USA > Arkansas > Biographical and historical memoirs of northeast Arkansas : comprising a condensed history of the state biographies of distinguished citizens a brief descriptive history of the counties, and numerous biographical sketches of the prominent citizens of such counties. V. 1 > Part 8
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woodland to the grandly beautiful mountain scen- ery; and on the mountain benches, and at the base. are as rich and beautiful valleys as are kissed by the rays of the sun in his season's round. Take the whole range of agricultural products of Ohio, Ind- iana, Illinois and Kansas, and all can be produced quite as well in Arkansas as in any of these States. In the face of this fact, for more than a genera- tion Arkansas raised scarcely any of the products of these Northern communities, but imported such as it had to have. It could not spare its lands from the cultivation of the more profitable crops of cotton. In a word, the truth is the State was bur- dened with natural wealth-this and slave labor having clogged the way and impeded its progress. With less labor, more cotton per acre and per hand, on an average, has been produced in Arkansas than in any other Southern State, and its quality has been such as to win the prize wherever it has been en- tered in competition. Its reputation as a fruit- growing State is not excelled. In the New Orleans Exposition, in California, Ohio and everywhere en- tered, it has taken the premium over all competi- tors. Its annual rainfall exceeds that of any South - ern State, and it cannot, therefore, suffer seriously from drouths. There is not a spot upon the globe which, if isolated from all outside of its limits, could sustain in health and all the civilized comforts a population as large as might Arkansas. Fifty thousand people annually come hither and are cured, and yet a general nebulous idea prevails among many in the North that the health and cli- mate of the State are not good. The statistics of the United States Medical Department show the mortality rate at Little Rock to be less than at any other occupied military post in the country. There is malaria in portions of the State, but considering the vast bottom stretches of timber-land, and the newness of the country's settlement. it is a remark- able fact that there is less of this disease here than in Pennsylvania: while all the severer diseases of the New England and Northern States, such as rheumatism, consumption, catarrh and blood poi- son, are always relieved and generally cured in Arkansas; malignant scarlet fever and diphtheria have never yet appeared. That dreadful decimator,
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
yellow fever, has only visited the eastern portion of the State, but in every case it was brought from abroad, and has never prevailed in this locality as an epidemic. Therefore, the largest factories, schools and universities in the world should be here. The densest population, the busiest haunts of men, will inevitably come where their rewards will be great- est-the struggle for life less severe. Five hun- dred inhabitants to the square mile will not put to the full test the limitless resources of this wonder- ful commonwealth. Ten months of summer with- out one torrid day, with invariable cool and re- freshing nights, and two months only of winter, where a man can work out of doors every day in the year in comfort, with less cost in physician's bills, expense in food, clothing and housing, are some of the inducements the State offers to the poor man. There are millions of acres of fertile lands that are offered almost without money and without price; land nearly any acre of which is worth more intrinsically than any other similar sized body of land in the world. There are 5,000,000 acres of government lands in the State, and 2,000,000 acres of State lands. The rainfall in 1886 was 46.33; average mean temperature, 58.7°; highest, 97.8°; lowest, above zero, 7.6°. Of the 33,500,000 acres in the State there are soils richer and deeper than the Nile; others that excel the alluvial corn belt of the Northern States; others that may successfully compete with the noted Cuba or James River, Virginia, tobacco red soil districts, or the most noted vineyards of France or Italy. Here is the land of wine and silk, where side by side will grow the corn and the fig-the land overhung with the soft, blue skies, and decked with flowers, the air laden with the rich perfumes of the magno- lias, on the topmost pinnacle of whose branches the Southern mocking-bird by day and by night swells its throat with song-
" Where all. save the spirit of man, is divine."
The artificial and local causes which have ob- structed the State's prosperity are now forever gone. There is yet the unsolved problem of the political negro, but this is in Illinois, Kansas and Ohio, exactly as it is in Arkansas. It is only the
common problem to the Anglo-Saxon of the United States, which, in the future as in the past, after many mistakes and even great wrongs, he will for- ever settle and for the best. Throw politics to the winds; only remember to profit by the mistakes of the North in inviting immigration, and thereby avoid the ominous presence of anarchism, socialism, and those conditions of social life latent in "the conflict of labor and capital." These are some of the portentous problems now confronting the older States that are absent from Arkansas; they should be kept away, by the knowledge that such ugly conditions are the fanged whelps of the great brood of American demagogues-overdoses of politics, washed down by too much universal vot- ing. It is of infinitely more importance to guard tax-receipts than the ballot boxes. When vice and ignorance vote their own destruction, there need be no one to compassionate their miseries, but always where taxes run high, people's liberties run low. The best government governs the least-the freest government taxes the least.
