Gender: Male - Starting with C

Chism, Larry Porter

Larry Chism is an Arkansas criminal, convicted felon, and longtime fugitive. In 1978, he escaped from a Lonoke County jail and has never been apprehended. He was placed on the U.S. Marshals’ and FBI’s Wanted List, and in 1990, he was featured on the television show Unsolved Mysteries, generating national exposure that led him to flee again. He is considered armed and dangerous, but his whereabouts have remained unknown since 1990. Larry Porter Chism was born in Forrest City (St. Francis County) on December 19, 1948, to Millard Harry Chism Jr. and Frances Louise Porter Chism. Both were from Arkansas. Chism’s maternal grandfather was John Rosamond “Jack” Porter, the mayor of Forrest City for a decade. Chism graduated from Forrest …

Chisum, John Greene

John Chisum was one of the last thirty surviving Civil War veterans, the last surviving Arkansas-born Confederate veteran, and the next to last surviving Confederate veteran to die in Arkansas. He was outlived in Arkansas only by Jonesboro (Craighead County) resident William M. Loudermilk, who died in 1952 (like Chisum, beyond his hundredth birthday). John Green Chisum was born in Calico Rock (Izard County) on February 19, 1848, to Bill and Mary Chisum. Little is known of his years growing up on the family farm. During the early years of the Civil War, the family was isolated in the Ozarks, but at age sixteen in 1864, Chisum made a trip to Newport (Jackson County) and enlisted in a unit under …

Chitwood, Oscar (Murder of)

Oscar Chitwood was murdered on December 26, 1910, at the Garland County Courthouse in Hot Springs. A deputy sheriff who was with Chitwood at the time of the murder claimed that a lynch mob killed Chitwood, but other witnesses contradicted his account. The murder remains officially unsolved. On August 17, 1910, Garland County sheriff Jake Houpt and his chief deputy (and younger brother) Sid Houpt attempted to arrest Oscar Chitwood and his brother George Chitwood for stealing horses. The Chitwood brothers resisted arrest, and a gunfight broke out on the grounds of the Garland County Courthouse. When the fight ended, George Chitwood was dead, and Jake Houpt was mortally wounded. Oscar Chitwood escaped, although badly wounded. Sid Houpt was unharmed. …

Chowning, Frank Edwin

Frank Chowning was a longtime Little Rock (Pulaski County) attorney. He was also a plant enthusiast whose work with irises, especially his hybridization efforts, earned him an international reputation. Francis Edwin Chowning was born on May 26, 1894, in Rison (Cleveland County) to Nathaniel Barnett Chowning and Deborah Curtis Marks Chowning. Chowning grew up and received his early education in Rison before attending Henderson-Brown College (now Henderson State University) in Arkadelphia (Clark County). His time at Henderson-Brown was interrupted by World War I, during which Chowning served in the U.S. Army, earning the rank of lieutenant while stationed in France. Following the war, he earned his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1922. He married Martha Speakes Bradford in 1928, …

Churchill, Sylvester (Lynching of)

On October 20, 1885, a white man named Sylvester Churchill was lynched in Murfreesboro (Pike County) by being burned alive for having apparently murdered a local man named W. F. Brooks. This was the second time in as many months that the local jail was set afire; on September 6, 1885, brothers Henry and Sylvester Polk had been burned alive when a mob set fire to the new jail. Churchill’s apparent victim was, according to early reports in the Arkansas Gazette, named Dennis Brooks, but an account of the lynching that appeared in the Pike County Sentinel on October 22, 1885, and was reprinted in the Arkansas Gazette five days later, gave his name as W. F. Brooks. Reportedly, there …

Churchill, Thomas James

Thomas James Churchill, the thirteenth governor of Arkansas, led advances in health and education while in office. During his administration, legislation set standards for practicing medicine and established the Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences) in Little Rock (Pulaski County). In addition to creating a facility for the mentally ill and a state board of health, his administration appropriated funds for purchasing a building for the branch normal school in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), which served African American students. Born on March 10, 1824, on his father’s farm near Louisville, Kentucky, Thomas J. Churchill was one of sixteen children born to Samuel Churchill and Abby Oldham Churchill. The children grew up on the …

Churchill’s Arkansas Division (CS)

