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Fifth Generation
88. Dr. Lovick
Warren PIERCE was born on 3 Aug 1822 in Mount Ariel, Greenwood Co., SC.
He died on 24 May 1902 in Mt.Prospect, Columbia Co., AR. He is reference
number 445. Lovick Warren Pierce (1822-1902), the son of Reddick
and Rebecca
Arthur Pierce. Married Mary Elizabeth Clayton (according to the 1850
census) prior to September of that year, because they were living in La
Grange, Troup county, Georgia, in the home of a family whose name I can't
make out on the census records, along with a gentleman named Thomas R.
Rives, who was a 28 year old Physician from Virginia.
Lovick Warren was the third child of Reddick and Rebecca. He was
born, we believe, in Mt. Ariel, South Carolina, where Reddick and Rebecca
had moved in order to educate their children.
A post office was established at Mt. Ariel around 1825. In May of
1838 the name was changed to Cokesbury. It is now located in Greenwood
County, about six miles northwest of Greenwood, South Carolina. Greenwood
County was established in 1897 from Abbeville and Edgefield counties.
Abbeville was established in 1785 from old District 96 and Edgefield
County.
His uncle Lovick lived in nearby Greensboro, Georgia. We are not
sure as to when he moved from South Carolina, but we do know that he
moved to what is now Columbia County in south Arkansas, and eventually
settled in the Mount Prospect community where both he and his wife are
buried, at the family cemetery.
It was early in 1862 that Lovick Warren established the Mt. Prospect
Methodist Church and served as its first pastor.
Lovick and Mary Elizabeth had five children.
Lovick Warren must have grown up around Mt. Ariel South Carolina, or
some other community where there were some educational facilities. How
long he attended school or just what kind of school he went to is
unknown, but surely long enough and a school good enough to qualify him
to enter and attend Medical School or to read and digest enough medical
knowledge to allow him to combine later in his life, the practice of
medicine along with that of being an able preacher. It is entirely
possible that he got some of his inspiration and his knowledge about
medicine, as well as the ministry, from his Uncle Lovick, who had
practiced medicine in nearby Greensboro, Georgia.
I am also in the dark as to when or why he left South Carolina, but
I do know that he moved to what is now Columbia County in south Arkansas,
and eventually settled in the Mt. Prospect community. This community was,
and still is a rich farming area, with many streams and large trees, and
had an abundance of fish and game. It is located approximately three
miles southwest of present day Stephens, Arkansas, and about thirteen
miles northeast of Magnolia. Arkansas had come into statehood in 1836, at
which time most of the population clung to the west bank of the
Mississippi River. Territory was being rapidly opened up and immigrants
were continuously moving westward. An issue of Peck's "New Guide for
Immigrants to the West", published in 1834, described the land of
southern Arkansas as exceedingly fertile, not surpassed by any soil in
the United States, its water courses are abundant, its principle crops
cotton and corn; and its climate as mild and healthy.
Concerning the State of Society in the middle of the 19th century,
the Guide goes on to say -- "the character of the people is brave, hardy
and enterprising, without the polish of literature, yet kind and
hospitable. The people are now rapidly improving in morals and intellect.
They are ready to encourage schools, the preaching of the gospel, and the
benevolent enterprises of the age as any new country. The consequences of
living here a long time, destitute in the means of grace, are among the
population, just what they will be under similar circumstances. Ministers
of all denominations are few and far between .... We want settlers, we
want physicians, lawyers, ministers, mechanics and farmers. We want such,
however, and only such as will make good neighbors". I do not know
whether Lovick Warren, who had known something of poverty in South
Carolina, was influenced by this kind of public request, or was greatly
influenced by his cousin, Bishop George Foster Pierce, who had come to
Arkansas in 1854 to hold conferences in both northern Arkansas at
Batesville and southern Arkansas (the new Washita Conference) in
Washington, Hempstead County. As the Bates Guide had said, ministers of
all denominations were few and widely scattered and Bishop Pierce,
adhering to Bishop Asbury's admonition to send preachers after emigrants
who were moving from east to west; certainly must have been a great
influence on young preachers in his own family to move to Arkansas and
Texas. I do not know just when Lovick Warren Pierce moved into the Mt.
