Henry FROWNFELTER

13 May 1820 - 6 Mar 1888
Born in Harrisburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania and died in Arkansas County, Arkansas
From Pages 52-53, Ancestral Lines of Bennie Frownfelter Burkett - Tracing Each Immigrant With Documentation To The Present Generation and Listing The Qualified Hereditary Societies - By Bennie Frownfelter Burkett - Stuttgart, Arkansas 2001
Henry Frownfelter was born 13 May 1820 in Harrisburg PA and his birth record is at the Zion Lutheran Church in Harrisburg. Today this is a well established church and its history states that it was the first church built in Harrisburg. He was always shown as a brick mason and Bennie Frownfelter Burkett still has his masonry trowel which he brought to Arkansas. Henry's grandson, my father, Edward Benjamin Frownfelter, said that as a child he and his siblings often played with the tools that Henry brought with him when he moved to Arkansas County AR in 1883. Henry married Jane Hall in Lafayette Indiana on 18 May 1845. Soon after Henry's mother Hester died in late 1869 he and Jane sold all their property in Lafayette and moved to Hickory county Missouri where he bought land near the village of Quincy. Just why he chose this spot is not known, but we think he soon realized he had made a mistake and sold that land and in 1883 moved about 17 miles southeast of Stuttgart on the tall-grass Grand Prairie. It is hard to imagine why he chose either the Missouri or Arkansas sites as possible homes since neither place had any potential for a brick mason! To this very day there are few brick homes there and since his ancestors had only been brick masons and carpenters, we would guess that he knew absolutely nothing about farming. And on either of these sites, farming was the only possible thing he could do to make a living. Perhaps, at least in Arkansas County, he was lured by the fact that he could get free land. He and his grown sons each homesteaded 160 acres of prairie land. The only problem there was it was sodded with heavily
rooted prairie grass and they then had no equipment sturdy enough to "turn the sod"! Today in 2001 this 640-acre farm is one of the finest farms on the Grand Prairie~but this only came about much later after the Frownfelters had lost all their money. It was only when heavy machinery and rice was introduced that the sod was finally "broken" and deep wells were drilled so that water could be pumped to irrigate the rice. Only then was this section of land valuable. We know for sure that this Henry Frownfelter, who appeared to be constantly searching "for greener pastures" was destined not to move or search for another place. He died on his homestead in Section 19 in the Turley community on 6 March 1888, less than five years after coming here and 18 months before his and Jane's homestead had been proven. He was buried in the little community cemetery, called Coffield cemetery, and today his great great grandson, Jerry Burkett, has the responsibility of seeing that perpetual care is provided for him and his descendants buried there beside him. This was the beginning of the end for all the Frownfelters who moved here as far a their staying on the prairie. Henry's widow and two of their grown children, Hester and James (Jim) all moved to Perkins Oklahoma-no doubt hearing about the "land grab" that was soon to come up there. Jane died there. My sister and I did research there and found this notice in the August 5 1898 issue of the local paper, "Mrs. Frownfelter, age 76 years, mother of James Frownfelter, died yesterday." We found her grave and that of her son Jim and her daughter, Hester, in a well-kept old cemetery at the edge of this little village. (It still is only a small town.) Their son John had just lost his wife, Malinda Jane and one infant twin. John moved to Illinois, his mother Jane took the surviving twin with her to Oklahoma. Another son, William died and then their other son, George Howard Frownfelter (my father's father) died as a result of an injury in a hay field and all that was left here was the widow of George Howard Frownfelter, Amanda King, whom George had married while they lived in Quincy Missouri. She was left with four sons and one daughter, the youngest, Edward Benjamin, was only 17 months old. Henry and Jane Hall Frownfelter had six children: Hester Ellen; Josephine (died young); GEORGE HOWARD; John Townsend; William H;James A..
Child William H Frownfelter (1885 - 1898)

Photo Provided By Yvonne Vrouwenvelder Edeker

Contributed on 11/4/11 by tootied
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