Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.], Part 3

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago. (1886-1891. Goodspeed publishing Company)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, St. Louis [etc.] The Goodspeed publishing co.
Number of Pages: 826

USA > Arkansas > Faulkner County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Garland County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Grant County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Hot Spring County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Jefferson County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Lonoke County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Perry County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Pulaski County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3
USA > Arkansas > Saline County > Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.] > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Bituminous and semi-anthracite coal is found in the true coal measures of the uplands of Ar- kansas. That of the northwest is free from sul- phur. The semi-anthracite is found in the valley of the Arkansas River. These coal fields cover 10,000 acres. There are four defined coal hori- zons-the subconglomerate, lower, middle and up- per. The coal fields of this State belong to the lowest-the subcarboniferous-in the shale or millstone grit less than 100 feet above the Archi- medes limestone. In the Arkansas Valley these veins aggregate over six feet. The veins lie high in the Boston Mountains, dipping south into the Arkansas Valley. Shaft mining is done at Coal Hill, Spadra and many other points. It is shipped down the river in quantities to New Orleans.

Aluminum, corundum, sapphire, oriental ruby, topaz and amethysts are found in Howard and Sevier Counties. Strontianite is found in Mag- net Cove-valuable in the purification of sugar. In the synclinal folds of Upper Arkansas common salt is easily obtained. Good salt springs are in Sevier Conuty, also in Dallas and Hot Springs Counties. Chalcedony, of all colors, cornelian, agates, novaculite, honestone, buhrstone, varieties of granite, eight kinds of elegant marble, sand- stones, white, gray, red, brown and yellow, are common in the grit horizon; flagstones, roofing and pencil slates, tale, kaolin, abound in Saline, Washington, St. Francis and Greene Counties. The potter's clay of Miller,' Saline and Washington is extensively worked. "Rock oil" has been dis- covered in large pockets in Northwest Arkansas.

In the development of its mineral resources the State is still in its infancy, so much so, indeed, that what will prove yet to be the great sources of wealth are not even now produced as a commer- cial commodity. In some respects this is most re- markable. For instance, Arkansas might supply the world, if necessity required, with lime and cement, can produce the best of each at the least cost, and yet practically all these consumed are imported here from other States. Years ago Prof.

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

D. D. Owen called attention to the valuable marls in the southwest part of the State, but the great beds lie untouched and cotton planters send off for other fertilizers. So also of the great beds of gypsum that lie uncovered and untouched. The outside world wants unlimited supplies of kaolin, fire-clays and such other clays as the State pos- sesses in inestimable quantities, and yet the thrifty people seem to be oblivious of the fact that here is the way to easy sources of wealth.

People can live here too easily it seems. In this way only can a reason be found for not strik- ing boldly out in new fields of venture, with that vigor of desperation which comes of stern and hard necessity. Where nature is stubborn and un- yielding, man puts forth his supremest efforts.

Magnet Cove probably furnishes more remark- able formations than any other district in the world. The "Sunk Lands" in the northeast part of the State, the result of the disturbance of the New Madrid earthquake 1811-12, present features of interest to both lay and scientific investigators. The curions spectacle of deep lakes, beneath which can be seen standing in their natural position the great forest trees, is presented; and instead of the land animals roving and feeding among them are the inhabitants of the deep waters.

The natural abutments of novaculite rocks at Rockport, on the Ouachita River, with the proper outlying rocks on the opposite side of the river, are a very interesting formation.

Cortes Mountain, Sebastian County, as seen from Hodges Prairie presents a grand view. The bare hard rock looks as though the waves in their mighty swells had been congealed and fixed into a mountain. It is 1,500 feet high. Standing Rock, Board Camp Creek, Polk County, is a conspicious and interesting landmark. It rises from out the

crumbling shales, like an artificial piece of masonry, to the height of ninety feet.

The Dardanelle Rock as seen from the Arkan- sas River, opposite Morristown, is composed of fer- ruginous substance, and the great column dips at an angle of 40° toward the river. From one point on the southeast is the wonderful Dardanelle Profile. All the features of the face, with a deep-cut mouth slightly open as if in the act of listening to what one is going to say to it, and the outlines of the head, neck and shoulders, are faithfully produced. Its faithfulness of detail and heroic proportions are its strong characteristics.

Sandstone Dam across Lee Creek, Crawford County, is a curious instance of nature's perfect engineering. The formation here possesses as much interest to the scientist as the noted Natural Bridge.