Offer premiums to the immigration of well- informed, expert labor, and small farmers, dairy- men, gardeners and horticulturists and small trad- ers. Let the 7,000,000 acres of government and State lands be given in forty-acre tracts to the heads of families, who will come and occupy them. Instead of millions of dollars in donations to great corporations and capitalists, give to that class which will create capital, develop the State, and enrich all the people. Railroads and capitalists will fol- low these as water runs down the hill. Arkansas needs railroads-ten thousand miles yet-it needs great factories, great cities, universities of learn- ing and, forsooth, millionaires. But its first and greatest needs are small farmers, practical toil- ers, skilled mechanics, and scattered all over the State beginnings in each of the various manufac- tures; the beginnings, in short. of that auspicious hour when it ceases to ship any of its raw mate- rials. It is a law of life, that, in a society where there are few millionaires, there are few paupers. Where the capital of a country is gathered in vast aggregations in the possession of a few. there the children cry for bread-the poor constantly in-
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
crease, wages fall, employment too often fails, and the hoarse mutterings of parading mobs and bread riots take the places of the laughter and the songs of the laborers to and from the shops and the fields.
The following from the government official re- ports of the growth and value of the manufactures of the State is to be understood as reaching only to 1880, when it had but commenced to emerge from the old into the new life:
Year.
Establishments.
Capital.
Males.
Females.
Children.
Wages.
Val. Materials.
Value Products.
Ideas of values are most easily reached by com - parisons. The following figures, taken from offi- cial government reports, explain themselves:
Value of Farins.
Machinery Live Stock. Products.
Arkansas.
$ 74,249,655| $ 4.637,497
$ 20.472,425 843,796,261
Nebraska ..
105,932.541
7,820,915
33.440,265'
Jowa
507.430,227
29,371,884
124,715,103
31,708,914 36,103,073
Kansas.
235,178,631
9,734.634
60,907,149;
52,240,561
Minnesota.
193,724,260
13,089,783
31,904,821
49,468,967
The products are the profits on the capital in- vested. Words can add nothing to these figures in demonstrating the superiority of Arkansas as an agricultural State, except the explanation that Southern farming is yet more or less carried on under the baneful influences of the days of slavery, unintentional indifference and the absence of watchful attention by the proprietor.
Cotton grows finely in all parts of this com- monwealth and heretofore in two-thirds of its terri- tory it has been the main crop. In the fertile bottoms the product per acre has reached as high as 2,000 pounds of seed cotton. while on the uplands it runs from 600 to 1,000 pounds. The census of 1880 shows that Arkansas produces more cotton per acre, and at less expense, than any of the so-called cotton States. In ISSO the yield was 608, 256 bales, grown on 1.042,970 acres. That
year Georgia raised 814,441 bales, on 2,617,138 acres. The estimated cost per acre of raising cot- ton is $6. It will thus be seen that it cost $9,444,972 in Georgia to raise 256, 185 more bales of cotton than Arkansas had grown-much more than double the land to produce less than one- fourth more cotton. Less than one-twentieth of the cotton land of the latter State has been brought under cultivation.
The superiority of cotton here is attested by the fact that the greatest cotton thread manufact. urers in the world prefer the Arkansas cotton to any other in the market. The product has for years carried off the first prizes over the world's competition.
The extra census bulletin, 1880, gives the yield of corn, oats and wheat products in Arkansas for that year as follows: Corn, 24,156,517 bushels; oats, 2,219,824 bushels; wheat, 1, 269, 730 bushels. Remembering that this is considered almost ex- clusively a cotton State, these figures of the cereals will be a genuine surprise. More wheat is grown by 40,000 bushels and nearly three times as much corn as were raised in all New England, according to the official figures for that year.
From the United States agricultural reports are obtained these interesting statistics concerning the money value of farm crops per acre:
Corn.
Rye.
Oats.
Potatoes.
Hay.
Illinois ..
$ 6 72 86 64 $6 46$30 32 $7 66
Indiana
8 86.
7 30
5 92. 30 08
7 66
Ohio ..
11 52:
9 08
7 90
344 48
9 85
Kansas
6 44
5 98
6 12:
37 40
5 89
Virginia.
7 52
5 16
5 34
43 50
17 30
Tennessee
7 91
7 32
5 73.