Prospect valley, but I do know that just before the Civil War he was
serving this community as a medical doctor, apart time preacher, and that
he farmed enough land to supply the needs of his family. I also know from
the description of his journeys through Arkansas in "The Life and Times
of Bishop George F. Pierce" that population was very scattered, that
roads were poor or nonexistent and that transportation was very
difficult. Bishop Pierce in describing one of his trips makes one very
interesting observation -- "crammed into a narrow, rickety, topless
vehicle, with a team whose speed, by extra appliances of urging, was
three miles an hour, on a cold bleak, November day, over poor rooty
roads, we were glad to take up early in the evening at Dr. Rhodes--a
South Carolina Methodist who had wandered to the West". A doctor, a
Methodist, from South Carolina! Could Lovick Warren have known him in
South Carolina?
Lovick Warren must have delivered both his medicine and his ministry
as a Circuit Rider, as his grandson, now living in Stephens, Arkansas,
can remember him packing shirts, socks, pills and sermons into a saddle
bag and riding away on trips. The grandson also remembers "that he
dispensed huge doses of castor oil for most aches and pains". Southern
Arkansas and the members of the Washita Conference were soon caught up in
the Civil War and the cause of the Confederacy. It was early in 1862
(according to Walter Vernon's "History of Methodism in Arkansas," that
Lovick Warren established the Mt. Prospect Methodist Church and served as
its first pastor.
This Church has meant a great deal to many people through all the
years. Worship services have been held here for over a hundred and
twenty-eight years, right down to the present time. I remember, as a
young boy of about 16, going to a revival with my grand parents to this
little church in the valley, it was an all week affair. I can't recall
the preachers name but it was a real grand affair as I remember it. In
1976 services were held here every other Sunday by a pastor from
Stephens. Miss Alverne Pierce, a great-granddaughter of Lovick Warren was
organist there for many years. I cannot document Mt. Prospect
specifically in the Civil War. During the 1870's the Cotton Belt Railroad
was built through Stephens and gradually the people moved away from the
Mt. Prospect community. Today there are very few residents left in the
valley, most of them having moved to the cities, but Mt. Prospect Church,
bordered by a very beautiful and historic cemetery, still stands as a
monument to this colossal man and his times.
Lovick Warren Pierce was this writers great greatgrandfather, and my
favorite story was about the panther jumping from a tree to attack him
and his horse.
Lovick Warren's grandson, James P. McClurkin, can remember and
describe, in glowing terms, a buggy and two beautiful white horses that
Lovick owned and used when the weather was pretty and the roads were dry.
Another somewhat humerous story told on Lovick Warren was that he was
holding an outdoor revival in the Calhoun community, near Magnolia, under
a dry bush arbor, preaching on the evils of gambling and loose women,
when one of Arkansas' many drunks came by and disrupted his meeting by
setting fire to the dry brush arbor. Lovick joined in the effort to fight
the fire, and, after it was extinguished, he immediately reconvened the
meeting and changed his subject to the evils of making and drinking
whiskey. I have heard it said he only had three sermons, two
prescriptions, and no license for either. In contrast to this flippant
frontier remark, I want to cite the story which my grand father, Lovick
Claude Smith, told me about one of his spectacular successes in medicine.
On one occasion he came upon a man who was very, very sick from a severe
infection. Lovick immediately recognized the fact that his leg must be
amputated, else the patient would have died very shortly. But he had no
equipment with which to perform such a serious and dangerous operation,
no facilities except a kitchen table and kitchen tools. The leg had been
crushed in a cotton gin several days before and gangrene had set in.
Acting on his knowledge, and, using great skill, without the benefit of
an anesthetic, he succeeded in amputating the leg by using a butcher
knife and a meat saw. After the operation he valiantly nursed the patient
through convalscence to complete recovery. The man lived a long and
useful life. Such skill and knowledge was no accident. Dr. Lovick Warren PIERCE
and Mary Elizabeth CLAYTON were married in 1850 in Jasper Co., GA.
Mary Elizabeth CLAYTON was born on 25 Mar 1831 in
Jasper Co., GA.11 She died
on 4 Jun 1913 in Emerson, Columbia Co., AR.11
She is reference number 456. Mary Elizabeth Clayton (1831-1913),
b. Pulaski county, Georgia, d.
Ouachita county, Arkansas. The daughter of Milton E. Clayton and Caroline
Erwind Hunter.
The second of five children. Married Lovick Warren Pierce in 1850. There
were five children from this union. Dr. Lovick Warren PIERCE and Mary Elizabeth
CLAYTON had the following children:
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