Thaddeus H. Caraway

Who was Thaddeus H. Caraway?

Thaddeus Horatius Caraway was a Democratic Party politician from Arkansas who represented the state first in the U.S. House of Representatives and then in the U.S. Senate.

Caraway was born on a farm near Springhill, Stoddard County, Missouri, the youngest of three children. His father, Tolbert Caraway, was a country doctor and Confederate veteran; his mother was Mary Ellen Caraway. When he was 6 months old, his father was assassinated in a feud, leaving his family impoverished. He worked as a farmhand from age 7, then later as a railroad section hand, a farm tenant, and as a share-cropper. He studied at night and attended the common schools as a boy.

In 1883 he moved with his parents to Clay County, Arkansas; in 1896 he graduated from Dickson College in Tennessee, and taught in country schools until 1899. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1900, beginning practice in Osceola, Arkansas; later that year he moved to Lake City, Arkansas, and in 1901 he moved again, to Jonesboro. Each time he continued his practice. In 1902, he married Hattie Wyatt, whom he had met at Dickson College. Together they had three children, Robert Easley, Forrest, and Paul Wyatt.