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Malcom and Eliza Davis Currie 

    Malcom Currie was born in North Carolina in 1825,  the son of Daniel and Anna Ray Currie.  The parents were of Scotch descent, their ancestors having come to the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War.  Daniel and Anna Ray Currie were born in North Carolina in 1801, and as might be supposed, they belonged to the Presbyterian Church. Both parents died in Robeson County, North Carolina, within five miles of their birthplace. Anna died in 1868 and Daniel in 1871.

    Malcom Currie was the oldest of nine children, and was reared on a farm in Saint Pauls, North Carolina.  He was educated in the schools of North Carolina and began teaching school by 1850.  Malcom Currie married Eliza Davis on December 11, 1847   in Robeson County, North Carolina.  Eliza was the daughter of Absalom and Eliza Russel Davis of Robeson County, North Carolina The parents having married on November 11, 1822   in Robeson County.  Eliza, named for her mother, was born in North Carolina in 1827.  To this union were born two children: Charles Currie was born in about 1849 in North Carolina, and died suddenly in Jefferson County, Arkansas of heart disease in 1877, at the age of twenty-eight years.  Ida Currie was born in about 1857 and later married Henry Grooms “Squire” Hanna, of Pembroke Kentucky.  Evander McNair, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Pine Bluff, married Ida Currie and Henry G. Hanna on January 10, 1878.     Henry G. Hanna died in Jefferson County on September 27, 1932 and is buried in the Fitzhugh Cemetery.

    After 1850, Malcom Currie and his wife and children migrated to Jefferson County, Arkansas.  Eliza Davis Currie and their ten-month-old son Charles were living with her parents, Absalom and Eliza Davis in Robeson County, North Carolina in 1850.  The family settled at White Sulphur Springs, and boarded the first year until he could build a home on property located eight miles Southwest of Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas, on the public road between White Sulphur Springs and Lee’s Springs, being a half mile distant from each point.  Malcom Currie joined the First Presbyterian Church of Pine Bluff on February 20, 1859,   by transfer of letter from the St. Pauls Presbyterian Church of Saint Pauls, North Carolina. This time frame is also confirmed by the fact that Mr. Currie joined the Sulphur Springs Lodge in 1859. Dr. Shelby Currie, a brother of Malcom Currie, was an organizing member and was elected Ruling Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Pine Bluff, on May 15, 1858.  Evander Currie, another brother of Malcom, had his daughter, Anna Ray Currie, baptized as an infant on July 30, 1871, in the First Presbyterian Church of Pine Bluff.  Other children of Evander and Marie Sandefur Currie baptized in the First Presbyterian Church were John Sandefur Currie, Mary Ashley Currie, and Caty Royston Currie.  Mary Ashley Currie married Robert Shannon Cherry of Pine Bluff, and their granddaughter is Pauline Cherry, a resident of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

    Mr. Currie apparently continued his professional duties as a teacher when he came to White Sulphur Springs as there was then located in the area two large colleges; male and female.  In 1860 Malcom Currie was elected Commissioner of Common Schools for Jefferson County,   holding the office for eight years.  He was principal of the High School of Pine Bluff for two years, ending with his resignation in June of 1877, which also concluded his career as a professional teacher.

    The locale of White Sulphur Springs bore a close resemblance to the high, pine bearing land of the Carolinas from where the Curries came.  White Sulphur Springs played a role in the War Between the States, and this apparently was the cause of the death of Eliza Davis Currie.  During the years of 1861-62, smallpox broke out in the Confederate troops camped at White Sulphur Springs and to isolate the victims from the other troops, a hospital camp was established.  Many of the sick men were moved into a log hotel, the Sulphur Springs Female Academy and a log Methodist Church.  Eliza Davis Currie, wife of Malcom Currie, volunteered to nurse the ill soldiers.  The death rate was high and in an effort to save some of the men Mrs. Currie moved a few of them to a camp close to her home, all in a futile attempt, as all of the men died and Eliza Davis Currie died of the dread smallpox. Among the touching incidents described in an address to the Eighteenth Annual Convention of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Little Rock, Arkansas, on October 22, 1913, is this record.  “Mrs. Malcom Currie, of Lee Spring, Jefferson County, who heroically nursed Confederate soldiers attacked with small pox, finally succumbing herself to the dread disease”  .  There are six unmarked graves on the property that was then occupied by Malcom Currie and it believed to be the final resting place of Eliza Davis Currie and her son Charles Currie, and four unknown Confederate soldiers.  The Watson family now owns the property, and 90 year old Bud Watson, has carefully kept the gravesite marked with a lonely cedar tree.

    In 1862, Malcom Currie left his professional duties for a time, and served eighteen months in the Confederate army on post duty.  After the close of the War he resided near Pine Bluff for two years, raising cotton, but returned to the White Sulphur Springs area, and planted an extensive vineyard.  This was conceded to be one of the finest vineyards and fruit farms in Central Arkansas.  The orchard consisted of 250 apple-bearing trees, 150 peach trees, 125 wild goose plum trees, 140 dwarf pear trees, and 150 Le Conte pear trees.  In the vineyard were about 5,000 bunch grapevines, three-fourths of which were bearing, 250 scuppernong vines, on arbors from 50 to 900 square feet.  Besides making from 2,000 to 2,500 gallons of wine, several thousand pounds of grapes were sold annually.  Today, many fruit trees and grapevines continue to grown on the property as a testament to the lives of Malcom and Eliza Davis Currie.  Malcom Currie died on June 24, 1897 and is buried in Bellwood Cemetery in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
 
 

  This information is compiled by the efforts and personal research of Glenn A. Railsback, III.  It is intented for personal use only.  The above information may be used for non-commerical and genealogical purposes only and with the permission of the page owner may be copied for the same purpose so long as this notice remains a part of the copied materials.