Honoring Pike County’s Rich History

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From The People

                        Monument to Lieut. Jenkins
                           Erected by D. A. R.

                          Editor of the Gazette.

In your obituary column on page 14 of the issue of Saturday, February 22,
1930, announcing the death of Mrs. Anita Kellogg Thompson of Pine Bluff,
the following statement appears:

"About 15 years ago Mrs. Thompson organized Pine Bluff chapter, Daughters
of the American Revolution. She also located and marked with a headstone
the only grave of a Revolutionary soldier buried in Arkansas, a member of
the first company of the Georgia Militia, who was buried in Arkansas in
1846. This record is the only one in the state authenticated, although
tradition speaks of seven."

Lieut. William Jenkins of the Tenth Virginia Regulars, Revolutionary war,
is buried in the cemetery at Murfreesboro. He was the second person buried
here, Dr. John Edwards who died September 20, 1843, being the first.
Lieutenant Jenkins was buried soon thereafter by the side of Dr. Edwards.

He came to Murfreesboro with his son, the Rev. Jesse Jenkins, a local
Methodist minister, in 1837. The Rev. Jesse Jenkins and the Rev. (Ewing)
Alford organized the first Methodist church in Pike county at
Murfreesboro in 1840. The Jenkins family came here from Jackson county,
Alabama and lived here until about 1846 when they moved to Ouachita county.

Lieutenant Jenkins was the great-grandfather of the Rev. A.D. Jenkins,
deceased, a well known minister of the Little Rock conference, who died a
few years ago. The Rev. Jesse Jenkins built the first hotel erected in
Murfreesboro in 1837, and in addition to being a local minister, he was a
blacksmith and operated a shop here during the time he lived here.

The Texarkana chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, erected a
monument to the grave of Lieutenant Jenkins some years ago.

                            Claude A. Rankin
                           Murfreesboro, Ark.
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