Magazin Mountain

April 9, 2022
Thomas Nuttall spent nearly 2 weeks in the vicinity of Dardanelle in April 1819.  From there, he described a nearby mountain in his journal, calling it “the Magazine Mountain.”  Today, we know that mountain as Mt. Nebo.1
Nuttall’s sketch of his Magazin Mountain and today’s Mt. Nebo, likely sketched from Dardanelle Mountain, near Dardanelle Rock.
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Excerpts from Thomas Nutall’s journal where he describes “the Magazine Mountain.”

April

6th.] This morning the river appeared rapidly rising to its former elevation, being nearly bank full, almost a mile in width, and but little short of the Mississippi in magnitude. The current was now probably four or five miles in the hour, and so difficult to stem, that after the most laborious exertions since day-light, we were still in the evening five miles below the Dardanelle, having made only about 10 miles from the Galley [today’s Galla Rock]. The low ridge, which originated this fanciful name, in sight nearly the whole day. On the same  side of the river, but more distant, a magnificent empurpled mountain occupies the horizon, apparently not less than 1,000 feet high, forming a long ridge or table, and abrupt at its southern extremity. From its peculiar form it had received the name of the Magazine or Barn by the French hunters.

[Some of Nuttall’s observations from the top of Dardanelle Mountain]

7th.] From the summit opened another sublime view of the surrounding country. Again to the south and south-west, I could distinguish three of the four chains of mountains, which were visible from the high hills of the Petit John, and still, to my surprise, distinctly appeared the Mamelle2 [today’s Pinnacle Mountain], though, by water, near upon 100 miles distant, and not less than 60 by land [actually 46], which would appear to argue an elevation more considerable than that which I had at first imagined. The Magazine mountain to the west, though, at first, apparently so near, is not less than 10 miles distant, looking, if any thing, more considerably elevated than the Mamelle, and probably not less than 1200 feet high [1350 feet above the valley]. In this point of view, it appears isolated, gradually descending into the plain, and accumulating in magnitude to the north-west; it here descends rather more abruptly, though the highest point is still to the south, where it appears to rise in broken façades unconnectedly with the auxiliary ridge.

11th.] From the hills in the vicinity of Mr. Webber’s, I obtained a fine view of the Magazine mountain, and now found that it was connected with a range of others, proceeding for many miles a little to the north of west. The side which here presents itself, appeared almost inaccessibly precipitous.

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  1. “French hunters and explorers named most sites along the Arkansas River in the 1600s and 1700s. However, as waves of new settlers entered the Arkansas Territory, some names changed. In 1819, botanist Thomas Nuttall wrote of his observations as he traveled up the river. Near Dardanelle Rock a prominent landmark was called Magazin for its shape resembling a storehouse. That mountain is now called Mount Nebo. All of the mountains between the Arkansas and Petit Jean Rivers were called the Magazines. As Nuttall continued up river, he wrote that “a lofty ridge appears to the south called by the French the Cassetete, or Tomahawk Mountain.” Later surveyors and mapmakers called it Reveille or Revolee Mountain. Eventually, each Magazine mountain had an official name with the largest of them representing the whole range. (Mount Magazine History)
  2. I don’t know what Nuttall was seeing that day, but you can’t see Pinnacle Mountain (which he called Maumelle) from the top of Dardanelle Mountain or even from the top of Mt. Nebo. I used Google Earth to look from both perspectives and Petit Jean Mountain blocks any possible view of Pinnacle.  In fact, from Stout’s Point on the east side of Petit Jean Mountain, you can just see Pinnacle as a dimple on the other side of other Ouachita mountains.

Norristown

April 1, 2022

Norristown was a 19th-century town and trading center on the Arkansas River.

Norristown was a 19th-century town and trading center on the Arkansas River.
Charles T. Davis was an associate editor of the Arkansas Gazette and, in 1923,  had been named the first Poet Laureate of Arkansas by a resolution passed by both Houses of the State Legislature. Davis died in a Little Rock hospital on December 2, 1945.
This article, discovered on an archived Arkansas history-related website, was published in the Gazette in 1919.
[Davis, Charles T. “The Town That Disappeared.” 1919 Centennial Edition Arkansas Gazette. transcribed 2010 by Pris Weathers Dodson, ArkansasTies]
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The Town That Disappeared

By Charles T. Davis

On the Pope county bank of the Arkansas, a little north of and diagonally across the river from Dardanelle Rock on the Yell county side, stands a little, weather-warped, time-shaken log house but of a single room and a native stone chimney out of all proportion to its size. This little cabin is all that remains of Norristown, one time the most important town between Fort Smith and Little Rock on the north side of the river, and a town which, if tradition may be believed, at one time lacked but two votes of becoming the capital of the state of Arkansas. Now the town is gone; utterly abandoned, existing only in the memory of the older residents of the vicinity. Part of its site has long since caved into the river, part has been cultivated over for these many years, and of its system of streets and roads, nothing remains but a shadow of the old post road along which the splendid relay teams once plunged with the mails from the East to the West—now but a little, weed-grown country lane maintained simply to give a few farmers entrance to their fields. Old Norristown is dead, a lost town, and it is perhaps fitting that the log cabin itself has a history of greatness. One time it was a commodious two-story tavern known widely throughout the state. It was there that the creaking stage coaches drew up from the South and East, and the long wagon trains bringing in and taking out the merchandise of a principality made their halts.
Norristown was never incorporated, and it is now impossible to fix definitely its date of origin. Probably the first settler was Samuel Norris, who came from New Jersey in the early 30’s, and whose name the town bears. In 1834 it was the county seat of Pope county when the county’s domain included all of the present Yell county and far back toward the East. In 1842 Yell county was formed across the river and the county seat of Pope moved to Dover.
The wane of the town began with the removal of the county administration site, and when the Little Rock and Fort Smith road came through Russellville in 1873, to the great aggrandizement of Russellville, the present county seat, the future of Norristown ended and its past began.
Yet in its day it was a fine old town; never a large town by present standards, but some 300 or 400 people lived in the community in its heyday and this constituted no inconsiderable population for the period. The old town’s great strength was in its geographical location with reference to trade. There was Lewisburg south and east of it on the Arkansas River in Conway county, Spadra north and west in Johnson county, and Dardanelle across the river. The river checked considerable traffic to the east, and Dardanelle was the market place of the transriver country. But the whole, wide fan-shaped area between Spadra and Lewisburg, clear back to the Boston range in Searcy county paid tribute to the merchants of Norristown. Now of the four, Dardanelle alone remains as a town whose present can compare with its past.
The town seems to have been laid out in the form of a capital T. Its streets were unnamed, but are rather loosely referred to by the older residents of the community round about as “River street”, and “Main street.” River street, naturally, lay along the river. At about the center of the town it was joined at right angles by Main street, which was the thoroughfare to the whole back country, and a part of the post road from Little Rock to Fort Smith. It is this street whose ghost still is unlaid on the forgotten town site, now the little rutted country  lane which gives easement to the county road leading into Russellville. There may have been other streets, but they have been forgotten long since. The Arkansas river long ago claimed the street which bore its name, and any others, which may have existed have been plowed over for years. At the head of the pontoon bridge which crosses the river at Dardanelle, and at the terminal of the Dardanelle and Russellville short line railroad, until only a few years ago there existed several of the commodious “saddle-bag” type of log dwelling houses—two rooms, or
maybe more counting the lean-tos, with an open hallway or “gallery” between them. This group usually was referred to as “Old Noristown” by the younger generations, but as a matter of fact, it was about a mile southwest of the real town site. One of the buildings, however, the largest one, which was destroyed by fire less than 10 years ago, was contemporary with the town and had been the home of one John Truitt, who had a store in Norristown. Nothing now remains of the older buildings, but the railroad sheds and warehouse and the bridge building are now called North Dardanelle.
Who would search through the traditions and word-of-mouth history of old Norristown for wild and adventurous passages of the Southwest of the early day, would meet with disappointment. Norristown was not wild nor adventurous, nor were its inhabitants. As a rule they were the best of the pioneers, stalwart and self-reliant—men who brought the law with them from the older civilization of the East. The Rev. Cephas Washburn, who was the first station missionary at old Dwight Indian Mission on the Illinois bayou near old Norristown, was a man of great intellectual attainment and his son, Edward Payson Washburn, was not only an artist but a classic scholar. Then there were the Wilsons and the Howells and Fergusons and Truitts; Dr. David Brearley, the Indian agent; Dr. Thomas Russell and the Perrys and Tobeys. Most of these family names still exist among the leading citizens of the vicinity. Dr. Russell did not live at Norristown proper. He came to the West with an immigration train of restless young adventurers, all well found in equipment and supplies, and settled and established a community which grew into what is now Russellville, the county seat of Pope county. That was in 1835, and Norristown was then an established settlement, according to an old report. Capt. “Jimmie” Russell, a veteran of the Confederacy and a son of the founder of the town where he now lives, says that the school master in the vicinity—there seems to have been only one school master and he served Norristown as well—was a cultured young English-man who left a classic imprint on the minds of the youth of the period.
There was drinking in the old town—much of it, since not only tavern but store, or any other trading place, as a general rule, had a keg or so on tap—but there was little violence or bloodletting. The early settlers were not explorers but home-builders. They brought their families with them, and guarded as jealously as they might their environment. But there is some historic case, perhaps, in every town, and any of the older ones who can remember that far back will tell of the death of Nixon Curry, alias John Hill, in 1841. This Curry, according to W.F. Pope in his “Early Days in Arkansas,” was a notorious and notable character. He was a refugee from justice from North Carolina, where a price of $5,000 had been put on his head. Pope says that he was charged with the crime of negro stealing and sentenced to a term in the penitentiary. He escaped before he could be jailed, however, and the pursuit resulted in the death of some of the sheriff’s posse. He reached Arkansas in 1822 or 1823, and was married in Pope county. Some time afterward he moved to St. Francis county, and in the sessions of 1833 and 1835 he represented that county in the lower house of the legislature. Some time in 1836 he was recognized by a party of movers emigrating from North Carolina, which resulted in an issue of a warrant for his arrest by Governor Fulton, and Curry was taken into custody by the sheriff of St. Francis county to be held for North Carolina officials. His popularity was such, however, that his friends staged a jail-delivery, and he escaped, although while fleeing through the Cache river bottoms before the officers, he was severely wounded in the shoulder. He made his way back to Pope county, was again arrested and was again taken from the officers by his friends and freed. His good behavior and the long time that had elapsed since the commission of his crimes in North Carolina resulted in the indifference on the part of authority in both states, and he was never subsequently molested, living in peace in Pope county until the day of his death. Of this death Pope gives a very meager account.
“He now became a very hard drinker and quarrelsome,” says Pope: page 210, “Early Days in Arkansas.” In 1841, in the spring I think, he was killed with his own knife, at Norristown, by Vincent L. Hutton, with whom he became involved in a quarrel.”
Tradition handed down from the old residents of the community colors this tragedy with a high degree of romantic interest. Dr. Russell’s version of it, which has been told and retold through the country, is especially interesting.
It seems that after Curry’s second arrest and second delivery by his friends he established a residence somewhere north and west of Dardanelle, which then was in Pope county. Despite Pope’s statement to the effect, that he was not thereafter molested, he seemed to consider himself an outlaw. The price on his head held good. Back of the genial, vigorous personality which twice placed him in office and twice freed him from the clutches of law, was suspicion and watchfulness. He went armed, and he extended no hospitalities to strangers. Young Hutton was in his employ about the farm, himself a young, stalwart, upstanding young man. He was to marry a daughter of Curry’s—or
of Hill’s, for the fugitive maintained his alias to the last. One day, that spring day in 1841, the two left for Norristown to purchase a stock of farm supplies.
Mrs. Curry, always uneasy for the welfare of her husband, gave young Hutton a final charge.
“Don’t let anybody hurt him,” she said.
“If anybody gets him,” Hutton replied, “It will be me. You can be perfectly easy about him.”
There was a crowd in the tavern when they reached Norristown, and the customary good-natured banter was in progress. The two joined in. Curry to demonstrate the weight of his fist and his partner’s resisting power, began to pound the young man over the lungs. Hutton swelled out his massive chest and bore the sledge hammer blows right manfully until the sport began to pall on him and he called a halt. Curry responded with a blow which felled Hutton. From the floor Hutton reached out, grasped Curry by the ankles and overturned him. The two grappled on the floor with Hutton on top. Perhaps Curry had been fired by the raw liquor of the day. Perhaps they both had, for as Hutton held his adversary down he saw him reaching for his bowie knife. Curry wore the knife in a leather sheath on his belt, and the knife had slipped down into the sheath so far that it could not be grasped by the handle. He was trying to work it up from the end of the sheath when Hutton first noticed it. Maintaining his grip on Curry, Hutton watched the knife until the hilt appeared above the sheath and then he grasped it and stabbed Curry to the heart. And so ended Nixon Curry, alias John Hill.
There is a sequel, however. Hutton fled to Texas. Curry left a son, a slender, silent stripling who apparently when his ways unchanged until the day he was 16 years old. Then he took down his father’s long rifle and kissed his mother good-bye. The mother knew her son, and knew that the blood of his father had been calling for vengeance.
She made no remonstrance, knowing its futility.
A year later the boy came back, gaunt, hard and silent. The mother asked with her eyes the unspoken question. The boy nodded his head and hung the rifle again on the old accustomed pegs. There was a fresh notch on the stock.
One of the most notable of the early residents of Norristown was Judge Andrew Scott, in 1820 a judge of the Superior Court, and later a judge of the circuit embracing Pope county. Judge Scott’s establishment was at old Scotia, a plantation settlement near Dover, but he held court at Norristown. Judge Scott was, according to Pope, “the most chivalrous and the purest-minded man I ever knew.” During his tenure as judge of the Superior Court of the territory he challenged, shot and killed on the field of honor, a fellow member of the bench because his opponent questioned the accuracy of a lady’s statement in a game of whist. This was at Arkansas Post, then the territorial seat of government, and occurred soon after Judge Scott went on the bench. With Judge Joseph Selden, a former army officer of Virginia, and also a member of the Superior Court bench, and two ladies, Judge Scott one night engaged in a social game of cards. According to Pope, in the course of the game Judge Scott’s partner said, “Judge Selden, we have the tricks and honors on you.”
“Madam, that is not so,” Judge Selden responded brusquely.
Judge Scott demanded an instant apology, and upon Judge Selden’s declination, Judge Scott seized a candle stick from the table and hurled it at him. Although Judge Selden was the injured person, Judge Scott was the challenger.
Judge Selden, Pope says, sent an apology a few days later, but the intermeddling of friends prevented the closing of the breach. The meeting was on Mississippi soil, opposite Montgomery’s Point, at the mouth of White river. Judge Selden’s second was Robert C. Oden, and Judge Scott’s Dr. Nimrod Menifee, who acted also as surgeon. Pistols were used at 10 paces and Judge Selden died at the first fire.
Old Mrs. Norris, widow of the founder of Norristown, died only about 25 years ago. She lived in the vicinity of the old town long after its glory had departed, and, until almost the day of her death, after rounding out more than a century, she was a strong, forceful character, both mentally and physically. The Dardanelle-Russellville short line was built during the latter years of her life, and was operated with all the primitive adjuncts of the trains of the day. The first locomotives were wood burners, and although the train had no scheduled stops between Russellville and North Dardanelle, some four miles distant, actually it operated only from wood-pile to wood-pile with several leisurely stops for “coaling.”
…..Pete Rice, who later became one of the best known locomotive engineers of the Missouri Pacific, was the first engineer of the old “dinky” line. One day as Pete was puffing out of the North Dardanelle station with much pomp and circumstance he saw Mrs. Norris, then past 70 years, a little distance down the right of way. Railroads were run on a neighborly plan in those days before schedules and such, and Pete drew up and brought his train to a stop.
…..”Get aboard, Mrs. Norris,” he called, “and we’ll ride you home.”
…..Mrs. Norris cast a reflective eye upon the little engine and replied:
…..”No, thank you, Pete. It’s just two or three miles and I’m in a kind of a hurry.”
…..While Norristown was one of the most important points on the post road between Little Rock and Fort Smith, Dardanelle, just across the river, was the “change” station. The mail or the “post” was carried overland in stage coaches, drawn by four horses, and as near as can now be gathered there were four relays. Out of Little Rock teams were changed at what is now Gleason in Faulkner county, at Lewisburg in Conway county, at Dardanelle in what is now Yell county, at what is now Paris, or thereabout, in Logan county, and so into Fort Smith. At Norristown, the stage crossed the river on Tate’s ferry.
…..The stage coach was a cumbersome affair slung without springs on leather straps from arches up-ending from the axles. The bump of the road was relieved only by the forward and back swaying of the body suspended from the straps, and the mail and baggage were carried in the “boot,” a small platform swung at the rear. The horses were magnificent animals, the best obtainable and the drivers were widely known over their “runs.” Although there was adequate ferriage across the river at Norristown for lighter traffic, such as the stage coaches and private conveyances, the overland freight traffic, the long ox-teams bringing in their “barter” of cotton and hides and taking out merchandise, usually stopped at the river.
…..However, Norristown’s great artery of traffic, like that of all other river towns of the period, was the river itself. There are still men who can remember in this day when steamboating has vanished from the Arkansas, the great argosies which made landing at Norristown—sometimes as many as four of them in sight at the same time—upbound from New Orleans to Fort Smith and intervening points with sugar, salt, hardware and dry goods, and downbound with cotton. These older steamboats were floating palaces, many of them, and of tremendous cargo capacity. The old Importer, out of Fort Smith to New Orleans, loaded, one time, the last bale of cotton of a cargo of 5,000 bales at Dardanelle. She was “loaded to the guards” before the last bale was heaved aboard by the “roustabouts,” and the only place they could find to place it was squarely atop the pilot house.
…..Norristown was no outpost of river traffic. Well before its founding the steam boats were plying the river beyond its site. The Arkansas Gazette of March 22, 1822, in commenting on the old Eagle, out of New Orleans for Dwight Mission, mentions that “this is the first steamboat that ever ascended to this place.” The Eagle on this trip turned back within 12 miles of the Mission on account of low water.
…..Capt. Bob Wilson of Russellville is now the only living man who was in business in Norristown, and although the town was then past its prime, the “merchandising” policies were little changed. Like all pioneer settlements of the Southwest, those from which Norristown drew its trade were self sustaining. In a pinch they could both cloth and feed themselves with the elemental necessities. They could have existed without recourse to the stores, but they needed the market for their surplus products, and they required such refinements and luxuries as they could
procure in exchange. So the stores took their cotton and in turn sold them prints and cloths of finer fabrics, sugar and spices, manufactured articles, and above all, salt. Salt was the one essential with no substitute, and salt frequently played a part in the country stores which other foodstuffs have played in the bourses and exchanges of the world’s metropolises. Salt came up the river from New Orleans or Memphis. It was used, of course, as a seasoning for food, and also to cure valuable hides and the winter’s supply of meat. It was essentially a matter
for steamboat transportation because of its weight and bulk. So when the river fell, and transportation by water stopped because of a lack of water, its importation generally was cut off. It was then that the merchants in the isolated places began “merchandizing,” which in the interpretation of the Southwest means being a merchant from all possible angles. Captain Wilson says that when Norristown merchants received advance notice that the river was falling, they immediately began sending out salt buyers. Sometimes an unwary merchant who had not gotten the latest river intelligence sold out his entire stock of salt with no chance of getting more until the river rose. Salt trains even went to the White river towns, De Valls Bluff and Des Arc, among them, and famine and high prices reigned until transportation resumed on rising water.
…..The commercial significance of the old town which now lives but in the history was unquestioned. But for the railroads, which brought ruin so utter and so rapid to many of the river towns, it might be a flourishing city. Its political significance, however, is in doubt. There is no resident of Pope or Yell county who has not been brought up in the faith that at one time Norristown lacked but two votes of becoming the capital of the state. Unfortunately, however, the details were not recorded. The proceedings of the territorial legislature published in the Arkansas Gazette, which served in those days as a legislative journal, contain no account of Norristown’s claim. If the town was ever proposed before the formal law-making body, or the proposal ever came to a formal vote, no record of the fact was made. The size of the town cannot be argued against it as a contender for the state capital. If Norristown’s population was only some 300 or 400 people, that of Little Rock itself, according to an official census of 1833, was only 537. The matter may have been proposed and tabled, or actually voted upon. This, however, is speculation. No written history of the matter seems to exist with the single exception of Shinn’s History of the state. Josiah Shinn in a brief reference to the town states that at one time it came within two votes of being chosen for the capita, but, although a careful and exhaustive historian, he does not quote authority for his statement or give any further details. He, himself, was a longtime resident of Pope county, and it may be that he has published the widespread belief of the community, which although universal in its acceptance, brings no written proof to its establishment as a fact. W.B. Lemoyne of Dardanelle, who has lived many years in Pope and Yell counties and who knew Mrs. Norris well during the later years of her life, says that she is his authority for the matter; that she told him as positive fact many years ago that Little Rock had won the honor from Norristown by only two vote.
…..And such is old Norristown, the most utterly lost of Arkansas’ lost towns; its sons and daughters lying in widely scattered graves; is prominence long ago forgotten; the very river whose name one time it glorified eating slowly year by year further into its dead heart. And to its memory two things stand—this paper written for the centennial edition of the Arkansas Gazette, and a little battered log-cabin, one time a famous tavern.

