CROSS CO, AR - J. M. LEVESQUE - Bio

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Submitted by: Jason Presley <daclyde@usa.net>
        Date: 7 Sep 2004
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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SOURCE:  Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern
Arkansas. Chicago:Goodspeed Publishers, 1890.
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SEE photo at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~arcross/images/levesquejm.jpg

Capt. J. M. Levesque, the worthy and esteemed county clerk of Cross County,
enlisted at the outbreak of the Civil War, in Company C of the Thirteenth
Arkansas Infantry, the first regiment organized in that part of the State,
Cross County, and was immediately elected orderly-sergeant of his company.
The regiment was sent to Fort Pillow, and thence to Kentucky, and was also
in the battle of Belmont, Mo., November 7, 1861, evacuating at Columbus,
Ky., in March, 1862.  At the battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862, Leiut. Joe
Hall was wounded, and Mr. Levesque was chosen to fill his place as second
leiutenant.  Shortly after this the first leiutenant was wounded and
discharged, and our subject was elected to his pisition, and at the
reorganization of the regiment at Corinth, in April, 1862, he was elected
captain, and served through the Alabama and Kentucky campaign, also
participating in the battles of Richmond, Ky., under Kirby Smith, at
Perryville, Ky., and Murphreesboro, Tenn.  At the reorganization of the
army, he was sent to the Trans-Mississippi Department, and there engaged in
recruiting a company of cavalry, mostly from Cross County; was in a number
of skirmishes, but not in any important battles, his company going on the
MIssouri raid under Gen. Price.  At the close of the war, he took up
farming as an occupation, buying a farm of 336 acres, near Vanndale, but in
1866 he was elected circuit and county clerk of Cross County, which office
he held until the reconstruction of the county, when he was disfranchised
for having held office at the beginning of the war, and in participating in
the Rebellion.  He then again engaged in farming, in which he continued
until 1874, during which time he improved his farm, and adding to it, till
in 1878, he was the owner of 2,000 acres of land.  In 1874 he was elected
sheriff of Cross County, and was re-elected in 1876, and again in 1878.  In
1880 he was elected circuit and county clerk, and was also re-elected to
that office in 1882, 1884, 1886 and 1888, and is the present incumbent of
this office, and that he has given satisfaction is shown by the fact of his
having been elected to the same office for four terms in succession.  In
1868 he was selected as one of the three men on a locating committee, to
choose a site for the county seat, wich was then changed to Wittsburg, and
in 1885 was appointed one of the committee which located the seat of
justice in Vanndale.  Mr. Levesque was born in Fayette County, Tenn., in
1834, and was the son of James and Elizabeth (Arnett) Levesque, natives of
Tennessee and Mississippi, respectively.  His father was a farmer by
occupation, and died when our subject was five years old.  His mother dying
when he was the age of thirteen, he then went to live with an uncle, the
Rev. William Levesque, of Alabama, remaining with him until he was sixteen
years of age, when he then returned to Fayette County, and was employed as
a farm overseer until 1854.  In this year he was married to Miss Nannie
Willis, of Tennessee origin, and in the fall of that year he removed to
Arkansas, settling in Cross County, in what was then a part of Poinsett
County.

Here he was again employed as a farm overseer, until 1860, when he was
elected constable of Mitchell Township, and which office he held until the
breaking out of the Rebellion, and the call for men for the Confederate
service, to which he responded so readily.  He has been a delegate to the
Democratic State Convention every year since 1876, and has the unbounded
confidence of his party, which he has never betrayed, and is so wholly
depended upon that he goes uninstructed and uses his own judgement in the
convention. The results of this marriage are five children, three of whom
are still living: Elizabeth (wife of Thomas B. Smith, of Cold Water
Township), Fannie (wife of Isaac Block, of Wynne), Willie T. (married and
resides in Cold Water Township), James Cheatham (deceased) and John Phillip
(deceased).

Capt. Levesque owns considerable property in different places throughout
the county, and owns some 2,000 acres of land, of which there are 800 under
cultivation.  His farm, on which his son resides, is a field of 500 acres,
which is as level as a floor, and on which are good builtings, mills, gins,
barns, etc., in fact everything needed to carry on a well-equipped farm.
When the Bald Knob Railroad was built through Cross County, the company
named a station in honor of our subject, and Levesque Lodge No. 52 K. of
P., is also named after him.  Capt. Levesque has been connected wtih the
Masonic fraternity since 1861, and a member of the Chapter since 1872, and
became a Knight Templar in 1889.  He also belongs to the K. of P.K., K. of
H. and the K. & L. of H., and I.O.O.F.  The Captain is one of the most
influential politicians of the county, and a highly respected man, and one
of the county's self-made men, having come to it as a laborer, and is now a
wealthy man, all due to his own efforts and honest industry.