JAMES P. HERRON. A noble class of men have built up the agricultural interests of Mountain Home Township, Baxter County, Arkansas, and have made it a garden spot in the great commonwealth of the State. Among those who have been active and efficient in the work is he whose name stands at the head of this sketch. He has been identified with the farming interests of the county almost from his birth, and in every walk of life has conducted himself in an honorable, upright manner.
He was born in what is now Baxter (then Fulton) County, November 20, 1855, a son of Fielden Herron, who was born in White County, Tennessee, in 1807. He came to Arkansas in 1827, at which time Indians were very numerous here, and made his first crop where Bakerfield, Missouri, is now located. The following year he located on the farm which is now owned by the subject of this sketch on North Fork, on the line of Union and Mill Townships, at which time a small clearing of about ten acres had been made on the place. By hard work he cleared a large portion of this place and there, surrounded by plenty, he passed his declining years, dying May 20, 1870. He was a Democrat, a member of the Primitive Baptist Church until 1854, and then joined the Missionary Baptist Church. He was for many years a Mason, in which honorable order he attained to the Royal Arch degree. He was married four times, but the mother of the subject of this sketch was Nettie C. Hutchinson, who was born in Kentucky and died in Baxter County in 1876, at about the age of fifty-two years.
The subject of this sketch was the youngest of a large family and received his education in the common schools and in Mountain Home Academy. When sixteen years of age he commenced farming and stockraising, and although he started without much means, by hard work and good management his possessions gradually increased until he is now the owner of 300 acres of land on North Fork, of which 150 acres are under cultivation, and 120 acres in the farm on which he lives, about two miles southeast of Mountain Home. In 1873 he led to the altar Elizabeth Tolburt, a daughter of Samuel Tolburt, but on the 10th of March, 1879, was called upon to mourn her death, she having borne him three children, only one of whom is living, Cero Ann, at home. February 21, 1885, Mr. Herron married Miss Mary Ann Sale, a daughter of John Sale, of this county, and to them two children have been given: Myrtie Augusta and John D. Mr. and Mrs. Herron are members in good standing of the Missionary Baptist Church, in which he is a deacon, and socially he is a member of the Blue Lodge of the A. F. & A. M. at Mountain Home, and the I. O. O. .F. He has always supported the measures of the Democratic party, but has been by no means active in political matters, his attention being given to other things.