Courthouse Fire

March 27, 2022

On April 21, 1913, the Yell County Courthouse, formerly a commercial building on Front Street between Green and Oak Streets, along with a neighboring business—a “transfer stable”—and a private residence was totally destroyed in a fire that had started in the stable.

(The transfer stable probably provided delivery services as well as transportation from the riverboats up to the resort on Mt. Nebo.)

Dardanelle Courthouse Fire, April 21, 1913. The photograph may have been taken by a local photographer, Sherwood T. Grissom. Dardanelle Courthouse Fire, April 21, 1913.
The photograph may have been taken by a local photographer, Sherwood T. Grissom.
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As Yell County’s population increased, the Arkansas General Assembly had split the county into two judicial districts in 1875 and appointed Dardanelle as a judicial seat to serve alongside Danville. The cities held separate chancery, circuit, and probate courts, with the county clerk maintaining an office in both courthouses. A courthouse for the Dardanelle Judicial District was established in the Front Street commercial building in 1878.

Arkansas Gazette,
April 22, 1913

YELL COURTHOUSE

DESTROYED BY FIRE

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Transfer Stable and Residence Also Prey to Flames at Dardanelle.
Special to the Gazette.
Dardanelle, April 21.—Dardanelle was visited by a serious fire about 6 o’clock this afternoon and before the flames were extinguished the Dardanelle transfer stable on Front street, the county courthouse and the residence of Joseph Lipe were destroyed.
The flames started in the Dardanelle Transfer Company through some unknown cause and spread with great rapidity and by the time the firemen had reached the scene the courthouse was starting to burn. As all the records were in a vault in the courthouse, no effort was made to save them, as the safe was fireproof.
The firemen did good work and got the flames under control after Mr. Lipe’s home, which was in the rear of the courthouse, was destroyed. They pumped water on the ruins of the courthouse all night so the vault containing the records can be reached in the morning.
The courthouse was valued at $3,000 and was insured for $2,000. The Circuit, Chancery, County and Probate Courtrooms were in the building.
J. L. Carpenter owned the building in which the livery stable was housed. It was valued at $1,200 and was insured for $750. Croom Brothers ran the business, but their loss cannot be ascertained. Mr. Lipp carried $1,000 insurance on his home, which was valued at that amount.

The Arkansas Traveller.

March 20, 2022
The Arkansas Traveller
after an original painting by Edward Payson Washbourne
Leopold Grozelier (lithographer), J.H. Bufford (publisher), Boston, Massachusetts, c. 1859, hand-colored lithographic print on paper, Collection of Historic Arkansas Museum.
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Washbourne’s original 1856 Arkansas Traveler painting has been lost to history; no one knows exactly what happened to it. However, Historic Arkansas Museum’s collection includes a vibrant, hand-colored lithograph produced by Leopold Grozelier for J.H. Bufford and Sons, which is considered the most faithful reproduction of the original painting. (see What makes Arkansas, Arkansas?)

THE SOUTHERN ARTIST

By Mabel Washbourne Anderson

Sturm’s Oklahoma Magazine,
June-July, 1907.
previously published in
Vinita Daily Chieftain,
Indian Territory,
September 3, 1903

