Franklin Benjamin 'Frank" Meriwether [
TMSI #13874]
F.
B. Meriwether is a native-born resident of the county, his birth
occurring in 1861, and he received his early scholastic training in the
common and graded schools of his native county. From his earliest youth
he clerked in his father's store, and, after attaining a suitable age,
became a partner with his father in a store in Batesville, and was
married, in 1880, to Miss Queen Berry, whose birth occurred in
Mitchell, Tenn., in 1862. To them have been born two children, but only
one is living, Nettie. The wife died on the 3d of September, 1887.
After his father's death, Mr. Meriwether engaged in business with G. W.
Browning, and came to Sulphur Rock, where he was engaged in
merchandising until 1886, and has since been in the lumber business. He
is quite well fixed financially, and the father, at the time of his
death, owned nearly 2,000 acres, his estate being one of the largest
and richest in the county. F. B. Meriwether is one of the leading young
business men in Independence County, and, as a young man, is very
popular with his associates. Unlike most persons to whom a competence
is left, he has not foolishly squandered it, but has continued to add
to it, and is now ranked among the wealthy residents of the county. His
parents, W. D. and Eleanor Meriwether, were Kentuckians, the former
being a native of Shelby County, where he was born September 5, 1822.
He was taken by his parents to Mississippi, thence to Independence
County, Ark., where both his father and mother died. At the time of his
marriage, he had very little property with which to commence life, but
he opened a country store on his forty-acre farm, and at the breaking
out of the war, owned an extensive tract of land, a luerative
mercantile business, and thirty-five negroes. He was a very heavy loser
during the war, and during this period the most of his time was spent
in St. Louis and Little Rock. After the war he again opened business on
his farm, and did exceptionally well until 1871, when he and family
moved to Sulphur Rock, and for the next eight years were engaged in
business at this point. From that time until 1883, when the father
died, they were occupied in merchandising at Batesville. He was one of
the shrewdest and most successful merchants of the State, and was
justly called the 'Cotton King of Northeast Arkansas.'
In his
family were twelve children: Mary, who died when six years of age;
Julia, the wife of G. Brown; Buck, George, Martha, Johanna, wife of Dr.
J. W. Hodges; William, Frank B. (our subject), Clinton, David, who died
at the age of three years; Eliza, who died at the age of three and
one-half years, and Thomas, who died when an infant.The maternal
grandfather died at the age of one hundred and three years.
Source: INDEPENDENCE COUNTY, AR BIOGRAPHIES – Part 4 of 5
The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889, page 698