Burnes

While not a famous family, the Burnes family has been active in affairs in Marion County for 125 years. They have ever been Republican in politics, and have been active participants in party affairs.

B. F. Burnes, Sr., Howell Burnes, and Lester Burnes each served several years as County Chairman of the Republican Party, and they also have been Republican State Committeemen.

The Burnes family is of Scotch-Irish descent. The earliest ancestor we have record of is Charles Frederick Burnes, who was born about 1750. He was living in Pennsylvania and supposedly died there. He served in the Revolutionary War, and married a Miss Hardy. Their known children were: Phildera, Alfred, Calvin, Silvanius, Tillman, Samuel, James and Thomas.

Phildera married Silas Cowan (see Cowan family).

Alfred married Mary _______. They came to Marion County in 1837 with Silas and Phildera Cowan. Alfred took an active part in the Tutt and Everett feud and apparently left the area soon after. The last record we have of him was the 1850 census, when he was living in the county with his wife Mary and seven children. S. C. Turnbo, Volume 19 of his unpublished manuscripts, gave this account: "Alf Burnes killed Doc Treat who weighed 250 lbs." In W. B. Flippin's account of the "Tutt and Everett feud" is this account of Alfred: "One of the Tutt party named Alfred Burnes, caught up a weeding hoe, ran up behind Sim Everett and struck him a powerful blow on the back of the head, which felled him. Burnes thinking him dead made a hasty retreat". All of this leads us to beleive that Alfred must have been a very hot-tempered man.

We have no record of Calvin, Silvanus or Tillman Burnes.

Samuel had come into the county by 1841, and he appeared on the tax rolls 1841 through 1847. He took the Tutt side in the feud. If he ever married, we have no record of it. Family tradition says he went to California during the Gold Rush, and it was thought he was killed there in an earthquake, as the family never heard from him again.

James, born in 1820, probably came into Marion County in the 1840's. He was married at least twice. He had children by his first wife, a Miss Jones, but we have no record of them. In 1887 he married, here in Marion County, a widow, Arminta Wood Bench. She had a daughter, Pearl Bench. They had children, Rachel (Goodall), Maggie (Dunlap), and Covey Burnes. Pearl and Covey are yet living in England, Arkansas.

Thomas, born in 1807, was married in Tennessee to Elizabeth Burnes, daughter of James Burnes and Barbara Holtzclaw Burnes. They came to Arkansas with their family in 1852, homesteading on Water Creek near the cemetery that bears their name. Elizabeth died sometime after 1866 and is buried in Burnes Cemetery in an unmarked grave. Thomas and Elizabeth's children were: Calvin, James, Ransom, Charlotte, Julia Ann, Sarah, Susan, Elizabeth, Rboda and William. All of the sons except William served in the Union Army. He was too young. Two sons are buried in Military Cemetery in Springfield, Missouri.

Calvin, a Civil War veteran, married three times and had twenty-two children. He first married Elizabeth Mears, then Rosie Kyles, and then Tabitha Stevens. We have no record of his family. He became a country doctor and practiced medicine in North Arkansas. We have no record of James Burnes.

Ransom married Sarah Cowan, grand-daughter of Phildera Burnes Cowan, but we have no further record of him.

Charlotte married Matt Goodall. They are ancestors of most of the Goodalls in the county now. We do not have their family record. Julia Ann married John Smith and reared a family with numerous descendants in Marion County today. Sarah married Jim Evans and they had one child, Rachel Evans Mears. She married George Mears. Mrs. Della Horn of Yellville is the only descendant living in Marion County now. Susan married Samuel Glenn, brother to William Burnes' wife. She died young and is buried in the Burnes Cemetery. Elizabeth married John Lewis but we have no further record. Rhoda married a Mr. Younger but we have no further record.

William, son of Thomas and Elizabeth, was born in 1846, died in 1935, and is buried in the Bruno Cemetery. He married Mary Catherine Glenn and they had one child, Benjamin F. (Frank). He died in 1941 and is buried at Bruno. He married Samantha Jane Angel. They had fifteen children, fourteen of them grew to be married but only seven survive. These children are: Myrtle who married John Q. Adams; Theodore who married Virginia Matlock; Bernice who married L. E. Briggs; Gertrude who married P. V. Blankenship; Howell who married Nelle Adams; Orpheus who died unmarried at 22; Consuelo who married Homer Blankenship; Lena who married L. E. Emery, Jr.; Tyrian who married Hamlin Brown; Lester who married Marian Setzler; Everett who married Ernily Gilbert; Norma who married Roy C. Keeling; Frank who married Lela Thompson; Fred who married Ida Helen Vise; and Buell who married Vera Gibson, then Hattie Pearl Martin.

Howell, Lena, Tyrian, Lester and Frank live in Yellville and have spent their lives in Marion County. Everett lives in Harrison, Fred lives in Clarksville and Buell lives in Morrilton.

After Thomas (born 1807) Burnes' first wife Elizabeth died, he married a widow, Matilda Grinder. At the time of their marriage, she had two children. They had two children: Charles Frederick Augustus and Jeanetta. Charles lived his life on the farm his father had homesteaded on Water Creek. He married Elba Rooker. They are both buried in the Burnes Cemetery and were the parents of Willard., Millard, Edna, Roy, Eldridge, Ivon and Gladys.

Willard married Zula Woods; Millard married Tiny Camp, and then later ______ Camp; Edna married Oscar Gray; Roy married Dora Johnson; Eldridge married Dorothy Rice; Ivon married Clyde Adams; Gladys married a Blocker. Ivon is the only child of Charles yet living in the county, but Eldridge's widow lives here.

After Thomas' second wife died, he married Jane Goard, who survived him, as his will, probated in 1892, named her as his "beloved wife Jane."

Jeanetta, daughter of Thomas and Matilda Grinder Burnes, married Ran Coker of Yellville. They were the parents of two sons and three daughters: Lorenza, Oscar, Della (Mrs. Perry Jenkins), Helen and Hester.