One of the most familiar pictures of the South is that of “The Arkansas Traveler,” while the musical air of that name is almost as widely known and recognized as “Dixie,” the beloved ode of the Southland. Though this picture is so commonly seen in the homes of the South and West, yet there are few paintings—with which the public is familiar—concerning whose origin so little is known.
Edward Pason Washbourne, the painter of the original picture, was Arkansas’ earliest artist of ability, and the picture depicts a perfect type of the cabin of a squatter in the wilderness of Arkansas, more than eighty years ago. Many a local colloquialism has found its origin in the supposed conversation that took place between the “Squatter” and the “Traveler.”
This humorous dialogue was printed in sheet music form and appeared shortly after the completion of the painting and was usually sold in connection with the lithographs.
The lost and bewildered “Arkansas Traveler” who approached the cabin and found the proprietor seated on an old whiskey barrel playing the fiddle, as shown in the picture, was Col. S. C. Faulkner, author of the story and the musical air, “The Arkansas Traveler,” a man well known in that section of Arkansas at that time.
The stranger and the hoosier engaged in conversation and quite a lengthy dialogue takes place between them, a portion of which is as follows:
(Stranger): As I am not likely to reach another house tonight, can you let me stop with you?
(Squatter): My house leaks, there’s only one dry spot in it, and Sal and me sleep on that.
(Stranger): Well, why don’t you finish covering your house and stop the leaks?
(Squatter): It’s been raining all day.
(Stranger): Well, why don’t you do it in dry weather?
(Squatter): It don’t leak then.
This pertinent reply has created an adage familiar in almost every section of the country.
Opie Reed, the novelist, called the newspaper which he founded in Little Rock, Arkansas, after this picture, a paper still published under the title “The Arkansas Traveler.”
Thus the picture and its title have been kept before the public for almost half a century.
Quite an amusing incident, in connection with this famous picture occurred in one of the large towns of the Indian Territory recently, and shows the ignorance among the masses concerning the picture and its origin.
The wife of a well-to-do cattle man had moved into town from the ranch and previous to her coming had directed the husband to make some purchases in the way of furniture and parlor ornaments. Among other things a handsome copy of “The Arkansas Traveler” had been selected and paid for, but the good wife denounced the painting in emphatic terms, declaring that no picture with “whiskey” marked upon it should grace her walls. It was vain for the clerk to expostulate and endeavor to explain what the picture was and the period it represented. She was obdurate and he was told to keep the picture and to sell it for whatever he chose.
In consequence a certain young lady possessed herself of the same for a mere song. As a fitting climax to the ludicrous incident the old lady gave the proceeds to the cause of Foreign Missions.
Rev. Cephas Washbourne, father of the artist, was associated with Dr. Kingsbury, Dr. Worcester and others of missionary fame among the Indians. Dr. Washbourne was long and extensively known as the superintendent of Dwight Mission among the Cherokees of Arkansas. He gave the name of “Dwight” to this mission in honor of Dr. Dwight, a distinguished divine and friend of missions.
In 1818 Tol-on-tus-ky, the principal chief of the Arkansas Cherokees, requested Jeremiah Evans, treasurer of the American Board of Missions, to found a mission among his people, and in the autumn of that year Mr. Washbourne was sent by that board as agent to the old nation in Georgia in which capacity he labored for one year. In the fall of 1819 he was instructed to commence his journey to Arkansas and found a mission among the Cherokees. In November, 1819, in company with his associate missionaries, Mr. Washbourne began his journey to the wilds of Arkansas, for at that time Arkansas was a perfect “terra incognita” and the way to get there was unknown. After fourteen days’ travel they reached the Mississippi at a point called Walnut Hills, where Vicksburg now stands. On this journey to his missionary field, Mr. Washbourne stopped at the post of Arkansas, which was then the seat of the government of the Territory of Arkansas. From thence he came to Little Rock on the first steamboat that ever ascended the Arkansas river above the post of Arkansas, and as a matter equally worthy of note he preached the first sermon ever delivered in Little Rock, which consisted then of a little frame shanty with a scanty supply of drugs and medicines and a little cabin made of logs with the bark on, where the sermon was delivered to an audience of fourteen men and women. These two cabins mentioned were the only buildings at that time on the site of the present city of Little Rock which gave no promise then of a splendid future, of the beautiful capital of a sovereign state.
Rev. Mr. Washbourne remained at Dwight until 1828 when he and his faithful missionary friends followed the Cherokees further west and established another missionary station near the stream called Sallisaw, to which he gave the name of New Dwight. Here at this new missionary home, Edward Pason Washbourne, the artist of “The Arkansas Traveler” fame, was born on the 17th day of November, 1831. In 1850 his father moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and became pastor of the Presbyterian church at that place. Here in 1851 Edward, the artist, opened a studio and began to paint. He had evinced a talent at an early age and without instruction, and guided by his genius alone he began life as a self-taught artist.
The portraits and landscapes painted by him in his boyhood are worthy the brush of many an older and carefully trained artist. Many of these early paintings are yet to be seen in the old Washbourne home in Russellville, Arkansas. These pictures evince, in a very flattering and remarkable degree, artistic talent, and were painted long before he ever conceived the idea of “The Arkansas Traveler.”
From Fort Smith the artist went to New York and studied under Elliott, the great American painter. His work, during his brief stay there, was approved by eminent judges. Edward Washbourne, like his father, was a fine student with a remarkably retentive memory. He loved the classics and could repeat page after page of Virgil or a whole oration from Cicero. In the fall of 1858 while he and his brother were on their way to try their skill as fishermen, in the Illinois bayou, Edward remarked that he believed he would paint a picture and call it “The Arkansas Traveler.” A few days afterwards he canvassed a frame and began to paint some characters of the picture. One day he and his brother visited their father’s old home at Dwight to look at the memorable spring that once slaked the thirst of that noble little missionary band and in passing one of the old mission houses they saw a young girl holding a looking glass in one hand, while with the other she combed and brushed a lovely suit of hair. They both laughed at this, but the incident made such an impression upon Edward’s mind that immediately upon reaching home he sketched the character of the girl holding the glass and combing her hair, together with the traveler, who was Col. Faulkner, as previously mentioned. These characters are still retained in the lithographs. There at Norristown, Pope county, in 1858 must be given as the place and time at which the first conception entered the mind of the artist, Edward Washbourne, to make and execute the remarkable and famous picture, “The Arkansas Traveler.”
Mr. Washbourne painted three different views before he became satisfied with his task; the third and final one was given to the public and is now a familiar sight in almost every southern home. The first two scenes, so different from the third, are still in the possession of the Washbourne family and stand unframed just as they came from the hand of the painter.
This brilliant young artist died in Little Rock in the twenty-eighth year of his age. Thus terminated in the morning of life Arkansas’ first and most gifted artist. Had he lived to attain the allotted age of man, with his high ambition, his rapid improvement and devotion to his profession, he would no doubt have been classed and recognized among the first artists of his day.

Moonshine Raid Goes Terribly Bad

March 19, 2022
In the last half of the last decade of the 19th century, two deputy US Marshals were killed and two others were wounded in a gunfight with moonshiner Harve Bruce in the mountain country north of Russellville, Arkansas.  The location varies between accounts from ten miles south of Witts Springs to Bullfrog Valley, sixteen miles further south and east. One telling has it in Van Buren County where  Harve Bruce and his family had lived just over the county line from northeast Pope County since 1871, first in Archey Valley Township and then, in the early 90s, on a 160-acre land grant in Wheeler township.
Wherever the true location was, the shootout occurred in the remote near-wilderness of the mountains and hollows of the Ozarks of Arkansas.
Below are four versions of the events from 125 years or so ago.
Deputy US Marshalls Benjamin F. Taylor od Searcy County and Joseph Dodson of Stone County.
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The Wichita Daily Eagle (Kansas)
August 31, 1897

Moonshiners Fired First

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Terrible Execution Done Among a Possee of Deputies in Arkansas.

Little Rock, Ark, Aug. 30—Two deputy United States marshals are dead, two are seriously wounded and two more are missing as a result of an attack upon a posse of officers by a gang of desperate moonshiners in Pope county yesterday.  The dead are B.F Taylor of Searcy county and Joe Dodson of Stone county.  The wounded are the Renfro Brothers.  The names of the missing men are not given, but they are supposed to be deputies of Searcy county.  Taylor, one of the murdered men, was 58 years of age and the wealthiest man in Searcy county.  Dodson was a well known deputy and had been a terror to moonshiners for years.
The six officers were on a moonshine raid when the terrible affair occurred.  They had approached to within thirty yards of an illicit distillery, when they were fired on from ambush.  Taylor and Dodson fell at the first fire, dead in their tracks.  The shooting occurred thirty-five miles from Russellville, at a point ten miles south of Witt Springs.  The locality is in the mountains and has been a favorite rendezvous for counterfeiters and moonshiners.  The news of the terrible tragedy was brought to Russellville this morning by Dr. Pack, who came after the coroner.  The men who did the shooting are supposed to be a gang of moonshiners led by Horace Bruce and John Church, two of the most desperate characters in that part of the state.
William Harvey ‘Harve’ Bruce

It was self-defense

from an article by Piney Page
 Jake Gargous lived in the area north of Hector.
According to Jake, Harve (Bruce) was a bootlegger. On one occasion he had taken a wagon load of whiskey to Clinton, AR. and was peddling it in the outskirts of town. He was approached by a man claiming to be a deputy sheriff. He wanted to search Harve’s wagon. Harve requested he show his credentials but the man ignored him, moved towards the wagon and began the search. Not wishing to kill the man Harve shot him in the leg. He went home and took to the woods.
On a Sunday morning Harve was visiting some friends who were operating a still. The mash was worked in homemade wooden boxes rather than barrels.
Harve was sitting on a fence built to keep the hogs out. As it became light, some men came in shooting. At that time Dr. Arnold Henry’s grandfather was sheriff. He was a strong sympathizer with all old soldiers, including Harve Bruce. The revenuers who had attacked the men at the still had avoided the sheriff since they suspected where his sympathy would be. The revenuers did find other Russellville men to go along.
Their moving in on Harve Bruce and his friends was without warning according to Jake. Harve rolled off the fence, jumped behind a mash box, and grabbed his Winchester. With the first two shots he killed two men. Another attacker was behind a tree with his elbow sticking out. Harve put a bullet in the elbow. Another man was lying on his stomach with a hip exposed. Harve put a bullet in the hip. A young Russellville man trying to run away was shot in the shoulder. The battle was over.
Harve stayed hid out in the woods. After a couple of months he sent word to Silas Henry, sheriff, that he would surrender to him in Atkins. He had killed two men and shot others but due to the circumstances of the raid he pleaded self-defense.
He served a year in the pen. When he got out he reported to the sheriff’s office to let him know he was back home. He was advised to stay away from moonshining and bootlegging but he did not heed the advice.
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A couple of years later, after Silas was out of office, a deputy went into the mountains to bring Harve in for making moonshine. When asked his wife did not know where he was.
He was under an overhang working at his still when the deputy approached. Harve’s daughter was assisting him with the work. The deputy came up and said he wanted to talk. The deputy said, “If you don’t go with me, I’ll take your daughter.”
Harve replied, “You bother my daughter and I’ll kill you.” That ended the conference.

Arkansas Penitentiary

The Conway Log Cabin
21 Aug 1900
While in Little Rock Thursday J.E. Little, Dr. Foster Richardson and J.W. Underhill were the guests at supper of Col. Bud McConnell, superintendent of the State Penitentiary. He showed us the new State Capitol building which is making rapid progress. We were informed that the work which has been done at the established prices for such work would amount to $85,000 and there is yet remaining $15,000 of the $50,000 appropriated by the last legislature.
The walls and buildings of the old penitentiary are being torn down as the work on the new penitentiary, southeast of the city, progresses. We did not go to see the new penitentiary.
One of the most noted characters in the penitentiary is Harve Bruce. He was sent up from Pope County for the killing of two deputy marshals and wounding two others. He has a very short term, only six months. He is a typical old mountaineer and moonshine distiller. He is 65 or 70 years old and before his imprisonment began, he wore long flowing whiskers, which made him look about as we imagine Moses did about the time he delivered the law of the “Children of Israel.” these whiskers were cut off when he began his term of service.
When asked if he killed those marshals he said, “well, I was the only one that did any shooting on that side and when it was over two were dead and two others wounded.” He regretted that he had to do it, but said he would have to do it again under the same circumstances.
On the morning of the killing, six deputy marshals crept up under the cover of a bluff when upon the top of the bluff to within one hundred yards of where old man Bruce sat with a neighbor on a fence. The neighbor said “look at those men.”
Old man Bruce stood up and looked in the direction indicated. The marshals began shooting without saying a word, so he says. The neighbor fled. Bruce’s Winchester was several yards from him and towards the marshals, he ran and got it and began shooting at them. He said the bullets whizzed around him when they get too close to whiz. If any of you was in the war you know bullets don’t whiz when they get too close.
Old man Bruce was in the Confederate Army. One of the bullets glanced Bruce’s ankle making a blood blister. He shot two of the marshals down and it was afterwards found that they had been killed. He wounded two others and two escaped uninjured.
After his trial and sentence he was turned loose on his own recognizance to arrange his business and then to go to the penitentiary.
One evening about one month ago Bud McConnell, superintendent of the state penitentiary, was notified that a man at the office wanted to see him. He found old man Harve Bruce there ready to begin his term of service.
He is now one of the guards on the wall. The superintendent told him he thought that as he could use a Winchester so dexterously on marshals he would make a good guard.
He impresses one that he would keep his promises if possible. It is said that when disputes arose between his neighbors they generally left the matter to old Harve Bruce.
The mountaineer hates the marshals and the government that try to prevent him from doing with his corn as he pleases. He thinks that he has as much right to make whisky out of it as bread.
Old man Bruce explained that their corn was worth only 30 cents per bushel. When they made it into whiskey the slop was worth as much as the corn to feed the hogs and they could get $2.00 per gallon for the whiskey. This was about the only way, he explained, of getting any money up there in the mountains. He said that he would not distill any more whiskey as he wanted to live in peace now.

The Moonshiner Who Got Away with Murder

…and escaped the hangman’s noose

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Another version of the story tells things differently. An article in True West magazine had it that “William Harvey ‘Harve’ Bruce would kill two deputy U.S. marshals and put hot lead into two posse members, while the other two scattered like quail into the wild and uncut Boston Mountains.”
According to True West,
Bruce was visiting, or so he claimed, friends who were operating a still in Bullfrog Valley, Pope County, Arkansas. “Everyone knows where the Bull Frog Valley is…. That is where the genuine wild-catter [moonshiner] blooms and flourishes as prolific as morning glories on the back porch of a farm house,” reported The Mountain Wave newspaper in Searcy County.
The article went on to briefly mention the Bullfrog Valley Gang, “one of the most dangerous organizations of counterfeiters that has operated in the United States in recent years” had been “wiped out.” “Bullfrog Valley was indeed a hotbed of criminal activity.”
True West’s somewhat dramatic description of the main event is similar to other accounts:
Bruce was sitting on a fence, talking to his friend, when he spotted a number of men mounted on horses headed his way. Bruce claimed the men opened fire without warning when they approached the camp. He grabbed his rifle and returned fire.
His first shot killed Capt. Benjamin F. Taylor, and his second shot killed Joseph Dodson, both deputy U.S. marshals. Taylor, of Searcy County, was a wealthy 57-year-old farmer who had served time as a senator in Arkansas before embarking on his career as a deputy in 1895. The 28-year-old Dodson, of Stone County, had a reputation for busting moonshine operations throughout the region.
Still under attack, Bruce spotted another man, whose elbow was exposed from behind a tree. One shot put him out of action as he howled and fell to the ground. Bruce’s next shot seriously wounded one man crawling on his belly by putting the round into his hip.
Three men allegedly running the moonshine still were captured a few weeks later. They were Turner Skidmore, James Alva Church and Dave Millsaps. All were charged with murder and illicit distilling.
By this account, Bruce evaded capture for a year.  Captain Taylor’s family offered a reward on Bruce, $550, dead or alive. Other rewards raised the amount to $1000. Captured when he arrived home after an extended absence, family lore claims that the neighbors who caught him had conspired with Bruce to turn him in with the reward money going to his legal fees.
In 1898, Bruce, Church, and Skidmore, convicted of illicit distilling, were sentenced to three years at Leavenworth.  Millsaps was acquitted.  Bruce’s prison file was flagged, “Must not be Paroled. Notify sheriff in Little Rock, Ark., 2 mo’s prior to discharge; by order of warden.”
In July 1899, Bruce, Church, and Skidmore were released to the custody of the state of Arkansas to stand trial for the murders of Tayor and Dodson.
At the Fort Smith trial, Bruce said, “I did all the shooting under the mistaken idea that my life was in danger.” He claimed the posse didn’t identify themselves as lawmen nor state their attentions.  He said he thought he was being attacked by a rival gang of moonshiners. Since Bruce’s friend had fled, Bruce was the only one returning the posse’s fire. 
Everyone was acquitted except Bruce, who had pled self-defense.  The wounded posse members who survived were not called to testify.  In those times, many resented the government’s stance on moonshine.  A jury of Bruce’s peers convicted him of involuntary manslaughter.  He was sentenced to six months.
Read more in the article in True West magazine.