Investigations of the Mammoth Spring lead to the conclusion that it has underground connection with Havell's Valley, Mo; that here the waters from many springs, some rising to the surface and others not rising, are as the head of a vast funnel, which pour down the subterranean channel and, finally meeting obstructions to further progress, are forced up through the solid rock and form the Mammoth Spring, a navigable subterranean river in short, whose charts no bold seaman will ever follow.

North of Big Rock are the traces of a burnt out volcano, whose fires at one time would have lighted up the streets of Little Rock even better than the electric lights now gleaming from their high towers.

The track of the awful cataclysm, once here in its grand forces, is all that is left; the energies of nature's greatest display of forces lost in the geological eons intervening.

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

CHAPTER !!

ARCHAEOLOGY-REMAINS OF FLINT ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS AND STONE AND OTHER ORNAMENTS- EVIDENCES OF PRE-HISTORIC PEOPLE ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI-MOUNDS, ETC., IN OTHIER PORTIONS . OF THE STATE-LOCAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND THEIR WORK-THE INDIANS-TRIBAL AND RACE CHARACTERISTICS-THE ARKANSAS TRIBES-THIE CESSION TREATIES -THE REMOVAL OF THE CHEROKEES, CREEKS AND CHOCTAWS-AN

INDIAN ALARM-ASSASSINATION OF THE LEADERS, ETC., ETC.

Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease, No actlons leave to busy chronicles; Such whose superior felicity hut makes In story chasms, in epochas mistakes .- Dryden.

N the long gone ages, reaches of time perhaps only to be measured by geological periods, races of men have been here, grown, flourished, declined and passed away, many not even leaving a wrack behind; others transmitting fossil traces, dim and crumbling, and still later ones, the suc- cessors of the earlier ones, who had no traditions of their predecessors, have left something of the measure of their existence in the deftly cut flints, broken pottery, adobe walls, or great earth- works standing in the whilom silent wilderness as mute and enduring mon- uments to their existence; man, races, civilizations, systems of religion passing on and on to that eternal silence-stormfully from the inane to the inane, the great world's epic that is being forever written and that is never writ.

Arkansas is an inviting field for the investiga- tion of the archaeologist, as well as the geologist. Races of unknown men in an unknown time have swarmed over the fair face of the State. Their

restless activities drove them to nature's natural storehouses and the fairest climes on the continent. Where life is easiest maintained in its best form do men instinctively congregate, and thus commu- nities and nations are formed. The conditions of climate and soil, rainfall and minerals are the controlling factors in the busy movements of men. These conditions given, man follows the great streams, on whose bosom the rudest savages float their canoes and pirogues.

Along the eastern part of the State are the most distinct traces of prehistoric peoples, whose hiero- glyphics, in the form of earthworks, are the most legible to the archæologist. Here, earthworks in greatest extent and numbers are found, indicating that this section once swarmed with these barbaric races of men.

In Lonoke County, sixteen miles southeast of Little Rock, and on the Little Rock & Altheimer branch of the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Rail- road, is a station called Toltec. It is located on the farm of Mr. Gilbert Knapp, and is near Mounds Lake. This lake is either the line of what was a borse-shoe bend in Arkansas River long ago, or is the trace of a dead river. The lake is in the form of a horse-shoe, and covers a space of about

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS

three miles. The horse-shoe points east of north, and the heels to the southwest. Here is a great field of large and interesting mounds and earth- works. A little east of the north bend of the lake are two great mounds-one square and the other cone shaped. The cone shaped is the larger and taller, and is supposed to have been 100 feet high, while the other was about seventy-five feet in ele- vation. About them to the north and east are many small mounds, with no apparent fixed method in their location. These have all been denuded of their timber and are in cultivation, except the larger one above mentioned. Upon this is a growth of heavy timber, elms, hickory, and oaks with as high as 500 rings, and standing on an alluvial soil from eight to fifteen feet deep. These large mounds are enclosed with an earth wall starting out from the bank of the lake, and circling at a considerable distance and returning to the lake, and keeping nearly an equal distance from the larger mound. The sloping base of each mound reaches the base and overlaps or mingles with the base of its neigh- bor. Around this big wall was once an outside ditch. The humus on the smaller mounds shows, in cultivation, a stronger and deeper alluvial soil than the surrounding land.

