Gender: Male - Starting with P

Pearce, Nicholas Bartlett

Nicholas Bartlett Pearce commanded the First (western) Division of the Arkansas Army in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek (Oak Hills) on August 10, 1861, and served subsequently as a Confederate commissary officer. Nicholas Bartlett Pearce was born on July 20, 1828, in Princeton, Kentucky, to farmers Allen Pearce and Mary (Polly) Morse Pearce; he had four sisters and one brother. He reportedly graduated from Cumberland College in 1845 and then attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating in the class of 1850, ranking twenty-sixth in a class of forty-four. Entering the service as a second lieutenant, he saw service in Texas and Utah and, in June 1855, while stationed at Fort Smith (Sebastian County), married Nancy …

Pearson, John

John Pearson was a renowned gunsmith noted for his early work with Samuel Colt in developing the first working revolver. He later worked as a gunsmith in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County). John Pearson was born in England around 1811 and, by the 1830s, had immigrated to the United States, where he established himself as a tradesman and gunsmith in Baltimore, Maryland. He was operating there when Samuel Colt began developing his design for a revolving pistol that could fire multiple rounds before being reloaded. Colt worked with several contractors, but Pearson was his favored gunsmith and consultant, and Colt would bring him designs to build with hand tools and early machinery. As one biographer noted, …

Pearson, John Albert

John Albert Pearson Jr. was the last man to be appointed as an officer in the Confederate States Marine Corps during the American Civil War and may have been the only Arkansan to serve as a Confederate marine officer. John Albert Pearson Jr. was born in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on November 5, 1845, the son of John and Mary Pearson. His father had created the prototype for the first revolving pistol from designs by Samuel Colt, and Pearson was learning the gunsmith trade when the Civil War began in 1861. Pearson, though only fifteen years old, joined the Third Arkansas State Troops on May 21—fifteen days after Arkansas seceded from the Union. Pearson was with the Third Arkansas when …

Peel, Samuel West

Samuel West Peel’s diversified career in Arkansas included roles as a businessman, politician, county clerk, Confederate soldier, lawyer, prosecuting attorney, congressman, Indian agent, and banker. In Benton County and Arkansas, he is best remembered as the first native-born Arkansan to be elected to the United States Congress. Sam Peel was born in Independence County on September 13, 1831, to John Wilson Peel, a farmer and merchant, and Elizabeth West Peel. He had two sisters. Peel was four years old when his mother died. His father left him with his grandparents and moved to Carrollton (Carroll County), making a home on Crooked Creek and remarrying. John Peel and his second wife, Malinda Wilson, had eleven children. As a youth, Peel worked …

Pegues, Chris (Execution of)

Chris Pegues was an African American man executed at Augusta (Woodruff County) on October 9, 1885, for the murder of his “paramour.” Pegues was convicted of first-degree murder in Woodruff County on August 28, 1885, for killing Mollie Banks in late December 1884. Some 3,000 people gathered at Augusta on the day of his execution and speaking “in an intelligent, calm way,” Pegues told the crowd of his stormy relationship with Banks. They met in Lake County, Mississippi, in 1883. Banks was separated from her husband, and after she and Pegues became involved, they moved to Arkansas, where they intended for her to get a divorce in February 1885 so that they could get married. Acquaintances in Arkansas, however, tried …

Pendleton, Donald Eugene (Don)

Donald Eugene Pendleton was a pulp fiction, action, science fiction, and mystery writer best known for the Executioner series books, which centered on the character Mack Bolan, who waged a one-man war against the Mafia. Pendleton is generally credited with creating the action-adventure genre in the 1970s. Don Pendleton was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County) on December 12, 1927, to Louis Thomas Pendleton, a machinist, and Drucy Valentine. On December 7, 1942, Pendleton lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, days before his fifteenth birthday. He served as a radioman first class until November 1947. He served in all the war theaters and received several medals, including the Naval Commendation Medal, Iwo Jima, in 1945. He …