The Bullfrog Valley Gang.

March 11, 2022

Operating out of the wilderness of Pope County during the depression of the 1890s, the Bullfrog Valley Gang printed bogus $5 and $10 notes and distributed them all over the United States.  The head of the gang was George Rozelle who had moved from Nebraska to Arkansas and had printing equipment shipped from Chicago, Illinois.  He set up his counterfeiting operation in Bullfrog Valley, “a remote and inhospitable glen north of Russellville (Pope County) that was famous as a hideout for highwaymen, bandits, and moonshiners” [Encyclopedia of Arkansas].

Arrest of Three Counterfeiters in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Annihilates the Band

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The New York Times
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., June 27. (1897) — Deputy United States Marshals attached to the Fort Smith court have captured three men whose arrest, it is believed, has effectually broken up the once-famous band of counterfeiters known to secret service operators all over the United States as the Bullfrog Valley Gang.
Its headquarters ” mint ” was situated in Pope County, Ark. The gang had branches for the purpose of floating their spurious money in nearly all the principal cities in the country and even, so the secret service men say, in Toronto, Canada, and the City of Mexico.
At the last term of the Federal court, held in this city, eight indictments were returned against members of the band. These persons are now in custody, awaiting trial. Several other members of the gang have been convicted for passing counterfeit money in various cities and are now serving terms of imprisonment.
The work of finding the headquarters of the Bullfrog Valley counterfeiters is considered one of the best pieces of detective work accomplished by the secret service operators in the past decade. The members of the gang sought a remote spot in the fastnesses in the mountains of Pope County. and settled there as rough mountaineers. They dressed like the natives, and adapted themselves to their customs to such a degree that the residents of the county paid no attention to them, supposing the men to be honest mountaineers.
The money was manufactured in the mountain mint and shipped to agents in all parts of the country to be floated. All efforts on the part of the officers to find the mint were baffled for a long time. Detectives in Chicago discovered that counterfeiting materials were being shipped from that city, and by a fine piece of work they traced the shipments to the Pope County mint of the Bullfrog Valley gang.

Daily Arkansas Gazette
Little Rock, Arkansas
22 Jul 1897

Lewis Martin, Who Looks Innocent, Faces the Law.
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CHARGED WITH COUNTERFEITING
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Thirteen Members of the Famous Bull Frog Valley Gang Have Fallen Into the Meshes of the Law and Martin May Be the Fourteenth—An “Easy Way of Making a Living” Was Martin’s Inducement.
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Lewis Martin, an innocent and harmless looking young man, appeared in United States Commissioner’s O’Hair’s court yesterday to answer to a charge of counterfeiting. Martin is either the victim of a conspiracy or one of the boldest counterfeiters yet brought to grief by the federal authorities. He has the air and ways of one unused to the world, but the fact that a full counterfeiting outfit was found In las possession Indicates that he is at least an apt pupil In the art of  learning “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.” Martin hails treat Pope county near Russellville, and the suspicion is that he belongs to the famous Bull Frog Valley gang of counterfeiters, thirteen of whom have hereto-fore fallen into the meshes of the law.
Martin was arrested by Deputy United States Marshal Saulpaugh on information furnished by a neighbor, who stated that the moulds and counterfeit dollars could be dug up at a certain place, where Martin lived. The directions were followed and found to be correct. The bogus coin was in dollars and halves and proved to be a very poor counterfeit, easy of detection, and exhibiting lack of skill of making. which went to prove that Martin must be a very fresh hand at the business.
In making a statement to the court Martin tried to excuse himself by saying that he had been solicited to go into the “business” as an easy way of making a living. He declared that the witnesses who testified against him had swornn to Iles and told one that he would get even with him.
Commissioner O’Hair fixed Martin’s bond at $500. It could not be given and the defendant was remanded to the custody of the marshal to await examina• Mat by the federal grand jury in October.
Gradually the officers are breaking up the Bull Frog Valley gang of counterfeiting and the prospect Is that ere long every member of that large and dangerous crowd will soon be behind the bars.

Read more in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas

A Birth of Ozark Ballads

March 10, 2022

Joe Hilderbrand was a talented young man that met with unfortunate circumstances and fled to the hollows and the hills of Pope County rather than go back to prison. To this day, some say that he didn’t do what he was accused and convicted of.

Multiple Ozark ballads about Joe and his sweetheart, Frances, were subsequently written.

  • Joe Hildebrand, as sung by Boyce Davis, Lincoln, Arkansas on January 13, 1968. “Boyce said he wrote his song and I remember reading and hearing about Joe Hildebrand. Boyce said the bold bandit Queen was Joe’s 16 year old pregnant neice. He always got a kick out of that line.”
  • Foothills of the Ozarks, as sung by Glen Orhlin, Mountain View, Arkansas on October 7, 1969
  • The Legend of the Ozarks, as sung by Ollie Gilbert, Mountain View, Arkansas on October 26, 1971
  • Joe Hilderbrand, as sung by Richard Brothers, Fayetteville, Arkansas on January 1, 1974

Two that mentioned location certainly got it wrong. One has it in Polk County, which is the Oachitas, not the Ozarks.  Another mentioned Coke County, which Arkansas doesn’t have, though Texas does.

Locals in General Store

The Outlaw of the Ozarks

excerpt from About You,
December 25, 2018
Joseph Lytle Hilderbrand was not your usual Arkansas criminal. Sixty years ago, Hilderbrand was transported to the Tucker State Prison Farm in Jefferson County to serve a three-year sentence. He’d been convicted of kidnapping and robbing a tourist couple traveling down Scenic Highway 7 in the Ozark National Forest in 1958. After hijacking the young Midwestern honeymooners at the Rotary Ann rest stop, Hilderbrand allegedly had them drive him down the mountain to Fort Douglas, where he tied them to trees before disappearing into the woods with their cash — a total of $1.02.
Hilderbrand had already accumulated a minor record by age 20, serving time in the Faulkner County jail for forgery. A skinny prisoner, Hilderbrand somehow managed to slip between the bars of his cell on the top floor of the courthouse, climb out a window, drop into the bushes below and make his way home.
Home was the Bullfrog Valley area of Pope County, a short distance west of Dover, where Hilderbrand was born in 1935. He was well known in the community, and many felt he’d been wrongly charged and convicted in the incident involving the tourists. He felt that way as well. While sitting in the courtroom anxiously awaiting the jury’s recommendation on sentencing, he asked a deputy why it was taking so long. The man replied, in jest, that they were deciding whether to give him life or hang him. Not realizing he was the victim of a terribly bad joke, Hilderbrand leaped from his chair and bolted for the door but was caught before he could flee from the courthouse.
Moments earlier, the jury had agreed to a three-year suspended sentence, but instead gave him a three-year confinement because of his attempted escape.

The Birth of Ozark Ballads

Life,
November 14, 1960

Joe’s mother, wife and father trudge home along a ridge near Big Piney Valley after searching all day for their Joe and his sweetheart
Over in the Ozarks, where songs and legends grow thick as pokeweed, two new ballads are being sung this fall about Joe Hilderbrand and his mountain sweetheart. Snatches from the songs are printed on this page, and even while they were being composed on Ozark guitars, Joe and his girl were being pursued day and night by airplanes, jeeps and blood-bounds in one of Arkansas’ biggest manhunts.
Joe’s troubles started small. In 1958 he robbed a tourist couple of a dollar and two cents on a highway near his home at Chigger Hollow. Sent to jail for three years, Joe became a model prisoner, even repaired the state electric chair. Last January he was granted a three-day furlough to see his father, who had had a paralytic stroke. His father got well but Joe took a notion to skip jail. He hid in mountain caves and did a bit of pilfering. The Ozark people began to think of Joe as a hero like Robin Hood, and even the state troopers did not bother him too much because they felt he was not really a bad man.
But this fall when Joe, who is 24, was joined by 18-year old Frances Standridge, who is a niece of Joe’s 47-year-old wife, he was faced with a kidnaping charge brought by the girl’s father. The troopers closed in, and the balladmakers sang, “Run, Joe, run.”

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Joe, Wife, and Kin

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BALLAD HERO Joe Hilderbrand before he went to jail had done stint in a reform school.  His greatest fun was working on old jalopies with his dad.
Though Joe was a married man, there was nothing sneaky about his running off with young Frances Standridge. The couple walked straight up to Ola, who is Joe’s wife and Francis’ aunt, and told her point-blank they planned “to be away for five years together.” Then they walked into the hills. But that was not the end of Ola’s troubles. The police had a theory that Joe would surrender if they put pressure on his family.
So they charged Ola and Joe’s father with helping an escaped criminal and locked them in jail. This struck their Ozark neighbors as a dirty trick so two friends put up $1,000 bail and got Ola and the old man out.
When Joe and his girl took off, thefts began to occur in the hills where they roamed. But what made the mountain folks angrier than the stealing was the fact that the police, during lulls in their search, broke up illegal stills and confiscated rivers of first-class moonshine.
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JOE’S WIFE Ola (right)stands beside her sister, Osie, and her mother Nacy Jane (lower left), 80-year-old matriarch of the large Standridge clan.

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JOE’S PARENTS, Lytle and Bertha, kept vigil by cabin.  Police thought Joe was hiding in the cellar and tossed tear gas bombs in.  According to local lore, Joe was under floor with face buried in wet grain bags and fooled the law.

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JOE’S PURSUERS swarmed through the mountains.  These two patrolmen carry guns and walkie-talkie which linked them with searchers in other areas. They hid in various spots along road waiting for Joe and Frances to come along..

As the manhunt grew more intense, Joe stole eight cars, wrecked some, and jumped from one to another. He and Frances slept in woods that crawled with copperheads and rattlers. “But them snakes didn’t bother usuns none,” said Frances. Meanwhile, Joe’s father drove all over in his rattletrap car, stirring up sympathy for his son and begging police not to shoot him. Walking along a creek, Joe and Frances were spotted at last by an airplane observer, who figured where they would be at nightfall and directed their capture. Together they were rushed into Little Rock and locked up. Nobody knows the fate of the lovers, but future ballads will record it one way or the other: “The mean ole troopers kept them apart, and broke the lovers’ bleeding hearts”, or more happily, “Now Frances waits at his cabin door and Joe didn’t have to run no more.”
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TATTERED JOE, after police flushed him, was sent back to the prison farm to serve out the remaining two years of his sentence.  He still may be tried for thefts.
WRETCHED FRANCES, who says she still loves Joe, was back to her family on $1,000 bail.  She faces larceny charges for helping Joe steal a car.

Perilous Journeys—Organization of the Mission

March 5, 2022

From Reminiscences of the Indians, by Cephas Washburn, published 1869 by The Presbyterian Publication Committee.