28 08
14 95
Arkansas
11 51
9 51
11 0%
78 65
22 94
The following is the average cash value per acre on all crops taken together:
Maine. $13 51
| North Carolina ... .$10 79
New Hampshire. 13 56
South Carolina. . .. 10 09
Vermont.
11 60
Georgia.
10 35
Massachusetts 26 71
Florida. 8 52
Rhode Island.
29 32
Alabama.
13 49
Connecticut.
16 82
Mississippi
14 76
New Yor
14 15
Louisiana. 22 40
New Jersey.
18 05
Arkansas
20 40
Pennsylvania
17 68
Tennessee.
12 39
Delaware .
15 80
West Virginia.
12 74
Maryland
17 82
Kentucky
13 58
Virginia.
10 91
Ohio
15 58
30
$150,876|8 215,789 9 537,908
1870.
1,070
1,782,913
3,077
47
82
554,240| 673,963 925,358
1,280.503 2,506,998 4,392,080
2,880,578 4,620,234
1880
1,202
2,953,130
4,307
90
160
6,756,159
1850
261 $ 305,045
812
1860
518
1,316,610
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
Michigan.
$18 96
Kansas. $ 9 11
Indiana
14 66
Nebraska
8 60
Illinois. 12 47
California 17 18
Wisconsin. 13 80
Oregon. . 17 11
Minnesota 10 29
Nevada, Colorado and
Iowa ..
8 88 the Territories ..
16 13
Missouri.
10 78
Texas. 14 69
The advance of horticulture in the past decade in the State has been extraordinary. Twenty years ago its orchard products amounted to very little. By the census reports of 1880, the total yield of fruit was $867,426. This was $100,000 more than the yield of Florida, with all the latter's immense orange groves. As universally as has the State been misunderstood, it is probably in reference to its fruits and berries that the greatest errors have long existed. If one visits the apple and peach regions of the North, it is found to be the gen- eral belief that Arkansas is too far south to pro- duce either, whereas the truth is that, especially in apples, it has no equal either in the United States or in the world. This fact was first brought to public attention at the World's Fair, at New Orleans, 1884-85, where the Arkansas exhibit was by far the finest ever made, and the State was awarded the first premium, receiving the World's medal and a special notice by the awarding com- mittee. Thus encouraged, the State was repre- sented at the meeting of the American Pomological Society, in Boston, in September, 1887. Sixty- eight varieties of Arkansas seedling apples were in the exhibit, to contend with all the champion fruit growers of the globe. The State won the Wilder medal, which is only given by reason of extraor- dinary merit, and in addition to this was awarded the first premium for the largest and best collection of apples, consisting of 128 varieties.
The collection which won the Boston prizes was then shipped to Little Rock, and after being on exhibition there twenty days, was re-packed and shipped to the National Horticultural meeting in California, which met at Riverside, February 7, 1888. Arkansas again won the first prize, invad- ing the very home of Pomona, and bearing off the first honors as it had in eastern and northern sec- tions of the Union. The "Arkansas Shannon " is pronounced by competent judges to be the finest apple now grown anywhere.
Strawberries are another late discovery of the resources of Arkansas. The yield and quality are very superior. So rapidly has the industry grown that, during the fruit season, the Iron Mountain road runs a special daily fruit train, leaving Little Rock late in the afternoon and reaching St. Louis early the next morning. This luscious product, of remarkable size, ripens about the first of April.
Of all cultivated fruit the grape has held its place in poetry and song, in sacred and profane history, as the first. It finds in Arkansas the same conditions and climate of its native countries, between Persia and India. The fruit and its wine produced here are said by native and foreign experts to equal. if not surpass, the most famous of Italy or France. The vines are always healthy and the fruit perfect. The wild muscadine and scuppernong grow vines measuring thirty-eight and one-half inches around, many varieties fruit- ing here to perfection that are not on the open air lists at all further north.
The nativity of the peach is the same as that of the grape, and it, too, therefore, takes as kindly to the soil here as does the vine. Such a thing as budded peach trees are of very recent date, and as a consequence the surprises of the orchardists in re- spect to this fruit are many. Some of the varieties ripen in May, and so far every kind of budded peaches brought from the North, both the tree and the fruit, have improved by the transplanting. The vigor of the trees seems to batlle the borers, and no curled leaves have yet been noticed. In quality and quantity the product is most encourag- ing, and the next few years will see a marked advance in this industry.
For fifty years after the settlement of the State peach seedlings were grown, and from these, as in the case of the apple, new and superior varieties have been started, noted for size, flavor, abundance and never failing crops.
