Tim Villines

Tim Villines sits in a chair on the front porch or a wooden building.

Joan VanCuren-Hobbs

Quick Facts

Significance:

Formerly enslaved person

Place of Birth:

Boxley, AR

Date of Birth:

March 16, 1851

Date of Death:

September 8, 1919

Place of Burial:

Ponca, AR

Cemetery Name:

Beechwoods Cemetery

The first enslaved Africans were brought to English-occupied North America more than 400 years ago. Despite constant adversity throughout American history, African American culture and heritage strengthened each generation. 

The story of "Big Tim" Villines is one of honor and resilience. Born enslaved in Boxley Valley in 1851, Tim and his mother, Valissa Piety, were owned by the family of Hezekiah and Elizabeth Penn Villines. During the Civil War, tension was high in the Buffalo River Valley due to a deep division in sympathies throughout the region. Guerilla warfare ravaged the rural northern counties of Arkansas as rogue fighters called "bushwhackers" operated independently from army command, stealing food, livestock, and resources from local families and then setting their homes ablaze.

During one such occupation by bushwhackers, Tim (age 13 or 14) was sent out by his mother on a mule to ride 30 miles to Huntsville to request help for his community. A Union army patrol unit was known to be operating near Huntsville, so several Boxley Valley families had relocated to this area for added protection. Tim gathered a team of young men from the Murphy and Penn families to come home to Boxley Valley and assist their neighbors during this tumultuous time. Upon his return to the valley with able helpers, Tim was regarded as a local hero.

After the war, at age 16, Tim became a free man "with no companion, peer, leader or father of his race to whom to look for guidance and support" (Liles). He settled a remote bench above Boxley Valley and established a productive upland farm that he worked and managed by himself for many years. He was known to "marry" twice to local white women, with whom he had a total of eight children. Tim died in 1919 and is buried at Beechwoods Cemetery near Ponca.