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While watching the judging of Angus cattle at the Missouri
State Fair in Sedalia, Mo., I noted that the judge was a Howard McGregor from
Minnesota. At an intermission I introduced myself to him. He said, "I suppose
that you are from the Tennessee McGregors." He told me that two McGregor
brothers had come to this country many years ago, going first to North
Carolina. From there one brother went to Tennessee and established our branch
of the family. The other brother went through Pennsylvania into Canada and
established the line of McGregors who now live there and in Minnesota.
When
the two brothers came to North Carolina and how long they stayed I do not know.
Flowers McGregor married Mary Payne, and it is thought that their son,
Ransford, was born in Davidson County, Tenn., In 1801. Ransford married
Isabelle Henderson, who was the daughter of James and Margaret Henderson
Lieutenant Colonel James Henderson was with Andrew Jackson in the war of 1812,
and was killed during the battle of New Orleans. Four McGregor families are
listed in the 1830 census of Middle Tennessee, so apparently the family had
been in Tennessee for a number of years.
Our grandfather, Ransford Payne
McGregor, was one of the eight children of Ransford and Isabelle, and the only
one who ever married. "Chick", as he was called, was born January 1, 1848, and
was too young to be in the Civil War. He came to Arkansas with two other young
men, a W. S. (Sank) Danner, and Love Banks. They moved from Murfreesboro,
Tenn., to Alabama, and then to Wiville, Arkansas, in 1878. Love Banks had a
store at Wiville, and later he and Mr. Danner went back to Clarksdale, Ark.,
and established the Banks and Danner plantation near the Mississippi River in
the north part of Crittenden County. This was told to me by Love Banks himself
In 1936 while I was working for his son, Hartsell Banks, at the Rice Branch
Experiment Station at Stuttgart.
Ransford Payne McGregor came to Cotton
Plant, where he met and married our grandmother, "Sallie" Cooper, in 1879. Her
father, William Albert Cooper, was originally from South Carolina. He lost his
wife, Louise, during the Civil War. Dr. Thomas D. Chunn agreed to take his two
little girls so that he could join the Confederate Army, and he was last heard
from when he was in a Confederate hospital in New Orleans. The other sister
died during the War and was buried in a cemetery just north of the present
McGregor farm on land that is now owned by Richard Cole. Any trace of the
cemetery disappeared years ago. Sallie was reared and educated by the Chunn's.
Dr. Chunn served as Surgeon In McGehee’s Regiment of the Arkansas Calvary
during the Civil War.
Tracing the history of the McGregor farm is difficult
because this area was in St. Francis County and early records were lost when
the court house was burned by the Union Army. A part of it is in Monroe County,
and the records on this area were lost when the court house at Clarendon
burned.
The earliest records I have found are dated 1858 and 1859, and are
land grants from the State of Arkansas to Dr. Chunn under the provisions of the
Swamp Act. Part of the land was included in a land grant to the Rock Island
Railroad, and was sold by them to Dr. Chunn during the last year of the
carpetbaggers. It may have been confiscated during the war and sold back to Dr.
Chunn.
The house on the Jay McGregor land which we know as the "old home
place" was built by Dr. Chunn. (This farm is now owned by Dr. and Mrs. Charles
Davis. Mrs. Davis is a McGregor granddaughter.) The house across the street
from the present post office, torn down a few years ago and known to most
people as the Hysmith residence, was also built by Dr. Chunn. It was the home
of his daughter, Lena, who married Dr. T. B. Bradford.
During 1883 and 1884
Grandfather McGregor bought land from Dr. Chunn, and in 1885 he and his
brother, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., bought more of the Chunn land. In 1893 they
purchased additional ]and in which Dr. Chunn had been interested. An
examination of the abstracts through the 1870's and 80's shows various
transactions which reveal the troubled economic situation which followed the
Civil War. Many names well known in Woodruff county history are mentioned in
these transactions.
Our grandparents first lived In the old Chunn home on
the farm. In 1891 they moved into Cotton Plant and lived in what we used to
know as the old Dunlap house (the site now occupied by the Bobby Stewmon
property) until their home was built in 1892. During this time some of the
younger children decided they preferred the country to the town and would go
back home. So Ran, age 6, led Joe, age 5, and Mamie, age 4, as far out as
Turkey Creek, where someone caught up with the runaways and brought them back
to town.
Grandfather operated a store and a gin In addition to the farm.
The gin was "a good steam gin which would turn out 20 bales a day." When he
died In 1902, the business was handled first by Bert, then Alex, and then Joe.
Grandmother continued to live in the Cotton Plant home until her death in 1937.
Some of her children and at times, quite a few of the grandchildren, made it
their home.
He built a school house across the street in which the McGregor
children received most of their earlier education. It was remodeled and added
on to several times, and several of the children started their married life
there.
Children of the couple were Lena Isabelle known as "Min", who
married Dr. W. H. McKie; William Albert, "Bert", who died in 1905; Alexander
Chunn, "Alex", whose first wife was Mamie Nell Matthews, and after her death he
married Mary Odell Eskew; Ransford Payne, "Ran", whose wife was Kate Savage;
Joseph Dixon, "Joe" who married Elma Berry; Mary Violet, "Mamie", who became
the wife of J. L. Parker; Sallie Ruth, who died at the age of four; Neva Alice,
who married Fitz Maxwell; Roy Cooper, whose wife was Minnie Morris; and John
Lawson, "Jay", who married Amy Curtis.
The Cotton Plant house was the home
of Roy and Minnie McGregor, and is still maintained by her. When they remodeled
It, five rooms of the first and second story were removed. Neva and Fitz
Maxwell built the house across the street which later became Joe's home, and
our home is on the site of the old schoolhouse. The homeplace on the farm has
been occupied by the families of two of the McGregor children, Ran and Jay.
Alex had a lumber mill here, and then moved to Augusta where he was sheriff for
a number of years. Later the family moved to Sherrill. Roy, Joe, Neva, Ran, and
Jay all lived in Cotton Plant until their deaths. Joe was the last surviving
member of the original Cotton Plant family when he died in 1968. The
twenty-eight grandchildren are scattered from coast to coast, although many of
them still live In Arkansas.
The Chunn family helped in the organization of
the Cotton Plant Presbyterian Church in 1859 and our grandmother early became
one of its members. She was a member of the first group to be enrolled In
Arkansas College at Batesville, and most of the Chunns and McGregors attended
that school.
Most of the land now known as the McGregor farm was owned by
Grandfather, although some acreage has been added since. The gin became the
Farmers Gin Company, and the McGregor interest in the mercantile business ended
with the closing of The Leader Company, in which Joe was a partner. The J. D.
McGregor Partnership office is now on the site of the old McGregor
store.
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First
published in the Woodruff County Historical Society publication, Rivers and
Roads and Points in Between, Vol. II No. 1, Winter, 1974
Thanks to the
McGregor family for permission to reprint here.
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