The largest unit of Arkansas Confederate troops during the Civil War, this division saw action in both Arkansas and Louisiana. It was named for its commander, Major General Thomas James Churchill. The first regiments that eventually belonged to the division were organized in the summer of 1862. After the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862, Major General Earl Van Dorn led the majority of Confederate troops in the state east of the Mississippi River, where most remained for the duration of the war. Arkansas was left almost completely defenseless, and the new commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, Major General Thomas C. Hindman, immediately began efforts to raise new units of troops in the state. Numerous …

Civil War Veterans’ Reunions

After the Civil War, Arkansas veterans returned home and attempted to revert to civilian life, a task very difficult in a destitute, disrupted, and divided state. During the immediate postwar decades, veterans and their families began to establish veterans’ cemeteries, hold memorial services for the dead, build monuments, conduct unit reunions, and organize veterans’ groups. Reunions, perhaps the most important outlet for the ex-soldiers, allowed veterans to communicate with others who had shared the experience of Civil War combat and the difficulties of returning to civilian life. A decade after the end of the war, veterans began to realize that including their old adversaries in reunions could help mend the wounds of the war. Toward the beginning of the twentieth …

Claiborne, Harry Eugene

Harry Eugene Claiborne, a native of McRae (White County), was a lawyer, politician, and later a federal judge in Las Vegas, Nevada. Claiborne became known nationwide in 1986 as the first sitting federal judge to be sent to prison and the fifth person in American history to be removed from his or her position through impeachment by the U.S. Senate. Harry Claiborne was born on July 2, 1917, in the Lebanon community just outside McRae. His father, Arthur Smith Claiborne Jr., was a cotton farmer, and his mother, Minnie King Claiborne, was a schoolteacher. Early on, Claiborne gained a reputation in McRae for his speaking ability, and he would often accompany his grandfather to view court proceedings at the White …

Clark, Calvin

Calvin Clark was a prominent Quaker leader and educator in post–Civil War Arkansas. With his wife, Alida Clark, he founded Southland College in Helena (Phillips County), the first institution of higher education for African Americans west of the Mississippi River. Calvin Clark was born in Wayne County, Indiana, on July 21, 1820, one of five children born to John Clark and Anna Price Clark. Clark received his early education in the local schools of Wayne and Morgan counties in Indiana. His mother died when he was about twelve; his father, who remarried, died when Clark was fifteen. Clark went to live with his uncle in Monrovia, and after getting additional formal schooling, at age eighteen, he began teaching in Richmond, …

Clark, John Steven (Steve)

aka: Steve Clark
John Steven (Steve) Clark was the longest-serving attorney general in Arkansas history. After eleven years as attorney general, Clark announced in January 1990 that he would run for the Democratic nomination for governor. A few days later, the Arkansas Gazette reported that his office had spent a suspicious $115,729 total on travel and meals, more than any of the other six constitutional officers, and that his vouchers listed many dinner guests who said they had not been his guests. In February, Clark withdrew from the governor’s race (Governor Bill Clinton would be re-elected). He was convicted of fraud by deception and resigned as attorney general. Steve Clark was born on March 21, 1947, in Leachville (Mississippi County) to John W. …

Clark, Moses Aaron

Moses Aaron Clark rose from slavery to become one of the most successful African American Arkansans of his time. Elected as a Helena (Phillips County) alderman during Reconstruction, Clark became a lawyer and was one of Arkansas’s first Black justices of the peace. After Reconstruction, Clark became arguably the most important Black Masonic leader in Arkansas. For more than a quarter of a century, he led the Arkansas Prince Hall Free and Accepted Masons, one of the oldest and most prestigious African American fraternal orders. He was also a major Masonic figure on the national stage. As a prosperous Lee County real estate owner, planter, and businessman during the post-Reconstruction era, for forty years, Clark reached statewide audiences through annual travels …

Clark, Wesley Kanne

Wesley Kanne Clark is an Arkansas resident whose distinguished military career propelled him into the international spotlight. His consulting business, high-profile television commentary, and political aspirations sustain his involvement with the nation’s political leaders and processes. He obtained the rank of a four-star general during his military career and acted as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Europe, from 1997 to 2000. During his first political race in 2004, he was a Democratic candidate for president of the United States. Although unsuccessful in that race, he ran an effective campaign and ultimately turned his support to John Kerry’s bid. Wesley Kanne was born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 23, 1944, the only child of Venetta and Benjamin Kanne. His father, …

