Gender: Male - Starting with H

Holyfield, Wayland

Wayland Holyfield is a prolific country music writer and recording artist who wrote one of Arkansas’s official state songs, “Arkansas, You Run Deep in Me.” He is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame. Wayland D. Holyfield was born in Mallet Town (Conway County) on March 15, 1942. He attended grade school in Springfield (Conway County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County) and graduated from Hall High School in Little Rock in 1960—after attending high school in Mabelvale (Pulaski County) during the Lost Year of 1958–59 when Little Rock’s high schools were closed. He attended Hendrix College in Conway (Faulkner County) on a basketball scholarship and then the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville …

Hoofman, Clifton Howard (Cliff)

Clifton Howard (Cliff) Hoofman, who was reared by grandparents on tenant farms in White County, became a lawyer and politician and held constitutional offices in all three branches of state government. He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives for eight years, the Arkansas Senate for twenty years, four years as a state highway commissioner, and two years on the Arkansas Supreme Court; he also had two separate sojourns of two years each on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. As a close friend and ally of two governors, Bill Clinton and Mike Beebe, Hoofman was instrumental in passing much of the major legislation enacted during their combined twenty years in the governor’s office. Cliff Hoofman was born on June 23, …

Hooper, Philo Oliver

Philo Oliver Hooper has been called the father of Arkansas medicine. He was one of the founders of the Medical Department of Arkansas Industrial University, now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), a founder and the first president of the Arkansas State Medical Association, a founding board member and director of the Arkansas Lunatic Asylum, and vice president of the American Medical Association. P. O. Hooper was born on October 11, 1833, in Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Alanson Hooper and Magdaline Perry Hooper. After obtaining what education was available in the city at the time, he pursued his education at Nashville University in Nashville, Tennessee. Returning home to Little Rock, he found employment as the chief clerk …

Horner, Elijah Whitt

Elijah Whitt “Lige” Horner served in both World War I and World War II before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He was instrumental in the first use of Native American languages as military code, selecting the men who eventually became known as the Choctaw Code Talkers in France during World War I. Elijah Horner was born on May 19, 1893, near Mena (Polk County) to James Lafayette Horner, who was a farmer and real estate businessman, and Corah Elfleda Holman Horner. Horner was the youngest of the five children who lived to adulthood. His mother died when he was four years old, leaving him and his brother John to be raised by his older sisters—Mary Belle, Susan, and Oma. After …

Hotchkiss, Sylvester C.

Sylvester C. (S. C.) Hotchkiss was a northern architect turned Monticello (Drew County) resident who designed a number of houses and buildings in southern Arkansas. Hotchkiss’s relocation to Monticello distinguished the community from other small towns of the period for having a resident architect. Many of his structures are still standing in the twenty-first century, and two are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. S. C. Hotchkiss (whose middle name was likely Clifford) was born on January 29, 1842, in Homer, Michigan, to Sylvester Wolcott Hotchkiss and Mary Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss spent his childhood in Michigan and New York before the family moved to Chicago around 1854. He graduated in 1857 from Sloan Commercial College and began working with …

Houser, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte Houser was a prominent African American physician, owner of the Black Diamond Drug Store, and investor in Helena (Phillips County) from 1901 to 1920. He came to Helena from Charlotte, North Carolina, as the Arkansas Delta’s population and opportunities grew, but returned to the place of his birth following the Elaine Massacre. N. B. Houser was born near Gastonia, in Gaston County, North Carolina, on February 14, 1869. He was the son of William H. Houser, a well-to-do brick mason and contractor, and Fannie Houser, a housekeeper and mother. The youngest of six siblings, Houser attended public schools in Charlotte and worked as a farm hand on his father’s farm until the age of fourteen, when he began …

Housley v. State

On November 13, 1919, Virgil Housely was convicted of arson and sentenced to two years in an Arkansas prison for his alleged role in the March 29, 1919, attack on the African American settlement of Little Georgia (Garland County). Housley’s conviction was later overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court. On the evening of March 29, 1919, six or seven men gathered to attack the African American residents of Little Georgia, possibly in hopes of seizing valuable farmland. They swept through the town, firing guns, setting fire to homes with torches, and throwing dynamite. After the incident, most Black families fled Little Georgia, and it was not until the end of May that authorities were able to identify and arrest six …

Houston, Sam

Sam Houston was the governor of Tennessee, twice president of the Republic of Texas, and later senator and governor of the state of Texas. From May 1829 until November 1832, Houston lived in Arkansas Territory among the Cherokee. Sam Houston was born to Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton Houston on March 2, 1793, at Timber Ridge Plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Moving to Maryville, Tennessee, in 1807, Houston cleared land and clerked in a mercantile establishment. As he “preferred measuring deer tracks in the forest to tape and calico in a country store,” Houston went to live with John Jolly’s band of Cherokee and was given the name Colonneh (“Raven”). Subsequently, he taught school and volunteered in the War of …

