his grandsons, Clarence and Everett Hood, live at the present time.   He was nearly ruined by floods in 1882 and in 1883, losing much of his cattle.

When he first settled here, there were but five or six families living on the Tyronza River for a distance of fifty miles and no road to Memphis except a trail.  What few people lived here were prosperous and happy, mostly depending on trapping for support.  The early settlers of the era were compelled to go to a horse mill at Crawfordsville, so Mr. Hood erected a band-mill, two rawhide bands attached to leaves and run by horsepower.  Many Indians still roamed the woods and the Chiefs, Moonshine and Cornmeal, came with their tribes and hunted during the winter, but went west in summer.

In 1849, Sterling Hood married Rhoda Richards.  They were the parents of seven children, J. W., Nancy (wife of B. F. Rush), Robert, Laura (wife of Thomas Wilkins in Phillips County) and Edward.  (Two died in infancy.)

Mr. Hood was Constable and Deputy Sheriff for twenty years and until he was too old to serve any longer.  He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and took great interest in public schools, churches, etc.  He favored all public improvements and extended a welcome to immigrants from other countries to come to this area.

 

 

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©Deborah Lunsford Yates, 2000 - 2006

Last Updated Thursday, March 02, 2006, 10:31:21 PM CST