Exploring Stone County

Rocky Bayou Saloon

2011-06-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

Articles by Freda Phillips originally published in Stone County Citizen Reprinted by permission of the Author

“The Place Where Men that Mattered Met”

By Freda Cruse Phillips

Taverns and saloons, coffee shops and “round tables” play an important part of our nations’ growth. The location and establishment of a tavern was as significant to a settlement’s plan as police, sanitation and fire departments are today. Budgets for public works were non existent and it was essential that officials conduct business without encumbering “the crown”. As talk of independence became a reality for the colonists much of the plans for the American Revolution took seed within the walls of our nation’s saloons and taverns. The first ‘volunteer’ militia was organized within the walls of such establishments as The Three Cranes tavern in Boston. Following the American Revolution the new country was broke, heavily indebted to France. A system known as “riding the circuit” began and taverns were used not only as gathering places and to hold meetings but to conduct court when the “judge” was in town.
The Rocky Bayou saloon, the first saloon in Izard County, was located and identified in 2009. Since then it has been dismantled and moved back to its original location at Lunenburg. The area between Batesville, the oldest surviving city in the state and Buffalo City where the White and Buffalo Rivers converge near Mtn Home, is one of the oldest continuing settled areas of the state, making the White River Valley the Jamestown, VA of Arkansas if not the entire Ozarks. Arkansas was declared a territory in 1819 and according to old deeds and land claim documents Lunenburg was founded as the settlement of Rocky Bayou a year later by Adam Walker. He had to prove he had continuously lived on the land and improved it for 10 years in order for the homestead to be granted. Sometime between 1810 and 1815, Walker is likely who built and first operated the “Rocky Bayou Saloon”.

Izard Co was formed Oct 27, 1825. The first postal station was at Wolf House, which served as the seat of jurisdiction until 1831. Situated between Wolf House and Mt. Olive, Athens became the county seat in 1830 and opened the Pine Bayou post office. Little Rock lawyer, John Paxton Houston had been coaxed to Wolf House to serve as the first clerk of the newly formed Izard County in 1825. June 15, 1836, AR was admitted to the Union. In 1842 the Pine Bayou post office was renamed Athens. Although Wolf House remained an important settlement, the post office was closed in 1844 and reopened as North Fork. Other settlements were rapidly growing including Rocky Bayou, Franklin and Wild Haws in which postal stations were established in 1847. By the mid 1830’s Rocky Bayou had a general store, sawmill, two cotton gins, a gun powder mill, a blacksmith and livery, a tannery, a cider mill, three general stores and a school. Because Rocky Bayou had a saloon, the place where men that mattered met, it became an important location in the area and in 1900 had a larger population than nearby Melbourne.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, many local men including Adam Walker (CSA) were torn between remaining loyal to the Union or fighting for the Southern cause of states rights to self govern. The Skirmish at Lunenburg, fought on January 20, 1864, is an example of such division, where family, friends and neighbors fought each other. A detail of 44 men of the (Union) Fourth Ark Mounted Infantry under Capt. T. A. Baxter attacked (Confederate) Col. Thomas Freeman’s men driving them from their camp at Lunenburg. My gg grand father William Chitwood who served with Freeman told stories to his son, my great grand father John Richard Chitwood b 1877, who passed them on to me before his death in 1974. Four Confederates were seriously wounded and two were captured, along with horses and equipment. Freeman had no head quarters and few military reports were made. He took up where he could frequently using people’s barns and homes at Calico Rock, Buckhorn, Mt. Olive and the Harris house at Sylamore with his most secure encampment at Mammoth Spring. One of the four men wounded at Lunenburg was 18 year old, William Hinkle, son of Jesse and Sarah Cole Hinkle. He died that day and was buried at Lunenburg Cemetery.
Following the Civil War, AR remained under militia rule until 1903, its first 4 Governors northerners. Union sympathizers were given positions of power with the charge to reduce or eliminate Southern sympathies which included the re-location or re-naming of towns. Former Confederates were not allowed to hold office, name their children after Southern Generals, vote or attend political gatherings. Although known officially as Rocky Bayou, the settlement had taken on a new name as documented in Civil War records as Lunenburg. The stories go that while partaking of the saloons beverages a man of German Prussian descent declared, “Name her Lüneburg, by Gott!” In 1868, Robert Case, the new post master at Rocky Bayou, did just that. The post office opened Feb. 3, 1868 and Rocky Bayou became Lunenburgh.
I can see the gathering, men of prominence sitting about the hand made stools, benches, whiskey barrels, singing ballads in their baroque Irish, Scottish, English and German. A very large man John Paxton Houston sauntering in, perhaps with his visiting brother Gen. Sam Houston, if they weren’t arguing or with a rowdy Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie cohorts of both Houston’s and Abraham Ruddell. Used at the Alamo, the Bowie knife remains in use by the U.S. Military, known as a K-Bar. One of the earliest settlers of Batesville, Ruddell lived nearly 20 years as a brother of Tecumseh after having been captured as a 6 yr old by the Shawnee at Ruddell’s Fort, KY. Certainly Jehoiada Jeffery, first settler of Mt. Olive who served in the AR Legislature and as judge over the trial of Big Charley and Chief Syllamo in the attempted murder of Jared C. Martin (State Treasurer) was here. Sam Houston later secured Jeffery’s services as a surveyor on portions of the Old Military Road (Southwest Trail), which runs through Batesville. Daniel Culp served as his personal secretary. Thomas Riggs first settler of Riggsville (Mtn View) served in the Ark. Legislature and was witness to the will of Jehoiada Jeffery certainly met his friends here, bringing his wife’s cousin, a visiting Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain. Taverns, watering holes and places to get a bite of food dictated the paths, the routes people took, which likely included Frank and Jesse James, Cole, John, Jim and Bob Younger. The movers and shakers met here, the un-named frontiersmen who toiled the earth, bartered and traded, established
homesteads and raised families.
By the time I arrived, Denny Elrod and Rick Dowdle, of the Exploring Izard County Crew (EIC.com) were water and sweat soaked from the power washing of the nearly 200 year old hand hewn timbers that once were the walls of the Rocky Bayou Saloon, where songs were sang, tempers flared, fists flew, prayers were said and men that mattered made plans, legal or not, that shaped our county, state and nation.
***To donate to the restoration project of the Rocky Bayou Saloon, visit Exploring Izard County***

Note - In the second paragraph above, the saloon is described as having been located and identified in 2009. Actually, the building has long been known to be that erected early in the foundation of the community of Rocky Bayou/Lunenburg as a tavern and has also long been credited with being the first one to operate in Izard County.

ESC Extra! Bud Cooper on Gunpowder Production During Civil War

2011-05-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

While browsing YouTube this morning, I came across this excellent short interview with Izard County's own Bud Cooper, a noted local historian.
The information Mr. Cooper provides during the interview is great. Equally great is the knowledge that as more people become aware of the usefulness of the internet through blogging and video hosting, the more great local interest stories like these we will find!http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Kudos to civilwarhalftruths for their effort to preserve our local history and culture!

ENJOY!

NOTE- Cross-posted at Exploring Izard County

The Timber Rattler

2010-07-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Timber Rattler
By Freda Cruse Phillips

Ah Summer time. Sweet summer time. It’s officially here along with the heat and humidity. Laughter and sounds of people talking interrupt the usually quiet areas of the creeks and swimming holes, birds chirping and water gurgling. The smell of roasting hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill fill the air. Yes, summer is here along with blackberries and watermelon, ticks, chiggers and snakes. Saturday the crews of Exploring Stone Co and Exploring Izard Co (.com) met up for an early morning excursion into what may be the pre-Civil War slave auction site of the Dillard family. A small cave, perhaps 2,000 sq feet partitioned into one large room and four small ones, it is a remarkable location that will now require extensive historical research to document. Will Dillard was one of the largest slave traders in the White River area. The 1837 Dillard Settlement at Round Bottom in Stone Co is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It is a far larger settlement than Wolf House from the same period. Will’s sister Lucy Dillard married Henry Harris. Their home built by slaves in 1848, sits at the junction of 5, 9 & 14 at Allison and is presently owned by Guy and Liz Harris.

In spite of the damp air, sandy bottom and deadfall that has washed into the cave, it wasn’t here that we encountered our baby Timber Rattler. Larry Stroud from the Batesville Guard who had joined us for this excursion had never seen City Rock Bluff, the large beautiful bluff off Culp Road that overlooks the river bottoms just north of present day Calico Rock. It was named not for the city of Calico Rock seen to the south, but for the bustling community of white people that inhabited the river bottoms on the ‘civilized’ side of the river (Izard Co) viewed by the Indians atop the bluff on the west side (Stone Co) 200 years ago. Calico Rock was settled long after the name was given the beautiful bluff, which is now part of Stone County’s Ozark National Forest. A little further down Culp Road lays Table Rock Cemetery. Being this close I wanted to go back by and get a photograph of Josiah “Jody” Rorie’s headstone. A remarkable man who deserted the Confederate army, he was found, tried and pardoned then released back home to help his father and brothers make wagons for the cause of the South. Jody had been home only a few months when the Union soldiers attacked and burned Rorie’s Mill. Believing the Rorie’s also to be the source of the well hidden munitions efforts Absalom and his sons Andrew and Hezekiah were tortured and killed. Their arms were ripped from their bodies by horses pulling against each other. Little is known as to what Jody did to stop the killing, but three days later after burying his father and brothers and moving his entire family to safety near Big Flat, he joined the Union Army. Several of us drove up to the cemetery and walked it, looking through markers and cairns to locate Jody’s grave. Recently decorated during Memorial Day weekend, I felt the pride of this small community for its heritage. The older marker was laying flat on the ground with a newer smaller one at the head. Reaching to move the flowers so I could get a better photo, everyone jumped back at the site of a snake curled up there.
True to character, this small baby Timber Rattler remained calm to our wide eyed, rapid back stepping heart beating panic. While I snapped photos one of the men offered to ‘stretch him out’ so we could see how big he was. This angered the docile little snake who quickly coiled again and began darting his head at me. He was about a foot and a half long. I think. The Timber Rattlesnake is one of the most venomous snakes in Arkansas. Its habitat runs all the way to New Hampshire, where less than 25 are now known to exist. Considered an endangered snake it is protected in most states other than Arkansas and carries a huge penalty if killed. A shy snake they will not generally even move when encountered. Laying on a foot trail, they will remain still and often will not strike even if stepped on. Their primary food is rodents and birds. There is a balance in our ecosystem as these snakes, like the King and Black snakes, also eat other snakes. The venom of the rattler is meant to disable its prey. Slow to grow many reach as much as 5 ft in length and live 20-25 yrs. The females deliver live birth litters of 8-10 babies. Because these snakes lay motionless as a means of self protection, it also makes them incredibly vulnerable to humans, who in their fear, just want to kill them. Timber Rattlers den in the winter, but don’t really hibernate like most people believe. In the spring, they emerge from these underground tunnels, often old animal burrows to begin their basking in the sun and search for food. When out hunting for prey, they may travel as much as three miles. This travel makes them most vulnerable to humans as they are creatures of habit and where clear cutting of timber, construction of new homes and other actions by man change their topography they become confused and may end up in a flower bed near a house, a place normally they would never go.
People who kill these and other venomous snakes love to tell tales of how they saved the community from this serpent. As one entomologist says, “The logic of killing one of these snakes is about as reasonable for you to go out and destroy every knife and fork in your community due to the potential danger they hold.”
Babies are generally born in the winter in the dens in order to give them a period of growth before emerging into the thick forested, rocky terrains they call home. This baby Timber Rattler is distinguished by his button rattle that as yet can make no noise, and its large head compared to its neck diameter. Often known as the “Gentleman Caller” because they alert you that they are coming, the rattlesnakes are also one of the most feared and misunderstood snakes. Arkansas has a number of other poisonous snakes that unlike the Timber Rattler aren’t afraid of people. My niece Josie Phillips nearly died after having been bitten by a copperhead at a picnic table at Blanchard a few summers ago. Although rattlers have the worst reputation, they do not hang out near the water nor play dead. Nor will they open their mouths and lunge without provocation and they rarely even attempt to bite unless startled or harassed. They do not chase people and in fact will retreat quickly if allowed. Any story told of an aggressive rattler without provocation is merely a tale. Now, will they strike and try to defend themselves against a stick, shovel or hoe. This baby rattler was highly irritated at our prodding and efforts to ‘stretch him out’ to get a better photo. He had remained still when my fingers brushed against him as I removed the flowers. It was me the aggressor that wanted him to show his stuff. I don’t know the roll this snake plays in the ever tenuous environmental balance we live in, but I do know, not unlike the lengths to which a man will go seeking freedom when enslaved, this little snake was ready to fight the odds to survive.

Caption, Lower Right: EIC/ESC Crew at City Rock Bluff

Mountain Meadows Massacre - Kenneth Rorie

2010-06-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

Mountain Meadows Massacre – Kenneth Rorie

By Freda Cruse Phillips & Bob Fleming

In 1845, Absalom Rorie and his family arrived in present day Stone County. Followed by friends and more family the community around “Mill Creek” (Middle Sylamore at Newnata) became a thriving community long before the Civil War. The Rorie’s built and operated a grist mill and a two story saw mill that in addition to producing the regions best wagons, provided white oak for barrels, bins and barns throughout the area. Kenneth Wayne Rorie, ggg-grandson of Absalom Rorie & Sarah Jane Elizabeth Meador, gg-grandson of Hezekiah Columbus Rorie & Louisa A. Ticer, g-grandson of Newton Monroe "Newt" Rorie and Sarah Beaver is the son of Eulis and Cleo Graddy Rorie. Eulis learned to make wagons from his father Newt. Kenneth learned as a young child how to guide a team, including the meaning and use of the words, Gee and Haw.
When the Baker family started making plans to go west to join the California Gold Rush, John Tweety Baker from Searcy County purchased wagons built by the Rorie’s knowing they would be the strongest and surest, able to make the torturous trek west from Arkansas. Outfitting a wagon suitable for a cross country trek was a special order, costing around $5,000, the “Aire Steams” of the 1850’s.
In March 1857, the Baker wagon train met up with other families from the area at Caravan Springs on Hiway 7 near Harrison to begin the journey. A monument stands at the site from which they departed. Squire Beaver, after whom Beaver Lake was named, operated a trading post in Carroll County where the wagon train made its last stop purchasing final supplies for the arduous trip.
On May 13, 1857, in Alma, Ark, Parley P. Pratt, one of the 12 Mormon apostles, was killed by Hector McLean. Pratt had usurped the marriage of McLean and his wife Eleanor, taking her as his 12th plural wife leading to an outraged McLean stabbing then shooting him. Pratt died 2 ½ hours later from loss of blood. Word arrived to Utah of the murder making Pratt yet another martyr to the Mormons, who had been chased out of both Missouri and Illinois. In 1838, the state of Missouri had issued Executive Order #44 also known as the extermination order which Gov. Boggs stated was a result of “open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State ... the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description.” This order was not formally lifted until 1976. The fiery rants of Brigham Young citing the on going persecution led him to declare martial law in Utah issuing a command that they would not provide any supplies to passers through, directing followers instead to cache supplies of food, grain and munitions in the hills and caves in order to fend off aggressors. It was in accordance with Mormon policy to hold every Arkansan accountable for Pratt's death, just as every Missourian was hated because of the expulsion from there.
The following is excerpted from depositions in the National Archives given by survivors, Martha Elizabeth Baker and her brother, William Twiddy Baker during the post Civil War investigation into the massacre; “My father (George), mother (Minerva Beller Baker), grandfather (John Twitty Baker), several uncles and aunts were among those killed.” “My brother, sister and I were kept in the family of John D. Lee,” leader of the Mormon sect who attacked the wagon train, “until the soldiers came a year later upon the insistence of families here, to retrieve the survivors.” “Only 17 children under the age of 8, who were deemed “too young to tell” were spared. The wagon train was under attack for 5 days.” “We ran out of water with people dying in the hot sun from thirst as much as from wounds. There really was no choice but to surrender to John Lee who said he had worked out with the attacking Indians to allow safe passage,” “but the men had to give up their guns. They loaded us children into a wagon.” Elizabeth recalled the last time she saw her mother alive was as she was being placed into a wagon. Seeing the men wash the Indian paint from their faces, they realized these were white men, dressed as Indians. But it was too late. Given a signal by Lee, the Mormon’s turned and shot each unarmed person with whom they were walking. More than 120 innocent men, women and children over 8 years old were killed. The survivors recalled seeing their mother’s dresses worn by the Mormon women, their daddy’s guns used by the men and Brigham Young himself riding around in one of the fine carriages” made by Absalom Rorie. When the soldiers came to retrieve the children over a year later, they found the remains of the slaughtered and stopped to bury the bodies that had been left exposed, ravaged by animals. Elizabeth, Sally Ann and William’s grandma Mary came from Arkansas to claim them.
In 1864, brothers, Andrew and Hezekiah Rorie were tortured and killed along with their father Absalom by Union soldiers who were looking for Confederate troops and the powder work munitions being made in the caves of Stone County. Hezekiah’s widow Lousia Ticer was left alone to raise their young children, Martha 4, Sarah 7 and Alan 11. Their four oldest children, sons, became men and heads of the house overnight, responsible for not only themselves but their siblings and mother. Their 18 year old son Newton “Newt” Monroe Rorie had become a skilled wagon maker. In 1869 he married Sarah Beaver, niece of Squire Beaver, who had supplied the Baker wagon train. Sarah Beaver Rorie lived to be over 100. She was the oldest person attending the 1941 Folk Festival at Blanchard where she sang and played, and won the hog calling contest. The desecration and irreverence of our nation’s history continues, from the horrendous unconscionable acts of bulldozing cemeteries to renaming roads, mountains and lakes. Squire Beaver’s trading post lay’s beneath Beaver Lake. Succumbing to political pandering Beaver Lake was recently renamed Hobbs Lake.
In 2006 the movie September Dawn was released. It tells the story of this shocking piece of our nation’s history and the lengths to which people will go when they are fighting for religious freedom. A full investigation into the massacre did not occur until after the Civil War. In 1879 John D Lee was tried, convicted and returned to the site of the massacre for hanging. It was no small footnote that the Pratt murder occurred on May 13, 1857 and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the slaughter of Arkansas’ people in the Baker wagon train occurred just four months later on September 11.
***Bob Fleming completed the research and writing on this story on Saturday night May 22nd. He died the following morning. Born in 1946 to Beulah Bryce Fleming, he is the great grandson of early Mormon settler Ebenezer Bryce (1830-1913), of whom Utah’s Bryce Canyon is named. Bob was raised as a Mormon and served as a missionary in Brazil. He was a devoted member of this community, researching and writing and photographing people and places in an effort to preserve the history of Stone County. He will be greatly missed.

