344 



HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



JOHN WILSON MCFARLAND. 



John Wilson McFarland, Secretary of the Louisiana 

 Farmers' Union, was born in the year 1848, in Bienville 



Parish, Louisiana, 

 where he received an 

 education upon which 

 he afterwards founded 

 a useful and practical 

 knowledge. His op- 

 portunities there were 

 limited to the Sparta 

 High School, which 

 was broken up by the 

 war. When the war 

 broke out his father 

 enlisted and went to 

 the front, and young 

 McFarland was thrown 

 on his own resources 

 at the age of 14 years. 

 John Wilson McFarland. He served a short time 



in the arsenal at Shreveport. At the close of the war he 

 farmed for several years, after which he was engaged in 

 the study of mechanics until 1878. Since that time he 

 has followed farming and milling, and has been reasonably 

 successful, seeming to have a natural inclination toward 

 the science of agriculture. He was one the first men to 

 join the Farmers' Alliance in Claiborne parish in 1887, 

 and was elected President of his subordinate Union and 

 Secretary of his Parish Union at their respective organi- 

 zations. Both of these offices he has held by re-election 

 to the present time. He was a delegate to the conven- 

 tion at Ruston, Louisiana, at the time of the consolidation 

 of the Union and Farmers' Alliance. He has been a dele- 

 gate to all the sessions of the State Union held in 



