Biography of Wm. A. H. & Martha P. (Moore) Yarnell
Source: The Arkansas Gazette, Little Rock, Arkansas, 30 April 1939.

Martha Phoebe Moore was a descendant of Mordecai Moore who came to Md. with Lord Baltimore as his physician. She was also descended from Thomas Lloyd of Dolobron, Montgomeryshire, Wales. Lloyd was a Quaker and came to Pennsylvania in 1683, serving as governor of the colony in the absence of William Penn. Samuel Preston, the first mayor of Philadelphia., was another ancestor of Martha Phoebe Moore. She was the fifth child of Henry Morris Moore & Phoebe Yoemans Dartt, and was born June 24, 1843, in Tioga Co., Pa.

Coming to Arkansas at age three, Martha P. Moore spent her childhood with her grandparents, Mordecai & Margaret Moore, near Little Rock. After their deaths, she went to Searcy to live with her aunt, Mrs. Stephen Carlisle. Martha Moore's uncle, Israel Merrick Moore had in 1848 acquired the townsite and Sulphur Springs at Searcy. A dispute concerning the title of the land required an act of the legislature and a decision of the Supreme Court of the U.S. to settle. Thus Searcy is the only town in Arkansas to which title of land has been adjudicated by the highest tribunal.

In Searcy, Martha Moore met and later married William Andrew Harrison Yarnell on July 9, 1861. She spent her married life in Searcy.

William Andrew Harrison Yarnell was born Dec. 22, 1834, in Haywood Co., Tenn. He was the son of James Yarnell, who was born Dec. 4, 1804, in Wilson Co., Tenn., and his wife, Nancy Rainbolt of Madison Co., Alabama, who was born Nov. 8, 1807. William attended college in Dresden, Tennessee, and taught school in Searcy in 1860.

Ten months after his marriage, Yarnell joined the Southern forces in the War Between the States and was at the Battle of Helena, when the Confederates camped at La Grange. His company was mustered out in Texas in the spring of 1865. Because of trouble with bushwhackers and conditions of the time, he could not get home or get a letter through to his family. He rented land and made a crop, selling it in the field. Later, he walked all the way home, although he met a friend in Little Rock who offered him a ride to Searcy in his buggy. Yarnell said he could get there sooner by walking and he did. His wife had mourned him as dead for a year. One night while Mrs. Yarnell was at church, her husband came home to his family and there he remained until his death.

Mr. & Mrs. Yarnell were devout members of the Methodist church and raised their nine children in an affectionate and deeply religious home life. It was a habit of Mr. Yarnell's to call his children about him in the evenings to read to them from the Bible and have family prayers.

Children: William Carlisle; Charles Wesley, who married J.B.Butts; Allie, who married Alexander Fitzhugh; James Henry, who died at the age of 20; John S., who married Margaret Atwood Smith; Sadie, who married W.C.Bedford; Nell; and Otis Aaron, who d. at age 16.

After returning from the war, Yarnell bought a dry goods and grocery store. In 1867, he was joined by his three brothers, who moved to Searcy from TN. His brother, Albert Wesley Yarnell, bought half interest in the store, which was known as Yarnell Bros. In 1872 there was much agitation for a railroad to connect to the Cairo & Fulton Railroad. W. A. Yarnell was a charter member of the business group that sponsored the Searcy Branch RR Co. from the town and continued to run it for a number of years.

Yarnell was always interested in education and in 1875, he was one of a group in Searcy to file articles of incorporation on the Searcy Male & Female High School of the Methodist Church, South.

Yarnell died August 27, 1895. His wife died in July, 1915. Surviving children are Mrs. Butts of Helena, Mrs. Fitzhugh of Augusta, and Mrs. Bedford of Desdemona, Tex. There are nine grandchildren and eighteen great grandchildren living.