The Death of Peter Cornstalk III

2010-06-21T22:53:00.000-07:00

The Death of Chief Peter Cornstalk (III)

By Freda Cruse Phillips

Ticks, chiggers and the possibility of snakes didn’t deter Cecila and me but the dead fall from last year’s ice storm did as we headed off to the base of the mountain at the back of her farm in Searcy County. We edged our way over rocks along the ledge searching for the rock box (cairn) the reported final resting place of Peter Cornstalk (III)/85. It’s difficult to sort out who is who in the Cornstalk family lineage because they were a polygamous clan of the Shawnee and Young Hokolesqua (1710-1777) the first “Peter” Cornstalk had at least 8 wives and possibly as many as 30 children. The lineage may be tedious to follow but three of his son’s are important to our local history; Young Peter (I) born 1744 by his 1st wife Helizikinopo and Peter (II) b. 1755 and John Wolf b. 1750 by his 2nd wife, Ounacona Moytoy. Young Hokolesqua Cornstalk of Chalakatha/Mekoche (Shawnee) lineage became Chief of the 20 tribe Northern Confederacy in the Ohio Valley in 1755 serving until his death in 1777. He was the first “Chief Peter Cornstalk”, given the name by whites due to his height of over 6 ft 6 and his flowing white hair, “Cornstalk”.

His son Young Peter (I)/44 married Elizabeth See, his adopted white sister, the daughter of Chief Peter’s 5th wife Catherine Vanderpool Sharp and Frederick See (Seay). Young Peter (I)/44 and Elizabeth had White Wing, b. 1770. She became the third wife of Tecumseh. Young Peter I/44 was Tecumseh’s father in law and Peter II/55 and John Wolf/50, White Wing’s uncles.

Chief Peter’s second wife was Ounaconoa Moytoy (1718-1758), mother of Black Beard born 1735, Black Wolf/41 John Wolf/50, Peter Jr (II)/55 and Susannah/57.

Black Wolf fathered a child with Jenny Sellard Wiley, captive white woman. She reportedly gave their son to Black Wolf as ransom to return to the whites. Then reported the Indians had tomahawked the child. That child is Chief John Black Wiley, Wiley’s Cove now Leslie, Arkansas.

Peter (II)/55 married Mary Francis Avery (Avey)/b. 1764, ½ white and half Shawnee who had been raised by Chief Peter’s 5th wife Catherine See (Seay). They had Peter/85.

John Wolf/50 married a Shawnee woman with whom he had a daughter, Black Poddee/85 and sons Henry Clay/90, John Wolf Jr/92 and Peter Wolf/94.

In 1826 at Norfork, Arkansas, Wolf House, John Wolf Cornstalk/92 married his second wife Nancy Jane Avey/05, the daughter of his cousin Chief Peter III/85 and wife Mary Frances Avey. John’s brother, Peter/94, married Mary Adams. Brothers, John/92 and Peter/94 took the names of their wives becoming John Avey and Peter Adams. Peter (Avey)/85, John (Avey)/92, Peter (Adams)/94 and Chief (John Black) Wiley/87, were grandsons of Young “Chief Peter Cornstalk”/1710. The Adams descendants reside primarily in Searcy and Marion County. It is the descendants of Peace Chief John Cornstalk born 1792 aka John Avey who we find in Stone County. He settled west of Mountain View, near Big Springs.

Of greater importance is the relationship created between the Moytoy’s and the Cornstalks with the marriage of Young “Chief Peter” Cornstalk to his second wife, Ounaconoa Muskrat Moytoy. Ounaconoa’s brothers and uncles were of the Principal Chiefs, members of the 1730 Delegation to King George II. Their portraits hang in the British Royal Museum in London. Ounaconoa‘s brother Fivekiller, a member of the delegation, married Tame Doe. Their daughters, Nancy Moytoy, Beloved Woman of the Cherokee, married Bryant Ward, and Elizabeth Kittegusta Moytoy married Chief John Walker. Caty Walker, grand daughter of Chief John and Elizabeth and niece of Ounaconoa and Chief Peter/1710, married David Fulks, the first of the Fulks to arrive in Arkansas along with Peter Cornstalk Jr (III Adams), John Wolf Cornstalk/92(Avey), Peter/94 and the Wards around 1820. Elias Fulks, son of David and Caty, married Martha Houston Grigsby, a cousin to brothers, General Sam Houston and John Paxton Houston, first clerk of Izard Co, buried at Athens, 3 miles south of Calico Rock. Although many Cherokee came through Arkansas on the Trail of Tears (1831-1838) these Shawnee and Cherokee came here voluntarily, were not assigned roll numbers and contrary to belief most did not leave when the 1817-1828 reservation ended. The Native Americans who moved here voluntarily were among the first to circumvent the U.S. patent laws by adopting the white man’s names and thus patenting land as such. It is the fear of the loss of their land that for years forced silence and denial of their ancestry upon the people who moved here.

Chief Peter (1794) settlement known as Sequatchee was located on Bear Creek in Searcy County. Some say the creek is named due to the abundance of bear in the area, while others say it is due to the fact it was the location of the Bear Clan of the Shawnee of whom Peter was Chief. Cecilia Wood who lives in Mountain View, was born and raised north of Marshall where she retains ownership of a portion of the former Shawnee land not far from Bear Creek. She is the descendant of Peter Adams Tyler, son of Baker Tyler and Agnes Adams. Peter Tyler married Eveline Minerva Price daughter of Elizabeth Brewer and Buck Price, believed to be a relative to John Price who settled Bull Pen Holler in Stone County around 1820 and the Brewers of west Stone County.

According to Shawnee Heritage by Don Greene, “In 1841 Chief Peter Cornstalk (Peter III/85) was killed in Kansas by Peter A. Tyler, a former family friend.” Both family and local stories report that while at a tribal gathering near where the Buffalo and White River’s converge, Chief Peter (III) became enraged when a child stepped on a stick at the fire circle flipping fire sparks onto him. Chief Peter (III) in anger struck the child killing him. Realizing what he had done he fled. On the decision of the convening chiefs, members of Chief Wiley’s clan (Wiley’s Cove, now Leslie, Arkansas) along with Peter Adams Tyler pursued Chief Peter (III) into Kansas.

The Adams family bible lists as brothers, Matthew and Robert Adams. Robert Jr. is the first white settler of Searcy County. Mary, Robert Sr’s daughter, married Chief Peter/94 in 1826 at Wolf House. Matthew’s daughter, Agnes Adams married Baker Tyler, parents of Peter Adams Tyler. Therefore Mary’s first cousin Agnes’ son, Peter Adams Tyler, killed Chief Peter Cornstalk (III/1785), the cousin of Mary’s husband “Chief Peter Cornstalk”/94.

Little is known as to what transpired that they did not bring him back alive other than Chief Peter (III) was killed by 18 year old Peter Adams Tyler. The body of Chief Peter (III/85) was brought back to the Bear Creek settlement for burial. He is reportedly buried in an above ground three sided rock box, cairn, at the face of the mountain overlooking Bear Creek Valley. Tyler’s Bend located on the Buffalo River, north of Marshall is named for the Tyler family. Peter Adams Tyler was one of the men marched to Little Rock in chains as a member of the Searcy County Peace Society which then included most of west Stone County. He died during the Civil War at Bowling Green, Ky.

Descendants of Chief Peter Cornstalk Adams, Chief John Wolf Cornstalk Avey, Walkers, Wards, Fulks, Grigsby, and many others continue to live in the White River Valley.

Please contact Freda at 870 213 5015 or fredacruse@yahoo.com if you have any information regarding Native American descendants

PHOTOS

Cecilia Wood on her farm near the burial site of Chief Peter Cornstalk (III)/85

Daniel Peter Avey (1858-1899), son of Jacob Avey (1835-1880). Jacob is the son of John Wolf Cornstalk (Avey)/92 and 2nd wife Nancy Avey/1805, married 1826 Wolf House.

Dulcie Avey Kirby holding the original photo of her grand father Daniel Peter Avey. Her father was his only son Charlie LeRoy “Lee” Avey. Dulcie is the “double” GGGG Grand daughter of Young Hokolesqua “Chief Peter” Cornstalk 1710-1777, Principal Chief 1757-1777 due to the marriage of cousins, John/92 and Nancy Avey/05

Bob Fleming 1946-2010: Partner with Freda Cruse Phillips and the EIC Crew in Preserving and Promoting the History and Heritage of White River Valley

2010-06-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Bob Fleming's passing was a complete shock to us all. Though I did not know him well personally, I had the pleasure of his company on a couple of occasions as we explored the White River Valley region with him and his fiance, Freda Phillips. While the pain of his early departure from this life runs deep with our blogging/exploring partner, Freda...the fact that I and the rest of the EIC/ESC Crew will not have the opportunity to get to know him better saddens me greatly.

He was a good companion for our dear friend and a welcome additional voice for our efforts at EIC and ESC.

Thank you, Bob, for your devotion to both Freda and the efforts to preserve our area history and culture!

Bob Fleming's Obituary is as follows:

Bob Fleming 1946-2010

Robert "Bob" Jarvis Fleming dedicated son of Beulah C. Fleming was pronounced brain dead on Monday May 24th 7:35 am following treatment for blood pressure at a West Plains, MO hospital and med flight to St. Johns in Springfield. He wa botn Jan 21, 1946 in Long Beach, CA. He served as a missionary for the Church of the Latter Day Saints in Brazil from 1965-1967. Bob attended both U.C.L.A. and Cal State Fullerton where he graduted in 1970 with a degree in English. He served his country as an officer during the Vietnam War in Germany from 1972 to 1975. Bob moved to the Ozarks of West Plains MO in 1976 and continued to operate Fleming Foto for 34 years, taking countless photographs of families and friends, and the mills of Southern Missouri which was his passion. Bob was a world traveler and loved sharing his treasured writings with friends and family. He enhanced his natural charisma with his love and passion for music and art. Bob's spirit will continue to thrive in the work he has left behind and the many lives he has touched all over the world. He was a vital part of the community of Mountain View. He had been working with Freda Cruse Phillips, interviewing, photographing and videotaping hundreds of musicians and people documenting and presering the history of the White River Valley. They had two major projects underway "Mountain Music Project" a photographic exhibit of Stone County musicians and "Places of Our People", the second book in their series, The Vanishing Ozarks. Bob was an organ donor. He was cremated and returned to Big Springs Cemetery in Caulfield Mo for a private graveside service May 27th. His extended family of friends in Stone County held a Memorial Service on Sunday May 30th in which Bob's military service was recognized with taps played by Court of Appeals Judge Jo Hart, Col. Judge Advocate General (ret), services conducted by David Campbell, arranged by Beverly Dunaway with music by John and Terri Van Orman and Connie and David Powell. Supreme Court candidate Karen Baker fought back tears as she spoke of the time and dedication Bob had given to her campaign without compensation. Although Bob can be seen everywhere in Mtn View, from photos at Country Time and Tres Amigos to the weekly articles he helped write, he was vital member of our community and he will be missed.

He is survived by his fiance, Freda Cruse Phillips, Mtn. View, Arkansas, Beulah Fleming, West Plains, MO, daughters Nicole Codling of Vermont, Cherice Togun of Florida and son Nathan Fleming of Caulfield, MO, former wife of 30 years, Arlene Arnold, five grandchildren, Hali Codling, Isabella, Issac and Carolina Fleming and Matheus Togun of whom he was immensely proud. He is preceded in death by his adopted father, Richard Fleming and his brothers, Stephen and Leo.

West Richwoods Schoolhouse

2010-06-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

Pictured below is the West Richwoods School. The school, which has also served as a church as evidenced by the cross perched upon the belfry, was built in 1921 by Albert Huebbler, a craftsman of German descent who built several other structures in the county. It's design is set apart from other schools in the county by the "splayed entry" with double doors as opposed to the more common two-door configuration most common in the surrounding hills.

This one-room school building, which lies just off Highway 9 a few miles south of Mountain View, is in the old Richwoods community where Stone County's own Jimmy Driftwood was born and raised.

