PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 307 



'Upon returning home he was apprenticed to a 

 machinist at which trade he worked in Lowell and Fall 

 River, Massachusetts, Sparta and LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 

 Minneapolis and St. Anthony, Minnesota. 



' ' Mr. McCracken was married in the town of Sparta, 

 Wisconsin, to a daughter of Hon. J. H. Allen, who now 

 resides at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, President of the Com- 

 mercial Bank of that place. He went to Arkansas in the 

 year 1870, and settled upon the farm where he now resides, 

 and has lived continuously upon the farm, except about 

 two years spent in working as a machinist in the Iron 

 Mountain shops, located at Little Rock. Mr. McCracken 's 

 first connection with a labor organization was with the 

 Blacksmiths' and Machinists' Union. Upon laying down 

 the hammer and the file for the plow, he saw the necessity 

 of organizing the farmers, and proceeded to organize under 

 the name of the 'Brothers of Freedom,' and at the time of 

 the consolidation of the Agricultural Wheel and the 

 Brothers of Freedom, he had succeeded in organizing 643 

 Subordinate organizations of the Brothers of Freedom, 

 with a membership of 43,000. He worked for the con- 

 solidation of the two organizations, which was consum- 

 mated in the fall of 1885. 



4 ' He has been honored with the position of President 

 of his county organization, and also of the State organiza- 

 tion of the Brothers of Freedom, as long as it had an 

 existence, and upon the consolidation of the two organiza- 

 tions, he was chosen President of the body as consolidated, 

 which was then known as the Agricultual Wheel of the 

 State of Arkansas, which then had organizations in four 

 States, and a National organization was formed in 1886. 

 He was then honored with the position of President of the 

 same, and was re-elected at the last meeting of the National 

 organization, which was held at McKenzie, Tennessee.' 1 



Personally, Mr. McCracken is a man of plain and 



