USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. III > Part 26
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'The government of Missouri territory was organized Decem- ber 1, 1812. William Clark was governor; Edward Hempstead the representative in congress; Col. Alexander Walker the dele- gate from Arkansas district to the territorial legislature. Arkan- sas Post was then the seat of justice of a district almost as exten- sive as the present state of Arkansas. Colonel Walker journeyed to and from St. Louis on horseback. Arkansas county was erected by the legislature of Missouri territory, December 31, 1813, and, excluding the northwestern angle of Arkansas, was two thirds as large as the present state. It is the oldest surviv- ing county of Arkansas formed while Arkansas was a part of Missouri territory and was the last but one of nine counties erected
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ARKANSAS, FROM 15441 TO 1819.
in Missouri. By the act creating it, all of the present state of Arkansas and some of the adjacent territory was divided into two counties, the other of which was named New Madrid. The line between them extended from Island No. 19, in the Mississippi river, southwesterly to the mouth of Little Red river, up that river to its source and thence west to the Osage line. All of the territory so divided north of the line described was New Madrid county, which has been absorbed by counties of late formation ; all south of it and west of the main channel of the Mississippi river was (Arkansas county. The area of Arkansas county has been diminished from time to time by the formation of other con- ties from its territory. A part of Phillips county was added to it in 1821 ; Quapaw purchase was divided between Arkansas and Pulaski counties in 1827.
'The "Village of Arkansaw" was designated in the creative act as the seat of justice of Arkansas, the mother of counties. Thomas Nutall thus describes the place as he saw it in 1819: "The town, or rather settlement, of the Post of Arkansas, was somewhat dispersed over a prairie nearly as elevated as that of the Chickasaw Bluffs and containing in all thirty or forty houses. The merchants there, who transacted nearly all the business of the Arkansa and White rivers, were Messrs. Brahm and Drope, Mr. Lewis and Monsieur Notrebe, who kept well assorted stores of merchandise supplied chiefly from New Orleans, with the exception of some heavy articles of domestic manufacture obtained from Pittsburg. The improvement and settlement of this place . proceeded slowly, owing, in some measure, as I am informed, to the uncertain titles of the neighboring lands. Several enormous Spanish grants remained still undecided. That of Messrs. Win- ter, of Natchez, called for no less than one million acres, but the congress of the United States seems inclined to put in force a kind of agrarian law against such monopolizers; had laid them, as I was told, under the stipulation of setting up on this immense tract a certain number of families. The first attempt at settlement on the banks of the Arkansa was begun a few miles below the bayon which comummicates with White river. As extraordinary inun- dation occasioned the removal of the garrison to the borders of the lagoon, near Madam Gordon, and again disturbed by an over- flow, they at length chose the present site of Arkansas." Com- menting on a historic event of a hundred years before, Nutall added: "Had the unfortunate grants of Mr. Law been carried into effect, which proposed to settle in and around the present village of Arkansas 9,000 Germans from the Palitinate, we should
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now probably have witnessed an extensive and flourishing colony in place of a wilderness still struggling with all the privations of savage life."
There were citizens of Arkansas Post in 1819 whom Mr. Nutall did not mention. Prominent among them was Hewes Scull, born in Philadelphia, Pa., about 1783, who came, aged nineteen, while the Spaniards still held possession. He was locally prominent in an official way in affairs of Missouri territory and successful as a merchant. When Arkansas territory was organized, he was the first sheriff of Arkansas county, occupying that position from 1819 to 1823; he was clerk of the court from 1830 to 1833, and, had he not died in the latter year, he might have risen to still higher distinction. Other merchants there in 1819 were Farrelly & Curran, who had come from Pittsburg, Pa .; Mr. Thomas, a partner of Lewis; Horace P. Hyde, and William Montgomery. Frederick Notrebe, referred to by Nutall as Monsieur Notrebe, came as early as 1816. James Scull had a gristmill and cotton gin and William A. Luckie & Co. a tannery in operation in 1819, and William E. Woodruff, Sr., was publishing the Arkansas Gazette. Thomas Terrell was a land agent. Perly Wallace, Rufus P. Spaulding, James H. Lucas, S. Dinsmore, Henry Cas- sady and Jason Chamberlain were lawyers. H. Armstrong, Capt. William O. Allen, William Craig, Jacques Gocio, James Hamil- ton, Benjamin L. Haller, John Jordolas, Elijah Morton, David Maxwell, John Maxwell, Pierre Mitchell, Attica Nodall, Richmond Peeler, Manuel Roderique, Charles Roberts, A. P. Spencer, Thomas Stephens, A. B. K. Thetford, Nathaniel Vasseau and Stephen Vasseau were all there then or within a year thereafter. James H. Lucas, one of the pioneer lawyers, was county judge from 1833 to 1835 and, removing to St. Louis, became one of the wealthy, useful and distinguished men of that city. Terence Farrelly, of the merchandising firm of Farrelly & Curran, was a county Cavan man. He came, little more than a boy, to Pennsylvania and thence in 1818, at the age of about twenty-six, to Arkansas and lived near the post until his death in 1865. He was a member of the legislature, speaker of the house and a member of the con- stitutional convention of 1836. Thomas Curran, his partner, went early to Independence county and there, in 1821, was born his son James M. Curran, who distinguished himself as a lawyer. Ben- jamin I .. Haller was county judge. Other carly residents of Arkansas Post were officials of Arkansas county. Three tailors, J. B. Burk, John O'Regan and Stokeley HI. Coulter, were in the village in 1819.
