Biography
Drew was born in Wilson County, Tennessee, and moved with his family to north Louisiana and then to southern Arkansas in 1818. He worked as a traveling salesman and schoolteacher. Drew settled in Clark County in southern Arkansas.
In 1823, Drew was appointed Clark County Clerk. In 1827, he moved to Pocohontas, Arkansas, where he married Cinderella Bettis, daughter of the properous founder of that town, Ransom Bettis. His father-in-law gave the newlyweds 800 acres (3.2 km2) of bottomland in Cherokee Bay near the town of Biggers in what is now Randolph County, then Lawrence County. The Drews prospered, having a plantation and twenty African American slaves.
In 1832, Drew was elected judge of Lawrence County. In 1835, Drew and Bettis convinced the Arkansas Territorial Legislature to create Randolph County from Lawrence County. In 1836, Drew and Bettis held an infamous free barbecue complete with free liquor for the entire county in Pocahontas (then known as Bettis Bluff). The next day, the grateful attendees chose Pocahontas as the county seat in an upset election over the more populated community of Columbia. That same year, Drew gave the county land in downtown Pocahontas where a courthouse was constructed.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Stevenson Drew
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