Hovey, Charles Edward

Charles Edward Hovey was a major general in the Union army during the Civil War, serving as the Federal commander at the Action at Hill’s Plantation (a.k.a. Battle of Cotton Plant) and leading a brigade at the capture of Fort Hindman. While he served only briefly in Arkansas, Hovey was involved in these two major actions, which helped ultimately to secure the state for the Union. Born in Thetford, Vermont, on April 26, 1827, Hovey was the son of Alfred Hovey and Abigail Howard Hovey. One of eleven children, Hovey attended school until the age of fifteen, when he was hired as a teacher. After several years in the education field, Hovey worked as a lumberman before entering Dartmouth College in …

Howard County Reported Lynching of 1894

Brief accounts of lynchings sometimes appeared in newspapers across the country but were later corrected or contradicted by local newspapers. Such was the case with an unidentified African-American man who was supposedly lynched in Howard County in December 1894. In mid-December, several out-of-state newspapers—including Memphis’s Commercial Appeal, the Indianapolis Journal, the New York Sun, the New York Times, and the Raleigh News and Observer—reported that on Monday, December 10, a Black man had “outraged” a small white child (some reports say that she was only two years old) near Center Point (Howard County). He was allegedly chased away by two women but was caught and jailed. On the night of December 11 (some sources say December 12), a mob removed …

Howard, George, Jr.

George Howard Jr. was a trailblazing African-American attorney and judge in the second half of the twentieth century. After becoming one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas School of Law, he pursued a career dedicated to the expansion and guarantee of civil rights for all citizens. He became the first African American to be appointed to numerous Arkansas judicial posts, including the Supreme Court of Arkansas. He was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1994. George Howard Jr. was born on May 13, 1924, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) to George Howard and Sara Howard, who was a public school teacher. He received his early education in Pine Bluff but left home to serve …

Howard, Jesse (Lynching of)

On May 26, 1883, an African-American man named Jesse Howard was fatally shot in Marianna (Lee County) for allegedly setting fire to a livery stable. The Arkansas Gazette, in a brief report published on May 27, does not name Howard, but newspapers across the country reported on the incident, giving not only Howard’s name but additional details. Interestingly, a few of these additional reports mistakenly identified the lynching victim as Henry B. Derrick, who was, in fact, the owner of the livery stable. Jesse Howard had lived in Arkansas since at least 1870, when the census listed him as a farmer and a native of Virginia living in Phillips County with his wife, Susan. By 1880, he and Susan were …

Howard, John Miller

John Miller Howard was an African-American artist and arts educator who founded the Art Department and taught at Arkansas AM&N—now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB)—from 1939 until his death in 1980. At AM&N, he worked to provide a top-quality arts education to his students, many of whom came from rural backgrounds and lacked exposure to art. Howard was recognized as a gifted painter and teacher. His life and work form an important chapter in the history of art in Arkansas. John Miller Howard was born in Alcorn, Mississippi, on September 22, 1908, to Lillie Howard, a young single mother who nurtured his early talent for drawing. He grew up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, attending segregated schools. He graduated …

Howe, John David

John D. Howe was a career U.S. Air Force officer who helped establish vital supply and maintenance operations during World War II and the Korean War, ending his career as commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. John David Howe was born on July 24, 1906, in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), the son of Charles D. Howe and Lucy Rowland Howe. The family moved to Hot Springs (Garland County) by 1910 and to Conway (Faulkner County) by 1920, where John studied at Arkansas State Teachers College, now the University of Central Arkansas. Howe enlisted in the 153rd Infantry Regiment of the Arkansas National Guard when he was seventeen, leaving two years later to pursue aviation. By 1929, he was …

Howell, James (Jim) Lee

James (Jim) Lee Howell was a professional football player and coach. As head coach of the New York Giants in the National Football League (NFL) from 1954 to 1960, he led the team to appearances in three NFL championship games and won the NFL title in 1956. He retired with a career record of 55–29–4. His career winning percentage is the best in Giants history for head coaches with fifty or more games and is among the best in NFL history. According to All-Pro defensive tackle Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier, Howell was “one of the greatest coaches to ever coach in the NFL.” Jim Lee Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County) on September 27, 1914, the third of four siblings. His …

Howell, Max

William Max Howell was a politician who served in the Arkansas legislature longer than anyone in history, accumulating power that rivaled that of the nine governors with whom he served. In forty-six years in the legislature, forty-two of which were in the Senate, Howell sponsored more than 700 bills, altering the course of higher education and the judicial system and sharply expanding the state’s services for the disabled and mentally ill. Max Howell was born in Lonoke (Lonoke County) on December 22, 1915, the third of five children. His father, Flavius Josephus Howell, operated a rural telephone company but later operated a rice farm. When Howell was about five, the family moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), where his father …

Howlin’ Wolf

aka: Chester Arthur Burnett
Chester Arthur Burnett, known as Howlin’ Wolf or Howling Wolf, was one of the most influential musicians of the post–World War II era. His electric blues guitar, backing his powerful, howling voice, helped shape rock and roll. Chester Burnett was born on June 10, 1910, in White Station, Mississippi, four miles northeast of West Point, Mississippi, to Leon “Dock” Burnett, a sharecropper, and Gertrude Jones. His parents separated when he was one year old; his father moved to the Mississippi Delta to farm, and he and his mother moved to Monroe County, Mississippi, where she became an eccentric religious singer who performed and sold self-penned spirituals on the street. Burnett got the nickname “Wolf” because his grandfather would scare the youngster by telling …