Perrin’s Kentucky – A History of the State, 1885

Ballard County Biographical Sketches

Dr. Eli J. Desha was born October 13, 1838, in Madison County, Missouri, where he was reared until 1858, when he came to Ballard County, Kentucky, where he now resides. His father, Eli D. Desha, a native of Louisiana, died in 1874 at the age of sixty-three years. He was the son of Robert C. Desha, a soldier in La Fayette’s army, who remained in the United States after the American Revolution and died at St. Michael, leaving a wife, two sons and a daughter, the daughter marrying Sterling Smith, of New Madrid. Eli D. married Eva, daughter of Henry La Lee, of Virginia. She is now living at the age of ninety years. Their offspring are Elizabeth (Ravelle), Eliza (Ellison), subject and Eva J. Subject in youth obtained a good education at Fredericktown, and from choice pursued school-teaching as an occupation and medicine as a profession. He was married December 7, 1862, to Miss Angie, daughter of James M. and Elizabeth (Owen) Childress, of McCracken County, (born in 1844), and to them have been born Hillen G., Arthur T. (deceased), Owen L., Iona LeRoy, De La S., Angie E., Roxie V., Lucius Co., Orville U. and Julia E. Arthur T., a bright youth of seventeen years, of unusual mental capacity and of great promise, died January 23, 1882, and was lamented by all who knew him. Our subject owns a farm at Weldon Park, on which he resides, and has devoted much of his time and means to agriculture as a science. He is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and in politics affiliates with the Democratic Party, of which has ever been the political record of his ancestry.