Scott Winfield Bond (1852-1933)

Scott Winfield Bond was born a slave in Livingston, Mississippi, in 1852. After the Civil War, he and his stepfather settled in Madison, Arkansas. At the age of 22, Bond began renting a plot on the Allen Plantation in St. Francis County. Soon after, he increased his acreage and hired extra help. An aspiring entrepreneur, Bond rented more land and eventually bought his own farm. He continued to expand his landholdings and at one point went into partnership with a white man, T. O. Fitzpatrick. By the time of his death in March 1933, Bond owned and farmed 12,000 acres of land, raised livestock, and owned and operated a large mercantile store, several cotton gins, a gravel pit, a lumberyard, and a sawmill. He was one of the wealthiest men in the Arkansas Delta. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.