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ARKANSAS, FROM 1541 TO 1819.
About two years before, William E. Woodruff, Sr., after hav- ing gained some experience as a printer, left his Long Island, N. Y., home, to seek his fortune in the West. He was then about twenty-one years old. Reaching Wheeling, W. Va., he, with a companion, went by canoe to Louisville, Ky. Thence he walked to Nashville, Tenn., and thence, after working a year as a printer, to Franklin, that state. After considering the advisability of locating in Nashville, St. Louis and Louisville, he decided to become a newspaper publisher in Arkansas. Buying press, type, etc., at Franklin, Tenn., he consumed three months in transport - ing them by water, by keel boat and canoe, a most difficult under- taking, to Arkansas Post, where he arrived with the outfit Octo- ber 30, 1819. On the twentieth of the following month, the first number of the Arkansas Gazette was issued. The last issue at the post was dated November 24, 1821, the first issue at Little Rock, December 29, following. Until 1830 it was the only paper published in the territory. In 1820 Mr. Woodruff was made printer of the territory. The after history of the paper and of its publisher belongs to a later date. Judge Sam C. Roane, from New York, came to the Post about 1820, young and poor, but talented and ambitions. Later he took up his residence at Pine Bluff. Suggestions of his prominence and influence in the state are to be found in many places in these pages. Ile died in 1853, aged sixty years. The Hon. Andrew Scott, judge of the superior court in the district of Arkansas, came to Arkansas Post in 1818 and brought his family to the place in 1819. The Flon. Robert Crit- tenden came soon after Judge Scott.
The Post of Arkansas was often visited by Roman Catholic missionary priests in the early years of the nineteenth century, and many residents thereabout, including Indian converts, were Catholics. The Rev. John P. Carnahan, Cumberland Presbyter- ian, the first protestant minister there, preached there as early as 1811. In early official records and documents the post was desig- nated as the "Village of Arkansaw." The postoffice of Arkansas, Missouri territory, was established July 1, 1817, with Eli J. Lewis as postmaster. In 1819 its name was changed to Arkansas, Arkansas territory. It took the name Arkansas Post Decem- ber 27, 1831. The village called Arkansas did not come into existence until 1820. With the idea that it would become the seat of justice of the county, William O. Allen platted a town so-called and Robert Crittenden and Elijalı Morton gave to Arkansas county a block of lots within its borders on condition that necessary county buildings be erected thereon. In 1825
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Benjamin I .. Ifaller, Hewes Scull and James Maxwell were appointed to receive donations for town and county buildings and Louis Bogy, Robert MeKay, Isaac Melane, Hewes Scull and Harold Stillwell were constituted a committee to select a site for such structures. The name of the postoffice was changed to Arkansas Post, Arkansas county, December 27, 1831. The village that grew up there and was incorporated October 26, 1836, cov- ered considerable ground, though much of the space was vacant. It extended from the river to Grand Prairie. Some of the houses of the French style, built in De Villemont's time, were standing in 1836 and later, noticable for their high chimneys, high gabled roofs and heavy exterior timbers. "These old houses," afterward wrote Pope, "presented a sad but interesting picture. In many instances, the tall chimneys had fallen down and trees of consider- able size were growing out through the roofs and chimney places. There were, however, a few modern buildings, situated near the bank of the river, among them two brick houses, one of which was the store and warehouse of the opulent Frederick Notrebe. The other was pointed out to me as having been the printing office of William E. Woodruff, Sr., publisher of the Arkansas Gasette." The town was destroyed in January, 1863, by United States land forces under General McClernand and naval forces under Admi- ral Porter. In 1900 its population was 100. The seat of justice of Arkansas county was moved to Dewitt in 1855.
