Jesse Lyles

Jesse W. Lyles moved his family from Tennessee to Arkansas shortly after the birth of Richard Calvin in 1858. The family was located in Marion County Arkansas in the 1860 census. Richard Woolard, Jesse's father-in-law, and his wife Teletha accompanied them on the trip. In the 1880 census, Richard Wollard was listed as 74 and Teletha was 68. Jess Walker, Teletha's son by a previous marraige, and his family were also located in Marion County. Six year old Mary Rebecca Lyles gave the following account of the journey to her great grandchildren:

"We put all our belo9ngings in a two-wheeled cart, hooked two steers to it, and set out. While on the way, one of the oxen died. Jesse Liles had no money to buy another steer, so he rigged the cart to where one steer could pull the cart with Jessse walking by its side, holding up one side of the wagon-tongue.

One day while going down a steep rocky hill, Mary Rebecca was trotting along beside her father at the wagon tongue. She stubbed her toe and fell in front of a cart-wheel. Her father dropped the wagon-tongue and snatched her out of the path of the wheel and saved her life.

They camped in a certain place on their journey toward Arkansaas. There were Indians in that part of the cuntry. A man was killing hogs, and gave one of the Indians a hog's head. The Indian buried the hog's head in a bed of live embers in the ground and covered it with ashes and live coals and left it there to slow-cook. The next morning, after the heat had gone out of the embers, an old mother sow with her litter of pigs came along and caught the scent of the meat. She rooted up the hog's head, and she and the pigs stripped the head bare of the meat and went on. Later, the Indian came to get the cooked hog's head, and he quickly figured out what had happened. He proceeded to track down the old sow and her pigs and he killed them all."

Grant Lyles and his younger brother, Sherman, took an old boat out onto Norfolk Lake and the boat sank. Sherman managed to swim to shore and ran to his house to get help. The family ran to the lake but couldn't spot Grant. Neighbors came to their aid and searched the lake with grappling hooks. Grant's body was recovered the following day. When the body was recovered, Jesse fainted and almost fell out of his boat. Rebecca remembers her curly haired brother lying dead on the shore, all pale, with ringlets of curly hair all over his head. He had been bitten by a water moccasin, which may account for his drowning.

Jesse Lyles served in the Union Army during the Civil War.