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Overton R. Mallory, farmer, was born in Simpson County, Ky., in 1844, the eldest of thirteen children of Rev. Nathan H. and Eliza A. (Wright) Mallory, natives of the same county, born respectively in 1820 and 1825. The father, of English, and son of William Mallory, a native of Virginia, whose father was from England, was reared in his native county, where he was married in 1843, and is still living near the place of his birth and marriage. He was a captain of militia in general muster, and until the last twenty years of his life, which have been devoted to the Methodist Episcopal Church ministry, his attention was given exclusively to his farm. He is an earnest and successful minister. Besides his country school education, which our subject received while reared on his old farm, he has educated himself by his own studious habits.

In 1862 he enlisted in Company K, Eighth Kentucky Cavalry and operated mostly in Kentucky and Tennessee. He was discharged a year later, at the expiration of his enlistment, when Hon. Benjamin H. Bristow was in command.

He then resumed farming, in 1867 moved to Franklin County, and in November, 1869, married Mrs. Samantha L. Brooks, daughter of Abner and Mary Rea. He has since

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made his home on his present farm of 170 acres, 150 of which are well cultivated and lie six miles west of Benton. He is a man of ability, in 1882 was elected magistrate, and re-elected in 1885 to his present term. He is the second largest man in the county, weighing 305 pounds, and six feet two inches in height. He is a Republican, and voted for Grant in 1868. He is president of the Crittenden Lodge, No. 49, F. M. B. A., an elder in the Christian Church and a great Sunday-school worker and supporter of his denomination. He has local celebrity as a pulpit and secular orator at celebrations and elsewhere. He has served twelve years as school treasurer of his township. His wife is a member of the same church as her husband.