Pennywit, Philip

Philip Pennywit was a pioneering riverboat captain who was among the earliest to offer regular service along the Arkansas River and the first to ascend the White River as far as Batesville (Independence County). Philip (sometimes spelled Phillip) Pennywit was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1793 and moved west while a young man. He was employed on keelboats that would float down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, hauling cargo between Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and then hauling the boats back upriver by using poles and ropes. In 1818, Pennywit was credited with building the first steamboat ever constructed in Cincinnati; he named the vessel after that city. Ten years later, as captain of the Facility, …

Penzel, Charles Ferdinand

Charles Ferdinand Penzel emigrated from Austria to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1857 and, after the Civil War, became a leading merchant, pioneering banker, and prolific investor who rose to the first rank of capitalists in the city. He was also active, often as an officer, in numerous city economic development, religious, civic, and charitable organizations. At the time of his death, he was perhaps the richest German American in Arkansas. Born on October 8, 1840, to Johann Christof Penzel and Maria Elizabeth Penzel, Charles Penzel was one of twenty-eight emigrants from Asch, a Bohemian city of about 9,000 and a district of about 20,000 people, who settled in Pulaski County between 1848 and 1857. When he arrived in Pulaski …

Perkins, George Napier

George Napier Perkins was an African-American lawyer and newspaper publisher. Born a slave, he went on to become a major civil rights activist in both Arkansas and Oklahoma. George Napier Perkins was born to Moses Perkins and Millie Perkins. However, given the public record of the time, there is some discrepancy as to facts surrounding his birth; U.S. Civil War pension records list his birthday and birthplace as January 1, 1841, in Williamson County, Tennessee, while other sources list him as born on January 1, 1842, in Washington County, Tennessee. He received a limited education in Tennessee before the family moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County) when he was fifteen. The move was more likely a product of Perkins’s owners …

Perry, Harold Robert

Harold Robert Perry was the first African American to become a bishop in the Catholic Church in the modern era. Part of his career beforehand was spent serving a church in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County). Perry was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on October 9, 1916, the son of a mill worker and a domestic cook. He knew at a young age that he wanted to enter the ministry, and at age thirteen he entered the Society of Divine Word Seminary in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. In 1944, he was ordained into the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, becoming the twenty-sixth African American to attain this position. Over the decade, he served in several positions, pastoring congregations in Mississippi, …

Perryman, Lloyd Wilson

Lloyd Wilson Perryman was a member of the country and western group Sons of the Pioneers for more than four decades, appearing in dozens of movies and selling millions of records. An accomplished guitarist and singer, Perryman was a fixture in Hollywood from the mid-1930s until his death. Lloyd Perryman was born in Ruth (Fulton County) on January 29, 1917, to Samuel and Sally Perryman. He had eight older brothers and sisters. His family also lived in Zion (Izard County), where they farmed and owned a general store, prior to moving to California in 1928 when Perryman was eleven years old. There, Perryman learned to play the guitar and became involved with music while in high school. His first radio …

Peters, Albert (Execution of)

Albert Peters was a young African American man hanged on December 30, 1887, at Marianna (Lee County) for murdering the husband of his “paramour.” Albert Peters was born into slavery at the Dr. G. B. Peters Plantation near Council Bend in Lee County on October 10, 1860. His family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, after the Civil War, and then to Phillips County, where he attended Southland College. Peters was later described as “very black, medium hight [sic] and weight, clean shaven face and had a tolerable fair education, being able to read very well and write a respectable hand.” By 1885, he was once again living on the Peters plantation but, early that year, went to Phillips County, “where he …

Pettaway, Caleb Darnell

The Reverend Caleb Darnell (C. D.) Pettaway was an influential Little Rock (Pulaski County) religious leader who served as president of the National Baptist Convention of America (NBCA) from 1957 to 1967. Caleb Darnell Pettaway, commonly referred to as “C. D.,” was born on December 18, 1886, in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Sources conflict as to his birth name—he is listed as Charles, Cyrus, and Claude in various years of the Little Rock city directory. However, his World War I and World War II draft cards are clearly signed as “Caleb.” In 1918, Pettaway married Jennie E. Vagner of Independence County and apparently moved to Arkansas around that time. Together, they moved to Little Rock and bought a house located at …