There are evidences in these mounds that while they were built by one nation, for objects now problematical. they have been used by other suc- ceeding peoples for other and different purposes, much after the manner that are now found farm- ers with well-kept gardens on the tops of the mounds, or stately residences, or on others grow- ing cotton and corn. In them human and ani- mal bones are seen, and there are indications that, while they were built for purposes of worship or war, when the builders passed away more than one race of their successors to the country used them as convenient burial grounds. They were skillful stone workers and potters, and their mason's tools are frequently met with. Nearly every im- plement of the stone age is found in and about the mounds.

Mr. Knapp, who has given the subject consid- erable intelligent study, is so convinced that these works were made by the Toltec race that he has

named the new station in honor of that people. On the line of this earth-wall mentioned are two deep pools that never are known to become dry.

East of Toltec thirty or more miles, in Lonoke Prairie, are mounds that apparently belong to the chain or system which runs parallel with the river, through the State. The small mounds or barrows, as Jefferson termed the modern Indian burial places, are numerous, and distributed all over Arkansas.

What is pronounced a fortified town is found in well marked remains on St. Francis River. It was discovered by Mr. Savage, of Louisville. He reports "parts of walls, built of adobe brick and cemented." On these remains he detected trees growing numbering 300 rings. He reports the brick made of clay and chopped or twisted straw, and with regular figures. A piece of first-class engineering is said to be traced here in a sap- mine, which had passed under the walls of the fortification.

The bones and pottery and tools and arms of the prehistoric peoples of Arkansas are much more abundant than are found in any other spot in the United States.

Mrs. Hobbs, living four miles southeast of Little Rock, has a very complete collection of the antiquities of the State. It is pronounced by antiquarians as one of the most valuable in the country. The Smithsonian Institute has offered her every inducement to part with her collection, but she has refused. It is hoped the State will some day possess this treasure, and suitably and permanently provide for its preservation.

When the white man discovered and took pos- session of North America, he found the red man and his many tribes here, and under a total mis- apprehension of having found a new continent, he named this strange people Indians. The new world might have been called Columbia, and the people Columbians. Again, instead of being sparse tribes of individuals fringing the shores of the Atlantic Ocean there were 478 tribes, occupying nearly the whole of the north half of this western hemis- phere; some in powerful tribes, like the Iroquois; some were rude agricultural and commercial peoples,

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

some living in houses of logs or stone, permanent residents of their localities; others warriors and hunters only, and still others migratory in their nature, pirates and parasites. One characteristic strongly marked them all-a love of liberty and absolute freedom far stronger than the instinct of life itself. The Indian would not be a slave. Proud and free, he regarded with contempt the refinements of civilization. He breathed the same free air as did the eagle of the crags, and would starve before he would do manual work, or, as he believed, degrade himself in doing aught but paint himself, sing his war songs and go forth to battle, or pursue the wild game or meet the savage wild beasts in their paths and slay them in regular com- bat. To hunt, fish and fight was the high mission of great and good men to his untutored mind, while the drudgery of life was relegated to the squaws and squaw-men. His entire economic philosophy was simply the attainment of his de- sires with the least exertion. In a short time he will have filled his earthly mission, and passed from the stage of action, leaving nothing but a dim memory. From their many generations of untold numbers has come no thought, no inven- tion, no action that deserves to survive them a day or an hour. The Indians of to-day, the few that are pure blood, are but the remnants, the use- less refuse of a once numerous people, who were the undisputed possessors of a continent, but are now miserable, ragged and starving beggars at the back doors of their despoilers, stoically awaiting the last final scene in the race tragedy. And, like the cheerful sermon on the tombstone, who shall say that white civilization, numbers and power, will not in the course of time, and that not far distant, be the successors of the residue of wretches now representing the red race? "I was once as you are, you will soon be as I am." A grim philos- ophy truly, but it is the truth of the past, and the great world wheels about much now as it has for- ever.

What is now Arkansas has been the possession of the following Indian tribes; no one tribe, it seems, occupied or owned the territory in its entirety, but their possessions extended into the lines, cov-

ering a portion of the lands only, and then reach- ing many degrees, sometimes to the north, south and west: The Osages, a once numerous tribe, were said to own the country south of the Mis- souri River to Red River, including a large por- tion of Arkansas. The Quapaws, also a powerful nation, were the chief possessors, and occupied nearly the whole of the State, "time out of mind;" the Cherokees were forced out of Georgia and South Carolina, and removed west of the Missis- sippi River in 1836; the Hitchittees were removed from the Chattahouchee River to Arkansas. They speak the Muskogee dialect-were 600 strong when removed; the Choctaws were removed to the west, after the Cherokees. In 1812 they were 15,000 strong.