The Chickasaw plum is so far the most suc- cessfully grown. and is the best. It is a perfected fruit easily cultivated, and is free from the curculio, while the trees are healthy and vigorous beyond other localities.
In vegetables and fruits, except the tropical
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
plants, Arkansas is the banner State. In the fruit and vegetable kingdom there is found in luxuriant growth everything in the long list from corn to the fig.
The yield and quality of Arkansas tobacco is remarkable when it is remembered that this indus- try has received so little attention. Thirty years ago State Geologist Owen informed the people that he found here the same, if not better, tobacco soil, than the most favored districts of Cuba. The yield of tobacco, in 1880, was 970,230 pounds. Yet so little attention or experiment has been given the subject that an experimental knowledge of the State's resources in this respect cannot be claimed to have been gained.
In 1880 the State produced: Barley, 1,952 bushels; buckwheat, 548 bushels; rye, 22,387 bushels; hay, 23,295 tons; Irish potatoes, 492,627 bushels; sweet potatoes, 881,260 bushels.
From the census reports of the same year are gleaned the following: Horses, total, 146,333; mules and asses, 87,082; working oxen, 25,444; milch cows, 249,407; other cattle, 433.392; sheep, 246,757; swine, 1,565,098; wool, 557,368 pounds; milk, 316,858 gallons; butter, 7,790,013 pounds; cheese, 26,310 pounds. All parts of the State are finely adapted to stock-raising. The excellence and abundance of pure water, the heavy growth of blue grass, the cane brakes and abundant mast, sustain the animals during most of the winter in marketable condition. In respect to all domes- tic animals here are presented the same conditions as in nearly every line of agriculture -- cheapness of growth and excellence of quality.
The improvement in cattle has been retarded by the now conceded fact that the "Texas fever" is asserted by some to be seated in the State. This affects Northern cattle when imported, while it has no effect on native animals. Except for this unfortunate reality there would be but little time lost in developing here the great dairy industry of the country. But good graded cattle are now being raised in every portion, and so rich is the locality in this regard that in stock, as in its fruits, care and attention will produce new varieties of unrivaled excellence. Arkansas is the natural home
and breeding ground of animals, all growing to great perfection, with less care and the least cost.
Taxes here are not high. The total taxation in Illinois in 1880, assessed on real and personal property, as per census reports, for State, county and all civil divisions less than counties, was $24,586,018; the same year in Arkansas the total tax was $1,839,090. Farm lands are decreasing in value in Illinois nearly as fast as they are in- creasing in Arkansas. The total taxation in the United States in 1880 was the enormous sum of $312,750,721. Northern cities are growing, while their rural population is lessening. The reverse of this is the best for a State. The source of ruin to past nations and civilizations has all arisen from an abuse of the taxing powers. Excessive taxation can only end in general ruin. This simple but great lesson should be instilled into the minds of all youths, crystallized into the briefest maxim, and written over every threshold in the land; hung in the porches of every institution of learning; imprinted upon every plow handle and emblazoned on the trees and jutting rocks. The State that has taxed its people to build a $25, - 000,000 State house, has given deep shame to the intelligence of this age. Taxes are the insidious destroyer of nations and all liberty, and it is only those freemen who jealously guard against this evil who will for any length of time maintain their independence, equality or manhood.
The grade profile of the Memphis Route shows the elevations of the various cities and towns along that line to be as follows in feet, the datum plane being tide water of the Gulf of Mexico: Kansas City, 765; Rosedale, 825; Merriam, 900: Lenexa, 1,040; Olathe, 1,060; Bonita. 1.125: Ocheltree. 1,080; Spring Hill, 1,020: Hillsdale, 900; Paola, 860; Pendleton, 855: Fontana. 925: La Cygne, 840; Barnard, 810: Pleasanton, 865: Miami, 910; Prescott, SSO; Fulton, 820: Ham- mond, 875; Fort Scott, 860; Clarksburg. SS5: Garland, 865: all in Kansas; Arcadia. 820: Liberal, 875: Iantha, 990; Lamar, 1,000; Keno. ma, 980; Golden City. 1.025: Lockwood. 1.065: South Greenfield, 1,040: Everton. 1,000; Ash Grove, 1,020; Bois d' Arc. 1,250; Campbells, 1.290;
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
Nichols Junction, 1,280; Springfield, 1,300; Tur- ner, 1,210; Rogersville, 1,475; Fordland, 1,600; Seymour, 1,680; Cedar Gap, 1,685; Mansfield, 1,520; Norwood, 1,510; Mountain Grove, 1,525; Cabool, 1,250; Sterling, 1,560; Willow Springs, 1,400 ; Burnham, 1,360; Olden, 1,280; West Plains, 950; Brandsville, 1,000; Koshkonong, 970; Thayer, last point in Missouri, 575; Mammoth
Spring, Ark., 485; Afton, 410; Hardy, 370; Willi- ford, 330; Ravenden, 310; Imboden, 300; Black Rock, 290 ;. Portia, 285; Hoxie, 295; Sedgwick, 270; Bonnerville, 320; Jonesboro, 275; Nettleton, 250; Big Bay Siding, 250; Hatchie Coon, 250; Marked Tree, 250; Tyronza, 240; Gilmore, 225; Clarketon, 240; Marion, 235; West Memphis, 200; Memphis, 280.
