John M. Farrior was born on February 13, 1827, in Tennessee to Needham Bryan Farrior (1796-1872) and Barbara Heston Neville (18031870). John was in Hampton by 1852. He was appointed to the town council when Hampton was incorporated on January 27, 1853. In 1860 the Census shows Dr. Farrior and his wife Martha living in Hampton and Dr. Perdue, age 25, a physician from Tennessee living in Hampton at the Black Hotel.
In 1860 they formed a partnership and the articles of partnership set out that they be called “Farrior & Perdue” with offices in the counting room of Dr. J. M. Farrior in the town of Hampton. An interesting clause of the partnership stipulated: “For the purpose of securing the faithful performance of the duties of physicians and surgeons they do severally bind themselves to attend faithfully to all cases entrusted to their care and in case either party should at any time neglect his professional duties from intoxication by ardent spirits or allow his reason to become dethroned from same so as to incapacitate him from performing the duties of said profession the party so transgressing shall forfeit instanter his entire interest in said co-partnership and no longer claim any interest either in law of equity in said co-partnership.” This partnership may have been terminated with the advent of the Civil War, in 1861.
The medical men were skilled at cupping and bleeding. Or “cupping and veinesection” as Dr. Farrior showed on his bills. When Dr. O. D. Ward died, many of the medical men in the area attended the sale of his personal medical effects, and Dr. Farrior bought his “veinesector and cups.” This was a practice based on the belief that the body was manufacturing too much blood, and it would speed recovery if some of it were drained from the body.
On January 2, 1868, at the age of 40, Dr. Farrior was stabbed to death by his close friend, neighbor and fellow medical associate, Dr. Washington Irving Stokes. A difficulty arose between the men about the cutting of a tree and Dr. Farrior tried to shoot Stokes; the pistol failed to fire, and Stokes stabbed his assailant to death. In the preliminary trial in the justice court, it was pronounced justifiable homicide. He was buried in Camp Ground Cemetery. On the monument is written “Aged 40 yrs. 10 months 19 days, Erected by his bereaved wife Mattie A. Farrior and orphan son Nevill M. Farrior”.
Sources: One Hundred Twenty-Five Years of Medicine and Medical Men in Calhoun County, Arkansas 18501975 by Willma Humphreys Newton; Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, Goodspeed Publishing Co. 1890; 1860 Census; The Hogskinner, by Mary Ann Bounds Strickland Some of the early remedies from Willma Humphreys-Newton's One Hundred Twenty-Five Years of Medicine and Medical Men in Calhoun County, Arkansas 1850-1975: For snake bite, kill a chicken, cut it open and put on the bite while still warm, and let stay about 24 hours.
For whooping cough, dried gall bladder from hogs. The water in which a “toad-frog” had been boiled was another whooping cough remedy.
For burns fry hog manure in lard and use as a poultice.
For bone felon (an infection) use fresh cow dung. The herbs in it were supposed to contain healing qualities.
The preceding remedies were handed down from slaves that had belonged to the Dickinson family and from those of Jemison Ware, both in the Summerville neighborhood.
