William Robert Ogden (7 July 1852 – 28 Dec 1942) was the son of Isaac Nathaniel Ogden and Elizabeth Jane Blanks. Bill was born on his parents' farm in southern Union County Arkansas. At the young age of eleven, when his father could not serve in the Confederate military due to poor health, Bill joined a local cavalry unit in his father's place and served for the remainder of the war. On 8 April 1875, he married Sarah Ann Elizabeth Breazeal (7 June 1854 – 18 Sept 1929), the daughter of Hosea Bright Breazeal and Sarah Elizabeth Mayfield. Sarah was born on her parents' farm in southeastern Tuscaloosa County Alabama, but she grew up in southern Union County Arkansas, where her father settled in 1858.
Bill and Eliza spent the first twenty-five years of their marriage alternating between Spearsville, in northern Union Parish Louisiana near Eliza's relatives, and in southern Union County Arkansas near Bill's family. Bill Ogden farmed his entire life. Bill and Liza joined the New Hope Primitive Baptist Church in Spearsville in the 1890s, but they were dismissed in 1897 and helped to found Smyrna Primitive Baptist Church in Union County on 9 October 1897. In about 1898 or 1899, Bill and Eliza permanently settled on a farm a few miles north of Spearsville. They were buried in the Spearsville Cemetery.
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