The site is listed in on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Burning of Rorie's Mills (Part 2)

2010-06-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

Donna Wilson - The Burning of Rorie's Mills Part II

By Freda Cruse Phillips

Short of emergency deliveries and home births, Donna Wilson is one of the last people actually born in Stone County. Delivered at Dr. Burton’s Clinic on Main Street, she is the daughter of Charlie and Joyce Gullett and the GGGG grand daughter of Absalom Rorie who in 1845 brought his family here from Hardin Co, TN, 165 years ago. She serves as Stone County Clerk.
After arriving here, Absalom and his wife Sarah (Meador) set about building a huge two story saw mill followed by one of the first and most prosperous grist mills in Stone County. These gave upper Middle Sylamore Creek its present day name of Mill Creek. Timber, logs and lumber were floated down the creek to White River where they were loaded onto steamships headed to Memphis and New Orleans. A small community was starting to grow including Aaron Stevens and his family, Jonas Brewer and his wife Margaret. Roasting Ear Creek did not exist until several years after the Civil War, when following a huge storm a new creek was pushed forth out of the mountain flowing through the Steven’s and Brewer’s cornfields taking the “Roastin’ Ears” with it. After the flood, Roasting Ear Creek remained.
Absalom’s business and family were thriving as talk of Civil War became a reality. In 1860 Arkansas required each county to maintain a militia; J.J. Kemp of Riggsville (Mtn. View) was appointed Colonel of the Izard Co Militia, a title he earned in the Civil War and maintained the rest of his life. A huge expanse of land with just over 6,000 residents it included present day Stone County and Mt. Olive was the county seat. May 6, 1861 Arkansas seceded. The Confederate Congress urged Ark to make provisions for the manufacture of arms and munitions, including saltpeter for the cause of the South. In June 1861 the Military Board of Ark ordered the county judge, sheriff, and clerk of each county to serve as a commission to procure supplies for Arkansas soldiers; H.H. Harris, age 34 (Melbourne) Judge, W.J. Cagle, age 31 from Riggsville (Mtn. View), Sheriff, W.C. Dixon age 29 (Mt. Olive), Clerk served for Izard Co.
In July 1861 Absalom and Sarah’s 21 year old son, Absalom Josiah “Jody” Rorie joined the Confederacy as a Private in the Ark Infantry. On Aug 21 the steamboat New Moon arrived at Sylamore with cargo of 30 huge kettles, a steam engine and a hammer mill to produce gunpowder for the Confederacy. They were brought up the North Fork of Sylamore Creek to what became known as Gunner Pool. White oak baskets carried on the backs of oxen led into Saltpeter Cave were loaded with bat guano. The guano was placed in the huge kettles by the creek and boiled, leaving the saltpeter at the bottom. Charcoal made mostly from cottonwood was ground in the hammer mill powered by the steam engine. Sulphur was added to produce a more accurate shot. The Confederate Gov sent infantries to work and guard these powder works. As steamships loaded and unloaded cargo and supplies for all of North Arkansas to aid the munitions effort the river port town of Sylamore (Stone Co) became a critical location in the Civil War. The road from Sylamore, which parts of can still be seen today in the Ozark National Forest, led through the mountains crossing the Buffalo at Spencer Point then north on to Yellville and from there to Missouri. In the spring of 1862, Union Gen Curtis invasion of Izard Co began with skirmishes at Calico Rock and Mt Olive, with 20,000 plus soldiers spread out from Pocahontas to Yellville searching for the Confederate powder mills located throughout our hills in the many caves. He issued an order “If you can’t bring it with us, burn it.”
On May 29, 1862, Gen. Curtis sent 300 men under Major Drake and Major Bowen of the 3rd Iowa Calvary with two mountain howitzers to Sylamore. They were after Rebel’s camped in Kickapoo Bottoms, (between Livingston Creek and Jack’s Boat Dock). The Union, firing the mountain howitzers at them from the east side of the river, ran about 45 men out of a cane break, killing one and wounding two others. A mountain howitzer is a mini-cannon easily packed by one mule with cannon balls about three inches in diameter. For years well into the 20th century the three inch “mini” cannon balls were plowed up in the river bottom fields of Stone County. Curtis’ invasion was a war against the population as a whole. In order to save official records, county clerk, W. C. Dixon, hid them in a cave.
The burning and pillaging of homes and churches was intended to produce beggary of the local population. Grist mills and agricultural equipment, private salt works, and other manufacturing were destroyed. The cartel of prisoner exchange suspended. No preaching allowed unless the preacher had taken the Oath to the Union. No traveling permitted without a pass. No marrying allowed and parents forbidden to name their children after Southern Generals. Military governors appointed. The atrocities of Yankee Rule enacted in Izard County surpassed what was known in other parts of the Confederacy largely due to the well hidden munitions efforts.
In Nov 1863, the drought was having harsh effects. With no fall rains, the river was low, just barely running, crops and gardens failed. In Jan 1864, Maj Gen Sterling S. Price commissioned Col. Thomas R. Freeman to raise and maintain a regiment for the Confederates in North Arkansas. The weather fell to 10 below zero and stayed there. The river froze over so thick loaded wagons could cross over it. Orders received “Sat, Jan 23, 1864, Batesville, Ark Hdq 1st Nebraska Cavalry to Lt. Col William Baumer. You will proceed immediately and attack every Rebel encampment you find. Move via Hookrum, Lunenburg, Sylamore. Shoot every Rebel soldier you find in Federal uniform and destroy all armed Bushwhackers. On North Fork of Sylamore you will find and destroy a powder mill operating there. Should the town of Sylamore be occupied and fire upon you, burn them out. The object of this expedition is to destroy Freeman.”
NEXT WEEK Part II The Burning of Rorie’s Mills

*Contact Freda at 870 213 5015 fredacruse@yahoo.com if you have information and family stories on the history of Stone County

2010-05-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Donna Wilson - Rorie’s Mills

By Freda Cruse Phillips & Bud Cooper

After arriving here, Absalom and his wife Sarah (Meador) set about building a huge two story saw mill followed by one of the first and most prosperous grist mills in Stone County. These gave upper Middle Sylamore Creek its present day name of Mill Creek. Timber, logs and lumber were floated down the creek to White River where they were loaded onto steamships headed to Memphis and New Orleans. A small community was starting to grow including Aaron Stevens and his family, Jonas Brewer and his wife Margaret. Roasting Ear Creek did not exist until several years after the Civil War, when following a huge storm a new creek was pushed forth out of the mountain flowing through the Steven’s and Brewer’s cornfields taking the “Roastin’ Ears” with it. After the flood, Roasting Ear Creek remained.

Absalom’s business and family were thriving as talk of Civil War became a reality. In 1860 Arkansas required each county to maintain a militia; J.J. Kemp of Riggsville (Mtn. View) was appointed Colonel of the Izard Co Militia, a title he earned in the Civil War and maintained the rest of his life. A huge expanse of land with just over 6,000 residents it included present day Stone County and Mt. Olive was the county seat. May 6, 1861 Arkansas seceded. The Confederate Congress urged Ark to make provisions for the manufacture of arms and munitions, including saltpeter for the cause of the South. In June 1861 the Military Board of Ark ordered the county judge, sheriff, and clerk of each county to serve as a commission to procure supplies for Arkansas soldiers; H.H. Harris, age 34 (Melbourne) Judge, W.J. Cagle, age 31 from Riggsville (Mtn. View), Sheriff, W.C. Dixon age 29 (Mt. Olive), Clerk served for Izard Co.
In July 1861 Absalom and Sarah’s 21 year old son, Absalom Josiah “Jody” Rorie joined the Confederacy as a Private in the Ark Infantry. On Aug 21 the steamboat New Moon arrived at Sylamore with cargo of 30 huge kettles, a steam engine and a hammer mill to produce gunpowder for the Confederacy. They were brought up the North Fork of Sylamore Creek to what became known as Gunner Pool. White oak baskets carried on the backs of oxen led into Saltpeter Cave were loaded with bat guano. The guano was placed in the huge kettles by the creek and boiled, leaving the saltpeter at the bottom. Charcoal made mostly from cottonwood was ground in the hammer mill powered by the steam engine. Sulphur was added to produce a more accurate shot. The Confederate Gov sent infantries to work and guard these powder works. As steamships loaded and unloaded cargo and supplies for all of North Arkansas to aid the munitions effort the river port town of Sylamore (Stone Co) became a critical location in the Civil War. The road from Sylamore, which parts of can still be seen today in the Ozark National Forest, led through the mountains crossing the Buffalo at Spencer Point then north on to Yellville and from there to Missouri. In the spring of 1862, Union Gen Curtis invasion of Izard Co began with skirmishes at Calico Rock and Mt Olive, with 20,000 plus soldiers spread out from Pocahontas to Yellville searching for the Confederate powder mills located throughout our hills in the many caves. He issued an order “If you can’t bring it with us, burn it.”
On May 29, 1862, Gen. Curtis sent 300 men under Major Drake and Major Bowen of the 3rd Iowa Calvary with two mountain howitzers to Sylamore. They were after Rebel’s camped in Kickapoo Bottoms, (between Livingston Creek and Jack’s Boat Dock). The Union, firing the mountain howitzers at them from the east side of the river, ran about 45 men out of a cane break, killing one and wounding two others. A mountain howitzer is a mini-cannon easily packed by one mule with cannon balls about three inches in diameter. For years well into the 20th century the three inch “mini” cannon balls were plowed up in the river bottom fields of Stone County. Curtis’ invasion was a war against the population as a whole. In order to save official records, county clerk, W. C. Dixon, hid them in a cave.
The burning and pillaging of homes and churches was intended to produce beggary of the local population. Grist mills and agricultural equipment, private salt works, and other manufacturing were destroyed. The cartel of prisoner exchange suspended. No preaching allowed unless the preacher had taken the Oath to the Union. No traveling permitted without a pass. No marrying allowed and parents forbidden to name their children after Southern Generals. Military governors appointed. The atrocities of Yankee Rule enacted in Izard County surpassed what was known in other parts of the Confederacy largely due to the well hidden munitions efforts.
In Nov 1863, the drought was having harsh effects. With no fall rains, the river was low, just barely running, crops and gardens failed. In Jan 1864, Maj Gen Sterling S. Price commissioned Col. Thomas R. Freeman to raise and maintain a regiment for the Confederates in North Arkansas. The weather fell to 10 below zero and stayed there. The river froze over so thick loaded wagons could cross over it. Orders received “Sat, Jan 23, 1864, Batesville, Ark Hdq 1st Nebraska Cavalry to Lt. Col William Baumer. You will proceed immediately and attack every Rebel encampment you find. Move via Hookrum, Lunenburg, Sylamore. Shoot every Rebel soldier you find in Federal uniform and destroy all armed Bushwhackers. On North Fork of Sylamore you will find and destroy a powder mill operating there. Should the town of Sylamore be occupied and fire upon you, burn them out. The object of this expedition is to destroy Freeman.”
NEXT WEEK Part II The Burning of Rorie’s Mills

*Contact Freda at 870 213 5015 fredacruse@yahoo.com if you have information and family stories on the history of Stone County

Round Bottom with Bud Cooper

2010-05-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

Bud Cooper “Round Bottom”
by Freda Cruse Phillips

Knowing we would likely end up with a load of ticks, not to mention the possibility of encountering snakes, Bud and I headed to the Beckham Cemetery, also known as Round Bottom or Lancaster Cemetery. Bud, who last visited the cemetery over 50 years ago, grew up across the river in Izard County at Twin Creek, once a flag station on the rail road. For 31 years his dad, Jeff Cooper was the postmaster there and operated a store. Many people, including Bill and Nettie Lancaster got mail at Twin Creek. As kids Bud and his sisters, Linda and Mary, could see the Lancaster’s working Round Bottom, plowing their fields, cattle grazing. Jeff and Roland Gillihan taught singing school; Laudis Brewer, Howard Wade, Martha Mealer and Roland had a singing group, called the Happy Four Quartet. When Jeff died in 1963, they sang at his funeral in Melbourne.
We’re searching for the graves of two children, George and William, sons of William “Monroe” Cooper and his second wife, Nancy Byler (daughter of James Taylor Byler and Mary Riggs). Monroe and Nancy were sharecroppers on the river fields of “Round Bottom”. Born in 1863 during the Civil War little George died only three months later. In 1876 Nancy lost a second child William when he became ill and died at 12. These boys are the half brothers of Bud’s great grand father, Thomas Jefferson Cooper. Bud recalls almost 200 graves at Beckham Cemetery, with markers running to the rock ledge where an old fence now stands, and north where bull dozing has scarred the land. The boy’s graves were marked in the 1950’s with new etched marble markers placed there by the Hinkle family but clearly have fallen over, buried or bulldozed and gone.
After the death of her first husband (Johnson), Nancy married Monroe Cooper. The Coopers are descendants of John and Sarah Lindsey Lafferty, the first white settlers of Stone County at the Buckhorn in 1810. When Monroe died, the “Widow Cooper” married William Riley Hinkle. Buried at Flatwoods cemetery, Nancy and William share a headstone.
Bud and I made our way down to the Wade place where we find Elinor enjoying the beautiful spring morning on her deck overlooking the river valley. Stone County has silica sand of the same type as mined at Guion. The lone sandstone chimney is the last remains of the home that Stanley Wade built where each of his children were born. While men used the stone as foundations and chimney’s the women used the sand to clean the floors of their homes. Mister Ches was not up to going with us today. The Wade land was settled by his grandfather Elihu Beckham then sold to Wade McCasland, a half brother to William Wade. It has remained in the Wade family for almost 150 years. The Wade home faces the area of the White River known as Greasy Bottom, south is Dillard Shoals. Before the dam was completed, when riverboats plyed the waters, there was an area known as “Nigger Jailhouse” on Bird Rock Bluff. Discontents and miscreants, black, white and Indians, aboard the steamboats would be let off there as punishment. The bluff was too steep to climb and the water teamed with flat head bull catfish, some weighing in the hundreds of pounds, as big as a man could hold head high, and equally big alligator gar. The men would not dare step into the water, waiting hungry and cold until the steamboat returned for them.
There’s Rock Island, Engles Eddy (an Engles man from Guion drown there), Fleming Bluff, Handford Bluff and Handford Spring where stories abound of bums and rail road workers staying in the early 1900’s. Baby Face Nelson and Jesse James are said to have hid out there. Stories also report silver coins from the Spanish American War hid in the bluff hole, a spot in the mountain that even goats could not traverse. It would require a skilled rock climber descending the face to enter it then or today. Next directly across from Round Bottom is Twin Creek, named for the two creeks which spill into the river about 300 feet apart. In the winter of 1864, the northern end of Round Bottom was the Civil War camp of 200 men of the 1st Nebraska Cavalry and a small detachment of 100 men from the 11th Missouri Cavalry, Union troops all stationed at Batesville. Food was scarce, unable to feed all the troops at Batesville soldiers were repeatedly sent out into the surrounding areas to fend for themselves. CSA Col. Thomas Black of Cagen Creek was married to Mary Byler, sister of James, aunt to Nancy. The Union troops took the slaves of Andrew Hinkle (Riggsville) and Col. Black, burned Rorie’s Mill and killed dozens of people, including two men on the Beckham farm. Civil War records cite Round Bottom on a number of occasions, from troops crossing the river there, foraging for food and encampments using the Fred Lancaster barn now on the National Registry of Historic Places. Presently owned by Frank Foll, the barn was added on to in the early 1900’s thus displacing its age for NRHP purposes. The barn has slave pegs and slave holes which clearly dates it prior to the Civil War. Round Bottom was a major route along the White River with two steam boat river landings. The path of the old military road led up and over the ridge through Herpel to Riggsville then south across Richwoods. One of the oldest remaining settlements in Arkansas, the 1837 Dillard settlement at Round Bottom is on the National Registry of Historic places. It consists of two barns, a triple pen log home, slave house and foundry. Just down river from the AG&F Round Bottom Access, on private land, badly in need of cleanup and repair it could be one of the most significant tourist attractions in the region. The restoration and preservation of the Dillard Settlement and Riggsville would be of equal historical significance to Stone County, the Ozarks and Arkansas as Jamestown is to Virginia and the nation. Development and preservation of our history, our cultural heritage, rock walls, settlements, music and dance, is our future growth with a goal of being more like Jamestown than Branson or even Gatlinburg (TN). People want to live next to historical sites, no one wants to live next to neon signs and amusement rides.
The Cooper, Brewer, Lancaster, Hinkle, Nesbitt, Decker, Dearien, Harris, Beckham, Wade and Burns families, along with many others settled and worked the area known as Round Bottom. The Buckhorn, Sylamore and Round Bottom are historic locations of the first settlers and natives of Stone County, rich not only in their soil but the deep roots of who we are as a people.
Freda Cruse Phillips 870 213 5015 fredacruse@yahoo.com