Very Dear Brother: Among the misteries, (not of godliness, but of the want of godliness,) existing in our American Zion, is the fact that she remained asleep so long in reference to the Saviour’s ascending command, “Go ye into all the world and preach thee Gospel to every creature.” I was nineteen years old when the first foreign missionaries sailed from our shores. And when the Churches were imbued with the spirit of missions, it is wonderful that the heathen in our own land were overlooked, and the whole field of vision seemed filled with the idol worshippers on foreign shores. When brother Kingsbury started on his mission to the Indians, he was regarded by a majority in the Church as little better than a second Don Quixote. The Indians were regarded as outcasts in Divine Providence, who had been forgotten in the exuberance of Divine love, and overlooked in the provisions of redeeming mercy.
To this I know there were honourable individual exceptions, but such was the prevailing feeling in the American Church. Brother Kingsbury had a faith which brought these poor outcasts within the pale of Christ’s power to save, and animated by that faith he took his lonely way to the Cherokee Nation. He commenced a mission there in the autumn of 1816. His faith was not misplaced. God was with him and blessed his labours. Souls were converted to God among the Cherokees before any of our other missions had been blessed by the converting power of the Holy Spirit. In this way God aroused the Churches, and excited an interest for our red aborigines. That Mission among the Cherokees was visited in the spring of 1818, by Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., at that time Treasurer of the American Board. During that visit he had an interview with Tol-on-tus-ky, the principal chief of the Arkansas Cherokees. That chief expressed a wish to have a mission sent to his people, and Mr. Evarts promised to comply with his request as soon as it could be done. In the autumn of that same year I was accepted as a missionary of that Board, and sent out to the State of Georgia as an agent. In that capacity I laboured and as a domestic missionary of the Savannah Missionary Society for one year.
In the autumn of 1819 I was instructed to commence my journey to Arkansas to commence a mission among the Arkansas Cherokees. My journey led me through the old Cherokee Nation and by the Mission at Brainerd, which I was instructed to visit, and the plan of which I was instructed minutely to study. While at Brainerd, I was joined by my brother-in-law, Rev. Alfred Finney, who was associated with me in the establishment of the Arkansas Cherokee Mission. On the 19th November, 1819, we took up our line of travel from Brainerd for the wilderness of Arkansas. Our whole company consisted of Rev. Mr. Finney, wife and one child, myself, wife and one child, and Miss Minerva Washburn, afterwards Mrs. Orr. We had a two-horse wagon, and a one-horse wagon. We were instructed to go through the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, and to leave our wives, and children, and Miss Washburn at Elliott, a mission station among the Choctaws, and to proceed, ourselves, to Arkansas, and make some preparations for our families, and then to return for them. Had we been a month earlier in the year, we might have made the journey to Elliott without difficulty; as it was we had a most laborious, tedious, and trying journey. We reached the Chickasaw Nation on the “Old Natchez Trail,” amid the rains of the winter solstice. The notorious “Chickasaw Swamps” were horrible. Our first day’s travel in the Chickasaw Nation was over a high pine country and was comparatively pleasant. Hitherto, we had found a house at which to stay every night but one, and then were where we could easily get fire; but now we were in the midst of the forest and must lie out. Our fireworks proved to be defective, and we utterly failed to make fire.
It was then concluded that I should take one of the horses and ride back three miles to a cabin we had passed, and get fire. This I did, and when about half the distance back, the fire suddenly blazed up and frightened the horse. I was obliged to throw away the fire. I got down in time to save the fire, and concluded to walk and lead my horse, as he would not suffer me to mount him with the fire in my hand. In this way I went on till I came to a house three miles beyond the company. [I had taken a road which led me off the one we had travelled, though it united with it again after I had passed the company.] I now abandoned the fire and determined to find my way to my companions. This I did, and reached the wagons about ten o’clock. Mr. Finney now and Miss Washburn determined to go after fire on foot. They were successful, and returned with the desired element about midnight. We cooked our supper and were ready to lie down under our blanket tent, and on the ground, in time to get some sleep. But we were destined to some further disturbance. The wind had risen, and our fire was kindled against a large pine log. The sap or outside of this log was damp and soggy, but within, it was “fat” with rosin or pitch. The fire got hold of this, and the wind caused a very high flame to rise. Large glary sparks were flying all around. We were roused from sleep by the suffocating smoke. We found our blanket house over our heads, and our beds beneath us, to be on fire. Hap- ply we were able to put out the fire before much injury was done. We removed to a safer situation and were quiet till the morning. From the experience of this night, we learned some lessons about “camping out,” which have been of use to us ever since. The next day we took the swamps. These we shall never forget. The whole country for miles was almost a dead level, and at that time covered with water from the great rains of the season.
Every few miles, and sometimes much oftener, these flats were permeated by creeks and smaller watercourses, distinguished often only by a current. Many of these streams were swimming. The general character of the soil, if soil it may be called, was an exceedingly adhesive clay, underlain by quick-sands. Sometimes these quick-sands were so near the surface, that our wagons, the moment they entered them, would sink to the axletrees. Experience alone could teach us where these pits of sand were. We knew their location, when we were in them, but till then their appearance was precisely like the circumjacent land, or rather land and water commingled in a chaotic mass. On one occasion, Mr. Finney was driving his wagon in advance of mine. Suddenly his horses and wagon sank down into the quick-sand. The wagon cover knocked off his hat, which fell just before the wagon wheel, and it was carried down and was irrecoverably lost. For several days he was perforce compelled to adopt the fashion of the country, and wear a turban on his head instead of a hat. In this instance, by turning about eight or ten feet aside, I was able to avoid the quick-sand with my wagon. On another occasion we came to a creek. Of its depth we were ignorant. It was concluded to take Mrs. Finney and her babe and Mrs. Washburn in the two-horse wagon, and that Miss Washburn and our babe should go over in the other carriage. Mr. Finney started in with his two horses, and the wagon soon stuck in the clayey bed, and was immovable. We had now with us a man who had been sent out from Elliott to meet and assist us. He first took Mrs. Finney in his arms and carried her safe to land. The water was above his hips. Then Mrs. Finney’s babe was carried out. In attempting to carry Mrs. Washburn, he made a misstep, and let her fall into the stream. She waded to land. When the wagon was unloaded, it was with difficulty got out of the stream. In the mean time, I found a large fallen tree extending over the stream. To this I drove the carriage, carried the babe over, and assisted Miss Washburn to cross. Then the horse was taken out and driven across; and we hauled the wagon over by hand on the fallen tree. Our progress was very slow.
One day we started very early, in hopes of being able to reach a place where we might find “entertainment for man and beast,” as the inn-keepers have it. When we had proceeded about a half mile, we came to a little stream. In the bed of this the horses sank to their bellies, and the wagon to the axletrees. It was very cold, the ice being of an inch thickness over the water of the stream. Into this we were obliged to wade; and in that mud and water and ice, we had to labour from sunrise till four o’clock, P. M. On casting up our Log at camp that night, we found that our day’s progress amounted to one mile and a half. From three to seven miles per diem was our average progress.
In one instance we arrived at the bank of a creek which we percieved to be rising very rapidly; and learning from an Indian, who lived near, that it was not swimming at the ford, we made all haste to get all the ladies and babes into the two-horse wagon, and to cross before it would be impassable. The passage was made in safety, though the wagon bed was half filled with water. Then I attempted to follow with, the other wagon. I had no sooner got into the stream than the fore wheels separated from the body and hind wheels; the horse and fore wheels went safe to land, and the body, with myself, floated down the current. This new-fashioned boat soon lodged against some driftwood. I had a bed-cord and a hammer in the box of the wagon. I tied the hammer to one end of the cord, and holding the other end in my hand, I threw the hammer to land. By this means Mr. Finney got hold of the cord, and safely towed me to shore, where I could unite the severed parts of my wagon, and be ready to move on our way.
After innumerable mishaps, and exposures, and much toil, we reached the point on the “Natchez Trail,” where we were to leave it, and travel through a wilderness in which a wheeled carriage had never passed. Our distance now from Elliott was sixty miles. There was but little swamp, but there was no road, and many water-courses to pass. A little after mid-day, (the first day of this part of our journey,) it commenced raining very hard. The rain soon turned to sleet, and finally to snow. Just before night one of our wagons stuck in the mud in the bottom of a small creek. The women and children had to get out, exposed to the pittiless storm. We concluded to stop here for the night; but before we could get a “camp” erected and a fire kindled, the cloaks of the ladies were so covered with ice that they would stand alone. The night was extremely cold; and neither Mr. Finney nor myself lay down all night. We kept up to keep up sufficient fire to preserve the women and children from suffering.
We had great difficulty on this part of our journey in crossing the streams. The banks were deep and almost perpendicular. Where we could do so, we would dig them down, so as to make them passable. For this purpose, we had furnished ourselves with a hoe and spade. It was very laborious and tedious. In two instances, we felled two small trees across the streams so near together that the wheel hubs would roll on them and the wheels be on the outside. We would haul the wagons to the very verge, and then take off the horses and drive them through the stream. We would then tie a bed-cord to the wagon-tongue, and tie a hammer to the other end; then roll the Wagon on to the trees, and throw the hammer across. Then one would cross over on a log, and take hold of the cord to haul the wagon over, while the other would walk behind on one of the trees to steady the wagon and keep it from falling. In these cases, the women and children crossed on a log.
Before reaching Elliott, an axletree of one of our wagons was broken. This could not be repaired there. Mr. Finney remained with the wagons, and I obtained Indian ponies, and started with the ladies and babes and a missionary brother, sent to us from Elliott. Thus, toil-worn and weary, we reached the station a little after midnight on the 2d, or rather very early in the morning of the 3d of January, 1820. The next day Mr. Finney arrived with the wagons in safety.
To all our party this was a welcome and refreshing rest. At this sacred place we all remained, participating in their labours, trials, joys and sorrows, and enjoying most precious fraternal communion with the excellent band of missionary labourers there, until the middle of February, when Mr. Finney and myself commenced our journey to the field of our future labours.
At that time Arkansas was a perfect terra incognita. The way to get there was unknown; and what it was, or was like, if you did get there, was still more an unrevealed mystery. We travelled in company with an Indian trader, who was taking peltries to market on pack horses. Our progress was slow; but after a journey of fourteen days, during which we had camped out every night but one, we reached the Mississippi river at a place then known as the “Walnut Hills,” the cite of the present city of Vicksburg. Here we learned that twelve miles down the river there was a man who had been to Arkansas. We went to visit him, and sure enough we saw a “live man,” who had seen Arkansas. He had ascended the Arkansas river to very near the Cherokee country. All he could tell us of the country was very little indeed. He, however, perfectly satisfied our minds that it was utterly impracticable to make the journey by land at that season of the year. We therefore retraced our steps to Elliot, making the journey pleasantly in five days. At this station, labouring with the devoted band for the improvement and salvation of the Choctaws, we remained till the 16th of May following, when again, leaving our ladies and babes, we started a second time for Arkansas. We went to Walnut Hills as before, on horseback, and sent back our horses, to be taken by two men we had hired to the Post of Arkansas, a settlement on the Arkansas river forty miles from its mouth, where we were to remain until the men with our horses should arrive. After a detention of Some days at Walnut Hills, we got aboard a steamer, and landed in Arkansas at the mouth of White river, on the 2d of June, 1820.
Here we purchased a skiff, and, for the first time, tried our skill as watermen. We ascended White river a few miles, and then, through the “Cut Off,” entered the Arkansas river. Our trip was anything but pleasant. To us, unpracticed as we were, it was very laborious to row the skiff up stream ; and at night our rest was prevented by myriads of musquitoes, against whose torturing bites and hateful buzz we had absolutely no protection. Sleep, under such circumstances, was utterly out of the question. Notwithstanding, we made the trip in safety in two days and a half. At the Post we found hospitable friends, and a quiet and comfortable boarding place, in the family of a Methodist local preacher.
While we are resting at the Post, I will go back and relate an incident which occurred on board the steamer, which may serve as an episode to this most dry and unpoetic narrative. On board the steamer we found two men belonging to Arkansas. One of these, Robert Bean, known then, and ever after, by the soubriquet of “Colonel Bob Bean,” had been in Arkansas for several years, was well acquainted with the country and with the Cherokees, and a member of the Territorial Legislature. This man was intemperate, a gambler, and most horridly profane. With all these faults, as the sequel will show, he possessed no little share of the “milk of human kindness.” He was quite intelligent; and we obtained much valuable information from him, particularly respecting the Cherokees and the Cherokee country. But his profaneness was shocking, so much so as to make the cabin of the boat unpleasant to any one who cherished a feeling of reverence for the Divine Being. In consequence I spent most of my time on the guards, when the weather would admit of it. One day, while thus on the guards, he came out, and in the kindest manner entered into a conversation with me, evincing a deep interest in our object, and a desire to be of use to us. But he interlarded every sentence with most horrid and blasphemous oaths. I appreciated his kindness, and wished to return it in a way to do him good. We were entirely alone, and could in no way be exposed; and in the kindest and gentlest manner possible to me, I reproved him for swearing. In a moment he was in a perfect rage. His countenance expressed the fierceness of a tiger; and, with awful oaths, he swore he would put me overboard if I ever reproved him again, or in any way interfered with his uttering whatever language he pleased. From this moment he seemed to imbibe the bitterest hatred towards me. Whenever I entered the cabin, or came in his sight, he would break out with the most dreadful oaths. He would relate every anecdote he could recall to mind, and I presume coined many anew, to make religion the but of laughter and ridicule. He even reproached his own father. He said his father was a great professor, and made all the children kneel down and listen to a prayer, every night and morning, an hour long; that after one of these long-winded prayers, he would get up from his knees and cheat a neighbour in a horse trade, and even, if he had a good chance, would steal a horse. I set him down as an utter reprobate, and of course avoided him as much as possible.
Now mark the sequel. The next September I had appointed to visit some points in the Cherokee country to look out a suitable site for our Mission in company with the United States interpreter, a half-breed Cherokee. I was to meet him in the morning of a given day at the mouth of the Illinois Bayou. When I reached that point, I found a large number of white men who were going to look at the country in Lively’s Purchase. Among them was Colonel Bob Bean. I at once determined not to ride in his company. I told my guide that I would follow their trail, and be at his house by night, as I had learned that the white land hunters designed staying at another place. I retired to the counting-room of a store and there remained till the party had been gone half an hour. Just as I was coming out of my retreat, I saw Colonel Bob Bean returning to the store. Of course I retreated again. He entered the store, and remarked, “I am going up to see my old mamma, and I must take her some sugar and coffee and tea.”
“What!” said the clerk, “you a man of a family of your own, and not forgotten your mamma yet!”
With a quivering lip and tears running over his eyelids, he answered, “I have not forgotten my mamma, and I never shall, while I have a memory.”
In an instant fifty per cent. of my dislike to the man was gone, and I said to myself, there is hope for that man yet. Still I did not wish to ride in his company, and I remained till he was out of sight. I then took the trail and rode on. At the foot of a mountain not more than four miles, I came up with the whole party, who had stopped at a spring to get a drink. I determined not to wait for them, and getting some directions from my guide, I rode on. Soon I heard the clatter of horses’ feet, and looking back I saw Colonel Bean, evidently determined to overtake me. I did not attempt to escape him. He came up and gave me his hand. Said he, “I have wanted to see you more than any other man I ever met. You have not been out of my mind for an hour, when I have been awake, since I parted with you on the Mississippi. I want to ask your forgiveness for treating you in a most ruffian like manner, and I want to thank you for the kind and delicate manner in which you reproved me for swearing. I can never forgive myself, and I shall not blame you if you refuse to forgive me.”
I assured him of my most hearty forgiveness, and my fervent prayers for his salvation. Ever after this Colonel Bob Bean and myself were the best of friends. I have known him ride fifteen miles to hear me preach; and every kindness in his power he was always ready to confer. I believe he would have become a truly good man, if he could have burst the fetters of intemperance. Poor man, he is dead now. Peace to his ashes. Perhaps in his dying moments he turned the eye of faith to the Lamb of God.
But I return to my narrative. We waited at the Post for our hired men and horses till we began to fear that the swamps of the Mississippi or the alligators had swallowed them up; or that they had perished with hunger. At last, after we had been at the Post seventeen days they arrived. They had encountered the most incredible hardships in the swamps. We now fixed upon the day to start up the river to the Cherokee country. It was to be on Monday, but on Sabbath evening two men assigned by the Board as our helpers, Messrs. Orr and Hitchcock, arrived at the Post. They had heard of us at the mouth of White river, and fearing lest we should leave the Post before they could overtake us, they had travelled, in a skiff, as we did, on the Sabbath. This, though a totally unexpected (for we had heard nothing of their appointment,) was a most joyful meeting.
After another day’s detention to purchase another pack-horse, on Tuesday morning we started. Our caravan consisted of three pack-horses loaded with our clothing, a few necessary tools and cooking utensils and provisions, and six men of us on foot. Our nearest route lay through the “Grand Prairie,” and on this route we commenced our pedestrian journey. The weather was very hot, and the meridian sun beat with such tremendous power upon us that we were compelled to seek the shelter of the timber. We turned in to what was then called the “River Trail.” This would increase the distance we would have to travel some thirty miles, but we would all the way, except here and there a clearing, have the shelter of the dense foilage of the trees on the river margin.
Before night the first day we had all blistered feet, and legs more weary than I had ever felt before. Our days march amounted to no more than twenty-five miles. We found a comfortable habitation and very hospitable entertainment. The next day we pursued our journey as diligently as we were able, and camped in the midst of an extensive swamp, on the margin of what was called a lake, but was in reality only water, which had collected in a vast hollow during the spring overflow of the river, and was not yet evaporated by the sun. The whole surface was covered with a thick green scum. Our thirst compelled us to drink it, surcharged as it was with malaria. Of it also we made our coffee.
Here we had the pleasure of the company of innumerable swarms of musquitoes, but we were so fatigued with the day’s travel that we were neither disposed or able to show much attention to our buzzing visitants. We slept till near day, when some of our company began to show some symptoms of disease. We resumed our toilsome journey in the morning, and continued for a day and a half longer, when we were compelled to stop on account of the serious sickness of Messrs. Finney and Orr. We found shelter and the most kind and hospitable entertainment at the house of a Mr. Embree. Mrs. Embree will never be forgotten by us. She “took us in,” and treated us with all the kindness of a mother. She was also of very great benefit to us as a doctress and a nurse. She will not loose her reward.
The second day after our arrival at Mr. Embree’s, both our hired men were taken down, leaving only Mr. Hitchcock and myself well. We now heard of the high lands and good water at Little Rock, and were assured that if we could get there we might hope to recover the health of all the party. But how were we to get there? It was manifest we could not proceed in the way we had hitherto travelled. Messrs. Finney and Orr were utterly prostrate with bilious remitting fever. The two hired men had the ague and fever, or as the people in the country called it, they had “regular shakes.” At last it was concluded that one of the hired men could ride on horseback, and that the other could steer a canoe. So it was arranged that Mr. Hitchcock and one of the hired men should take the horses through by land to Little Rock. I procured a canoe and hired a waterman to assist me. In the back part of the canoe we fixed up an awning of blankets to protect the two sick brethren from the scorching sun; quite in the stern the hired man was placed to steer, and in the forward part, with poles and paddles, was the waterman and myself to work the craft up the river. In this way, with much toil, we accomplished this part of our journey. Our sick brethren suffered much, but were no worse on our arrival at the Rock than when we left Embree’s. Little Rock, at that time, did not look much like the capital of a sovereign State.