Pettus, Phillip (Execution of)

Phillip Pettus was an African American man hanged on August 24, 1894, in Helena (Phillips County) after being convicted of first-degree murder for killing his wife. Phillip Pettus may be the same man listed in the 1880 census as H. P. Pettice, age twenty-eight, a “mulatto” farmer who lived in Phillips County’s Cypress township with his wife, Emma, age twenty-three, and their two sons. By 1893, Pettus reportedly “mistreated his wife” to the point that she left him and went to work at another plantation near Hyde Park (Phillips County). Pettus repeatedly begged her to return to him, but she refused. Pettus told her that “she had better say prayers[,] for if she refused to live with him she would …

Phelps, John Elisha

John E. Phelps recruited and served as colonel of the Second Arkansas Cavalry Regiment (US), which saw extensive service in northern Arkansas and in Missouri during the Civil War. John Elisha Phelps was born in Springfield, Missouri, on April 6, 1839, one of five children of John Smith Phelps and Mary Whitney Phelps. He attended school in Fayetteville (Washington County) but finished his education at a private school in Springfield. He went into business for himself at age thirteen, buying and selling cattle, and in 1859, he and two others established a wholesale grocery store in Springfield, with Phelps also traveling on horseback to sell items. When the Civil War began, Phelps acted as a volunteer scout for the Union …

Phelps, John Smith

As the Civil War military governor of Arkansas and a longtime Missouri congressman, John Smith Phelps began his involvement with Arkansas before the Civil War. A stalwart Democrat, he raised a Union regiment and fought at the Battle of Pea Ridge prior to his appointment as military governor. Cotton politics and personal illness doomed his attempt to establish a Union government in 1862 and led to his removal in 1863. John S. Phelps was born on December 22, 1814, in Simsbury, Connecticut, to Elisha Phelps and Lucy Smith Phelps; he was one of five children. His father was a sometime congressman (1819–1821, 1825–1829). After a public school education, young Phelps attended Washington College (subsequently Trinity College) in Hartford, Connecticut, but …

Phelps, Ralph Arloe

Dr. Ralph Arloe Phelps spent over a decade serving students as president of what is now Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) in Arkadelphia (Clark County). Phelps was also influential in shaping the Arkansas Baptist community during his time in the state. Ralph Phelps was born in Dallas, Texas, on May 27, 1921, one of three children of Ralph Phelps Sr., who was a building superintendent, and Elsie Jack Phelps, who worked as a stenographer in the dry goods industry. Phelps graduated from North Dallas High School in 1939, where he was involved in student debate, Latin, and speech organizations. He enrolled at Baylor University in the fall of 1939. Phelps married Helen Ruth Kennedy sometime between 1940 and early 1942, when …

Phi Kappa Sigma Male College

Phi Kappa Sigma Male College opened on February 7, 1859, in Monticello (Drew County). The college was named after the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and is possibly the only college in the country named after a fraternity. The Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity was founded in 1850, and James Willey Barrow graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana as one of its members in 1856. Barrow moved to Monticello and, in 1858, served as the president for the Monticello Male Academy. Barrow taught Latin, Greek, and mathematics with assistance from David Shelton, C. S. Tatum, and A. M. Scott at the Monticello Male Academy. In a letter to his brother, John C. Barrow, dated May 15, 1858, James Barrow stated that “my …

Phillips County Lynching of 1849

In early November 1849, two unidentified slaves were burned to death in Phillips County for allegedly murdering their owner, Henry Yerby. The exact date of the lynching is in doubt; some sources list the date of Yerby’s death as November 9, but the November 8 edition of the Arkansas State Democrat, quoting the Helena Shield, reported that Yerby was murdered “a few days since.” In the 1830s, Henry Yerby, a native of Virginia, received several land grants near Old Town Lake in Phillips County. On August 14, 1837, he married Emily Marion Dickson there, and he is listed in the 1840 census. He must have owned a number of slaves when he died; the slave schedule compiled in 1850 lists …