"Bull Pen Holler" & Price Descendants

2010-05-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Price Descendants

“Bull Pen Holler”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

“It’s hot and snakes are out,” I thought as Stanton Foll sprayed all of us down for ticks before we headed into the deep gorge and box canyon known as “Bull Pen Holler.” I met him, Miss Julia, Megan and Jonathan at the West Richwoods church and old store. We then drove up Sugar Hill out to the Foll farm. Sugar Hill is named for the young men and women who sparked here earning it the name, Sugar Hill. Elizabeth Church was named for Neva Petty Foll’s grandmother, Elizabeth Price, built by her son’s after returning home from the Civil War. Eight year old Jonathan Foll had never been to Bull Pen Holler so, missing school, this journey was a new kind of lesson for him. The devastation from the 5 natural disasters our county has endured over the last two years was evident making the trek more difficult; landslides from torrential rains, washing mud, rocks and trees down the hillside. Climbing over and under deadfall, it was clear ticks would be the least of our trouble.
According to tax records, census and land patents, around 1820, brothers, Samuel and John Price arrived in the Missouri territories of “old Lawrence County” settling near Batesville. The Cherokee Indian reservation had been established three years earlier across the White River in present day Stone County. In 1810, the Lafferty’s, the first white settlers ran the outpost at the Buckhorn, near Younger Access. The Creek Indian family Isllamo (pronounced Sil A Mo) operated the first trading post where Angler’s restaurant now sits. The Tasalgi Indians had a trading post behind Wilson’s Town and Country on land presently owned by Richard Decker. Situated near Riggsville, the original 1819 settlement of future Mtn. View named for its settler Thomas Riggs. Chief Peter Cornstalk Jr and Chief Lewis of the Shawnee had tribes here. Chief Wade of the Cherokee, and White Wing, 3rd wife of Tecumseh and half sister to Peter Jr and John Wolf Cornstalk (Avey), re-settled here in the Ozarks, in the White River Valley of Stone County.
Although much of the natural wildlife had been hunted out in the droughts of preceding years when the Osage had to rely primarily on game for food, John Price encountered deer, panther, coyote, mink, razorback hogs, bear and buffalo. There were enough bear that Arkansas was originally called “The Bear State.” John Price was a hunter and trader. He married an Indian woman. Any of which would have allowed him access into the reservation of present day Stone County. He hunted with the Indians in an area that maintains two names today – Bull Pen Holler and Price Holler. The holler is a monstrous box canyon with two creeks running through and out of it, feeding Lick Fork Creek. The buffalo would come up Lick Fork Creek headed to the springs and salt licks near its mouth. The Indians would run the buffalo into the canyons herding them into “Bull Pen Holler”. They then moved trees, cedar logs, into the narrowing creating a barrier, a fence so the animals couldn’t escape thus trapping them, making the slaughter easier.
As we made our way deeper into the box canyon I could hear the pounding of falling water, crashing over rocks. Then the canyon opened up into a huge field littered with downfall. Steep and jagged walls rimmed the canyon prohibiting an upward climb. In my mind, I could see Indians surrounding the canyon with spears, bows and arrows in hand, hear buffalo bellowing. There were two waterfalls, one with multiple streams and to the north a smaller one edged in its beauty by the first dogwoods and redbuds of the season and a rock over hang creating a shelter of refuge, a place where meat could be processed out of the direct weather, beating sun or pelting rain.
From a top the ridge above Bull Pen Holler west and north lays Cow Mountain near Newnata. The mountain is named for the last buffalo killed there, one lone cow at the hands of an aging John Price. Directly west towards Happy Hollow Road, between the artesian spring behind my house and White Sands Spring, Stanton points toward the flats which became known as the Killing Fields. The buffalo would come through in the spring and fall, traveling up Lick Fork Creek, crossing present day Hiway 66 on land now owned by the Gammill’s and Richardson’s adjacent to Happy Hollow Road. Some of the herd would head up the left fork of the creek where Murphy Hollow runs into the Bull Pen north of the Mark Miller farm. Here in the box holler they were easily captured and held, penned in until tribesmen could be gathered for the kill, but others would move to the right fork into the Happy Hollow Valley where the two springs merge. The Indians and early settlers would surround the buffalo when they came for water and the “Salt Licks” from which Licking Creek takes its name.
We made our way out, back up the hillside, thankful Miss Julia had brought water, apples and oranges. Our trek in and out of the canyon took almost three hours. Stanton advised due to snakes and ticks, we’d best not walk through the woods to the wallows, huge indentations where the buffalo rolled in the moist earth. Sons of Frank and Julia Holt Foll, brothers Stanton and Barton are descendants of John Price. Their family owned cattle farm of over 500 acres surrounds Bull Pen Holler. The Price’s, Foll’s, Petty’s, Dearien’s and Webb’s are family, born and raised in this holler, in this valley. Beautiful Emmy Price works at the courthouse, her silver hair and Indian features prominent. David and Ricky Dearien are taxidermists. Lori Webb Freeze works at the Leader. She dances traditional Ozark dance and plays “fiddlesticks”. Stanton and Barton share the farming business. Bull Pen Holler has been continuously held within this family for almost 200 years, from a time when the buffalo and John Price roamed.

"Happy Hollow" with Frank Foll

2010-05-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Frank Foll “Happy Hollow”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

I had the good fortune to interview Neva Petty Foll born 1916 prior to her death in 2009. She was featured in my book Voices of Our People, published in Oct 09. Miss Neva and her husband Ralph Foll were two of the most respected people in Stone County, with roots going back almost 200 years. Miss Neva was full of stories telling how “Frankie was born in 1937 in a one room log home and store we operated right near your house.” I didn’t know where she was talking about. But a few nights later at a church dinner, Ora Mast pointed it out, sitting between my house near the convergence of the springs and the Happy Hollow Mennonite Church, directly behind Mister Ora’s barn.
“Frankie” is Mr. Frank Foll. He and Miss Julia Holt Foll taught almost everybody in this county my age, older and younger as teachers at Mountain View. They have two sons, Stanton and Barton.
Happy Hollow located about 4 miles west of the court square on Hiway 66, traverses the valley ending back at Hiway 66 at Timbo. The name comes from a church that was situated in the valley during the late 1800’s when the religious fervor of the day included the shakes, talking in tongues and hollering. Preacher Jess Goodman continued the tradition well into the 1900’s. He would ride up to the church just off Cane Spur on his spotted pony. Making sure not to get caught, he would finish off the last of his moonshine and toss the bottle into the brush pile before entering the church. His voice would echo up the hollow towards Cane Spur and White Sands Spring. “People would sit on their porch and could hear Jess’ Happy Holler.” Preacher Jasper Cooper would ride his mule from Syalmore to do some preaching too. He had a hair lip contributing to his inability to talk plainly. “Uncle Sol Everidge couldn’t read or write, so he’d hold the Bible up like he was reading and quote from memory,” Frank adds to the story his Mama told me. “His eyebrows were thick and furrowed, earning him the title Beetle Brow. Slamming his fist, shaking his head and furrowing his brow were especially effective in getting both the men and women to holler more than “Amen.””
Mister Frank’s mom and dad like many folks went to the bottoms (any where on the Delta where they grew crops) to work the cotton fields during the depression. In 1934 they came home with only $10 in their pocket because the rain had rotted the cotton bolls. They gathered up their livestock out of Bull Pen Hollow and drove them across the ridge down Licking Creek to South Sylamore to the Dobbins place at Allison where the U.S. Government killed and burned them. “I don’t know why they did that exactly cause people was starving. They put in some dippin’ vats for the ticks and fleas but oncest they got out in the fields, it didn’t make no nothing. They paid Ralph $92 which was enough to stock the store. We lived in the front part and Ralph he built on a little room in the back with a window that we traded through. People would come any time of the night or day.” Mister Frank adds, “The neighbors gathered in and built the cabin in one day.”
“After them men built the store we had a big dance all night; squaring and jigging, Book Miller Shannon on the banjo, Espier Shannon had his fiddle, Than Martin’s played the guitar and Collie Dodson the banjo,” Miss Neva told me with a soft smile on her face, remembering that day, I’m certain. “Hayden Shannon would always jig dance on one side while a square dance was going on. One night he got so drunk that he jig danced all-night on his knees and had to be helped to the wagon. It was several days before he could walk again.”
The Foll’s had a wagon road from the back of the store direct to Finis Shannon’s still which was ¾ mile away. Sometimes Hayden Shannon would run all the way to the store where Ralph, would throw a sack of sugar on his shoulder for the distilling process. “We sold Hale Hayden two model T loads of whiskey with Stone Mountain watermelons on top for a political gathering at Timbo. Hale won, then built old No 5 hiway to his farm by blasting off the bluff where the road runs today,” Miss Neva said. “I’d like to think we all had our part in getting that road put in.”
“The young boys were all into gaming, betting who could shoot off this rock, or can, or something. Bob Whitfield had a Stephen Cracks shot that Leslie Shannon had been trying to trade for. One day they both got drunk, and Leslie gave Bob 23 gallons of moonshine for that rifle. Most expensive rifle in these hills,” she continued laughing.
Frank shaking his head remembering, “When we sold the store to Ross Webb, eggs were a medium of exchange. We didn’t have any money, but my older sister, Faye, found where a hen had hid her nest. She traded the eggs to Ross for a piece of bubble gum that we’d heard of but never experienced. Several of us would take turns chewing it. We kept the contraband concealed on a fence post at night. In the morning, the whole bunch would head for the gum hollering “It’s my turn.” I don’t believe we had any sense.”
Before Miss Neva died, she told me what my momma also told me, “Some things don’t need said until all them people’s dead.” She was mostly talking about Ma Cook’s place and the bootlegging and moon shining. Miss Neva, my momma, nor I mean anyone alive or dead any harm or humiliation. The early days of Stone County were filled with people who were trying to survive. People bartered, traded goods and services and whiskey was the currency of the day. It wasn’t called Liquid Gold for nothing. It made the Hess family rich and kept many others from starving. Preacher Jess Goodman should be remembered, not for his taste of moonshine, but for the souls he saved, the joy he brought and the holler that still reverberates with the sounds of children laughing, preachers preaching, pickin’s on the porch and some Happy Hollering.
**Subscribe to the Stone County Citizen for weekly stories on Places of Our People, a joint project with Freda Cruse Phillips, PhD to preserve and promote the history of Stone County. VISIT Country Time Restaurant to view the Mountain Music Project Photographic Exhibit. Phillips, a national acclaimed writer, lecturer and photographer is a Stone County native, whose family has lived her for over 190 year. She will be signing books Saturday during festival in front of The Cornerstone, next to Tres Amigos.

Mothers of the White River Valley

2010-04-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

Mothers of the White River Valley

with Dale Hanks

By Freda Cruse Phillips

I was flattered when historian Dale Hanks called me. I had read a great deal of his work about the early days of the White River Valley, including “The Falling Out”, which relates the story of why Jane Mason Jeffery was buried separately from her family. Dale had heard about the recent cleanup of Jane’s gravesite. He drove from his home in Richmond, VA for a visit to her grave, honoring this incredible woman who was his grandmother. Born and raised in Batesville, Arkansas, Dale graduated Batesville High School in 1946. He has lived in Richmond, VA since 1965. We drove over to the “old Perrin place” now owned by the Ken Coon family, mid afternoon Thursday in what turned out to be a hot spring day. Our visit included a drive up to the slave barn followed by sweet tea on the deck at JoJo’s Catfish Wharf.
In order to understand who we are as people of the Ozarks, we must first understand from whom we are descended. Some remarkable women lived here in this valley between 1810 and 1850. These women walked here, rode a mule, carried a pack or if they were lucky toiled with a push cart. These unyielding first women personified the embracing nurturing spirit that is the foundation of our present day women.
The first known white woman to settle in Stone County was Sarah Lindsey Lafferty, arriving in 1810, 200 years ago. Her oldest daughter Elizabeth, a new bride, died during the journey at the mouth of the White River. Mourning her daughter, Sarah settled into Indian Territory where undoubtedly she was consoled by and made friends with the native women. Elizabeth’s husband, Charles Kelly completed the trip with the Lafferty’s and later became the first Sheriff of Independence Co. Sarah’s husband John had established trade with the Indians in 1801. Now alongside him Sarah operated Lafferty’s Landing, near present day Younger Access. After the death of her husband in 1816 she continued to live in the reservation maintaining the outpost. In 1819 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft wrote of stopping at “the Widow Lafferty’s in the Indian reservation”.
In 1774 Chief Pucksinwah, father of Tecumseh was killed. His death lead to his wife Methotaske, Tecumseh’s mother, a Creek losing her standing in the Shawnee tribe. By 1779 she was forced out and moved with her Creek family from the Ohio River valley to the Missouri Territories. Methotaske brought her two youngest children with her leaving her oldest daughter to raise the children she had to leave behind, including Tecumseh and the Prophet. In 1780 after the attack on Ruddell’s Mill, KY that also included captives and adopted siblings George Lail, Stephen and Abe Ruddell. White Wing, the daughter of Chief Peter Cornstalk and Catherine See (Seay), became the third wife of Tecumseh. After Tecumseh’s death in 1813, the last of the Northern Shawnee moved from the Ohio River valley to present day Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Although white traders preceded him, George Lail arriving with the Shawnee became the first white settler. Many of the Franks and Burns of Stone County are descendants of his sister Elizabeth Lail. Also taken captive at Ruddell’s Mill she was sold to the British for a key of whiskey. She married British solider John Franks.
White Wing’s half brother, Chief Peter Cornstalk Jr along with Abe Ruddell brought a large contingent of the Shawnee further south and west into the White River Valley. In 1817 Stephen Ruddell brought an aging Methotaske from near Gainesville, MO, to live closer to Abe who had settled west of Batesville. In 1826 Chief Peter Cornstalk Jr, Tecumseh’s brother in law, married Mary Adams at Wolf House. Mary was a cousin of the first white settler of Searcy County, Robert Adams.
Abe Ruddell married Mary Culp, sister of Thomas Culp, whose wife Lavina was the daughter of Jane Mason Jeffery. Thomas and Mary Culp’s nephew, Daniel D. Culp, by their brother Josiah Culp, became the private secretary to Gen. Sam Houston. When Sam Houston heard of Daniel’s death, he had Daniel’s remains moved back to Texas and proclaimed him a “Son of Texas”. He is buried in Galveston.
Sam’s older brother John Paxton Houston was the first clerk of Izard County. Their cousin Margaret Houston married James Grigsby. The Grigsby’s ran the ferry between Marcella and O’Neal. Their daughter Martha Houston Grigsby married Elias Elijah Fulks. Another relative Ann Houston married John Walker III. Her son John became “Chief” Walker of the Cherokee when he married Elizabeth Kittegusta, daughter of Tame Doe Moytoy and Chief Fivekiller. Sam, Abe and Chief Walker were actively involved in the treaty and voluntary settlement of the 1817 Indian reservation. Elizabeth arrived here with her grand daughter Caty Walker and husband David Fulks.
Jane Mason Jeffery was known as “the old medicine woman”. Subsequently Jane had a “falling out” with the Jeffery family over her willingness to treat white, blacks and Indians alike. As a result she lived the last years of her life with her son Daniel and his Indian wife, Mary Bowcock Jeffery. Upon her death in 1853, Jane was buried on their farm, separate from the Jeffery family at Mt. Olive.
There are now a total of 9 nine graves there; 6 unidentified, possibly four adult slaves and two native or black children. Two Hanks children are also buried near her; William died in 1886 at the age of 9 years, Willie Hanks only a few days old died in 1902. These were the grand children of Jane Mason Jeffery and descendants of the Nancy Hanks family, mother of President Abraham Lincoln.
Jane is buried on a grassy knoll, with the sound of a gurgling creek, rolling hills and the White River in the distance. Around 1970 the rock walls that surrounded the farm along with the foundation and chimney rocks of the family home were sold and hauled away. The mock orange, lavender and prim rose bushes are tell tale signs of where the house once stood, where lives were lived, and where friends and family, mothers, Mary Bowcock Jeffery, Mary Adams Cornstalk, Lavina Jeffery Culp, Martha Houston Grigsby, Caty Walker Fulks, Mary Culp Ruddell, Methotaske, Sarah Lindsey Lafferty and Jane Mason Jeffery may have dressed a deer or doctored a child. It’s a beautiful spot and a beautiful resting place in the shadow of ancient trees.