Just by the Rock, and near the spring, was a little framed shanty, containing at that time a very scanty supply of “drugs and medicines,” and a more liberal supply of “bald-face.” Back considerable distance from the river, near, as I should think, the present site of the Campbellite Church, was a small cabin made of round logs, with the bark on. These were all the buildings at that time at Little Rock.
We had stopped on the other side of the river, at the house of a Mr. Martin, opposite the Rock. I immediately crossed over to the drug-store and procured some medicine for the sick, which abated the violence of their symptoms in all the cases, and broke the paroxysms of the ague on the hired men. It was the 3rd of July when we arrived opposite to Little Rock. On the next morning, the glorious fourth, I was waited on by a committee of gentlemen, among whom were Dr. Cunningham and Colonel Austin, requesting me to preach a fourth of July sermon at Little Rock. I accepted the invitation and preached in the aforesaid log cabin to an audience of fourteen men and no women.
This was the first sermon ever preached at Little Rock. From the Rock to Cadron, we travelled in a variety of ways. For the sick, horses were provided; the rest went part of the way by water in a canoe, and the rest of the way on foot. Cadron at that time was the county seat of Pulaski county, and loudly talked of, at least by its own citizens and holders of property, as the permanent capital of the Territory. There we found comparatively comfortable quarters for our sick, a supply of needed medicines, and the attentions of a young man who was preparing for the practice of medicine. Here Mr. Hitchcock was taken down with the bilious fever, leaving me as the only healthy one of our company. It was now decided that the sick should remain here till their fevers were broken, and that I should proceed to the Cherokee Nation, and make arrangements for a council of the Nation, before which we might present ourselves and our object.
One of the hired men, whose fevers were broken up, accompanied me. I had thus far enjoyed good health, but by reason of hard toil, watching, and anxiety for the sick, &c., I was very much fatigued. Hitherto in all the journey, I had either walked or laboured as a waterman. Now to be permitted to mount a horse and ride, seemed to me like “taking my pleasure.” With these feelings, in good health and spirits, I left the brethren, and started for the Cherokee Nation. I expected to enter the Nation that day, and that another day’s ride would take me to the residence of the widow of the late United Stated Agent, whose house I expected to make my home; and from which, in a ride of a few hours, I could see all the chiefs, and make my arrangements for a council.
My pleasure trip soon became one of great pain. I had not been more than an hour on my way before I was attacked with the most violent pains in the head and back and all my bones, accompanied by severe rigours. The rigours were soon succeeded by a burning fever, accompanied with insatiable thirst. To allay this thirst I could find nothing but branch water, lukewarm, and most unpalatable. At night we reached a house on Point Remove creek, within the limits of the Nation. The family were very kind, and urged me to stay till I could recover from my fever; but I was very anxious to reach the residence of Mrs. L., for whom I had letters from the United States Agent in the old Nation, and where I intended taking medicine to remove my fever. After a sleepless night, through which I had suffered extremely, we resumed our journey. I hired a guide to conduct us to Mrs. L’s. He accompanied us about eight miles, and then paused. He said he could no further, but pointed to a mountain some six or eight miles in advance, where he told us we would find a trail which would lead us to our place of destination. When we reached the mountain, we found a trail, but it led us off our course. We followed this trail for many weary miles. At last we came to an Indian cabin. The man could speak a little broken English. From him we learned that we were now further from Mrs. L.’s than when we started in the morning. Here the hired man and horses got some refreshment. As for me I could take nothing but some lukewarm creek water, which my stomach soon rejected.
The hospitable Indian put us into a path or trail, which he said would lead us to a village only four miles from Mrs. L’s. On this trail we started, but had travelled but few miles, ere night overtook us. We lay down on the ground to wait the return of day. My thirst was extreme, but no water could be found. In the morning early we resumed our weary way. In passing through a prairie, I discovered a little water in a pool. Its colour was almost that of milk. My thirst was so extreme, that I resolved to try it, though dissuaded by my fellow-traveller. With difficulty, on account of my weakness, I got down and crawled to the water. I had just brought my parched and blistered lips to the water, when a large moccasin snake plunged into the pool directly under my mouth. I could hardly restrain my tears, so great was my disappointment, but I was obliged to desist. I remounted and rode on, and a few miles brought us to the village. Here we enquired for Mrs. L. The chief furnished us a guide to show us the way. This chief had a strong dislike to the Governor of Arkansas, and supposing me to be an agent of the Governor’s, he determined to lead me astray.
The guide conducted us to a little blind path, which he said would lead us to our destination. Not suspecting any treachery, we followed the path. It soon led us into the mountains and there gave out. We tried to retrace our steps, but were soon bewildered in the mazes of the mountain wilderness, and thus we wandered, utterly lost, without refreshment for ourselves or horses, and without so much as the sight of water for two days and nights. All this time my fever raged with increasing violence. My face, and neck, and arms, were blistered as though they had been covered with cantharides, and my whole skin was of a bright yellow. Delirium came on, so that I had only a kind of dreamy consciousness.
About noon the third day after leaving the village, as a good Providence would have it, we heard human voices. We descended the mountain in the direction of the voices. Soon we came upon a company of Cherokees collected at a spring for the purpose of making arrangements for a ball play. They manifested a deep interest for us in our suffering state. First they brought me, in a large gourd, a full supply of the cool, sweet water. Oh, how grateful it was to my fevered lips and burning stomach. I drank without restraint, and bathed my head and neck and breast. The effect was most refreshing and beneficial. After taking us to a house, where our horses were fed and food given to my companion, a guide conducted us to Mrs. L’s., where we arrived about nine o’clock in the evening. I introduced myself to Mrs. L., and presented her letters of introduction. Though commiserating my condition, and disposed to afford me all the aid in her power, she manifested great terror. My appearance was such as to fix the belief in her mind that I had the yellow fever, and she was apprehensive that the contagion might be communicated to herself and servants. I was immediately conducted to a separate apartment, and I saw her no more for two weeks. This night I rested some, in consequence of the free use I had made of the cool water of the spring before mentioned.
The next morning my hired man left me, as he said, to find someone to give me medicine, and aid in taking care of me. I saw him no more till the brethren came up. He sent me word that he was sick, but I afterwards learned that he found whiskey and friends to drink with him, and so he forsook me. Mrs. L. was afraid to see me. Morning and night she would send her servant, her mouth filled with tansey, lest she should catch the fever, to ask if I wanted anything. I had to be my own physician and nurse. Cook I needed not. I passed a week in this way. Then a half-breed Cherokee, who afterwards became a most dearly beloved Christian brother, came to see me. His pity was most deeply moved. He staid with me day and night till the brethren came. Had he been my own natural brother, he could not have manifested more affectionate kindness and care. But for him, I think I must have died. I ever after loved him as a brother.
My sufferings here were very great. I could get no washing done. When I arrived I had not a clean shirt. My only course was to put on, every morning, a dirty shirt which had been aired. The violence of my fever gave way to active medicine and blood-letting. This operation I had to perform on myself, as I could find no one who could bleed. When the brethren came up my disease had taken the form of a daily ague and fever. I had been at Mrs. L’s. two weeks when the brethren came. Though my disease was much mitigated, yet I was a frightful and squalid object to the sight. The blisters on my face and neck had dried, and the surface was covered with scabs. My face was so sore that I could not endure the process of shaving, and my beard was some three weeks old. My appearance was so disgusting that some of the brethren were nauseated, even to vomiting, on sight of me.
Our whole company were now together again, and we all had the ague and fever. We were, however, able to help each other to some extent, and could hold fraternal intercourse and pray together. At that time the specific remedy for ague and fever was Peruvian bark; but there was none of this article nearer than the Post of Arkansas, a distance of more than two hundred miles. We had an opportunity to send for this indispensible remedy. One pound of it cost us thirty-six dollars, sixteen dollars for the bark and twenty dollars we had to pay the bearer. Soon after the reception of this tonic febrifuge, we were all restored temporarily to health. We made the best use we could of our time. A council was convened, at which all the chiefs but one were present. The absent chief was Ta-kah-to-kuh. This was the same chief who had mistaken me for an agent of the Governor. The Cherokees were at that time at war with the Osages. The Governor of Arkansas was making efforts to bring the war to a close. To this Ta-kah-to-kuh was most vio- lently opposed. Hence, when this council was called, he refused to attend. Here, also, I should remark that Toluntuskee, the chief to whom Mr. Evarts had promised the establishment of a mission, had deceased, and his brother, John Jolly, had been chosen as principal chief, and had been so recognized by the United States government.
On the day of the council, Mr. Finney and myself repaird to the ground, and were soon and very formally introduced by the public crier into the presence of the chiefs and warriors. At first, they gave us but a cold welcome; but when we told them that we came from the same good people who had established a mission among their brethren in the old Nation, and that we came in fulfilment of a promise made to their late beloved, but lamented chief, Toluntuskee, the whole aspect of things was changed. The most joyful and animated welcome was expressed by all pre-sent. We now read to them our commission and instructions from the Board, our letters from the government and agents of the United States, and gave a detail of the plan of missionary operations we designed to establish and pursue. All was fully approved; and we were allowed to visit any part of their country, and to select any site we might choose for our first and principal mission; to erect such buildings, improve and cultivate such lands, introduce such stock and other property, as the wants of the Mission might make necessary; and whenever, in our judgment, the advancement of the Cherokees might require it, we might establish other schools and mission stations. When all these preliminaries were agreed upon, and committed to writing, we were about to retire. We were then requested to wait, that all the chiefs and warriors might give us their hands in token of the ratification of all the matters agreed to, and as a token of fraternal regard, and our adoption as Cherokees. This was quite an imposing ceremony. Each of the chiefs made a speech, on giving us their hands, and a cordial shake came from all. When the men had all come up to the platform on which we stood, and given us their hands, Jolly informed us that the women wished in the same way to express their welcome. To this we readily assented. When all was completed, we parted with the council, greatly interested and encouraged; and fervently praying that the God of missions would bless our undertaking, and greatly bless the Cherokee people.
This prayer has been abundantly answered. Soon after this, we selected, as the site of the Mission, the place now known as Dwight, in Pope county. This, you are aware, is the name given by us to the Mission. The name was given in honour of the Rev. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, who was the first corporate member of the American Board, now deceased. It is a spot most dear to my recollections, not only as my first missionary home, but connected with it are many most precious and sacred associations. There I first witnessed the power of the doctrines of the cross in taming and humanizing the savage heart. There our first missionary Church was organized; and there our first converts among the dear Cherokee people were brought into the visible fold of the “Good Shepherd.” There, one of our dear, loved ones, the only child as yet taken from us, sleeps in his quiet little grave, till the morning of the resurrection. There, also, one of our beloved sisters, Mrs. Sophronia Hitchcock, rested from her labours. She died in the Lord, and is blessed evermore. And there, also, sleep the ashes of Father and Mother Brown, the parents of Catharine and David Brown, and the progenitors of many others, now either in heaven, or on their way thither.
Immediately after the selection of this site, we all removed to it, and solemnly consecrated the place to Zion’s King. Our labours were much interrupted by frequent returns of ague and fever. By the first of October we had erected two comfortable cabins, and made other preparations for the reception of our families. Early in October Mr. Finney and myself left the station to return to the Choctaw Nation for our ladies and children; and we did not get back to the station till the 10th of May following. During our absence, Messrs Orr and Hitchcock suffered very much from sickness, without a physician, without medicine, and without a nurse. Nevertheless, they performed much labour. On the arrival of ourselves and families, we found that they had broken up and planted a field which we had purchased, had cleared and fenced and made ready for the plow some ten acres of heavily timbered bottom land.
Our journey was long, laborious and perilous. We started in a canoe, and journeyed in this to Cadron. There we were taken aboard a large covered skiff by an officer of the United States army, who was moving with his wife from Fort Smith to another military post. With him we journeyed to the Post of Arkansas. At the Post we stopped for the benefit of medical aid; as we were suffering all the way thus far with daily paroxysms of ague and fever; and had been, during the whole trip, so weak as not to be able to walk a step. These paroxysms were soon broken by suitable medicine; and in about two weeks we were able to resume our journey. We started in an open skiff, the same we had left at the Post in the June previous, in which we journeyed to the Walnut Hills. For a week before we arrived at the Hills, the ague and fever had returned to both of us. Here we procured horses to proceed by land to Elliott.
This journey we hoped to be able to make in five days; but in a few hours after we started, it began to rain in torrents. The streams were all flooded. Many of them we swam on our horses; but oftener were able to find a fallen tree, on which we could walk and carry our baggage, and drive the horses through the swimming stream. At the end of five days, we had not made half the distance. We now came to water we could not cross. It was swimming for a mile. Here, perforce, we must stop; and we had exhausted all our provisions. The rain was still pouring down upon us. We both had fever on us when we stopped. We succeeded in erecting a blanket shelter and in making fire. We had in our coffee boiler some grounds, which had been steeped once already. On these we poured some water, boiled them over, put in all the sugar we had, and, on this beverage, without bread or meat, we supped. We were thoroughly drenched with rain; and yet, after commending ourselves to God in prayer, we slept.
In the morning we felt somewhat refreshed. It still rained, and the water was not abated. We had nothing to eat. In this not very pleasant condition we remained for five days, having the ague and fever each day, when the water was so far abated that we succeeded in crossing. Soon after crossing, we came to an Indian camp. The old man and his wife, the only inmates of the camp, were fully apprized of our condition. They gave us, every hour or so, a mouthful of food, (dried bear meat), giving us to understand that this was all they had. After keeping us on this regimen for twelve hours, they prepared for us a sumptuous meal. ’Twas on this wise: First, a large pompion was peeled of its rind on the dirt floor of the camp, so that the peeled part would take up all the loose dirt of the floor. The seeds were removed, and the whole put into a large earthen pot. Next some beans, full of sticks and particles of dirt, were, without picking over or washing, put into the pot. Last, though not least, there were about eight pounds of smoked bear meat, a pure mass of fat, and not less than five inches thick, put into the pot. This was made to boil for some two hours, when the whole was poured into a large wooden bowl, and we were invited to partake.
This invitation was most joyfully accepted, and we did good execution upon these viands. Never before and never since, have I eaten a meal that seemed so good. Of this we ate till we were satisfied. We expected that we should suffer for our indulgence, but we did not; and what is wonderful, both of us escaped the ague and fever for two days after this meal. After this meal, we rode on some ten miles to the house of a white man, where we succeeded in procuring provision to last us till we should get to Elliott, which place we reached in safety just before night on Christmas day. We were ragged, haggard, and unshaven. Our wives and missionary friends did not know us. Here we sat up another Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the Lord hath helped us.” We found our wives and children well. Our son had been very sick, nigh unto death; but the Lord had mercy on him and on us. The station had been visited with much sickness; and one beloved brother had gone to rest.
After resting here a month, for the purpose of recruiting my health, I started for New Orleans, for the purpose of purchasing supplies, and procuring funds for our Mission. It was necessary for me to go by way of Mayhew, a new station which Mr. Kingsbury was putting into operation in the eastern part of the Choctaw country. On my way there, in consequence of exposure, the ague and fever returned upon me. On this account, brother Kingsbury thought it not prudent for me to make the journey; and the brethren there and at Elliott, made the arrangement for Dr. Pride to make the journey to New Orleans. In the meantime, we all, according to the best of our ability, took part in the labours of the Mission, and in preparations for our journey by water to Arkansas.
We purchased a keel-boat, or barge, in which to descend the Yalo-bushah and Yazoo, and to ascend the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. All things were to be in readiness for our journey by the time that Dr. Pride should return. About a week before his expected return, a letter was received from Rev. Dr. Worcester, first Corresponding Secretary of the American Board, who was travelling south for the benefit of his health, and for the purpose of inspecting the Indian missions, directing either Mr. Finney or myself to meet him at Natchez. It was decided that I should go. This was a journey of two hundred and fifty miles. I was now in pretty good health, and made the journey without mishap. At Washington, Mississippi, a little town some eight miles from Natchez, I met Dr. Worcester, “on his way towards home and towards heaven,” in company with Rev. Mr. Byington and Dr. Pride.
Dr. Worcester I found very feeble, and sinking rapidly. His soul was in the land of Beulah; and to converse and pray with him seemed like the outer court of heaven itself. The desire of his heart was so far granted, that he was permitted to visit Mayhew and assist in organizing a Church and administering the Lord’s Supper there, and of reaching Brainerd, where his spirit took its upward flight to heaven, and where his body sleeps, till the “blest resurrection morn.” He was able to give me the necessary counsel and directions relative to our mission; and I journeyed in company with him and the brethren three days, till we arrived at Gibson Post.
There I parted with him, and journeyed up the Mississippi to Walnut Hills. There I had the happiness to meet the boats, and all the beloved party bound with me to Arkansas. We hired the first steamer that ascended the river, to take us in tow to the Post of Arkansas. Then we hired a French crew to run our boat to Dwight. We accomplished the trip in eighteen days, resting every “Sabbath according to the commandment.” We reached the station, as noted above, on the 10th of May, 1821.
During the ensuing summer, much was done in the way of putting up buildings, and making arrangements for the commencement of a boarding school. We all suffered again from sickness, especially our ladies. In December of this year, our Mission was reinforced by the arrival of Miss Ellen Stetson, and Miss Nancy Brown, and Mr. Asa Hitchcock. A few days after their arrival, we had two weddings. Mr. Orr and Miss Minerva Washburn had, by and with the advice of their fellow-labourers, concluded that their happiness and usefulness would be promoted by continuing no longer twain, but by becoming one flesh; and Mr. Jacob Hitchcock and Miss Brown had been affianced previously to his leaving New England. We were not as yet prepared to open our school; but the solicitation of the Cherokees was so urgent, that we consented to take a few scholars. On the 1st of January, 1822, the school was opened with fifteen scholars; and such was the earnest entreaty of the people, that this number was soon increased to fifty. In the early part of the following spring—in March, I think—the Dwight Mission Church was organized. Its membership embraced only the missionaries. From the arrival of our families at the station, the preceding May, stated public worship was established every Sabbath, and preaching in different parts of the Nation, both on Sabbath and on other days, was ever continued. Thus the Arkansas Cherokee Mission was established; and those influences set in operation which so greatly changed the aspect of the Nation, and which have resulted in the salvation of precious souls. Here, then, I close this long and dry detail. Fraternally yours, C. WASHBURN.

