John Pascal Williams
1855 - 1886
John Pascal Williams was born in the town of Alamo, Crockett County Tennessee July 20, 1855. He was the son of Dreury Brent Williams and Martha (Taylor) Williams. His siblings were Sallie, Molly, Jim, and Etta. John Pascal married Frances Dianne Babb when the two of them were about 18 years old. Their first child, Robert S. Williams was born when they were about 20. Their children were Robert Sylvester, twins Lillie and Rosalee, born in Tennessee, and Newton and Marvin born in Arkansas. John Pascal farmed on 27 acres of land in Crockett County, Tennessee which belonged to his father and mother. His mother had been given the land by her father Isaac P. Taylor on Sept. 19, 1868. John Pascal's grandfather, Mr. Isaac Taylor was a merchant and a farmer who had immigrated to Tennessee in the 1840's from North Carolina.
John Pascal moved his family to Arkansas in January 1880. John, his wife Frances, his son Robert S. aged 5, and twin daughters aged 3, traveled by train from Tennessee to North Little Rock, known then as Argenta. There were no bridges across the Arkansas River at the time and they arrived too late to catch the local ferry to Little Rock. Frances did not trust a local boatman to take them across the river in the dark. She feared the family might be robbed. They spent the night by a pot-bellied stove in the railroad depot in Argenta. At daylight they crossed on the ferry and booked passage on a steamboat going upriver to Dardanelle. John and Frances had relatives in Dardanelle who met them when the boat arrived there.
John P. Williams bought 40 acres of farm land from William H. Cook about one and a half miles N. W. of Rocky Crossing on the Petit Jean River, in Yell County Arkansas. The deed was conveyed September 28, 1880. From documentary evidence it appears that John Pascal's parents were already in Arkansas when he and his family arrived there. John farmed the land through five seasons. In June, 1886, he suffered a cut while working on the farm. The cut became severely infected and he died leaving behind his wife and five children. He was 31 years old. His oldest child Robert S. Williams was only 11 years old. John P. Williams is buried at Shepard Cemetery near Mt. George and within sight of Mt. Nebo in Yell County Arkansas. His grave and that of his wife, Frances Dianne Babb, are marked by a home-made tombstone of red sandstone. The marker was made and erected about 1922 by R. S. Williams and his sons. The inscriptions were still readable in 1979, but had weathered considerably.
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Family Index Published 1994