Tribute to Chief Wilma Mankiller

2010-04-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

CHIEF WILMA MANKILLER

Nov 18, 1945-April 6, 2010

I had been out in the garden, planting, enjoying the day. Yesterday I had made a trip into Bull Pen Holler with the Folls. I was thinking about how excited Wilma would be to see the pictures, to hear the story I was working on. Then the phone rang, news that Wilma had died stunned me. I was glad it was a friend who called, someone who understood some things are not easily said or heard. She was excited about the work being done here in the White River Valley to rediscover and acknowledge our Indian heritage and the blending of the cultures that birthed the Ozarks as we know them today.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller, 64, died Tuesday April 6, after a hard struggle with pancreatic cancer. She was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma November 18, 1945 to Charley Mankiller and Clara Irene Sitton. Wilma was honored to carry the surname of Mankiller. Wilma’s father’s family was allotted land in Oklahoma where Wilma was born. In 1956, her family chose willing to move when the U.S. military wishing to expand Camp Gruber enacted the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program once again. Mister Charley moved his family to San Francisco. In 1977 Wilma returned to Oklahoma with her two young daughters, Felicia and Gina Olaya becoming active in tribal affairs. She became the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the second largest U.S. tribe, serving ten years from 1985-1995. President Bill Clinton awarded her the Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor in 1998. She taught at Dartmouth College in N.J. and encouraged young women to pursue careers that were worthy of their lives. She is survived by her husband Charlie Soap and two daughters, Gina and Felicia. She has been an incredible help to me and a good friend for a very long time. I will miss her. A memorial serviced is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday April 10^th, 2010 at the Cherokee Nation Cultural Grounds in Tahlequah.

- Freda Cruse Phillips

Spring Meeting- Izard County Historical & Genealogical Society

2010-04-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Izard County Historical & Genealogical Society invites you to:

THE FIRST ANNUAL IZARD COUNTY HISTORY SWAP

Sunday, April 25th, 2:00 p.m.
Calico Rock Museum in the Chamber of Commerce Office
Main Street, Calico Rock
(Highway 56 at the White River Bridge)

Sponsored by:
Calico Rock Museum
Izard County Historical and Genealogical Society
Exploring Izard County

Bring your treasured old photographs, letters, documents, heirlooms and artifacts to the Museum History Swap. People will give a brief history of each item they bring. The museum curator will make a short presentation about the recently opened museum and its connection to the 1854 Trimble House and to Peppersauce Ghost Town.

That day, the museum will have a scanner set up to make copies of old photographs and other documents. They will also take photos of heirloom items and artifacts. Those wishing to donate or lend any items to the museum will be given details of how to do this. Following the program, the Historical Society will hold a business meeting.

Directions: From the north, drive south on Highway 56 into Calico Rock. At the stop sign by the Calico Rock Music Hall, turn left onto Highway 5. Travel about two blocks. The Museum is in the Chamber of Commerce office on the “high side” of Main Street.

For information
Contact Historical Society Roger Harvell 870-368-3618 or mailto:rogerh48@earthlink.net

Denny Elrod through http://exploreizard.blogspot.com/

or visit calicorockmuseum.com

Camp Hedges Part 1

2010-03-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

Camp Hedges & Fifty-Six, Arkansas with Naomi Hedges Gayler
By Freda Phillips

In 1903 Fred Hedges made his way from Illinois to Arkansas by ox wagon. Fred homesteaded 80 acres in what was to become the Ozark National Forest, Sylamore District.
Fred ran the first post office in the area. The mail route was operated by mule and ran on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from Sylamore to Hedges post office then on to Big Flat. He maintained a small shed and stall to keep the mule in at night. Fred was not paid a wage as post master instead he received a compensation for the cancellation of stamps which may have amounted to as much as $4.00 in a good month. The area was generally known as Hedges until the 1920’s when the U.S. Postal Service determined that the mail service was sufficient enough to be included in their official routing. However, the settlement would need a name. Fred served as a minister at the Spoon Flat community church and shied from the vanity of having the town named for him as first suggested by the United States Postal Service. The entire community was invited to attend a meeting at the Newcomb Country Store to decide upon a name. It seems it was a good thing that only six people showed up to make the decision as there was considerable dispute and discussion. A list of all the people who had been getting mail which was a total of 60 people had been prepared which lead to the suggestion of “Three Score, Arkansas”. Then it was learned that Mr. and Mrs. Hay had moved. Lotty Low had died while having her baby a month ago and old George Shaw had also just died, therefore “Three Score will not do,” a Mr. Turnaway announced as another suggestion of “Three Score minus Four” was made. Finally a Mr. Revy who was moderating the meeting suggested everyone write down their favored name and he would submit them to the U.S. Postal Service and let them decide. Everyone agreed, leaving the meeting feeling they had all had their say. About 10 days later news arrived from the U.S.P.S. that the name of the town would be Fifty-Six. It is unknown if the list of suggestions was submitted or if the postal service just shortened the “Three Score minus Four” suggested by Mr. Revy to “Fifty-Six.”
The land Fred Hedges had homesteaded thirty years before on North Sylamore Creek became Camp Hedges in 1933, home to Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) Company 743 serving until 1942, and home to the first forest rangers then known as “Refuge Keepers”; the father’s of Jack Thomas and Carl Ward. The CCC began in 1933 under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a means to provide outdoor employment to young men to both improve the economy of the Great Depression and to protect, improve and develop our country’s natural resources. Camps were set up in every state with 106 located in Arkansas. The CCC workers planted trees, built parks including cabins, lodges, campgrounds, bath houses, picnic pavilions and beaches, dams, bridges, roads and hiking trails, along with saving over 40 million acres from erosion through soil conservation. Working eight hours a day, five days a week, they were paid $30 a month for their services, with most of the young men sending home the maximum amount of $25.00 living on only $5.00 a month. The majority of young men enrolled in the CCC served in World War II, which ultimately led to the closure of the camps.
Arkansas’ first state park, Petit Jean, near Morrilton was built by the CCC, along with Mt. Nebo, Crowley’s Ridge, Devil’s Den, Lake Catherine and Lake Leatherwood. Locally much of the improvement of Blanchard Springs including log cabins, campsites, recreation hall, and pavilions was completed by the CCC. Blanchard remains remarkable and more beautiful because of the now historic rockwork of the CCC including the beautiful stone walk ways, bridges and dams still in use today, Gunner Pool Recreation Area, Hedges Dam, Mirror Lake and Mitchell Mill.
Naomi Hedges Gayler is the great niece of Fred Hedges. She is the daughter of Abram Hedges and Vera DeCamp Hedges. She is married to Carl Gayler, whose sister Opal Gayler Thomas’ husband Dexter (Jack’s dad) was the first “Refuge Keeper” in the Ozark National Forest. The Gayler’s, Thomas’ and Hedges, descendants, friends and family of the native people and the first frontiersmen who settled the White River Valley: John & Sarah Lafferty (Younger access 1801), Abraham & Mary Culp Ruddell (Ruddell’s Mill across the river in Independence Co, from Marcella 1816), Isllamo family of the Creek Indians (first trading post at Sylamore 1816), Thomas Riggs (1820 Riggsville/Mountain View), Thomas & Lavina Jeffery Culp (Culp 1822; Lavina is the daughter of Jane Mason Jeffery, who settled south of Mt. Olive. Jane is remembered today as Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. Jane Mason and the Hedges family came from Martinville, Hedgesville, VA, to Kentucky, Illinois and the Missouri/Arkansas Territories) and Isaac Teague (who first arrived at Blanchard Springs in 1834); each contributing greatly to the history of the Sylamore District of the Ozark National Forest, the White River Valley and the culture that defines the Ozark region.

Younger Bottoms: Original Lafferty Settlement

2010-03-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

Note: Photos Below Article

Video At Bottom of Post!

Stone County Citizen’s – 200 Years
Younger and Lafferty 1810-2010
By Freda Cruse Phillips

This past week brought a burst of spring. Jonquils dotting the landscape are sweet reminders of home places that no longer stand. The Exploring Izard County (.com) crew joined Sam Younger and me for the first filmed trip of Exploring Stone County. We were joined by Mary Cooper Miller and Mary Lafferty Wilson, descendants of John and Sarah Lindsey Lafferty, who settled in present day Younger Bottoms in 1810, the first “white” settlement of Stone County. Until today, these distant cousins had not met each other or Sam.
We marvel at the rock wall that runs from Younger Access to Cook Holler stretching almost a mile. The wall was built pre-Civil War by slaves hired for 6 cents a day and turnips for lunch. Although it later served to hold in livestock, “it was built as a defense wall, to fend off the riff raff that came along the river wanting to steal and rob. It wasn’t the Indians that folks worried about, it was other white folks,” Sam offered. With talk of civil war in the air long before it was declared, the wall includes rifle ports and was the first line of defense against Union soldiers. There are numerous accounts of both Union and Confederate soldiers crossing the river at Wall’s Ferry (Lafferty Landing).
The mud holes along the road into Younger Bottoms were full and the possibility of getting stuck risky. Sam took us to the Indian burial grounds where in the 1920’s floods and archeologist’s unearthed pottery, utensils, and at least one Indian whose remains were found buried sitting in an upright position. Likely Quapaw, as their dead were buried in the ground, in mounds or in the clay floors of their homes, frequently strapped to a stake in a sitting position then covered with earth. Now the burial grounds are gentle rolling slopes in a field populated by cattle. There are two other cemeteries nearby, one white and the other slave, one whose rock markers have eroded and now rest at the river’s edge. The other is lost in the moss and undergrowth in the shadows of the trees. Sam recalls only one headstone as having a carved name, “Ennis”. Sam stops at the edge of a field, near the convergence of Younger and Martin Access roads. “Your grandparents are likely buried here,” he tells our two Mary’s. There’s nothing here now but a beautiful river bottom field. Sam recalls the cemetery with 30 or so graves. “It grew up and when it was cleared for the field, the head rocks were leaned up against the trees over there. They were there for a very long time then one day, they were gone.”
John Lafferty a fur trader first arrived here in 1801 running the waters of the White River in a keelboat. Likely around 1804, he brought his older sons and built a cabin. In 1808, he brought cattle and slaves. In 1810 he brought his wife Sarah and remaining children here. The oldest Lafferty daughter Elizabeth married Charles Kelly in Sumner TN June 11, 1810 just before beginning the journey with her parents. She died during the move at the mouth of the White River. According to the New American State Papers, the Lafferty’s applied for a land patent in 1810 but were denied for the primary reason they had not been here ‘continuously’ for 10 years cultivating and improving the land. This documented denial is the first settler’s claim to land in present day Stone County, 200 years ago.
Dec. 16, 1811 John and Sarah witnessed the New Madrid earthquake that caused the Mississippi to run backwards, creating Mud Island at Memphis. They saw huge clouds of dust, rocks, fire and water shoot into the sky, leaving behind a 200 foot deep pit that when the river rose water would run from into the fields. Around 2005 while completing work on Lock and Dam #3 under the direction of Lyon College, the sinkhole, one of the greatest geological remains of the 1811 earthquake was filled in. Nearby is an Indian thong tree, strategically cut to grow this way by the Indians as early road signs, markers to indicate shelter, settlements, caves, springs and waterways. Denny catches sight of another one on the upper embankment and before we leave, a third on the edge of the marsh.
John and Sarah Lindsey Lafferty arrived here as a family in 1810. Mourning the death of their daughter they forged a life here on the right banks of the river among the Indians. John died at home in 1816 of complications from a wound he suffered in the War of 1812 near New Orleans. The Osage had agreed by treaty to leave by 1808 with the land being designated for the Cherokee setting out the reservation of 1817-1828 that included all of present day Stone County. In 1799, Tecumseh brought his mother Methoataske and his older sister, Tecumpease, to the Missouri territories. Tecumpease is buried near Gainesville, MO. In 1817, Stephen Ruddell brought his adopted Indian mother deeper into the Missouri Territories, to a place just up the river from his brother Abram. Documents suggest that place was Lafferty’s settlement and that Methoataske, Tecumseh’s mother and the adopted mother of Abe and Stephen Ruddell more than likely is buried here in Stone County or at the mouth of Lafferty Creek in Izard County.
After the death of her husband in 1816, Sarah remained living in the reservation continuing the fur trading business thereby meeting the requirements to live within its boundaries. It is likely these two remarkable women were friends in the last days of their lives. Schoolcraft traveling down river, wrote on Jan 17, 1819 about “stopping at the widow Lafferty’s on the right banks of the river.” Although surrounded by Indians he made virtually no mention of them anywhere in his journals, his purpose ore and mineral explorations. Sarah’s older children had moved across the river out of the reservation establishing homes near present day Lafferty Creek. Personal hand written letters and a biography of Lorenzo Dow Lafferty, the youngest son documents his life living among the Indians in Stone County. He married Elvira Creswell. In 1836 he homesteaded the land his parents called home. The knoll on which it is believed that the home of John and Sarah Lafferty sat, is just a few hundred yards from where Sam indicated the cemetery had been. Just to the east, Lafferty’s Landing and the bottoms where they witnessed the earth erupt, leaving the sinkhole in its wake lays. Penter’s Bluff is within sight to the west. It is believed that Sarah and John Lafferty, Stone County’s first white settlers, are buried together here in this still beautiful place 200 years ago they called home, The Buckhorn. Arriving around 1840 the Younger family has called this home for 170 years. Today, Sam Younger, Mary Lafferty Wilson and Mary Cooper Wilson came home and remembered.

View Freda's and Mary Wilson's Slideshow at Webshots

Courthouses Part3

2010-03-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Conclusion – “Wolf House to Court House”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