Dr. Thomas Russell

February 20, 2022

Arkansas Historical Quarterly article in JSTOR Digital Library

Dr. Thomas Russell:
Founder of Russellville1
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Edited by Walter L. Brown2 3
Fayetteville

Dr. Thomas Russell
(photo is from another source and did appear in JSTOR, The Arkansas Historical Quarterly,
nor the Russellville Democrat article.)

Russellville Democrat
June 18, 1885

Thomas Russell M. D.

Judson D. Russell & Co., publishers of New York, are preparing a history of the Russell family in the United States, and the following biographical sketch of Thomas Russell, M. D., after whom our beautiful little city was named, and brief history of the town he founded, will appear in the forthcoming volume.4 We produce the article, knowing that it will be read with interest by the many friends of the subject of the sketch and his honored decendents who are now residing in our midst:
Doctor Thomas Russell, the founder of Russellville, Arkansas, was born in the Parish of Gateshead, in the county of Durham, England, June the 13th, A. D. 1801. His parents were John and Hannah Russell. After enjoying the advantages of some of the literary institutions of England, in which he acquired considerable classical knowledge, he served an apprenticeship of five years, under Doctor Thomas Mitchell, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London. In 1825 he entered Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals, London. From these institutions he received numerous certificates for attendance upon lectures, and for proficiency in the various departments, and succeeded in carrying off two first prizes, namely: the Demonstrators prize in Dislocation, and the Demonstrators prize in Mid-wifery. In 1826 he graduated at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, thereby becoming a member of that body.
After traveling extensively in the Continental countries of Europe, he came to America, A. D. 1829, and settled near Carlyle, Illinois, where two brothers, James, and Edward Russell, had preceded him. Here he was married to Mary A. Graham, A. D., 1832.5 In search of a new home and a milder climate, he came to Arkansas, and located in the Arkansas River Valley, A. D. 1835, one year prior to the admission of the State into the Union.6 He was eminently successful both as Physician and Surgeon, performing surgical operations that baffled the skill of others. When the civil war arose in 1861, he had acquired considerable property, but the greater part of this was swept away by the privations and desolations of war.7 He continued an active practitioner until the spring of 1866 when he was stricken with Pneumonia which caused his death April 13th. He was a man of strong will, remarkable memory and vigorous intellect.
There now survive him his widow,8 Mary A. Russell, and five sons, all of whom reside at Russellville, except Albert Russell,9 who is at Challis, Custer county, Idaho, Jas. W. Russell,10 Alva Russell11 and Thos. J. Russell12 are engaged in mercantile pursuits; Lawrence Russell is a lawyer.13
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RUSSELLVILLE

About the year 1842, when but a small hamlet, this place was named, by a majority vote of its citizens, Russellville, in honor of Doctor Thomas Russell, who was at the time one of the principal land owners, and a prominent citizen. The growth of the village was slow, and up to 1872 it had only developed into a small town. But in 1872-73 when the Little Rock & Fort Smith railway was constructed along this valley the growth of the town received an impetus which gave a gradual development for several years, and at present the population numbers about fifteen hundred.
Among the most important enterprises of the place are its gins, planing mills, grist mill, marble works, foundry, wagon and plow factory, cotton factory, and newspaper, the Democrat. It has a high school building, a Masonic hall, and four church edifices; the Baptist, the Methodist Episcopal, the south Methodist and the Cumberland Presbyterian.
The central location of the town on the line of the Little Rock & Ft. Smith Ry.; the proximity of the Arkansas river (three miles south), with its fertile bottoms; the adjacent hills with their cool springs, and soil admirably adapted to the growth of fruits and vegetables give this little city a future bright with promise.
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1 The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Winter, 1961), pp. 388-391 (4 pages)
2 Associate Professor of History, University of Arkansas
3 The sketch… was copied from the Russellville (Arkansas) Democrat, June 18, 1883. It is about Dr. Thomas Russell, (January 13, 1801 – April 13, 1866) who gave his name not only to the City of Russellville but also to numerous progeny, many of whom still live in Russellville. Much of the material in the sketch later appeared in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas. . . . (Chicago: Southern Publishing Company, 1891), 251. The editor is indebted to Miss May Russell, granddaughter of the subject of the sketch and a resident of Russellville, for information about the Russell children. Her article entitled “The Dr. Thomas Russell Family” made up the entire issue of Arkansas Valley Historical Papers, Volume I, Number 1 (April, 1934).
4 The editor found no record of this history ever being published
5 Mary Ann Graham (December 9, 1814-January 21, 1890) was born in Pennsylvania and moved with her parents first to Tennessee and then to Illinois. She and Dr. Russell were married near Salem, Illinois, October 11, 1832. Mary Ann’s name is much associated with Cumberland Presbyterian history in Pope County. She became a member of Shiloh Cumberland Church (organized in 1833) soon after arriving in Arkansas and while Russellville was still a village gave the lots at the corner of Main and Fargo Streets, opposite the present United States Forestry Building, on which a Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized January 29. 1871.
6 According to May Russell, the doctor bought the “first house on the present site of Russellville.” This was a one and a half story hand-hewn loghouse that stood until 1898 on what is now the corner of Main and Houston Streets. The home was built in 1834 by J. C. Holledger.
7 Dr. Russell and Mary Ann, with their two youngest sons, Thomas Jefferson and Lawrence, were refugees in Texas during the last months of the Civil War.
8 The Thomas Russells had other children not mentioned here. William Frederick (August 20, 1833 – June, 1835) died as an infant near St. Louis while they were en route to Arkansas Territory in 1835. Their eldest daughter, Mary Jane (May 26, 1838 – April 2, 1861), was the second wife of Dr. J. W. Pruitt of Russellville. Their only other daughter, Eleanor (February 2, 1851 – August 16. 1874), died in girlhood. John Thomas (August 12, 1836 – January 29, 1857), their second son, who intended to follow in his father’s footsteps in the medical profession, died from tuberculosis contracted during his medical studies in Philadelphia. Their third son, Alfred Alexander, lived from February 12, 1843 to March 14, 1843. Oscar (December S. 1846 – October 3, 1864), a twin brother of the Alva mentioned in this sketch, died at Camp Greer, near Houston, Texas. He and Alva had joined the Confederate Army as drummer boys when they were but sixteen years old.
9 Albert Russell (March 23, 1844 – n. d.), who remained a bachelor, spent most of Iris life in the gold fields of the West in search of good fortune and good health. He died in Lower California, the date unknown.
10 James Washington Russell (June 6, 1840 – October 17, 1929), who also remained a bachelor, was a captain in the Confederate Army, serving throughout the four years of the war. After the war he and two of his brothers entered the mercantile business in Russellville.
11 Alva Russell (December 4, 1846 – November 19, 1887). whose daughter May Russell still lives in Russellville, was a drummer boy in the Confederate Army in Texas, where his twin brother Oscar died in 1864. He returned home and entered the mercantile business with his brothers after the war, marrying Ann Williamson in 1868. A prominent Cumberland Presbyterian, Mason, and school leader, he died in November, 1887.
12 Thomas Jefferson Russell (March 1, 1849 – December 24, 1915) was married December 21, 1870, to Susan Mildred Williamson, a first cousin of his brother Alva’s wife. He, Alva, and James were merchants together in Russellville. In 1908 he moved to Arizona seeking a drier climate inn his health. He died in Tucson. In 1961,  two of his six children are still living — Miss Ruth Russell,  a retired assistant librarian of the University of New Mexico, now residing in Artesia, New Mexico and Estelle R. Hogins of Russellville.
13 Lawrence Russell (August 3, 1855 – December 26, 1915), the youngest son of Dr. Russell, was still a lad when his father died. He graduated from the Arkansan Industrial University, Fayetteville, in 1880 and later took a degree in law at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee. He was prominent in Pope County politics, serving as prosecuting attorney of the circuit court and as a member of the house of representatives for two terms from 1891 to 1893. He entered the ministry in 1906 and served Presbyterian pastorates in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. He was married in later years to Miss Stella Teeter of Ohio. He was living in Indiana with his wife and daughter Florence, who died several years ago leaving no heir, when he died.

