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Charles E. Steele, merchant, Murfreesboro, Ark. The mercantile interests
of this portion of the county have been ably represented for a number of
years by Mr. Stelle, who is considered one of the most successful business
men of Murfreesboro. He was born in New Jersey in 1836, and was reared in
New Brunswick, where he attended the high school. In 1858 he left New
Jersey and went to Missouri, where he taught school for two years. In 1860
he came to Arkansas, taught school in the Indian Territory, and in 1861
enlisted in the Confederate army at Fayetteville, serving through the
entire war and surrendering in North Carolina with Gen. Joe Johnston in
1865. The same year he returned to Arkansas and located in Union County,
where he engaged in teaching school and practicing law. He was married in
1870 to Miss Lucretia Clay Askew, a daughter of Hon. John H. Askew of
Eldorado, and to them were born three children, only one, Charley, now
living. Mrs. Stelle died in 1884. Previous to this sad event, in 1875, Mr.
Stelle moved to Columbia County, and in 1877 to Pike County, where he
settled in Murfreesboro, and engaged in teaching and practicing law. Later
he engaged in merchandising with W.S. Stroope as partner, and this firm
continued until January, 1890, when Mr. Stroope withdrew. Since then Mr.
Stelle has continued the business alone, and carries a full line of general
merchandise and plantation supplies. He also buys cotton, and is a first
class business man. He was the eldest of eight children, all of whom living,
born to the marriage of James M. Stelle and Phoebe Ann VanSickle.
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Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, 1890, Pike County,
page 339.
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