Lawrence county was formed out of the territory of the now ' extinct county of New Madrid, January 15, 1815. It was named in honor of Capt. James Lawrence, the hero of the Chesapeake. The first court was held at the house of Solomon Hewitt, on Spring river. The seat of justice was located at Davidsonville, founded in 1815 and until 1828 the land office town of that part of the territory ; in 1829 it was removed to Jackson, about 1832 to Smithville, in 1868 to Clover Bend and in 1800 to Powhatan. Walnut Ridge is a shire town. The first postoffice in the territory was established at Davidsonville, June 28, 1817, four days before the opening of the postoffice at Arkansas Post. For a time mail was carried once in thirty days from St. Louis, via Davidsonville and Arkansas Post, to Monroc, la. Adam Ritchey was post- master at Davidsonville ; and R. Richardson in 1827. Col. Hart- well Boswell was appointed register of the land office in 1819 and John Trimble, a Kentuckian, was receiver of public moneys. Richard Searcy came to the county from Tennessee in 1817. lohn Rodney, William Thomson, William Jarrett, Samuel Gib- son, Fickling Stubblefield, Jolm Bridges and John Wills were, in
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ARKANSAS, FROM 1541 TO 1819.
1828, appointed commissioners to locate proposed county build- ings. Eli Thornburgh, mayor and magistrate, was for two decades postmaster at Smithville, the third county seat. Between 1820 and 1840, J. M. Kuykendall, James Campbell, Joseph Ilardin, H. R. Hynson, H. Sanford, D. W. Lowe, T. McCarroll, William Jones, J. M. Cooper, C. Stubblefield, J. S. Ficklin, David Orr, William Humphreys and others settled in the county, The Ilon. Milton D. Baker, the Hon. George Thornburgh, Eli Thorn- burgh's son, and Charles Coffin, editor and lawyer, were promi- nent. Official lists show that some of the above mentioned gen . tlemen were more than once called to public service.
Clark, Hempstead and Pulaski counties were created from Arkansas and Lawrence counties, December 15, 1818. The boun - daries of Lawrence county were not changed materially. The creative act directed that courts of Clark county, named in honor of Governor Clark, be held at the house of Jacob Barkman. The scat of justice was moved to Clark court house, two miles from . the Barkman place ; in 1825 it was removed to Biscoeville ; in 1827 to Adam Strand's house ; in 1830 to Greenville (now Hollywood), and in 1842 to Arkadelphia. The Barkmans were half brothers of Jolm Hemphill and Jacob developed into a man of great busi ness ability and enterprise. He was postmaster at Clark court house at the establishment of the postoffice there in 1819. Daniel Ringo, who came in 1825, was postmaster there and was succeeded by Moses Phillips. As early as 1812, Barkman engaged in trade with New Orleans and intermediate points along the Mississippi. He began navigating the river with a pirogne and his round trips consumed six months time. He took bear skins, oil and tallow down the river and brought up lead, flints, powder and coffee and sugar and cards for working cotton and wool. His enterprise at Blakeleytown resulted in the organization at New Orleans of a (for that time) great warehouse and commission business of which he was the head. His steamboat-the Dime-became a regular packet between Arkadelphia and the Crescent City. Ile opened up a large cotton plantation and built on the Caddo river the first cotton factory in Arkansas. This plant, which cost thirty thousand dollars, was destroyed by flood. Mr. Barkman died, wealthy, in 1852. Judge Sam C. Roane came early to Clark county and represented it in the legislative council in 1821. In 1827 John Callaway, Archibald Huddlestone and Wenthrop Cold- breath were made commissioners to build a court house, county office, etc., and Lee Petit, William Stroope and Jacob Wells com- missioners to solicit and receive donations for the purpose. In
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1831, Jacob Stroope, John Rose and James Swan were commis- sioned to sell lots and promote the establishment of the county seat at Greenville. Early settlers at and near Blakeleytown ( Arkadelphia ), about 1810, were Adam Blakeley, Sr., Sam Parker, Isaac Cates and Abner Hignite. The family of Le Boeuf (French) lived near there. John Hemphill, from South Carolina, came with his family and Mary Dixon, his mother-in-law, and the Barkmans, John and Jacob, in ISTI. Hemphill put salt works in operation about 1815 and died five or six years later. In 1820, Mrs. Dickson bought 320 acres, eight miles southwest of Blake- leytown, the first government land sold in Arkansas. The first Methodist church in the county was established by her. She died in 1843, aged ninety-one. Adam Stroud and George, Jacob and William Stroope from Louisiana, John Callaway, William Amett, William Bennett, the Logans, Brittons and Huddlestones from Missouri, and the Wellses, Crows, Calbaths, Wingfields, Souther- mans and McLanghlins came to the county in 1817-18. Calla- way, who located a few miles from Blakeleytown, died about 1830. John Wilson, who, as president of the first constitutional conven- tion and otherwise was much in the public eye in territorial and early state days, settled at McNeill's Bluff and built a gristmill on the stream since known as Mill creek. About the same time, Judge William Jones, James Swan, Scott Mckinney and the Hardins came from Lawrence county. Benjamin Dickinson, Simeon Buckner, Nat K. Jones, Michael Bozeman, David Francis, Jr., Joseph and William Browning, the Rogerses and Gray S. Manning and Lewis Randolph came in 1835-36. The latter, who had been secretary of the territory, began the improve- ment of a farm on the Terre Noir, near the Missouri, and died in abont two years and is buried there. A personal friend of President Jackson, he had married Betty Martin, one of the his- toric beauties of the white house. After his death, she married President Jackson's adopted son, Andrew Jackson Donelson, after- ward a candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States.