Russellville Fire of the Night of January 15th and 16th, 1906

February 17, 2022


from transcription by Dee Burris Blakley, November 10, 2010

City of Russellville Lies in Ruins!

Flames Gutted the Business District Last Night.

Loss $250,000.

Fire Started at 10:30 Monday Night, and This Morning One-Half of the Business District Lies in Ruins.

The Following Business Houses and Stocks were Total Losses
Craig & Henry’s butcher shop
The New Store
Stark & Rankin’s grocery
Harkey & Son’s drug store
Chronister Bros. grocery
Faulkner and Schaeffer’s jewelry store and cream parlor
Patrick Bros. tailor shop
Brown Bros. grocery
J.A. Miller, second hand store
F.F. Youngblood, second hand store
White Front Candy Store
J.D. Williams, grocery
M. Jacobson, dry goods
Rankin Bros. & Winn, furniture and hardware
H.V. Williamson, undertaker
Harkey Saddlery Co.
Frank Owens, barber shop
Owens Transfer Co.
Albright’s barber shop
Bank of Russellville
J.J. Wiggs, drug store
W.P. Dailey, grocery
Robert Ragsdale gent’s furnishings
A $250,000 fire swept through the heart of the city last night, and today one-half of the business district of Russellville lies in smouldering ruins.
The fire started in the grocery store of Chronister Bros. and the first alarm was given at 10:15. There was scarcely any wind, and it seemed at first that it would be an easy matter to save adjoining buildings but from the back of concentrated action in fighting the flames it soon spread to adjoining buildings and it was seen that the greater part of the business district was doomed. By 1:30 the flames were under control, but almost three blocks in the heart of the city was a total loss.
The flames spread south on the west side of Jefferson to Main Street and north to Mourning & Hood’s drug store on Jefferson and Russell streets. Craig butcher shop at the rear of the New Store on Main also was a total loss. A strong east wind set in and the flames soon crossed Jefferson to the Bank of Russellville, and this block to the courthouse seemed doomed. Going down the east side of Jefferson everything was swept clean from Main to Rowan Bros. on Jefferson and Russell streets, going east on Main, four buildings were burned, the flames being arrested on the west wall of Gardner Bros. furniture store.
All of the stocks of goods in this vast district were either complete losses, or were in part carried into the streets and greatly damaged. Everything in the store of Mourning & Hood, Rowan Bros., Gardner Bros. & Co., Plott, Newport & Co., and a large portion of the goods in other threatened buildings were carried to the streets and suffered great damage.
Central offices of the Russellville Telephone Co. and of the Southwestern Telephone Co. were burned, and there is no way for the outside world to receive news of the disaster except by telegraph.
It was thought for a time that the flames would cross Main Street, but the front of R.J. Wilson & Sons, the Courier-Democrat and other buildings in the block were protected by wet blankets, and as the wind was from the west, this side of the street was never in real danger.
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Insurance.
.
Of the loss on this vast district, perhaps forty percent of the total on buildings and stocks was covered by insurance. So far as we have been able to learn up to the time of going to press at 11 o’clock, the losses and insurance were about as follows:
Stark & Rankin — stock $4,000, insurance $2,000.
Harkey & Sons — stock $4,000, insurance. $1,500. Building owned by Mrs. J.L. Tucker, loss $4,000, insurance $1,500.
Patrick Bros. — stock $2,000, no insurance.
Bank of Russellville — loss on building and fixtures $10,000, insurance $5,000.
W.P. Dailey — stock $2,000, insurance $500.
Bob Ragsdale — stock $4,500, insurance $1,000. Building owned by L.T. Ragsdale, loss $3,500, insurance $1,000.
Harkey Saddlery Co. — stock $7,000, insurance $2,100.
Martin & Ferguson — building occupied by W.P. Dailey, loss $3,500, insurance $2,000.
M.R. Craig — three buildings and butcher shop, total loss. Some insurance.
Faulkner & Schaeffer — stock and fixtures $5,000, insurance about $3,000.
Chronister Bros. — stock $2,500, insurance $2,000.
Gardner Bros. & Co. — stock $7,000, insurance on stock and building $6,000.
Plott-Newport & Co. — stock $12,500, insurance $8,000.
Brown Bros. — stock and building $6,000, no insurance.
J.J. Wiggs — stock $4,000, insurance $2,500.
Williams Grocer Co. — stock $5,000, insurance $2,500.
Rankin Bros. & Winn — stock $7,000, insurance $2,500.
H.V. Williamson & Co. — stock $2,000, insurance $1,000.
New Store — stock $17,000, insurance $6,500.
Jacobson’s — stock $18,000, no insurance.
M. Jacobson — three buildings, loss $12,000, insurance $8,000.
.

A Sea of Desolation.

The town is full of sightseers this morning and the picture presented to view is indeed one of desolation. The heart of the town and the best buildings and largest stocks, lies smouldering in ashes. Mingled with the throng on the streets is seen the property holder who has lost the savings of a lifetime; the businessman who has labored to build up a trade that would enable him to support his family and last night stood by helpless and saw his stock of goods consumed by the flames, and in many instances is this morning practically as a beggar on the streets; the clerk or salesman who yesterday held a position with a lucrative salary, and is today without work; while mingled with the losers is a mass throng of sympathetic friends who feel the loss to the city and the individuals almost as keenly as the losers themselves.
It is impossible as yet to predict the immediate future of the city, but of course it will be rebuilt as rapidly as possible. A total of twenty-two buildings were destroyed, and Russellville should be a good field of laborers of all kind while the rebuilding is going on.
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Streets Filled With Goods.

At the time of going to press the streets are filled with goods which were tumbled down in mad haste in an effort to save them from the ravages of the flames. Many buildings that were saved from the flames were gutted of their stocks and costly dry goods, dress goods, shoes and all conceivable merchandise was tumbled into the streets and on the sidewalks in profusion. The damage from this source is incalculable.
The goods are being sorted out and stored away as rapidly as possible, but owing to a lack of sufficient storage room it will be impossible for but few of the losers to open up for business until the burnen (sic) district is rebuilt.
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Notes of the Fire.

The recently organized fire department was not sufficiently organized to do service as a body last night. The equipment of the company has only partially arrived, and could not be brought into service.
Robert A Ragsdale had $1,000 insurance on stock to expire yesterday.
Faulkner & Schaeder had just installed a handsome soda fountain and opened for business yesterday. The fountain was the pride of all who had seen it. Luckily they had taken out $2,000 insurance on it the day it was put in the house.
Jacobson & Son were the heaviest losers on stock. A stock of about $20,000 was a total loss, with no insurance.
Timely work by the volunteer brigade stayed the flames at Rowan’s wall, but the entire stock was carried from the house and suffered great damage.
No one had hopes of arresting the flames on East Main until it reached the two-story building of the Roys, the hardware man, but the wind died down and the bucket brigade succeeded in staying the flames on Gardner & Bros. west wall. The contents of Gardner Bros. and Plott-Newport and Co. were carried from the building and greatly damaged.
Roys suffered no loss except from damage to stock and some goods carried from the building.
R. J. Wilson & Sons were the heaviest losers on the south side of Main street. Blankets were used from his stock to protect the buildings, and considerable damage was done to stock.
It was as rapid a fire as the writer ever saw, it being less than three hours from the time the alarm was given until this vast area was destroyed and the fire was under control.
All the wells in the neighborhood of the fire were taken to their utmost capacity, but the scant supply of water had little effect on the flames.
The fire should furnish a lesson against the use of frame awnings when the district is rebuilt. The ravages of the flames could have been checked in many places had it not been for awnings, which it seemed impossible to tear away.
Handsome and more pretentious buildings will likely take the place of those burned away, but this is little consolation to the losers.
Business will be resumed to as great an extent and as rapidly as possible and we feel sure that the losers in this calamity have the sympathy of the entire county, and surrounding territory. We feel equally as sure that friends and customers of the city will remain loyal to her best interests, and that town and county will work in unison for the rebuilding of a greater and better Russellville.
This extra edition of the CD is gotten up as hurriedly as possible. Telephone connections are all down, and the mail is our only recourse for reaching our readers with the news of the calamity is through the mail. Our regular edition will appear at the usual time.
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Russellville Stuff
Search Public Records—Use this to search for existing permits, plans, inspections, code cases, requests and licenses.
ReImagine Russellville 2040—September 2020, a narrative report on the Comprehensive Plan for Russellville. The plan serves as an official policy statement of the City of Russellville for directing growth and development within its city limits and planning area.

Litigation

  1. There are currently NO active cases related to the Pope County Casino. There have been 18 cases filed so far, including appeals:
    1. 58CV-18-768—Knight v. Gibson; filed 12-27-2018
    2. 58CV-19-439—CFABPC & Knight v Cross et al. filed 8-13-2019.
    3. 60CV-19-5832—Gulfside Casino Partnership v. ARC, filed 8-15-2019.  This was a judicial review of the ARC denial of Gulfside’s application.  Judge Tim Fox ruled in favor of Gulfside. This ruling was reversed and remanded by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Fox again ruled in favor of Gulfside.  The Arkansas Supreme Court reversed his ruling and dismissed the case.
    4. 60CV-19-5858—Knight et al v.ARC, filed 8-15-2019
    5. 58CV-19-462—Gulfside Casino Partnership v. ARC, filed 8-22-2019. A week after 60CV-19-5832 was filed in Pulaski County, Judge Tim Fox said the proper venue was Pope County and sent it there, where it was filed under this case number. Judge William Pearson found that the proper venue was Pulaski County.  The case was returned to Pulaski County, where it was refiled under the original case number and Judge. filed 8-22-2019
    6. CV-19-968—Gulfside Casino Partnership v. ARC, filed 12-23-2019
    7. 60CV-19-9172—CFABPC & Knight v. ARC, filed  12-27-2019
    8. CV-20-145—CFABPC & Knight v Cross et al., filed 3-2-2020
    9. CV-20-211—CNB v. Gulfside, filed 4-2-2020
    10. CV-20-438—CNB v. ADFA, filed 7-8-2020
    11. 58CV-20-429—Cross et al. v. ARC, filed 10-13-2020
    12. 60CV-21-1217—Legends et al v. ARC et al., filed 2-16-2021
    13. 60CV-21-1653—Gulfside v. ARC, filed 3-09-2021
    14. CV-21-289—CNB v. Gulfside, filed 6-28-2021
    15. 60CV-21-7742—Goodin v. ARC, filed 12-7-2021
    16. CV-23-50—Legends v. Gulfside, filed 1-26-2023
    17. CV-23-541—Knight v. ARC, filed 8-11-2023
    18. 60CV-23-7266—Goodin & Thone v. ARC, filed 9-25-2023

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Your voter registration information at Arkansas Secretary of State website: address, party association, ballot statuses, and polling place locations – also all of the districts that are applicable for your location.

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Arkansas Department of Transportation

I Drive Arkansas, traffic conditions, traffic cameras, etc.

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Arkansas Codes

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Arkansas Constitution

Article 5 § 1 – Initiative and Referendum–“no local legislation shall be enacted contrary to the Constitution or any general law of the State, and any general law shall have the effect of repealing any local legislation which is in conflict therewith.
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Legends Resort & Casino | Arkansas

Other Miscellaneous Stuff