John Young, who was born in North Carolina in 1804 and was the son of another John Young, moved his family to Arkansas about 1841. He was in Marion County by 1848 when his son Eli Jackson Young was born. It is believed this family of Youngs came to Marion County from Jackson County, Tennessee, where the 1830 Census shows as heads of families a John Young, 50-60 years old, a John Young 20-30 years, an Eli Young 40-50 years and a Michael Young 20-30 years along with many other Youngs. These latter two were not listed in Jackson County, Tennessee, in the 1840 Census but an Eli Young and a Michael Young believed to be his son and of the right ages were in Marion County, Arkansas in 1840. The census of 1850 shows them in Marion County with the following families: Eli Young 67, wife Rachel 59, James 27, John 21, and Eli 14, -- Michael Young 39, wife Elizabeth 40, Rachael 17, Thomas 15, Henry 13, James M. 11, John W. 9, Hopey 7, and Michael E. 3.
John Young was still in Jackson County, Tennessee in 1840 but the 1850 census shows John Young and his wife Elizabeth Bullington Young in Marion County, Arkansas. Elizabeth was born in Sandy River, Virginia, in September 1807, the daughter of William Crenshaw Bullington and his wife, Jane Harris, who moved from Pittsylvania County, Virginia, to Jackson County, Tennessee in the 1820's. She could trace her ancestors back to Nicholas Bullington who was in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1623. John Young was a farmer, trapper and trader who kept moving always trying to get farther into the wilderness and looking for a hunter's paradise where he could indulge himself in his favorite occupation of hunting, trapping and fishing. Near his old homeplace is a deep hole in the ground which looks like an old well but is called a "bear den". Tradition says John Young and his sons killed two bears there before the Civil War. They hunted bear for both the meat and the skin. When rations became low they set out to find food and seeing a bear in the bottom of this pit they shot it and a boy was lowered to tie a rope around it so it could be dragged out. While they were pulling the bear out, it put up a fierce fight and they had to shoot it again. When they examined the bear, they could not find but one place where it had been shot so they looked into the hole and saw another bear which proved to be the one they had shot the first time. The boy had tied the rope around a live bear and that explained its ability to fight. That day they had to skin and dress two bears.
John Young lived along Little Sugar Orchard Creek between what is now Pyatt and Dodd City and is said to have died there during the Civil War. "Jayhawkers" were bands of guerrillas, originally anti-slavery men especially in Kansas and Missouri, who were irregular soldiers during the Civil War. "Bushwhackers" were certain Confederate guerrillas. Both groups operated in this border section and harrassed civilians during the war. According to a family story, Jayhawkers plundered his place one day and, not finding what they wanted or getting the desired information from him, hung him to a tree and left him to die. When the outlaws were gone, his wife Elizabeth, who was hiding, ran out and cut him down and was able to revive him. After that incident when he heard that Jayhawkers were in the vicinity he would hide out in a cave. Sleeping in a cave caused him to get pneumonia which was said to be the cause of his death.
Food was so scarce that the inside bark of slippery elm trees was cooked with cornmeal to make it go farther. The guerrillas laid waste the crops and made most gristmills useless. The closest mill to John and Elizabeth Young was about 20 miles and she was afraid to let her sons take the corn to mill for fear they would be captured by the Jayhawkers and made to fight for the Union side. The trip to mill had to be made about every ten days. John went with his wife one day to take a turn of corn to mill and on the way became so sick he had to sit down by a tree and wait for her to go on. When she came back with the meal, she found him sitting by the tree dead, supposedly from pneumonia. She could not carry him so found help and buried him on the spot. His grave site is unknown. Elizabeth Young lived until November 1889 and died near Bergman in Boone County where she was living with her daughter, Elizabeth Ann Mooney.
John Young and Elizabeth Bullington were married about 1830 and were the parents of twelve children: Sarah Ellen Young, born in 1831, who married Lewis M. Jones; Eliza Jane Young (twin) born in 1832, who married William Marler; Rhoda Hudson Young (twin) born in 1832, who married Walter Trammel; James Young, born in 1835, who married Lydia Chloe Frazelle, was killed by the jayhawkers or bushwhackers during the Civil War; Elizabeth Ann Young, born in 1836, who married Tobias (Byers) Mooney, died in July 1910; William H. Young, born in 1838, who married Dosha --; Robert Jason Young, born in 1840 and died in 1880, who married Elizabeth A. White; (These first seven children were born in Jackson County, Tennessee) Francis Marion Young, born in 1842 in Arkansas; George Washington Young, born in 1847 in DardanelleSlapes; Joshua Michael Young, born in 1849; and Mary L. Young, born in 1853, who married John Bullington. This family scattered to Boone and Baxter Counties and other_places but one stayed in Marion County.
