History Minute: The first Arkansan to represent Arkansas in DC
By Dr. Ken Bridges Samuel West Peel led a life that brought him from destruction to wealth and the halls of Congress. In the process, Peel became t...
By Dr. Ken Bridges Samuel West Peel led a life that brought him from destruction to wealth and the halls of Congress. In the process, Peel became the first man born in Arkansas to represent Arkansas in Congress. He was born into a farming family in Independence County in North-Central Arkansas in 1831. After his mother died in 1835, he and his father moved west to what had been the growing community of Carrollton in Carroll County, where his father remarried and opened a store. He later became a clerk at the store and also as a deputy circuit clerk to his father, who had grown quite prominent in Carroll County.