For over 2,000 years the Osage Indians occupied present day Stone County. Relocated to the Western Territories of the Arkansaw, present day Oklahoma in 1817, the lands they left became the Cherokee Indian Reservation from 1817-1828. The west banks of the river represented wild, untamed frontier, “Injun” land, where white man was forbidden to go unless he had established business with the Indians, was part Indian or married into a tribe. The unique positioning of Stone County only 35 miles from Batesville, Arkansas’ second oldest city and its bordering the river the divide between frontier and settled lands provided a unique opportunity for Stone County. The blending of the primary cultures of the Scots, Irish, Native Americans and Negroes that first settled here determined our music, dance, speech and way of life.
The Lafferty’s were among the first settlers in the White River Valley of Stone/Izard County in 1814. Jehoiada Jeffery settled near Mt. Olive in 1816, Thomas Riggs, perhaps part Indian, perhaps a simple trader, settled Riggsville, about 2 miles from our present court square in Mtn. View around 1819. Families, the Lancaster’s, Dillard’s, Pruitt’s, Fulk’s, Ausborn’s, Younger’s, Hess, Johnson’s and many more, were here along the river and creeks that served as the roads fifty years before we were a ‘county’. Jeffery and Riggs both served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and perhaps the court house was moved from Wolf House to Athens, as a compromise between the men locating it closer to Sylamore, the largest settlement and center of commerce for the region. Then in 1836 the courthouse was moved again closer to Sylamore, to Mt. Olive where it remained until 1875. Stone County formed in 1873, with Mtn. View its designated county seat. Arlberg and Fox were considered as locations, but the Little Red River simply did not provide the commerce that the White afforded at that time resulting in Mountain View being selected. Mt. Olive no longer the strategic center of Izard county gave way to their court house being relocated to Mill Creek, present day Melbourne.
Mountain View built its first courthouse in 1873, a 10x12 log cabin located on East Main Street. A historical marker denotes the location. After serving as the courthouse until 1888, the log structure was moved to the Miller farm for use as a barn for the family milk cow. The property now belongs to the family of Van Rosa; they report nothing remains of the first court house. The land for the court square was donated by the Lancaster family and sold for $1.00 by the Brewer family. Lancaster’s Store has been located on the northwest side of the square in its present location since the 1890’s.
Our second court house, from 1888-1924, a wooden two story structure sat to the rear of the location of our present day courthouse and faced east towards Tres Amigos. When the new sand stone courthouse was built in 1924, the wooden structure was moved to the corner of present day Oak (Telephone Hill) and Evans Street. Mister Dwain Nesbitt and Mister Richard Decker, young boys recall the day. “They moved it on logs with a team of mules. Then when they tried to make a turn there at Oak Street, it twisted and nearly tore off the second floor. A family bought it for $200.” Our courthouse of 1888-1924 is a private residence in Fiddlers Valley R.V. Park.
“The jail was moved around 1934 from across the street. It sat in the parking lot by what is now the Chamber of Commerce and Tres Amigos. Men pulled it across the street using mules, doubled it in size and re-rocked it. You can still see the work in the floor inside. The wall was built in 1934 after they moved the jail. People were asked to bring rocks from their farms from all over the county. That wall represents nearly every farm and family of the county that lived here in 1934,” Mr. Nesbitt tells me with pride recalling his father bringing rocks from the people of Herpel and Round Bottom. Both the wall and the 1924 sand stone courthouse are on the National Registry of Historic Places.
The courthouse at Melbourne burned with most of the records for the 1800’s lost. However, since Stone County had belonged both to France and Spain, then was Indian Territory prior to 1873, most of our early records including the Spanish land grants and U.S. Land patents are held by the Bureau of Land Management, Indian Affairs to whom I am deeply grateful. Hours of digging through archival records rarely results in the finds that one afternoon with Mister Dwain Nesbitt, Mister Richard Decker, Mister Billy Wolf and Miss Wilma yields, where crawling along forested paths, the threats of ticks, chiggers and snakes, downed trees, flat tires and dusty roads are not an obstacle when you are on a mission, theirs or yours. Mister Billy is a descendant of the Wolf House at Norfork and Miss Wilma (Teague-Wolfe) is a descendant of the first settlers of the 1840’s of present day Blanchard Springs, at least 60 years before John Blanchard arrived at the age of 75, in 1904.
If you have a story, history of our county, and event in your family that adds to the history of our county, especially prior to 1873, please contact Freda Cruse Phillips 213-5015. This is not a ‘history project’, nor a bibliography of sorts, but rather folk history, as our people tell it. It is my intention to represent our history as best I can through the combined stories of our people. If you have photographs to share, please call me. Your photographs and documents never need to leave your home or possession. I will gladly photograph them (free) in your home and provide you a digital copy on CD for safe keeping or sharing with other family members. After losing a life time of photographs and irreplaceable items, like the handmade chairs my great grand father made, when my home burned in 2006. I am especially concerned about safekeeping the fading pieces of our history. **Places of Our People is a joint project of Freda Cruse Phillips, the Stone County Citizen and the Nikki Lee Atwell Foundation and will be released in book form Fall 2010.

Courthouses Part 2

2010-03-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

“Wolf House to Court House” Part II of III
By Freda Cruse Phillips, PhD

The 50 years before Stone County became a county in 1873 was a unique time in history for this area. A time when the Native Americans brought the first slaves here to the ‘new reservation’ in 1817, followed by a heavy influx of peoples of Scottish and Irish descent. A blending of those four cultures created a new Ozark culture that is distinctive in its music, its dance, its speech and attitudes resulted, a culture that is on the cusp of being lost.
In 1829 Sam Houston was elected Governor of Tennessee and got married. Both his marriage and governorship lasted only three short months. Upon resigning as Governor he came to the Arkansas Territories to live with John Jolly, Chief of the Western Cherokees who later adopted him. Jolly had voluntarily relocated a portion of the Cherokee tribe to Arkansas in 1818. Houston had spent much of his younger years living with the Shawnee as the son of Chief Tecumseh, brother of Jolly and nephew of Abraham Ruddell (one of the first settlers of Batesville). Ruddell captured by the Indians at the age of 6, was adopted and lived as an Indian until the age of 24. In April 1829 Houston appears to have traveled from Tennessee first to Batesville to see his uncle (Ruddell) and then to see his brother John P. Houston, before joining Chief Jolly at Spadra near present day Clarksville (Johnson County).
Between 1829 and 1832 Sam made a number of trips into the region of present day Stone, Independence and Izard County to visit family and friends Jehoida Jeffery and Thomas Riggs. These men may have been responsible for the route now known as the Trail of Tears leading through the Ozarks, including crossing Izard and Independence Counties from which Stone and Baxter were formed. Many of the Native American families that settled along the White River were guided here by the efforts of Chief John Ross, Sam Houston and Abraham Ruddell including the Woods, Ausborns, Ross, Burns and Fulks who settled along the White river rather than continue to the reservation. During the last movement by water, in 1839, Elizabeth Ross, “Quatie-woman of the Wolf Clan” wife of Chief John Ross died. She is buried in Mt. Holly cemetery in Little Rock. Many of the Ross descendants live in Stone County.
Most of the Fulks of Stone County are direct descendants of Cherokee Chief Fivekiller Kittegista. A member of the 1730 delegation to King George II, the portrait of the delegation including Chief Kittegista hangs in the British Royal Museum. The sons and daughters of the Indian Chiefs were encouraged to inter-marry in the century’s old tradition set by the ruling families of the British Crown, thus cementing relationships between the Scots, Irish and English who made their way into the New World, and ultimately, the Ozarks.
The clannish nature of the people from the Ozarks is inherent and inherited, strong and often unyielding be it Scottish, Irish, Negro or Indian. The people who made it here 50, 75 years before Stone County was a county before Mountain View was a town, drove another people, the Osage off, to claim this land. Not unlike the wars between the peoples of Scotland, England, Ireland, France and Spain that lead to Columbus arriving here, the Creek, Delaware, Shawnee and Cherokee claimed this land warring with other tribes. The Indian people who stayed here in the Ozarks when the 1828 reservation ended and new boundaries were established in the western territories of Arkansaw (all of present day Oklahoma) and the frontiersmen who lived here alongside them, they were the settlers, the ones that made a frontier into a place others could call home. It is said a person from the Ozarks, a descendant of those original settlers, can recognize someone from “off” in their demeanor, their attitude, in the way they jig dance or play fiddlesticks, because those are unique to the Ozarks in the blending of the cultures that determined us as a people 200 years ago.
Prior to Sam Houston going to Texas and assuming the command of the Texas Army he enlisted Jehoida Jeffery to work on the military road project, known as the Southwest Trail which ran from St. Louis southwardly across the length of Arkansas to the Red River Valley of Texas, including supporting roads through Batesville and Riggsville, portions which were later used as “The Trail of Tears” (NRHP).
Jeffery then served as Judge of Izard County from 1833-1838 his duties being that of a primary peacemaker between the settlers and Indians including the famous attempt on later Arkansas Treasurer and House Representative, Jared C. Martin’s life by Big Charley, a Shawnee from around Yellville (then known as Shawneetown) and accomplice, Chief Syllamo of the Creeks (from whom Sylamore takes it name). His decision setting off a war between the settlers, officials and Indians may have in part lead to the death of “Chief Syllamo”, shot and killed, branded a horse thief. The Jeffery’s home built around 1836 is a magnificent example of the time and is the presently owned by Carl and Carol Jeffery Cooper. The bricks for the first floor, foundation and chimneys were made on site by slaves, most who remained with the family during and after the Civil War. In 1836 due to the prominence of the Jeffery family and the influence of Thomas Riggs, both who served in the House of Representatives, the county seat had moved away from the Wolf House, to Athens and now to Mt. Olive thus centering commerce there and down river at Sylamore and Riggsville. In 1873, after Stone County was established from part of Izard County Mt. Olive was no longer the strategic center of the county. The Izard County courthouse moved in 1875 to Mill Creek (Melbourne) and Stone County built its first courthouse, a wooden structure located on Main Street near the Auto Parts store. The site is denoted by a historical marker.
White River was the border between civilized and uncivilized lands, our first 50 years determined who we are as a people, still found in the attitudes of generational descendants, strong, independent, highly intelligent, resourceful and resistant to change. Next week – the Conclusion of Wolf House to Court House.
***Visit and join free, ExploringIzardCounty.com or ExploringStoneCounty.com for great stories, photos and blogging

Courthouses Part 1

2010-03-09T04:18:00.000-08:00

“From Wolf House to Court House, Part I of III”

By Freda Cruse Phillips, PhD

Billy Wolfe at Wolf House

Finishing up research on Stone county’s courthouses, should have been simple enough, a 2 hour trip up and back to Wolf House (Norfork) with Mister Billy to get a picture and a little more information was all I needed. That was not to be, as we traipsed about the county on one of Miss Wilma’s magical history tours that included the site of the second courthouse at Athens, the burial place for John P. Houston, first clerk of Izard County and brother to Gen. Sam Houston and the Funk Cemetery where Miss Bertha Williams “Lady of Color” is buried. Nine hours, long dusty roads and a flat tire later, we made it back, making this story not only richer but certainly more memorable.

Mostly the land of the Ozark region was left entirely to the Osage and Delaware Indians until the U.S. bought the territory in 1803 from France. Pictographs on the National Registry of Historic Places (NRHP) dating 500 A.D. are located in multiple locations throughout Stone, Izard and Baxter County. The west bank of the White River had been home to the Osage for over 1500 years when in 1817 the U.S. government relocated them to the western portion of the Arkansaw (all of the present state of Oklahoma was included in the Arkansas Territories of 1817). Designating the area west of the White River (Stone County to the present day Oklahoma border) as the Cherokee Indian Reservation from 1817-1828, the area of Oklahoma was the Osage Indian Reservation. During ownership under France, it was required that anyone traveling more than 20 miles from their home describe their route of travel in application for a passport from France which could take months. Thus, leading to the usage of the term “can’t get there without a passport” and those traveling more than 20 miles were from “off” – someplace else or more than 20 miles from where they had arrived at.

Jacob Wolf arrived in present day Norfork around 1820 immediately establishing a trading post and ferry operations along the converging rivers. When ‘Old’ Izard County was formed in 1825, it included all or parts of present day Van Buren, Carroll, Johnson, Marion, Baxter and Stone Counties. Wolf was appointed as Representative to the General Assemblies of Arkansas Territories representing in large part, both the Native Americans and the white settlers. A wooden two story structure was erected by Jacob Wolf at the mouth of the Big Fork River where it merges with the White.

“Wolf House” served both as the county seat and court house. Built in 1829, 180 years ago, the Wolf House is on the National Register of Historic places and is considered the oldest remaining settlement in Arkansas. Stone County’s Dillard settlement of 1837 at Round Bottom (NRHP) only 8 years younger, is considerably more remarkable than even present day Wolf House as it includes on site the home, barn, slave house and foundry; only the foundation stones remain of the Dillard Mill. Operating the ferries and the only mill and provided Wolf with a unique trading opportunity among the settlers that began arriving both by land and water.

Before Wolf there was Jehoiada Jeffery who had been granted 160 acres following service in the War of 1812. He brought his young wife and children on mules from Southern Illinois homesteading land around Mt. Olive in 1816. Jeffery’s double log home built with a broad axe and his bare hands served as both home and fort. It supported small window like openings on each side just large enough for observation and to fire a rifle through. Like Wolf, Jeffery had a number of slaves and a highly successful cattle and hog farm and in addition he grew corn and wheat. He shipped these to New Orleans and Memphis. In turn, this enterprise brought both supplies and settlers into the regions south of Mt. Olive, including Sylamore, Round Bottom, Rocky Bayou, Walls Ferry at Buckhorn (St. James) and O’Neal Ferry at Hess Town (Marcella).

In 1825 Jeffery was elected to the Fourth Territorial legislature, one of 18 members representing the entire Arkansas Territory. He introduced bills creating Izard and Fulton County. In 1830 the county seat was officially relocated from the Wolf settlement to the settlement of Athens which is about three miles down river from present day Calico Rock. Little Rock lawyer, John Paxton Houston, brother of legendary General Sam Houston, had been convinced to serve as the first county clerk of (old) Izard County by Wolf which included present day Stone County, serving from 1825-1830 and 1832-1838. He is buried at the site of the second courthouse at Athens, if you’ve got the time, “just ask Miss Wilma.” Next week Part II of III “Wolf House to Courthouse”

**All stories appearing in the Stone County Citizen will be published Fall 2010 in “Places of Our People” by Freda Cruse Phillips. “Voices of Our People” a perfect Christmas gift, published Oct 2009 is available at the Stone County Citizen

2010-03-01T14:17:00.000-08:00

Chief Syllamo of the Creeks
By Freda Cruse Phillips

The life of Chief Syllamo is documented in a number of places including the journals and writings of frontiersmen, J.J. Sams, Jehoadia Jeffery and Jacob Wolf. One of the earliest territorial maps lists Isllamo at the present day site of Allison, Arkansas, (Stone County) while only two list it as Syllamo. After the end of the Cherokee reservation of 1817-1828, it is consistently listed as Sylamore. The area does not become Allison until 1905.
The land east of the river was “civilization” with Batesville the center of commerce downriver. The western side of the river was Indian Territory with trading posts established at The Buckhorn, Sylamore and Table Rock. Entering from the White River, Sylamore became the point of entry into the Ozarks, into the reservation, the wild frontier, the point of departure where cultures did not assimilate one into the other, but blended, creating a vernacular of speech, in song, in music and dance, in the way we still live our lives, a bit guarded some might say, and resistant to change.
The Isllamo’s were one of nine Creek Indian families moving to the new Cherokee Indian reservation here. Isllamo pronounced eye- Sĭl’-ă-mō when spoken, sounded like “I – Syllamo” (two ll’s spoken like an “i”) more like an introduction rather than a whole name. It would have been easy for the settler’s to mistake the spoken name as I - Syllamo. They established the first trading post around 1817 which sat in the same proximity of Angler’s restaurant. The trading post provided guns, knives and staples to settlers and natives alike. The conditions were rough, rowdy and often resulted in conflicts leading to a few killings by stabbing, gunshot, arrows and tomahawks. There were at least two large Creek encampments in Stone County, the largest on what is present day North and South Sylamore which includes Gayler on the south, Blanchard on the north and Roasting Ear and Big Springs to the west. Relocated Muscogee Indians from Alabama and Georgia, the Creeks were given their name as “Creeks” from the English who noted that they lived in picturesque areas that were prone to flooding.
Chief Syllamo was known to be antagonistic and belligerent, supporting raids and the stealing of horses, thus among the settlers he was known as a ‘horse thief’. Stories go his horse thieving lead to his eventual death as he was tracked down and killed following the trial of Big Charley under Judge Jehoiada Jeffery for the attempted murder of Jared Martin. Big Charley, a Shawnee from Shawneetown (present day Yellville in Marion County then part of Izard County) had been hired, perhaps by some political rival of Martin’s, to go to Little Rock kill him. Martin served in both the House of Representatives and as Arkansas State Treasurer. Martin got word of the impending arrival of the Indians and their intent. Therein he shot instead, Big Charley wounding him. Chief Syllamo aided Big Charley in his return to the White River area of Sylamore. A pursuant trial over seen by Judge Jehoiada Jeffery found no one guilty. A kind of local war ensued between the settlers and Indians which resulted in Syllamo being shot and killed somewhere near the mouth of the creek around 1838, where the 1938 bridge leading to Calico Rock and Angler’s boat dock now stand. Over time, just as many family names changed spellings and pronunciations Syllamo was anglicized like so many names, Indian, blacks and white settlers alike, to its current form – Sylamore (Sĭl’-ă-mōre). The Creek settlement now Sylamore township (Newnata area) and the creek which flows through the Indian encampment bear the name of Sylamore after the family Isllamo. But it is Chief Syllamo that has been recalled and recounted, given credit.
Numerous documents legal and personal from the era support additional encounters and dealings with an old Indian named Syllamo, whether he was actually a chief of his tribe or simply the last representative of a once proud family is not clear. It is clear that the Creek Isllamo family was here 20 years before Chief Syllamo died, and many of the Creek descendants live among us still. The oral and written history of the early Indian settlements is not well documented here in the Ozarks. Family stories, letters, journals and war records hold the most reliable information. In 1819 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft records stopping 5 miles downriver from the Jeffery’s which more than likely was Sylamore. His next stop was at Widow Lafferty’s at The Buckhorn, present day Younger Access. After the reservation ended in 1828, the land was opened up to settlers. Those settlers who had married into the tribes or established trade first patented claimed land under Indian Land patents later homesteaded the same land. They had to prove that they had both occupied and improved the land for 10 years to qualify for a homestead land patent therefore the majority of settlers did not record homesteaded land until the late 1830’s early 1840’s; homesteads prior to 1838 were in most cases established first as Indian land grants. Because there were defined areas of Indian encampments, the white settlers traded or bought those lands, leading to a number of the early settler’s not homesteading their land until around the time of the Civil War even though they had resided in the area in some cases as much as 40 years. When word got out that the slaves if freed were going to be granted 80 acres and a mule, everyone who had not previously homesteaded or bought their land, made claims and when necessary, denied their Indian heritage as a new influx of settlers moved into the area. Not because they were “dirty injuns” but because the U.S. government required that they assimilate or move to the reservation which is like the Vatican, a nation within a nation, and until only recently without representation as Native Americans on reservations were not granted the right to vote until 1956. The Indians often had to have a co-signer on land patents which led to a number of Indians taking on the family name of their friends, white wives or husbands in order to qualify for a homestead under white man’s laws.