George Washington Young came to Marion County while a baby in 1847 with his parents and never left except for his service in the Civil War. He undoubtedly felt that life in the Confederate Army would be better than working in the field clad in a bonnet and dress and hiding out in a cave to keep the Jayhawkers from capturing him. They came down from the North to plunder and raid and capture young men who might become eligible for the army. He went to join the Southern Cause before he was old enough to become a regular soldier and served as a personal attendant of Major General Sterling Price, keeping his horse cared for, groomed and ready for use and whatever duties the General required of him. He had great respect and admiration for General Price and evidently the feeling was mutual as he made a good record in the service and was highly recommended by his superior officers. George Young told stories of serving as a scout or spy when he was so young that no one would suspect him of being a soldier. He would ride bareback over the country in civilian clothes unnoticed and unconcerned and then report what he found to his superiors.
George Young was present at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862 and the Battle of Prairie Grove in December 1862. He told a story about a company of Rebels being camped out near Pea Ridge with no food so they sent him looking like a country bumpkin on a donkey to a friendly farm a few miles away to gather up some food. He was able to get a little bacon and a bag of potatoes which he tied in the middle and swung over the donkey's back. On the way back to camp he noticed two Union soldiers closing in on him. He knew they would capture and question him so he paid no attention until they were real close then jerked his pistol from under his shift and shot them both before they could shoot him. He then raced the donkey as fast as he could go and made it back to camp with the food for which all were thankful.
The day he was 16, April 18,1863, George Young joined the Confederate Second Regiment of Missouri Cavalry and served under Major General Sterling Price, Brigadier General Joseph 0. (Jo) Shelby, and Captain William Pace until he was discharged on April 18, 1865. He had such great respect for Captain Pace that he named his oldest son William Pace Young and later named a grandson Shelby Young for General Shelby. This Captain Pace was the grandfather of Frank Pace, Jr. who became Secretary of the Army 1950-53.
George Young was released from duty somewhere in the deep South and since his horse was dead he had to walk home. He followed the Mississippi River until he came to the White River; then followed it to North Arkansas. The country was desolate and there was little food for any living creature. He was pursued by a pack of hungry wolves and had to climb a tree where he sat for two days with the wolves leaping and nipping at his feet and him beating them off with his rifle butt. Finally, the wolves gave up and he eventually reached home to find that his father was dead and his brother James had been killed by the Jayhawkers or Bushwhackers.
After the war he was able to obtain a pony with which he began making a crop. He had to work barefooted as his Confederate money was worthless. His opportunities for schooling before the war had been meager so he decided to enter school when the crop was laid by. He went to Berryville where his old friend Captain Pace was principal of the school. Later in life, Captain Pace made the following statement about his grown-up student: "When I saw this young man walk into the school room barefooted, with his Blue-back Speller under his arm and his homemade jeans rolled up, I said to myself -- 'There's a boy who is going to amount to something some day.'" After three or four years in school he took the state examination for a teacher's license and received a high rating, especially in math. Afterward he taught school and made crops for his mother in between times for five or six years. He always opened school with the Lord's Prayer and a scriptural reading. While teaching school at Eros and boarding in the William Henry Lancaster home, he met their daughter Nancy Caroline who became his wife. They were married January 16, 1875, almost ten years after the end of the war. Their first two children, Minnie and Pace, were born at Eros then he moved to Powell to teach. The other four children were born there, the youngest, Ernest, being born February 12, 1893. About 1891 he became associated with J. F. Davis in the mercantile business in Powell (near Pyatt) for two years. From Powell, George Young moved back to Little Sugar Orchard Creek where he had lived as a boy. He lived there for about twenty years between Dodd City and Pyatt where he was in the sawmill and lumber business with his son Pace. They bought land to get the timber and accumulated many acres.
George Young encouraged his children to go to school and they attended schools in Yellville, Valley Springs and Bellefonte after the local school. The boys attended a business school in Springfield, Missouri. After living a short time at Kingdon Springs where he operated the family-owned farm on the Blanket Bottom of the White River, he bought a farm on Crooked Creek, built a house and barn, and bought a store in Pyatt about 1914. There has been a Young's Store in Pyatt ever since. George W. Young died in Pyatt on October 12, 1921, and is buried in the family plot of the Patton Cemetery.
Nancy Caroline Lancaster Young, the wife of George W. Young, was born in Perry County, Tennessee in 1854, the daughter of William Henry Lancaster and Mary Jane Horner. She was the great-grandmother of Benjamin Lancaster who had come to Tennessee from Edgecombe County, North Carolina. She came to Marion County with her parents about 1870 after stopping in Randolph County, Arkansas, for about three years on the way. She always remembered crossing the Mississippi River on a feny boat on the way to Arkansas in a covered wagon. She told of walking from Eros to Flippin to get seed corn after they arrived in Marion County. She was truly the pioneer type and like many women of her day was a thrifty person and knew how to do everything necessary for survival on the frontier. Besides bearing six children, nursing them through sickness and health and preparing three meals a day, she did many other tasks common to rural women of her time. Nancy Young could saddle a horse and ride and could harness the horses, hitch them to a wagon or buggy and drive wherever she needed to go. She was familiar with such work as tending and feeding farm animals, growing chicken and geese, butchering and curing meat, shearing, carding, spinning, dyeing, knitting, weaving yarn into cloth and making it into clothes; washing, milking, churning, gardening, baking and cooking were common duties. She had a last for all different sizes of shoes and was an excellent cobbler. When she noticed that a grandchild's shoes needed repairing, she sat him or her down and fixed the shoes. Nancy Young lived to be over 100 and died in 1955. She is buried by her husband in the Patton Cemetery at Pyatt.
