Abraham Villines

(1) Descendants of Abraham Villines, genealogy website:

http://myfamhist.homeip.net/casey/villines1/aqwg01.htm#tp

(2) Source:

OLD FOLKS TALKING, Historical Sketches of Boxley Valley on Buffalo River, A Place of Special Value in the Ozarks of Arkansas, by Jim Liles

The Villines brothers (one of which was Abraham) had determined that their ancestors were French Huguenots, who excaped France about 1677-1700, seeking freedom from severe religious persecution. The huguenots (Frence protestant Calvinists) were subjected to one of the cruelest persecutions in the bloody history of religious intolerance. Although Hueguenots were forbidden to emigrate, many succeeded in escaping to England and its colonies in America. There is also evidence that French emigrants with the Villines name entered Canada and became citizens of Quebec, from which province they may have moved south and settled into the colonies of southeastern America.

French refugees at Manican Town, Virginia in 1701 included one "Jean deVillain, a single man". From the Vestry Book of Upper Parish, Nansemond County, Virginia 1743-1793.

Merle Villines obtained documentation on property processioning from "Abraham Veline" to "Hezekiah Veline" and concluded they were grandfather and father of the Abraham Villines (born about 1777 in Virginia) who eventually led his extended family to the Ozarks of north Arkansas.

Further research indicated that about 1800, Abraham Villines moved from Virginia to Caswell (now Pearson County) in central North Carolina where he married Nancy McKissik. Census and deed records indicate that by 1823, Abraham had fathered six children (all borne by Nancy; after she died Abraham supposedly married her sister, Martha McKissik) and had acquired much land, as well as slaves to do the farm labor. research suggest that economic set-backs and opportunity in the west compelled and combined Villines families to move by 1830. Census records track those families' westward migration over the decade of the 1830s, living briefly in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and about four years in Missouri before reaching northern Arkansas by 1839.

Abraham Villines arrived in Big Buffalo River Valley, together with second wife, Martha, accompanied by two single sons and a married son and daughter, each with families -- an emigrant party of thirteen adults and children (a fourth son and family arrived a few years later, from Texas; a fifth son, William, remained in Tennessee).

The various Villines families proceeded to scatter and settle from the Big Buffalo Valley downriver for several miles. Oral history tells us that the elder Villines, Abraham and Martha, with youngest son Copeland, chose a site below the tallest bluff on the river to make their home, about five miles downriver from the Ponca end of Big Buffalo Valley. One can imagine Abraham proclaiming to his grown offspring that there was land enough for all, and admonishing them to give him plenty of "elbow room".