Phillips County Lynching of 1859

Historians of racial violence long contended that those held in slavery were not often lynched due to the value tied to their living bodies. However, greater inquiry into the matter has revealed a greater number of slave lynchings than previously thought. One such event occurred on August 17, 1859, near Helena (Phillips County). The event in question is so far known from a single article in the August 24, 1859, Des Arc Citizen newspaper published in Des Arc (Prairie County). According to this report, which draws upon information from the Southron newspaper of Helena, on August 11, “a negro man, belong to J. W. Carpenter, Esq., near Helena, struck Mr. Robert Bickers (Mr. Carpenter’s overseer) on the head, with an …

Phillips, Charles E., Jr

Charles Phillips Jr. is the CEO of Infor, a company that specializes in industry-specific software. His long career on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley include high-level positions in financial services corporation Morgan Stanley and the computer technology corporation Oracle. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 2012. Charles Phillips was born in 1959 in Little Rock (Pulaski County). His father was stationed at the nearby Little Rock Air Force Base, and the family moved frequently during his youth, including stints in Germany and Spain. Aiming to follow in his father’s footsteps, Phillips enrolled in the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Although he graduated with a degree in computer science in 1981, worsening …

Phillips, Henry (Lynching of)

On November 13, 1897, Henry Phillips was lynched in Osceola (Mississippi County) for the alleged murder of storekeeper Tom McClanahan. Editor Leon Roussan’s coverage of the incident in the Osceola Times sparked a feud with Sheriff Charles Bowen. Bowen, a former captain in the Confederate army and a local Ku Klux Klan (KKK) leader, was prominently involved in the Black Hawk War of 1872. According to the Osceola Times, on November 6, Tom McClanahan was brutally murdered in his store. McClanahan had come from Tennessee three years earlier to work in a local sawmill. When the mill was sold, he remained in Mississippi County to settle up outstanding claims. At the same time, he operated a small grocery store in …

Phillips, Sylvanus

Sylvanus Phillips was an early American pioneer and Arkansas settler. As a prominent land speculator and town developer who held numerous offices during his roughly thirty years in southeastern Arkansas, Phillips helped shape settlements and communities in Arkansas Territory just before statehood. Little is known about Phillips’s early life, family, and education. He was born in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in April 1775, but his exact birthdate and the names of his parents are unknown. The Piedmont region was inhabited by Waxhaw and Catawba Indians as well as Scotch-Irish and English settlers, and it is possible that he was of Scotch-Irish descent. In 1797, he traveled to Arkansas by crossing the Appalachian Mountains and going through Kentucky. He …

Phillips, William Richard (Bill)

Boone County native William Richard (Bill) Phillips was an Arkansas businessman and an All-American football player at Arkansas State University (ASU). His athletic abilities were a major contributor to the school’s 1970 national football championship and led to his induction into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame twice. Born on February 2, 1949, in Harrison (Boone County), Bill Phillips was one of four children of Earl and Hazel Phillips. He grew up in Harrison, where he attended the local schools. By the time he was in junior high, he had become an accomplished athlete in basketball, track and field, golf, and football. He was a member of the 1967 Arkansas state basketball championship team. His football season was cut short …

Piazza, Ben Daniel

Ben Daniel Piazza was an actor, director, author, and playwright who was compared to the young Marlon Brando in his youth but achieved acclaim for character roles in his later years, often portraying an edgy, tightly controlled suburbanite or a repressive parent in films such as The Blues Brothers. He began acting in 1952 during his college days at Princeton University and worked steadily in theater, film, and television until his death in 1991. Ben Piazza was born on July 30, 1933, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Charles Piazza, a shoe repairman, and Elfreida Piazza, a homemaker. He was one of nine children, having two sisters and six brothers. He graduated from Little Rock High School (later Central High …