Mr. J. C. Yancey is a native of Vir
ginia. He came to Crittenden County,
Arkansas, in 1874? where he was ad
mitted to practice law before the Critten
den County bar. He remained alone for
ten months, when he formed a law part
nership with Colonel Robt. H. Crockett,
with whom he remained two years. He
then removed to Batesville, his present
home. He practiced law alone for four
years and then formed a partnership
with Hannibal Coleman, with whom he
remained ten years, at which time he
made Judge Fulkerson, the present judge
of this judicial district, his partner until
the judge was elected to his present of
fice. Upon the election of Judge Fulker
Colonel J. C. Yancey.
v
son to his present position, Mr. Yancey
formed a partnership with Lyman F.
Reeder and Samuel Casey. Mr. Reeder
soon withdrew from the firm and the
style of the firm is now Yancey & Casey.
Mr. Yancey, was a member of the
Arkansas Hotfee of Representatives in
1885 and mayor of the city of Batesville
for the years of 1894-1895. He was the
organizer of the Batesville Telephone
Company, one of the pioneer telephone
companies of north Arkansas, and of
_ which he was president for ten years,
afterwards selling to the Bell Telephone
Company, the present owners. He or
ganized and put on foot the Keystone
Manganese Mining Company. This com
pany has mined and shipped several
thousand tons of ore. He was the presi
dent of the White River Improvement
Association, which was largely instru
mental in getting the appropriation for
the -building - of the locks and dams on
White River. He organized the Arkan
sas Phosphate Company. This company
not only shipped several thousand tons
of phosphate, but it was largely through
its influence that the president of the
Gould system was brought to see the
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branch of railroad, which is now m
course of construction. In fact, Mr.
Yancey, as a compliment to his efforts
in the matter, was given the honor of
driving the first spike on this new road.
He is at the present time president of
the Batesville Business Men’s League.
Mr. Yancey owns a beautiful farm of
i,800 acres, located in Oil I rough bot
tom, about ten miles from Newport. This
large plantation is divided into two
parts. One is known as Dunnington, in
honor of Mr. Yancey’s wife, who was a
Miss Dunnington ; the other, the Meadow
Lake farm. Dunnington has 12 farm
houses, one store house, a large gin, a
large warehouse, a grist mill and black
smith ‘ shop. Meadow Lake farm has
nine dwellings, three large hay sheds,
blacksmith shop, ice house in which 50
tons of ice was stored this winter at a
cost of 75 cents per ton, one of the larg
est stock barns in the state and a large
and very uniquely arranged hog house
which was built after Mr. Yancey’s own
design.
Last year Mr. Yancey cultivated 1,000
acres of cotton, which yielded him an
average of three-fourths of a bale to the
acre. His land will grow any of the
grains, alfalfa and all the cereals. He
has made as high as five cuttings of al
falfa, making as much as six tons per
acre in a season. His corn yield has
reached 80 bushels to the acre; wheat
40, and oats 100 bushels. He raises all
kinds of vegetables and could raise all
I'"" ' - • I II Ml ~ ■ ■
1— Poland China Herd.
2— Dunnington Store.
kinds of fruit grown in this climate if
it was not for the fact that the land if
too valuable to devote to that purpose.
Mr. Yancey is making a specialty of
registered cattle and fine hogs. His fa
vorite cattle are the Hereford, of which
he has a fine herd of 65. I he bull Or
pheus, No. 71100, which has many times
taken the premium, heads the herd. The
bull Andrew, No. 165484, calved April
5, 1903, one of the finest animals .in the
country, also belongs to this herd.
Mr. Yancey makes a specialty of Po
land-China hogs, of which he has a herd
of 400. The herd boar is a second cousin
to the hog that took the $3,000 premium
at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Mr. Yan
cey is among the first breeders of fine
stock in the state and one of the greatest
compliments you can pay him is to say
of him that he is one of the worst ene
mies of the Arkansas razor-back.
Mr. Yancey carries an $8,000 stock of
general merchandise in his store house,
principally to supply the needs of the
people on his place. He is ably assisted
in the management of this large farm
business by his son, Dunnington, and
Mr. Martin Lacey, his bookkeeper.
Loading Cotton at Cook’s Landing.
3— Orpheus, No. 71,100—Head of Hereford Herd.
4— Alfalfa Field on Meadow Lake Farm.
C0L0N^L#V#V#O)0K’S OIL |
TROUGH PLANTATION i
Colonel V. Y. Cook’s Oil Trough plan
tation is situated in Independence Coun
ty, on upper White River, eight miles
above and due west of Newport, in the
famous Oil Trough valley, and consti
tuted of about 3,500 acres in cultivation
and is rented almost exclusively to a
white tenantry, who pay an annual
money stipend per acre. The tenants oc
cupying this plantation are of an indus
trious and frugal class, with ample apti
tude and ability to attain success in
farming, as is demonstrated by their an
nual harvest, some of whom have been
on this plantation with Colonel Cook
for more than 20 years.
Perhaps no other plantation in this
region is conducted with that degree of
system and discipline as that distinguish
ing the administration of this estate.
Here everything is thoroughly system
ized and nothing is done at random, and
the auditing of annual results has al
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5—Fancy Herefords—Meadow
Lake irv the Distance.
ways placed a balance on the credit side
of accounts.
This plantation is connected with
Newport and the long distance telephone
by a private wire over the Farmers’ line.
It would be a mistake to suppose that
in a brief descriptive article there could
be conveyed a proper conception of, or
justice done to the ground upon which
the Oil Trough region takes rank as the
finest body of farm lands in the state.
It is the most remarkable agricultural
arena in all the Southwest, and based
upon constituted elements of an unin
terrupted maximum yield of cotton,
corn, wheat, oats, timothy, alfalfa, pota
toes and all garden vegetables, it is en
tirely without a type. It averages higher
in those products than any other body of
land in the United States.
John Page, a tenant on this plantation,
mowed his alfalfa five times last year,
averaging more than a ton per acre at
each cutting, and 85 bushels of corn per
acre (weighed) have been grown here.
Another tenant averaged 2,200 pounds
of seed cotton per acre on his entire
cotton crop.
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Cotton Gin of V. V. Cook.