The Quapaws, of all the tribes connected with Arkansas, may be regarded as the oldest settlers, having possessed more of its territory in well de- fined limits than any of the others. In the early part of the eighteenth century they constituted a powerful tribe. In the year 1720 they were deci- mated by smallpox; reduced by this and other calamities, in 1820, one hundred years after, they were found scattered along the south side of the Arkansas River, numbering only 700 souls. They never regained their former numerical strength or warlike importance, but remained but a band of wretched, ragged beggars, about whose hunting grounds the white man was ever lessening and tightening the lines.

January 5, 1819, Gov. Clark and Pierre Chou- teau made a treaty with the tribe by which was ceded to the United States the most of their terri- tory. The descriptive part of the treaty is in the following words: "Beginning at the mouth of the Arkansas River; thence extending up the Arkansas to the Canadian Fork, and up the Canadian Fork to its source; thence south to the big Red River, and down the middle of that river to the Big Raft; thence in a direct line so as to strike the Mississippi River, thirty leagues in a straight line, below the mouth of the Arkansas, together with all their claims to lands east of the Mississippi River and north of the Arkansas River. With the exception and reservation following, that is to say,

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

that tract of country bounded as follows: Begin- ning at a point on the Arkansas River opposite the present Post of Arkansas, and running thence a due southwest course to the Washita River; thence up that river to the Saline Fork, to a point from whence a due north course would strike the Arkan- sas River at the Little Rock, and thence down the right bank of the Arkansas to the place of begin- ning." In addition to this a tract was reserved north of the Arkansas River, which the treaty says is indicated by "marks on the accompanying map." This west line of the Quapaw reservation struck the river about where is now Rock Street.

In November, 1824, Robert Crittenden, the first Territorial secretary, effected a treaty with the Quapaws, at Harrington's, Ark., which ceded the above reservation and forever extinguished all title of that tribe to any portion of Arkansas. The tribe was then removed to what is now the Indian Territory.

The other original occupants or claimants to the Arkansas Territory were the Osages. Of these there were many tribes, and in 1830 numbered 4,000 strong, but mostly along the Osage River. Their claim lapped over, it seems, all that portion of the Quapaw lands lying north of the Arkansas River.

The title of the Osages was extinguished to what is now Arkansas by a treaty of November 10, 1808, made at Fort Clark, on the Missouri River. By this treaty they ceded all the country east of a line running due south from Fort Clark to the Ar- kansas River, and down said river to its confluence with the Mississippi River. These Indians occu- pied only the country along the Missouri and Osage Rivers, and if they were ever on what they claimed as their southern boundary, the Arkansas River, it was merely on expeditions.

About 1818, Georgia and South Carolina com- menced agitating the subject of getting rid of the Indians, and removing them west. They wanted their lands and did not want their presence. At first they used persuasion and strategy, and finally force. They were artful in representing to the In- dians the glories of the Arkansas country, both for game and rich lands. During the twenty years of

agitating the subject Indians of the tribes of those States came singly and in small bands to Arkansas, and were encouraged to settle anywhere they might desire north of the Arkansas River, on the Osage ceded lands. The final act of removal of the In- dians was consummated in 1839, when the last of the Cherokees were brought west. Simultaneous with the arrival of this last delegation of Indians an alarm passed around among the settlers that the Indians were preparing to make a foray on the white settlements and murder them all. Many people were greatly alarmed, and in some settle- ments there were hasty preparations made to flee to places of safety. In the meantime the poor, distressed Cherokees and Choctaws were innocent of the stories in circulation about them, and were trying to adjust themselves to their new homes and to repair their ruined fortunes. The Chero- kees were the most highly civilized of all the tribes, as they were the most intelligent, and had mingled and intermarried with the whites until there were few of pure blood left among them. They had men of force and character, good schools and printing presses, and published and edited papers, as well as their own school books. These condi- tions were largely true, also, of the Chickasaws. The Cherokees and Chickasaws were removed west under President Jackson's administration. The Cherokees were brought by water to Little Rock, and a straight road was cut out from Little Rock to the corner of their reservation, fifteen miles above Batesville, in Independence County, over which they were taken. Their southeast boundary line was a straight line, at the point designated above Batesville, to the mouth of Point Remove Creek.