Clark, William Allen

William Allen Clark was one of Arkansas’s “preacher-editors.” For nearly fifteen years, he occupied the editorial chair of one of Arkansas’s largest denominational newspapers, the old Arkansas Baptist, and was a pivotal figure in the Landmark Baptist movement within the state. W. A. Clark was born on May 24, 1844, near Rossville, Indiana, the son of wealthy farmer David C. Clark and his wife, Mary. In 1861, he entered Simonds Select School for Boys in Indianapolis, Indiana. During the Civil War, he served as a corporal in Company K, Seventy-Second Indiana Volunteer Mounted Infantry. In 1865, he moved to Kansas, where he married Jennie C. Jordan. They had three children. In May 1867, Clark was baptized into the Methodist Episcopal …

Clark, William H.

William “The Great John L.” Clark was a stuntman, wrestler, and actor. He appeared in Breaker, Breaker!, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and TV’s The Munsters. He was born and raised in Kentucky and made movies in California, but he lived in the Arkansas towns of Jonesboro (Craighead County) and Mountain Home (Baxter County) in the 1980s, becoming well known by schoolchildren for putting on shows with his pet mountain lion, Honey. William Clark was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, on March 26, 1925, to Curlin Henry Clark and Hattie Elizabeth Clark. He dropped out of school in the tenth grade to begin boxing training. In 1940, he won the Indianapolis Flyweight Championship. Clark still boxed while he served in …

Clarke, Albert Oscar (A. O.)

Albert Oscar (A. O.) Clarke was a self-educated teacher-turned-architect who worked as a draftsman under the leading architect of St. Louis, Missouri, of the 1880s, Jerome Bibb (J. B.) Legg. He later partnered with William Matthews to draw dozens of commissions in St. Louis in the 1890s. Clarke was then recruited for the employ of William “Coin” Harvey for his resort in Monte Ne (Benton County), where Clarke designed the two largest log buildings in the world at the time. He went on to design Classical Revival–style structures throughout northwest Arkansas, as well as in Clarksville (Johnson County). A. O. Clarke was born on May 23, 1859, to Edgar W. Clarke, who was a Presbyterian minister, and Martha A. (Northrop) …

Clarke, James Paul

James Paul Clarke, eighteenth governor of Arkansas and a United States senator, became an advocate of the silver monetization crusade associated with the William Jennings Bryan wing of the Democratic Party. He was also a defender of white supremacy as the key doctrine of his party. James Clarke was born in Yazoo County, Mississippi, on August 18, 1854, to Walter Clarke, an architect, and Ellen White, daughter of a prominent planter. After editing a paper in Yazoo City, Clarke received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1878. In 1879, Clarke moved to Arkansas, settling first at Ozark (Franklin County). Within a year he moved to Helena (Phillips County), where he began a successful law practice. Clarke married …

Claybrook, John C.

John C. Claybrook was a lumberman, farmer, baseball team owner, and one of the most successful African American businessmen of his time in the South. He built a town around his farming and logging operation in eastern Arkansas and eventually gained national attention for being among the first African Americans in the South since Reconstruction, if not the first, chosen to sit on a jury trying black men for the rape of a white woman. John Claybrook was born on June 11, 1872, in Florence, Alabama. His parents’ names and occupations are unknown. He ran away to Memphis when he was thirteen to find work, which he soon found as a laborer on riverboats. After renting and working some plantation …

Clayton, Alonzo “Lonnie”

Alonzo “Lonnie” Clayton reached stardom at age fifteen as the youngest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. An African American, Clayton went on to become one of the highest-salaried riders on the East Coast circuit during the 1890s. He lived in North Little Rock (Pulaski County), where his earnings enabled him to build a Queen Anne–style home that the Arkansas Gazette described as the “finest house on the North Side” in early 1895. Surviving as the historic Engelberger House at 2105 Maple Street, the property (named for Swiss immigrant Joseph Engelberger, who bought it in 1912) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Born in 1876 in Kansas City, Kansas, to Robert and Evaline Clayton, Lonnie …