Hempstead county was named in honor of the Hon. Edward Hempstead, who represented the territory of Missouri in congress from January 4, 1813, to November 12, 1814, and was speaker of the house of representatives of that territory in 1816. Ile died August 9, 1817. Mr. Hempstead was not only the first delegate to congress from Missouri territory but one of the first from west of the Mississippi river who sat in our national councils. Ile was born in New London, Conn., June 3, 1780. Mound Prairie ( near the present site of Cohunbus) was one of the carly territorial set-
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ARK. INS.IS, FROM 1541 TO 1819.
tlements. Judge Daniel T. Witter is authority for the statement. that the first court of record in the county, a court of common pleas with restricted jurisdiction in civil and criminal affairs, was held at the house of John English, the temporary seat of justice, in 1819, by Judges English, Woodward and Wheaton, and the first circuit court by Judge Neal McLean in the spring of 1820; that the Rev. William Stevenson, Methodist, who came in 1819, was the first minister ; that Dr. N. D. Smith, who came in 1819, was the first resident physician ; that A. M. Oakley, who came in 1822, was the first lawyer, and that W. II. Etter, who established the Washington Telegraph in 1840, was the first editor. On the same excellent authority, it may be stated that the first cotton gin in the county was built by Ben Clark, Sr., on the old Paup place in 1819 and the first saw mill by John Johnson on Mine creek in 1830. The Enterprise, the first steamboat built in Arkansas, was built by John Jolison at the Saline landing in 1822 for traffic on the Ouachita. The original Bowie knife was made at Washing- ton, in pioneer days, by James Black, blacksmith and silver-smith, from a pattern designed by James Bowie. Washington was platted and became the county seat in 1824. Judge Witter came to Washington in 1820 and died there in 1886. Ile was receiver of public moneys at Washington 1832-49 and held other offices. Samuel B. Davis, James Moss, Allen M. Oakley, Elijah Stewart, Simon T. Sanders, Edward Cross and Benjamin Clark were early settlers; J. W. Judkins, lawyer, came in 1828; Dr. Benjamin P. Jett in 1829; Grandison D. Royston in 1833. Such distinguished men as William Trimble, Daniel Ringo, John R. Eakin, Burrill B. Battle, James K. Jones, Augustus H. Garland, Dan W. Jones, Bernard F. Hempstead, A. B. Williams, Thomas H. Simms, Orville Jennings, W. W. Andrews, Wyatt C. Thomas, Col. J. R. Gratiot, Prof. Ernest Wiedeman and C. A. Bidewell have, from time to time, lived in this county. Allen M. Oakley was post- master at Washington in 1828. In 1830 Governor Pope visited the town officially and was entertained at a famous dinner given at the public house of William P. Heckman. During the civil war, from 1863, Washington was the seat of the Confederate gov- ernment of Arkansas. Jolm R. Eakin edited the Washington Telegraph 1860-65.
It has been deemed probable that Natsoo, a settlement planted by La Harpe in 1719, when he explored Red river, was in Itemp- stead connty, at or near the mouth of Little river.