The nistory of the removal of the Cherokee Indians (and much of the same is true of the re- moval of the Chickasaws and Creeks), is not a pleas- ant chapter in American history. The Creeks of Florida had waged war, and when conquered Gen. Scott removed them beyond the Mississippi River. When the final consummation of the removal of the Cherokees was effected, it was done by virtue of a treaty, said to have been the work of traitors, and unauthorized by the proper Indian authorities. At

HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.

all events the artful whites had divided the head- men of the tribe, and procured their signatures to a treaty which drove the last of the nation beyond the Mississippi. The chief men in making this treaty were the Ridges, Boudinot, Bell and Rogers. This was the treaty of 1835. In June, 1839, the Ridges, Boudinot and Bell were assassinated. About forty Indians went to Ridge's house, Inde- pendence County, and cruelly murdered young Ridge; they then pursued the elder Ridge and, over- taking him at the foot of Boston Mountains, as he was on his way to visit friends in Van Buren, Ark., shot him to death. It seems there was an old law of the nation back in Georgia, by which any one forfeited his life who bartered any part of their lands.

The Choctaws by treaty ceded to the United States all their claim to lands lying within the limits of Arkansas, October 20, 1820.

On the 6th of May, 1828, the Cherokees ceded all claim to their lands that lay within the Territo- rial limit of Arkansas.

This was about the end of Indian occupation or claims within the State of Arkansas, but not the end of important communication, and acts of neighborly friendship, between the whites and the Cherokees especially. A considerable number of Indians, most of them having only a slight mix- ture of Indian blood, remained in the State and be- came useful and in some instances highly influ- ential citizens. Among them were prominent farm- ers, merchants and professional men. And very often now may be met some prominent citizen, who, after even an extended acquaintance, is found to be an Indian. Among that race of people they recognize as full members of the tribe all who have any trace of their blood in their veins, whether it shows or not. In this respect it seems that nearly all races differ from the white man. With the latter the least mixture of blood of any other color pronounces them at once to be not white.

The Cherokee Indians, especially, have always held kindly intercourse with the people of Arkan- sas. In the late Civil War they went with the

State in the secession movement without hesitation. A brigade of Cherokees was raised and Gen. Albert Pike was elected to the command. The eminent Indians in the command were Gen. Stand Waitie and Col. E. C. Boudinot. Until 1863 the Indians were unanimous in behalf of the Southern cause, but in that year Chief Ross went over to the Fed- eral side, and thus the old time divisions in the In- dian councils were revived.

Col. Elias C. Boudinot was born in Georgia, in August, 1835, the same year of the treaty remov- ing the Indians from that State. Practically, therefore, he is an Arkansan. He shows a strong trace of Indian blood, though the features of the white race predominate. He is a man of educa- tion and careful culture, and when admitted to the bar he soon won a place in the splendid array of talent then so greatly distinguishing Arkansas. A born orator, strong enough in intellect to think without emotion, morally and physically a hero, he has spent much of his life pleading for his people to be made citizens-the owners of their individ- ual homes, as the only hope to stay that swift de- cay that is upon them, but the ignorance of his tribe and the scheming of demagogues and selfish "agents," have thwarted his efforts and practically exiled him from his race.

A few years ago Col. Boudinot was invited to address Congress and the people of Washington on the subject of the Indian races. The masterly address by this man, one of the greatest of all the representatives of American Indians, will be fixed in history as the most pathetic epilogue of the greatest of dramas, the curtain of which was raised in 1492. Who will ever read and fully understand his emotions when he repeated the lines:

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Pulaski, Jefferson, Lonoke, Faulkner, Grant, Saline, Perry, Garland and Hot Spring counties, Arkansas, comprising a condensed history of the statebiographies of distinguished citizens...[etc.], Part 3

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago. (1886-1891. Goodspeed publishing Company) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, St. Louis [etc.] The Goodspeed publishing co. Number of Pages: 826

Author: Goodspeed, firm, publishers, Chicago. (1886-1891. Goodspeed publishing Company)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, St. Louis [etc.] The Goodspeed publishing co.
Number of Pages: 826