Culp

2010-02-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

Peggy Lester & Culp
By Freda Cruse Phillips

When I lived in California, I loved getting the newspaper from home with the news of Guion Road, Herpel and other small communities. It was important when someone visited and shared a piece of Momma’s fried peach pies along with news of weddings, illnesses and birthings. Visiting with Peggy Lester took us both back to a place and a time when neighbors were friends, if not family. Miss Peggy moved here from Pennsylvania in the 1940’s when she was 10 years old. Her parents bought and ran the store at Optimus until the 1960’s (a later story, when she and I can get with Von Ward). Miss Peggy’s home is the last remaining house in what was the once thriving community of Culp, with a doctor (Dr. Joe Gower), a post office, church, school, lumber yard and sawmill (Thomas Marchant, Joe’s son in law), general store (Joe Emmett) and grist mill (Sam Hall & Joe Emmett). Miss Peggy visited with Miff Sexton in the 1980’s at the rest home at Calico Rock. He was born in the early 1890’s and lived his life at Culp. He identified all of the buildings that in 1980 were falling to ruin, now gone, and the families who lived there in 1900 including the bootlegger. Thomas Marchant married Effie Emmett. Their daughter Claudine married Harold Culp. Dr. Joseph Gower and his wife Rebecca moved from Timbo and built the biggest house. They had 6 sons. Without Miff’s story and Miss Peggy’s curiosity, this history would be gone.
Thomas Culp, a brother of Mary Culp Ruddell, wife of Abraham Ruddell who had been captured and lived 15 years with the Shawnee as a brother to principal chief Tecumseh, arrived in the Ozarks around 1815 to find his sister Mary. His family was tanner’s by trade. He and John Milligan established and ran a successful tannery at the southern edge of present day Sharp County prior to entering the military in 1821. After mustering out, he and his wife Lavina Jeffery, (daughter of James “Ol Jim” and Jane Mason Jeffery and a sister to John Milligan’s wife, Eda Jeffery), moved to the west side of the White River on land presently owned by Hayden Wyatt. Lavina had been married to Wiley Sams and had one son, Jehoiada J. Sams, whose writings reveal a rich history and insight into the families of the White River Valley. The trail into the ‘reservation’ on the west side of the White River began at the Culp property near Optimus. The largest Shawnee settlement was located near City Rock Bluff overlooking the river leading to Table Rock; the present day route of “Culp Road.” The new U.S. government in the early 1800’s encouraged settlers to move into Indian territories however they had to be part Indian, marry an Indian or establish trade with them in order to do so. As a tanner Thomas was able to meet the requirements and established a trading post and staples store with some ease. His brother in law Jehoiada Jeffery had perhaps the largest established trade route in the region taking furs, crops and timber all the way to New Orleans from Mt. Olive, Sylamore and the Lafferty settlement at Buckhorn. Jane Mason Jeffery, Thomas’ mother in law was the doctor for the settlers in the region, learning from military doctors at the side of her dying mother. The Culp Post, point of trade with the Indians at what was then the ‘end’ of Culp Road where Peggys’ house now sits, in the Indian settlement was the beginning of the Town of Culp, and the bustling community that existed there after the Civil War until the mid 1940’s when small communities everywhere began to die as automobiles and better roads transformed our nation.
Thomas Culp served as Ark State Representative 1836-1838. Decisions made by the friends, family and elected officials set in motion historical events and forged relationships that shaped our nation; among them Thomas Riggs (settled Riggsville, first settlement of Mtn. View, served Ark House of Rep 1840-42), Jehoiada Jeffery (settled Mt. Olive, Ark House of Rep 1842-44), Sam Houston (aided in settling Cherokee into the White River Valley, Father of the Republic of Texas and brother to John Houston, Izard County’s first clerk), the Hardin’s (daughter married into the Lafferty family, ran the first ferry at present day Marcella that Riggs crossed in 1819; both Joseph and Jacob Hardin served AR House of Rep) and Abe Ruddell (brother in law to Thomas and one of the founders of Batesville).
Although Thomas had no formal training, he may have learned some “doctoring” from his mother in law Jane or from Abe who was known to have practiced a little herbal healing, “Indian doctoring”, or from the Indians themselves. Thomas and Lavina had eight children - Jane, Josiah, Daniel, Abraham, James Jeffrey, Thomas, Jr., Ambrose and Letty. Thomas and Lavina’s son Daniel Culp became a doctor and served as personal secretary to Sam Houston. When Daniel died in New Orleans, Sam had his body returned to Texas for burial declaring him a “Son of Texas.”
Culp Road is situated off Hiway 5 in Stone County 1 mile south of Calico Rock. The former Town of Culp is six miles down Culp Road, about one mile over the Stone County line in present day Baxter County. Thomas Culp died June 27, 1846. It is believed that Thomas and Lavina Culp may be buried in unmarked graves at Table Rock, Culp or Optimus. Help locating them is needed (contact Freda at 870 213 5015).
It is clear that the pioneering families here made lasting relationships amongst themselves and with the Indians contributing to the birth of the Ozark culture in the White River Valley that remains unique in its attitudes, politics, speech, song and dance, even its horse’s, the Missouri Territories “foxtrotter”. Many people move here, perhaps with former roots here, perhaps no association at all, and purport that the music they play and the jig they dance is “traditional Ozark” or that there is no right or wrong way as anything goes. Although we may love the sound of your voice, applaud your skill on the instrument and share a dance with you, we recognize that the traditions of the Ozarks are being lost as what is taught and understood as Ozark often bears no more resemblance to our culture than naugahyde is to the leather produced by the hands of Thomas Culp. And if you run for office, you might consider the value in asking for a person’s vote, looking them in the eyes and shaking their hand as more than water runs deep in the White River Valley.

Mirror Lake at Blanchard Springs

2010-02-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

Swingin' Bridge at Allison

2010-02-10T11:18:00.001-08:00

2010-02-01T13:59:00.000-08:00

Conclusion Sylamore – East & West
By Freda Cruse Phillips

On February 5, 1851 Tobias S. Rudolph became the first postmaster in the newly established post office at Sylamore (present day Allison) on the west banks of the river. The Civil War (1861-1865) came to Sylamore with at least one battle and several skirmishes along Kickapoo Bottoms, North and South Sylamore to Cooper Mill (Big Springs) and Roeher Mill (Brewer Springs/Mill Creek), resulting in deaths ranging from one or two to over 50, for the North and South. Both before and following the war, Sylamore had taken on a true frontier town life with saloons, gambling and nightly dance halls at the edge of the Indian encampment (where Guy and Liz Harris’ campground is on the west side of Hiway 5). Families who were living on either side simply forded the river in shallow places on foot, mule or horseback, while others crossed using a horse pulled wooden ferry to transport wagons and animals. The river is reported to have frozen over numerous times prior to the 1930’s.
On December 18, 1905 a post office was established on the east bank of the river with William Brooks as the first postmaster of the new East Sylamore. The postal service was complicated and confusing as to which bank of the river to deliver mail. Therefore the U.S. Postal Service instructed the offices to change the names or one should close. East Sylamore had become a thriving community with churches, a school and they had the train station. They were historically the civilized side of the river. Now that they had the new rail road they predicted a booming future on the east side of the river and demise on the west due if for no other reason its wild frontier life style. Therefore in 1905 the east bank kept the name of Sylamore and Stone County’s side on the west became known as Allison. Stories go it was named for a hobo, James “Dad” Allison who drifted in on a raft, looking for work at the limestone quarry (Ruddell). He had gained local popularity especially with the women because he had shown them an easier way to wash their clothes. He would fasten a can with holes punched in it to the end of a pole, thus they could stand and ‘agitate’ the clothes reducing the amount of time they had to bend over and scrub on a washboard. “Dad” Allison who died in 1948 is buried at Gayler Cemetery.
The rail road depot on the east bank of the river was named Ruddells Station. The post office of East Sylamore was actually housed in the general store of the limestone company store at Ruddell. When the limestone company relocated to Limedale, outside of Batesville, the post office closed August 15, 1930 having operated for only 25 years. This signaled not only the demise of Ruddell but of (East) Sylamore.
Steamboats were chugging their way up the White River with the last known docking in 1938, just prior to the completion of the bridge at the mouth of Sylamore Creek in 1939. They ported at the same landing used by the wooden ferry and later the motor powered ferry, situated between Angler’s boat dock and the foundation of the Sylamore Creek Bridge precisely where Chief Syllamo is reported to have been shot. Train travel dominated over the steamboats and now automobiles were becoming the main means of transportation.
One of the last remaining dance halls of that frontier period was located near “Swinging Bridge;” a juke joint run by “Ma Cook” who provided services in the early half of the 19th century for the CCC boys and the workers on the railroad, bridges and roads of the 1930’s. One story goes that some of the boys got pretty intoxicated and drove some pigs off the bluffs into the creek below. Then, they rounded up the hurt and dead animals for a pig roast. Other stories include Ma Cook herself acting as bouncer tossing drunken men off the porch to the ground. As Miss Neva (Foll) told me in the spring of 2009 just before her death at age 93, “no ladies ever admitted back then to having gone there. But the music was grand and lots of fun was had by all. There was always a ruckus of some kind, of that you could be certain. We supplied a little sugar to the moonshiners back then, had a store out in Happy Hollow.”
For us Stone County natives descendants of the first settlers, the Irish and Scots, blacks and Native Americans, who trapped animals for meat and furs, who built the roads and mills, who sang the songs, Sylamore is not one place. It is not Ruddell or East or West Sylamore nor Allison. It is not Harris Township nor is it Sylamore Township. It is not Blanchard Springs or Roasting Ear. It is a time when places were known by the people who lived and died there. For us, it will always be Syllamo, the place of the “Creeks”; the path, the road, from the inland area along the creeks, from the Indian encampments, toward the river and the place where the streams meets the river, where “Chief Syllamo” of the Creeks lived and died.
L.C. shows my grandson Denali Gayler the medicine satchel that belonged to William Crews, my great grandfather, who died on the banks of the frozen White River around 1910 while out making rounds. “His horse fell breaking its leg and Grandpa Crews (husband to Josephine) froze to death.” Denali listens wide eyed, “Now, my great grand father William Johnson was a prize fighter and a U.S. Marshall,” L.C. continues. “His son, Sam Johnson, Granny Fine’s brother was a doctor. They lived at Marcella. He had a son and a son in law who were doctors. Doc Johnson’s grandson, Sam, a first cousin to my Momma and your grand dad Crews,” L.C. says eyeing me, “was Sheriff of Stone County in the 1920’s during the famous Connie Franklin murder case. But now that’s another story.”
After WWII, L.C. Sutterfield ran the ferry from Sylamore to Allison, “when the river was low, it would take a horse or mule to pull it across and when it was high, you just tied it up, hoping it didn’t break loose and get off down river.” L.C., his wife and children would cross the river and walk up the hill to Levisy Flat to church. Sometimes, there would be a ride, most times, not, “a life time ago, but yesterday in our memories, our life experiences.” The bridge over the creek was built in 1938 but it would be almost another 40 years, 1974, before there was a bridge across the river. L.C. and his family lived at what was East Sylamore on the Izard County side of the river, where civilization met the frontier well into the 20th century.
***Info on any small historic communities throughout the county is needed - especially the period from 1800-1875 documenting the first families and communities of Stone County. Contact Freda at 870-213-5015

2010-01-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

“Sylamore – East & West”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

It’s a cold bleak day as L.C. and I venture out to the cemetery at Sylamore where our grandmother, Josephine Johnson Crews is buried. L.C.’s mother, Clementine was a sister to my grandfather, Sanford Crews, children of Granny Fine’, L.C. and my dad, first cousins. Digging into the people and places of Stone county, of the White River Valley the line between civilization and the frontier, the relationships between people defining who was who, who is whom, has given me a greater understanding of not only my family but of the strength and inter-dependency of the people who arrived here in this valley 200 years ago.
L.C. was born on Polk Mountain in the hills above Sylamore in Izard County. Polk Mountain is named for Ridley Polk, a black man who lived his life there. “One night Ridley came to our house looking for a doctor, his wife in labor. While he went to look for a doctor, mom and dad (Clem & Berry Sutterfield) went to their house. Mom delivered the babies, twins. Ridley came back without a doctor. Daddy showed him one baby then folded back the covers to show him the second one. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t have done for my folks after that. Grand daddy, William Crews was a doctor. He died while out making rounds on the White river around 1910. His horse fell on the ice, broke its leg. He froze to death on the banks of the river near Sylamore.”
We drive through the old town of Sylamore, at the foot of the mountains on the east banks of the river in Izard County. Buildings that were once bustling stores, the train depot and cattle yard now falling to ruin; a place that is said to have been the port of distribution for more raw timber following the Civil War continuing through the 1930’s than any other port in the south. Muscles mined from the rich riverbed were made into pearl buttons and sold throughout the world. Everything that entered into present day Stone County arrived first at the port of Sylamore, present day Allison. Both the steamboat and ferry landing was at the base of the hill where Angler’s Boat Dock now sits. The Mississippi River was the interstate of the era, with the Ohio and Tennessee both major connecting routes. The Ohio served as the boundary of the Northwest Territories, flowing into the Mississippi where the Convergence of the America’s met at Paducah, Kentucky and Cairo, Illinois bordered by Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee, about four hours from Sylamore by vehicle today. Traveling south to the mouth of the Arkansas and White Rivers, many settlers came up the White river first to Batesville, then “The Buckhorn” and Sylamore. Making their way into the hills they built homes above the high water lines. They proved their resiliency and strength in the isolation as they forged out a living from the land. There were few overland roads well in the mid 1900’s. Because “civilization” lay immediately across the White river to the east and the Indian territories to the west, Sylamore, in Stone County became the port of entry into the frontier.
The name Sylamore is an anglicized form of the Creek Indian family name Isllamo. Pronounced “Sil a Mo”, the family established the first trading post at present day Allison around 1817. All of the land laying to the west of the White river, extending south near Batesville to the western borders of Oklahoma, was the Arkansaw Territories and Indian country. Stone County along with all of the Arkansas Ozarks and southern Missouri to the eastern boundary of present day Oklahoma was the new Cherokee reservation of 1817-1828. Mostly settlers held to the east side of the river as it was ‘against the law’ to cohort with the Indians, or enter the Indian reservation unless you were part Indian or doing business with them. A number of Osage had land grants from Spain and France and did not leave the area. Settlers often traded for the Indian land rights occupying and settling the land long before they were ever allowed to homestead. Land transactions such as these between the whites and Indians although not recognized by the U.S. government were nonetheless encouraged as a means to open up the frontier west of the White river. After the reservation ended in 1828, the land was officially opened up to settlers. They had to prove that they had both occupied and improved the land for 10 years to qualify for a homestead land patent therefore many settlers who had married into the tribes or established trade first obtained land under Indian Land patents. Therefore the majority of settlers did not record homesteaded land until the late 1830’s early 1840’s and some not until they were faced with the Civil War, many having lived on the land as much as 40 years.
Arkansas became a state in 1836. Henry Harris and his brothers purchased Indian land patents in excess of 640 acres along the river bottom between Sylamore and Optimus. Henry homesteaded the 40 acres between Sylamore Creek and the White River at the base of present day Government Mountain in 1849, building his home there prior to his death in 1852. It is the current home of Guy and Liz Harris. His brothers and extended family homesteaded the outlying areas hence our present day Harris Township. The Harris cemetery was washed clean of its markers in the flood of 1982. A number of the markers have been found in the river with many reported to still be in the wash near the cemetery. The Hayden’s have allowed descendants to mark the location with a large boulder and plaque denoting the portion of the cemetery near their home. Historically the cemetery lay on both sides of present day highway 5, next to the Hayden’s home on the east and south of the barn on the west along Green Mountain Road. Highway 5 is reported to have taken the path of the road that bisected the cemetery with the west side abandoned long before the flood of 1982. Many old timer’s who worked on the road during the 1960’s paving report when the road was improved and paved that markers and graves were destroyed on both sides, the present day right of way. While some suggest that graves lay beneath Highway 5, others maintain that the road took the existing path that ran through the middle of the cemetery, marking the distinction of who was buried where. Blacks and Indians buried on the west side of the road with the whites buried on the east side.