George W. Young and Nancy C. Lancaster Young were the parents of six children who lived in Marion County. They are: (1) Minnie Belle Young, (1876-1975), who married George Henry Perry in 1901 and they lived many years in the Georges Creek community near Yellville where he was a farmer and an attorney. He served in the State legislature before they left Marion County in the 1930's and moved to Logan, Utah. George and Minnie Perry were the parents of three children: Louise Young Perry, who married Matthew F. Bird; George Helm Perry, who married Norma Smith; and Billie Bryan Perry, who married first Darwin Penny and then John Pepich. (2) William Pace Young was born at Eros in Prairie Township in 1878. As a young man he was engaged in the sawmill and lumber business with his father on Sugar Orchard Creek between Pyatt and Dodd City. On June 7, 1908, he married Darthula (Dottie) Owens, the daughter of James Spencer and Sarah Caroline Duren Owens. They were married in Yellville by Rev. Bearden and he brought his bride to her new home on Sugar Orchard Creek near Pyatt in a buggy, a distance of about ten miles. They lived there until 1914 when they moved into a new house about 11/2 miles away. This house, barn and three utility buildings were built from lumber which came from timber cut, sawed and finished at his own mill. After they moved here, he became engaged in raising livestock and farming as well as sawmill work. He was a large land owner and was involved in lead and zinc mining about the time of the first World War. Pace Young was active in county and community affairs. He served on many juries, a member of the first County Board of Education, and was instrumental in securing the first County Agricultural Agent and Home Demonstration Agent for Marion County. He was a member of the Pyatt School Board when the new school and gymnasium were built in 1925. Dottie Young was also a leader in Marion County and the Pyatt community. She served as President of Marion County Farm Bureau for the years of 1942 and 1943; was the first woman in the state to serve in that capacity. She was President of the County Council of Home Demonstration Clubs for nine years and was a member of the County Agricultural Committee for seven years. She was president of the Pyatt Parent-Teachers Association for 14 years and helped register the men in the Pyatt District for the Selective Service Administration in 1940. She was a member of the Yellville Chapter of the Eastern Star. Pace Young died in 1937 and Dottie Young died in 1966. They are buried in the Patton Cemetery at Pyatt and were the parents of five children: Owen D. Young, who married Pauline Mallard; Shelby Young, who died in 1957; Helen Young, who married George Wesley Bishop, Jr.; Irene Young, who married Lilburn C. Harrison; William Philip Young, who married Dorothy Louise Hillis. (3) Sally Josephine (Josie) Young (1881-1972) was in business with her brother Ernest in the Young's Store in Pyatt for years and is buried in Patton Cemetery. (4) Augustus Layton (Gus) Young (1883-1958) was in business in Dodd City and Yellville before moving to Morrilton, Arkansas, in the 1920's where he was very successful in the lumber business and as a farmer. In 1907 he married Alma Dodd, daughter of Neal and Hattie McDowell Dodd of Dodd City and Yellville, and they were the parents of one son, G. H. (Gus) Young, who married Margaret Lay and after her death married Lena Nowlin. They now live on a ranch near Dodd City. (5) Arkansas Elizabeth (Arkie) Young (1887-1971) lived in the family home at Pyatt helping her parents and doing good deeds for everyone in the family. She was a wonderful cook and everyone in the family enjoyed eating there often. Arkie is buried in the Patton Cemetery at Pyatt. (6) Ernest Young (1893-1937) lived in Pyatt where he was in the mercantile business with his sister Josie. They operated the Young's Store and were also engaged in farming and other businesses. Ernest Yonng married Mary Hattie Milum, daughter of Walter and Lucy Smart Milum, in 1916, and they were the parents of six children: Mary Elizabeth Young, who married William (Bill) Swafford; George, who married Mabel Depriest; William (Bill); Kenneth, who married Juanita Barger; Marion Edwin, who married Phyllis Martin; and Sam, who married June Turney. Ernest and Hattie are buried in the Patton Cemetery at Pyatt.
Mary and Bill Swafford are the parents of one child, Martha Hammerling of Kansas City, Missouri. George and Mable Young are the parents of two daughters, Penelope Ann Osborn and Judith Snow, both of Pyatt. Kenneth and Juanita Young are the parents of Bryan and Beverly, both of Boone County. Sam and June Young are the parents of four daughters, Linda, Susan, Lori and Sammye, all of Pyatt. Edwin and Phylis Young are the parents of Terry and Sherri of Conway, Arkansas, and Reta Young of Harrison.
