Soloman COZART

Aug 20, 1814 - Nov 20, 1876
*kennethedmondson originally shared this Priest--Cozart Family Story
This family record was prepared by Mable Priest Calloway in July 1962 from data furnished by her father, Alphis Howell Priest, who obtained much of the information from his parents before they died. Many of the dates were obtained from Sixteenth Section Cemetery. Some of the names recorded here were secured from various cousins of Alphis Howell Priest. This story was most graciously furnished by Mary Jo Ashmore.

PRIEST-COZART FAMILY HISTORY

My ancestors who came to Arkansas before the Civil War were true pioneers in every sense of the word.

My great grandparents, Solomon and Leathey Cozart (of Pennsylvania Dutch stock) came to Arkansas from Carroll County Tennessee (near Huntington and McKenzie, Tennessee, (about 130 miles northwest of Memphis) before the Civil War. They started out in the winter with all their belongings, stock, implements and supplies, in covered wagons and a chuck wagon. It was a severe winter and my grandmother used to tell about great grandfather Solomon’s head freezing to the tent one night. They had with them their thirteen children and four slaves -- two girls, Riney and Viney; and two boys, Mose and another whose name is not remembered.
The family left Tennessee on their way to Merkel, Texas but stopped over to visit a cousin by the name of Rufe Horn at Old Austin (just east of the present site of Austin, Arkansas), who had preceded them here from Tennessee. The Horn family persuaded them to stay here. They rode around over the country and liked what they saw so they decided to settle here in Lonoke County instead of proceeding to Texas. They homesteaded land about seven miles west of Ward, Arkansas on the Springfield Road which ran from Springfield, Missouri to Des Arc, Arkansas. Here they built a double log house (2 Stories) of hewed logs, on the left side of the road going west. They also built a slave house. Wild game was plentiful -- wild turkey and deer went in droves. There were also many wild animals such as bears, wolves and panthers.
Their life was not easy. Besides raising practically everything they ate, they had to provide their clothing also. They raised the sheep, then sheared them, carded the wool, spun the thread and wove the cloth to make their clothing.
They suffered many hardships during the Civil War. Only the two youngest boys, Wiley and Shird, and the girls were at home -- the older boys serving on the Confederate side in the conflict. The Union soldiers came through and killed and burned all their stock (hogs, sheep, chickens, geese), and burned the gin. The only thing in the way of food they had left was some wheat; when a Federal Captain stopped the soldiers in their pillaging and burning. Sophia and Fannie (two of the girls) drove the horses into the woods and kept them there until the soldiers had gone. For the rest of her life my grandmother (Sophia) had a aversion to anything “Federal”. The very word itself was abhorrent to her.
Great grandfather Solomon Cozart was good to his slaves and they stayed on with him for sometime after the Civil War. In 1911 my father, Alphis Howell Priest, visited the former slave, Riney Hart, who had married and was living in Cabot, Arkansas at that time.
The oldest grave in the Sixteenth Section Cemetery near Ward, Arkansas is that of a little colored boy, the son of one of Solomon Cozart’s Slaves

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My great grandparents, John Anderson Priest and his second wife, Martha Frances Jackson Priest, came to Arkansas in 1869 from Clover Port, Tennessee (located on the Hatchie River about twenty miles from Jackson, Tennessee and about seventy miles northeast of Memphis). He bought a homestead claim from B. Howell Cozart in Lonoke County (Magness Township).
John Anderson Priest was born in 1798 and reared in middle Tennessee. He was known as Captain Priest, and was a captain in the Civil War or a captain in the Home Guard. He married a Gamble the first time and they had ten children. They moved to west Tennessee and owned land in Hardeman County (Boliver, County seat).
His second wife, Martha Frances Jackson was born and reared in Virginia. They had six children -- all the boys by this marriage were two young to serve in the Civil War.
We know at least one of his children by the first marriage came with John Anderson Priest to Arkansas and there may have been more than the one.
John Anderson Priest operated a mercantile business in partnership with a relative by the name of Pirtle. This business was located at Clover Port, Tennessee and was known as “Priest & Pirtle”. One of their old account books at the Clover Port store with earliest dated August 1, 1851 is now in the possession of William Preston Decker, great, great, grandson of John Anderson Priest.
A jeweler in Conway, Arkansas has a old clock with wooden works that belonged to my great grandfather, John Anderson Priest. After the death of John Anderson Priest and Martha Priest, their oldest son, Gus, sold the clock to the Jeweler for $5.00. All efforts down through the years to buy the clock back from the jeweler have failed. He won’t sell it.