Pulaski county originally embraced "all the country from the mouth of Little Red river to the Arkansas river, at Plum bayon,
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THIE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
thence up the Arkansas river, and with the Cherokee lines, to a point north of Little Red river, thence down the Little Red river to the beginning."* Quapaw purchase was divided between Pulaski and Arkansas counties, October 13, 1827. This county was named in honor of Count Pulaski, who fought under Washi- ington for American independence. Little Rock had not come into existence when the county was created, and the first courts were held in the house of Judge Samuel McHenry. December 18, 1818, Edward Hogan, who had been an officer in the United States army, was appointed a justice of the peace for the Pulaski county township, and one week later Lemuel R. Curran was appointed sheriff and Judge McHenry to preside over the court of common pleas. June 28, 1820, the seat of justice was located at the Cadron, which had appeared thus to Nutall only a little more than a year before : "On the 27th of March, we arrived at the Cadron settlement, containing in a contiguous space about five or six fam- ilies. Mr. McHenry, one of the first, is at present the only resi- dent on the imaginary town plat. A cave of rocks here affords a safe and convenient harbor and a good landing for merchan- dise." No village or town except Arkansas had as yet risen beside the Arkansas, nor a gristmill; at the post flour sold for twelve dollars a barrel. Maize was milled by means of hand motors and improvised horse mills. Sugar was twenty-five cents a pound, coffee fifty cents. The United States had begun the survey of lands along the Arkansas which were to be ready for sale about 1821. "One of the surveyors, Mr. Pettes, was now laying out the lands contiguous to the Cadron into sections. Another sur- veyor is also employed in the Grand Prairie; and proceeding at this time from the vicinity of Arkansas to this place." The set- tlement at and near the site of Little Rock, Nutall described thus : "In the evening [of March 25, 1819] we arrived at Mr. Hogan's, or the settlement of the Little Rock, opposite to which appear the cliffs [or Big Rock]. The hills appear to be elevated from 150 to 200 feet above the level of the river, and are thinly covered with trees. There are a few families living on both sides, upon high, healthy and fertile lands; and about twenty-two miles from Hogan's [ near the site of Benton] there is another settle- ment of nine or ten families, sitnated toward the source of the Saline creek, of the Washita, which enters that river in thirty- three degrees, twenty-seven minutes. This land, though fertile and healthy, cannot be compared with the alluvions of the Arkansa, notwithstanding which, I am informed, they were
*Hempstead.
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ARKANSAS, FROM 1541 TO 1819.
receiving accessions to this population from the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. The great road to the southwest connected with that of St. Louis, passing through this settlement, communicates downwards also with the Post of Washita, with the remarkable thermal spring's near its sources, about fifty miles distant and then, proceeding 250 miles to the settlement of Mound Prairie, on Saline creek, of Red river, and not far from the banks of the latter [near the site of Columbus] continues to Natchitoches." And this small isolated settlement was, only two years later, the capital of a great territory rich in natural resources, peopling rapidly and promising grandly, destined in its maturity to make good the promise of its youth.
Francis Imban settled on the site of Little Rock as early as 1803. The Lefaves, Francis and Leon, settled in the county about 1807 when the latter was only about ten years old. Jacob Peyeatt and his brother, Maj. John Peyeatt, who had done patri- otic service in the Revolutionary war, settled, with their families, at Crystal Hill, above [logan's. The former, with others, soon ·
moved up the river to the mouth of the Cadron ; the latter, assisted by other pioneers, began cutting out a road toward Arkansas Post. The Peyeatts came from Tennessee. Sampson Gray, from North Carolina, also a pioneer, died in 1834. Archibald MeHenry who lived ten miles southwest of Hogan's about 1819, died in 1839. Hutson Martin lived north of the river in 1819. David Rorer, lawyer and ferryman, located north of the river in 1827. C. F. M. Robinson, a Virginian, came to Pulaski county in 1827. Post offices were established at the Cadron and at Crystal Hill in 1820. Thomas 11. Tindall was postmaster at the Cadron ; the other post- master was Edmund Hogan. From 1821 to 1832, a log building served as a court house. When it became too rickety for longer occupancy, the courts moved to one of several brick houses on the site of the present city hall. Land now a part of the post- office block was in 1821 conveyed to the county by William Rus- sell's bill of assurances, on the condition that a court house be built on it before 1831. No adequate attempt was made to carry out this provision and the proffered land was lost to the county. The courts occupied the cast wing of the state house 1840-83, and then were ousted by stubbornly contested legal proceedings. The courts and county offices occupied rented quarters until 1888, when the present fine court house, a structure of Arkansas granite from the Fourche mountain, was completed at an expenditure of righty thousand dollars.
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