Special to the Saline River Chronicle
Editor’s Note: Most of the information in this can be found in the UA Press book, “Stateswomen: A Centennial History of Arkansas.” A few instances of local connections were updated and added.
LITTLE ROCK – The name, Nellie B. Mack, may be unfamiliar with most Bradley Countians, but this erstwhile lady served in the Arkansas House of Representatives 101 years ago this spring.
She was intending to run for another political office that coming summer/fall – the Bradley County Treasurer’s office, but a death of state Rep. Byron L. Herring changed all that.
Mack was appointed to the post of State Representative for eight months, serving out the remainder of Herring’s post.
She was only the 2nd woman to serve in the Arkansas House of Representatives, by her appointment from Gov. Thomas C. McRae of nearby Prescott.
Still never heard of Nellie B. Mack?
She has quite a story to tell.
Born in October 1857 in Antioch, Tennessee, Ellen DeMoville Bright, she was the 11th of 14 children of William Hall Bright, a successful farmer and Elizabeth Eppes DeMoville, a homemaker.
She was educated in the public schools of Fayetteville and Nashville, Tennessee, graduating from Edgefield High in Nashville in 1875 and the Edgefield Female Academy, a year later in 1876.
Her occupation listed on Arkansas House Members rosters show her an insurance agent and teacher.
The Hall family was very prominent in Tennessee politics as her great-grandfather William Hall was a member of the Tennessee House (1797-1805), the Tennessee State Senate (1821-1829) and also served as Governor of Tennessee in 1829.
William Hall was also elected to Congress for a term from 1831-1832.
On her mother’s side of the family, the Bright family, there were also notable Tennessee politicians.
Her grandfather James Bright was a Lincoln County (Tennessee) circuit clerk (1810-1826) and her uncle John Bright served in the Tennessee state House of Representatives (1847-1847) and was later a U.S. Congressman from 1871-1880.
After completing her education, she taught primary grades at the Main Street School in Nashville and was a teacher at North Edgefield Baptist Mission Sunday School.
She moved to Little Rock in 1882, and taught at the Peabody School there until 1885.
While in Little Rock, she attended “suffrage debates,” at the city’s Eclectic Club and socialized with the Ten Pin Club, a notable socialite organization. She was nominated as an enrolling clerk for the Arkansas State Senate, and was said to be “one of the leading lights of Little Rock society.” The Arkansas Gazette called her “a lady of culture and refinement.”
In 1885, she married local businessman James Russell Barnett. The couple quickly had two children prior to his death four years later in 1889.
After Barnetts’ death, she moved to Morrilton, to be near one of her younger sisters. It was in Morrilton she became an insurance agent.
Politics still in her blood, she ran for the Morrilton postmistress position in 1892, and was an active debater at the Pathfinder Club. She was also on the executive committee of the Arkansas Federation of Women’s Club, a very prominent club in Warren, as well as Morrilton.
Her brother-in-law in Morrilton was William Lewis Moore, a leading attorney in the area, president Pro Tempore of the Arkansas State Senate (1895-1898), a Circuit Judge and was later the Attorney General of Arkansas.
In 1903, she married William Francis Mack, a Confederate veteran and former Bradley County Judge (1874-1880) and the couple moved to Warren.
She was first a teacher at the West Warren School and became active as vice-president of the First Baptist Church Women’s Missionary Society, publicity chair of the Warren Women’s Christian Temperance Union and state chaplain of the Knights and Ladies of Honor.
County Judge Mack, died in 1914, and is buried in Oakland Cemetery in Warren.
Her son married the daughter of William E. Atkinson, former Attorney General of Arkansas (1889-1893) and the Fifth Circuit Chancery Judge in Arkansas (1921-1935).
For some reason, Mack never sought re-election, possibly not qualified to do so as having been appointed to fill the post at the death of Rep. Herring.
But she never again, apparently, sought public office. Her burial was apparently not in Bradley County.
Next Week: Marian Owens Ingram and her service in the Arkansas House, 1993-1998.