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All of these grandparents and great grandparents lived out the rest of their lives in Lonoke County in the vicinity of Ward, Arkansas. All of them and many of their descendents are buried at the Sixteenth Section Cemetery which is located in Lonoke County on the Springfield Road about eleven miles west of Ward, Arkansas.
The graves of John Anderson and Martha Priest are marked only by blank stones and the exact location is now unknown. The first funeral my father attended was that of his grandmother, Martha Priest, when he was six years old (in 1886). The graves of the others have tombstones with proper dates.
My father, Alphis Howell Priest (named for his uncle, Howell Cozart), was born in a log house on top of a hill on the old Lewisburg Road which ran from Lewisburg , Arkansas to Des Arc, Arkansas, on March 1, 1880. The Batesville Road and Lewisburg Road form a fork about three miles west of Ward, and this hill is on the left side of the road going west, and about nine miles from Ward. The site of his birthplace commands a beautiful view of the valley below. Most of the hill is now dense with timber but there is still a clearing where they cleared the land and planted their crops. When my father was about five or six years old (in 1885 or 1886) he watched my grandfather, Alphis Jerome Priest, plant a tiny cedar tree in the northwest part of the front yard and this tree lived for about seventy-four years. It died about 1959 and the dead tree is still standing -- the only thing to mark the location of the old house.
This birthplace of my father was the second house my grandfather built. In 1890 he built a third house at the foot of the hill -- at the end of a lane which connects the Batesville and Lewisburg Roads. Across the road from the house, south, he had a general store and blacksmith shop. This house and store are among my earliest recollections -- particularly the grandfather clock that stood in the hall. Down the lane from this house my uncle, Will Solomon priest, lived. We always like to visit “Uncle Willie” because he raised watermelons.
My grandfather Priest played the “fiddle” and used to play for square dances but my grandmother didn’t approve.
The first school my father attended was in the summer of 1886. It was a log house with a dirt floor with seats made of logs with 2 x 12 planks laid across them. If one wanted to write there was a long desk in the shed attached to the side of the house where he could go to write. This school was located on the Springfield Road about five miles west of Ward on the left going west. By the next year a new school had been built about a quarter mile further west. My father left the farm in 1901 and came to North Little Rock (then Argenta) and went to work for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. He later transferred to the Rock Island Railroad and retired from the Rock Island in 1940. He is well known in Masonic circles and until some years ago he was very active and took part in many of the degrees. He became a Master Mason in 1917 and served as Worshipful Master of Western Star Lodge No. 2, F. & A. M. (the oldest Masonic Lodge in the State of Arkansas) in 1924. In 1920 he took the Arkansas Consistory, Scottish Rite, and for about thirty years or more he participated in many of the Consistory degrees. In 1929 the Supreme Council of the Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry honored him by making him a Knight Commander of the Court of Honor (KCCH). This is an honorary degree conferred on 32 Degree Mason in recognition of outstanding services rendered in all phases of Masonic work. Prior to his advanced age he was much in demand for conducting Masonic graveside services. He has conducted more Masonic funeral services, as well as conferred more Blue Lodge degrees than any other man in the State of Arkansas.

Contributed on 2/6/14 by hawkinsdonna
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Record #: 980336

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