CHAPTER VI.
-
POLITICS-IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT-THE TWO OLD SCHOOLS OF POLITICIANS-TRIUMPH OF THE JACKSONIANS-EARLY PROMINENT STATE POLITICIANS-THE GREAT QUESTION OF SECESSION -THE STATE VOTES TO JOIN THE CONFEDERACY-HORROR OF THE WAR PERIOD-
THE RECONSTRUCTION DISTRESS-THE BAXTER-BROOKS EMBROGLIO.
In knots they stand, or in a rank they walk, Serious in aspect, earnest in their talk; Factious, and favouring this or t'other side, As their weak fancy or strong reason guide .- Dryden.
N one sense there is no portion of the history of Arkansas more instructive than its political history, because in this is the key to the character of many of its institutions, as well as strong indications of the trend of the public mind, and the characteris- ties of those men who shaped public affairs and controlled very largely in the State councils.
Immediately upon the formation of the Territorial government. the Presi- dent of the United States sent to Ar- kansas Post Gov. James Miller, Robert Crittenden, secretary, and C. Jouett, Robert P. Letcher and Andrew Scott, judges, to organize the new Territorial government. Gov. Miller, it seems, gave little attention to his office,
and therefore in all the early steps of formation Crittenden was the acting governor; and from the force of character he possessed, and his superior strength of mind, it is fair to conclude that he dominated almost at will the early public affairs of Arkansas.
This was at the time of the beginning of the political rivalry between Clay and Jackson, two of the most remarkable types of great political lead- ers this country has produced-Henry Clay, the superb; "Old Hickory," the man of iron; the one as polished a gemu as ever glittered in the political heavens-the other the great diamond in the rough, who was of the people, and who drew his followers with bands of steel. These opposites were destined to clash. It is well for the country that they did.
Robert Crittenden was a brother of John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, and by some who knew him long and well he was deemed not only his
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS
brother's peer, but in many respects his intellect- ual superior. It goes without the saying, he was a born Whig, who, in Kentucky's super-loyal fash- ion, had Clay for his idol, and, to put it mildly, Jackson to dislike.
President Monroe had appointed the first Terri- torial officers, but the fact that Crittenden was secretary is evidence that politics then were not running very high. Monroe was succeeded in 1824 by John Quincy Adams. It would seem that in the early days in Arkansas, the Whigs stood upon the vantage grounds in many important respects. By the time Adams was inaugurated the war political to the death between Clay and Jackson had begun. But no man looked more care- fully after his own interests than Jackson. He had large property possessions just across the line in Tennessee, besides property in Arkansas. He induced, from his ranks in his own State, some young men of promise to come to Arkansas. The prize now was whether this should be a Whig or Democratic State. President Adams turned out Democratic officials and put in Whigs, and Robert Crittenden for a long time seemed to hold the State in his hand. Jackson's superiority as a leader over Clay is manifested in the struggles between the two in Arkansas. Clay's followers here were men after his fashion, as were Jackson's men after his mold. Taking Robert Crittenden as the best type, he was but little inferior to Clay himself in his magnetic oratory and purity of prin- ciples and public life; while Jackson sent here the Seviers, Conways and Rectors. men of the people, but of matchless resolution and personal force of character. No two great commanders ever had more faithful or able lieutenants than were the respective champions of Old Hickory and Harry of the West, in the formative days of the State of Arkansas. The results were, like those thoughout the Union, that Jackson triumphed in the hard strife, and Arkansas entered the Union. by virtue of a bill introduced by James Buchanan. as a Jackson State, and has never wavered in its political integrity.
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