Alexander C. Hull (1858–1914)

Marion County native Alexander C. Hull was a respected businessman and leader in northwestern Arkansas newspaper circles, as both owner and editor, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a Democrat, he held minor appointed political positions until he was elected to two terms as the state’s sixteenth secretary of state.

Alexander C. Hull was born to John E. Hull and Matilda A. Killough Hull on April 20, 1858, in Marion County, Arkansas. His father served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was a captain in the Confederate army. He was killed in action when Alexander was seven years old. After the war, his mother moved Hull and his brothers to Flippin Barrens in Marion County, where she operated a boarding house.

Hull became a clerk in a mercantile establishment. He also served as deputy clerk of Boone County from 1878 to 1880. His next venture was in the newspaper business, founding the Baxter County Citizen at Mountain Home (Baxter County). During President Grover Cleveland’s administration, he served as chief clerk of the United States Land Office in Harrison (Boone County). After retiring from this position, he became editor and owner of the Harrison Banner in 1887.

Hull married Lucy M. Cory of Harrison in 1884. They had five children.

Hull entered the state Democratic primary for secretary of state in 1892; he came in second in a four-man race. In 1896, he won the election, serving two terms as secretary of state from 1897 to 1901.

Hull was a member of the Arkansas Press Association, serving as the recording secretary in 1893 and again in 1894. He was a delegate to the National Editorial Association in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. He was appointed by Governor William Fishback in 1893 as an expert accountant to examine and report on the condition of the state treasurer’s office.

Hull remained in Little Rock (Pulaski County) after serving as secretary of state. There, he organized the Security Fire Insurance Company. In the following years, he lived in Oklahoma City and Edmond, Oklahoma, before returning to Harrison in 1912. Once back in Arkansas, he opened an insurance and loan office. He also established the North Arkansas Herald.

Hull died at his Harrison home of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 28, 1914. He is buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Harrison.

For additional information:
“Alexander Hull Dies at Harrison.” Arkansas Democrat, January 29, 1914, pp. 1, 9.

Kwas, Mary L. A Pictorial History of Arkansas’s Old State House: Celebrating 175 Years. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2011.

A Reminiscent History of the Ozark Region. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1894.

Debra Polston
Cabot, Arkansas