NEXT WEEK Conclusion – Sylamore East & West

Places of Our People a joint preservation project between the Nikki Lee Atwell Foundation and the Stone County Citizen seeks to preserve the history of Stone County. Phillips is seeking historic photos, family stories and information on Mozart, Harness, Knights Cove, Hanover, Big Springs, Optimus (Forest Home), Chalybeate Springs, Melrose & many other almost forgotten communities. Phillips, an award winning photographer and cultural historian will photograph your documents and photos free in your home, putting them on a CD for your safekeeping; no photos or documents will ever leave your home. Scheduling required. Tax deductible donations to the project can be made to the Nikki Atwell Foundation P O Box 2133 Mtn View, Arkansas 72560 or dropped off at Centennial Bank. All proceeds from the sale of photographs from The Mountain Music Project on display at Country Time restaurant & Phillips book, Voices of Our People, available locally, are tax deductible and benefit the foundation. Freda Cruse Phillips can be contacted at 870 213 5015, fredacruse@yahoo.com.

Ruddell

2010-01-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

Alvin Pitts & Ruddell
By Freda Cruse Phillips

Sitting at the Stone County Historical Society, I ask, Alvin Pitts and Edwin Luther, “Is it Ruddell or Ruddle”? Both agree, “It is Ruddell, with two “d’s” and two “l’s”,” named for a descendant of the Ruddell family who maybe was part owner in the lime quarry or maybe the train conductor, first known as “Ruddell’s Station” the place where the train stopped to pick up the limestone.” Although it is spelled in a number of historical places both as Ruddell and Ruddle it is never “Ruddles”. Our Ruddell likely became “Ruddles” after the train depot was gone, physically moved to Sylamore where it continues to sit and “Ruddell’s Station” no longer existed.
It is the Ruddell family whose history has more bearing the history of Stone County. Abraham, 6 and Stephen Ruddell, 9 were captured in June 1780, adopted and raised by Shawnee War Chief Pucksinwah, father of Tecumseh (1768-1813). Both Stephen and Abraham rose in the tribe and as brothers to both Tecumseh and The Prophet they were involved in numerous battles and tribal decisions. In 1797 when Stephen and Abraham returned to their families neither was able to speak English. Abraham maintained his Indian ways most of his life while Stephen received an education and became a missionary. Abraham served as a scout in the War of 1812 from the Missouri Territories and was instrumental in persuading many of the Shawnee to side with the U.S. instead of the British. In 1820 he settled near what is now Batesville. In 1824, he and another brother, John, established Ruddell’s Mill (NRHP) situated about one mile inland from the White River, 3 miles west of Polk Bayou where the first ferry (1819) crossed the river. A close friend of the Jeffery family, they worked with Sam Houston and Chief John Jolly securing the safe re-settlement of many of the Shawnee and Cherokee people along the White river between Mt. Olive and Walls Ferry. Ruddell was principally responsible for the four major Shawnee settlements in Stone County; Optimus, Livingston Creek, Sylamore and Upper Walls Ferry. In his 1841 obituary the Batesville News citied Ruddell as “a real life inspiration for “The Last of the Mohicans”” (by James Fennimore Cooper 1826). The 1952 movie Brave Warrior is based on Stephen’s life. A hundred years later, we have another, “Last of the Mohicans” Alvin Pitts, the son of Harvey and Dixie (Covey) Pitts, born, August 1, 1930, almost eighty years ago, he is the last known person born at Ruddell.
Until he was seven years old, Alvin lived near the base of the mountain where the limestone quarry at what is now Coolwater Retreat. He recalls “cables ran along the hill and loaded cars pulled the empty ones up to the pit for loading; the kilns were located at the base of the mountain near the rail road track, where our house sat.”
This area had one of the largest river port populations along the White River at the turn of the century. Prior to the time of the locks and dams the river ran shallow and often froze in the winter months allowing passage over the frozen river. Wooden ferries pulled by horses transported people, carriages, animals and later vehicles over the water while keelboats and canoes were the standard means of travel. The river was the road. Steamboats traveled as far north as Springfield on the James including docking at Ruddell.
Then came the train and “Ruddell’s Station”. Whites and blacks alike came for the good wages and cheap housing offered by the Arkansas Lime Company, Superintendent George Wiegart (father of Dorothy Hinkle and Virginia Mabry of Mtn View). The company employed people from all walks of life, including transients, hobos and blacks, to work at the kilns and in the stave plant which made the barrels used for shipping the pressed lime. “Work paid generally about 17 cents per hour with housing furnished for employees at $2.50 a month. Employees were paid with paper money, called Cloney money that was only good at the company store, ringing true the song lyrics “I owe my soul to the company store”,” Alvin says shaking his head. “1905 the first post office was put in at the store.”
Parson Brown, a black preacher at Ruddell, had both white and black families who attended his church. He was known for seating blacks up front and whites in the back. The family of Will Harper was another prominent black family who lived at Ruddell along with Henry Harper and his family. They are buried at Ruddell cemetery; Alvin points out the grave markers in a once briar and thicket covered cemetery once again being maintained. The Arkansas Lime Company was dismantled and moved to Limedale near Batesville, in 1930 around the time of Alvin Pitts’ birth.
Alvin reports that the only electricity in Ruddell was an old Delco for the store and house where his grandpa lived. The Lancaster farm, present day Coolwater Retreat and across river at Round Bottom, was one of the largest in the area established in the 1800’s and had one of the largest slave populations in the area at the beginning of the Civil War. “My mother, Seddie Lancaster, taught school at Ruddell,” Edwin adds. The Lancaster home and barn (NRHP) at Round Bottom is one of the oldest remaining homesteads in the county. The home has been extensively remodeled by its present day owners with disregard to preserving its historical integrity and has been removed from the national registry. The Lancaster cemetery has been surveyed for the sale of home lots, many of the over 100 graves have survey markers plunged into the heart of them.
After a short 25-year life, Ruddell no longer exists, but it flourished as a small company town from 1905 until 1930. With the closing of the plant, the train discontinued its use of the depot. The population devastated by both WWI and WWII, all that remains of this once thriving town is the old cemetery and well building. Alvin Pitts is a man to whom family and history is important, a man of whom Abraham Ruddell would have proudly called ‘brother.’ Alvin and I walk through the cemetery, a train whistle can be heard, the approaching click clack of the steel wheels. Alvin stands in the setting sun, his hand on his hip, watching as the train passes. He turns and smiles at me, I see that little boy that stood there in this spot a life time ago, waving again to the conductor.
Alvin Pitts married Gerene Barnes July 14, 1950. They have three children, Pamela Ann Moore of California, Marsha Lynn Vance of Maryland and James Alvin Pitts, of Mountain View.
***Freda Phillips & Sue McCluskey are now organizing - The Stone County Cemetery Association - contact Freda Phillips 213-5015 fredacruse@yahoo.com for information. Efforts are supported through tax deductible donations to the Nikki Lee Atwell Foundation, P O Box 2133 Mtn View 72560 or can be dropped off at Centennial Bank.***

Expedition to Riggsville - Part 6

2009-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

“Riggsville, A National Treasure”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

Riggsville was a frontier settlement and booming town at least 35 years before the Civil War broke out. Serving as the main center of commerce for the area, it had a brothel, tavern, livery, watermill, tan yard, black smith shop, mercantile stores and both Flatwoods and Methodist churches. The Rich Woods Riggsville settlement had postal service from 1838-1860. “Old Military Road” was likely installed along with the dam in the early 1830’s, leading up and over the mountain it was a difficult road to both climb and descend. Because of the road, and having both a grist mill and a whiskey still, Civil War records document it being frequented by both Union and Confederate soldiers. Although the springs at Riggsville still produce enough water to supply the town of Mountain View, it is believed that the necessity of a new road was one of the primary reasons that former Union soldier, William Harrison Rosa, was able to secure the relocation of the center of commerce from Riggsville to what is now Mountain View. Following the Civil War, the town of Riggsville began moving down the creek closer to a ‘better’ road. Only two structures still remain of the second settlement, a barn built in 1890 by John Cartwright and a store. The cleanup in the aftermath of the 2008 tornado on the farm of Mister Richard Decker, removed the last of the foundations of settlements leading to Riggsville including the Indian Trading Post and the Methodist Campground, the site of the first church of Stone County sanctioned by the Missouri Conference in 1826. The majority of the rock foundations of the homes and businesses have been removed from the surrounding fields by people and nature, including Indian grinding stones and artifacts, now gone entirely. The stone walls and spring jonquils stand as proud testaments to the home places that once thrived.
The murder of Thomas Riggs son, John, likely contributed greatly to his efforts along with at least 50 other prominent men of the Ozark region to influence Governor Rector to call for Arkansas to conduct a second vote, to leave the Union, becoming part of the eleven Confederate states. The voices of prominent men such as Thomas Riggs who was succeeded by Jehoiada Jeffery served in the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1844, Jared C. Martin was State Treasurer from 1838-1843 were heard and the vote was re-cast, 69-1, reversing the previous decision to go with the north. Riggs losses, personally and financially resulted in most of the family selling out and moving to Texas in the midst of the Civil War in 1863 or 1864. These losses also contributed to the death of the town of Riggsville and paved the way for “Mountain View”. In 1867, Thomas A. Riggs died at the age of 65 in Texas.
The 1862 marker on the dam denotes a place and time almost 150 years ago. Near the dam, the foundations of the first settlement, the still, mill, homes and businesses remain. Boulders in the creek, strategically placed supports for the flume that fed the mill, remain. The rock fences built by slaves, Indians and frontiersmen, settlers that likely did not include ladies and gentlemen lined the road into the valley; the knoll on which the homes stood and “Old Military Road” beautiful in the fall sunlight hold our heritage as a not only a town, but as a people. Although many of the Riggs family moved to Texas, it is clear our area is populated with descendants of the Riggs’ and the first settlers including Hollandsworth, Younger, Stewart, Davis, Decker, Harris, Beckham, Storey, Walls, Creswell, Clark, Jones, Lancaster, Ausborn, Steven, Teague, Rushing, Ross, Long, Fulks, Whitfield and Martin. People who eked out a living in the rocky terrain giving all of us who call Mountain View home, its very beginning, 180 years ago. The remains of both the original 1819 settlement of Riggsville near the spring and the post Civil War settlement are located on land held entirely in the Kemp Trust, bordered by land owned by the Decker families, Danny Stewart, Joey Dobbins, Ken Jones and Dr. Ron Simpson. Located entirely on private property Riggsville is not currently accessible to the public without permission.
Mountain View is isolated, defined by the river and the mountains that continue to make access difficult. Small towns across America, even along infamous Route 66, die everyday, just as Riggsville did over 100 years ago, when politics and new roads, by passes, supporting new businesses, new wealth, today a Wal-mart, pass the heart of the town by. It has been said that visiting Mountain View, is like stepping back in time, the richness of our past present in our daily lives. The ability to recognize who was from “off” and what your sentiments were an important part of individual survival and the very survival of our present day town may rest in our ability to hold onto our rich cultural past.
I have just returned from a trip to New England where dry stack conservancies protect the rock walls, foundations and buildings that denote the beginnings of our nation. I saw nothing more beautiful in the grand states of Vermont, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio than I have seen throughout Stone County and at Riggsville. Arkansas offers no protection and land owners are allowed to sell off pieces of history, stone walls that are easily accessible are most vulnerable. Homes, barns and cemeteries on the National Registry of Historic places fall to their demise or worse fall into the hands of people who have no respect for the people who came before them as they fall to ruin, burn, tear down or remodel these structures. I encourage people to hold onto the history in our land, our rocks, barns and old homes, just as we have learned to hold onto the washboards, the kettles and everyday household items we once threw into the trash or gave away, now antiques selling for high dollar. Your land is worth more, because of that rock wall, that Indian grindstone, old well, building or barn. Riggsville first heard the sounds of laughter, of sorrow cried and music played nearly 200 years ago and may hold the key to Stone County’s place as a national treasure as we approach the bi-centennial of our place, this place, in our nation’s history. Just as a road away from it, around it, may have led to the demise of Riggsville, it may now prove to be all that has saved it, much like Blanchard Springs. Isolated, resistant to change, Stone County is its perfect home. There is no amount of money, no legacy of your name on a building, a church or hospital, nothing greater that any one family could do for this county, for our people, for our nation than to endow the perpetuation and safeguarding of history, a perpetual legacy. Riggsville could be a county or state park; “Kemp State Park”. Perhaps.

Expedition to Riggsville - Part 5

2009-12-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

“Riggsville and the Civil War”

By Freda Cruse Phillips

Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, 1861-1865, Riggs reported in the 1860 census, real estate, cattle, hogs and slaves, along with his adult sons to include a combined wealth of over $30,000. Due to the death of his son John and wife in the Comanche Gap Indian Massacre, in Texas, children in the home now included Rhoda Elizabeth, 10, Margarett A., 7, William C. 4, and John Roland, the youngest, now 2, along with their own children Charles, 14, Susan, 10, (b 1850), and Rachel, 9, (b 1851). It is believed, as reported by descendants of the Riggs family, that Susan and Rachel were Riggs’ illegitimate children born of another mother in Little Rock, Arkansas while Riggs served office in the Arkansas Legislature. The 1860’s town of Riggsville was prosperous and included stores, a livery, two churches, the dam and mill. It served soldiers from both the North and South. In 1867 it is recorded that Thomas Storey ran the tannery in Riggsville.

William Carroll Riggs, his wife Nayoma Flannery and children lived at Sylamore. Brannick “Billy” Riggs had married Mary Elizabeth Robbins and moved to Texas. Barney Kemp Riggs named after Colonel John Jacob “J.J.” Kemp, had married Eliza, and had two children. Thomas Riggs (Jr) had married Hannah Felton. James Monroe Riggs lived nearby in the home of his sister Margarett and her husband, Charles Harrison Stuart (Stewart); they had two children both born in Riggsville. Martha Riggs had married J.B. “Mac” Whitehead and lived in Richwoods. Rhoda Riggs, born May 18, 1842, in Riggsville, married William D “Commodore” Copeland Oct 7, 1857 at age 16. Richwoods which lay on top of the mountain was an extension of the Riggsville settlement offering rich soil and areas easier to clear and till.

Richard Gravelly was a young black slave around the age of 25 when the Civil War arrived in the hills of Arkansas. He and several other slaves banded together in a group in the hills between Round Bottom and Sylamore overlooking the river. From this vantage point they could see the river below and the farmland that was being worked by other slaves, friends and family. There was no ‘road’ as we know it, only a rough mountain trail that lead off the mountain towards the river and streams below. The only improved road in the area, “Old Military Road” served as the mail route which originated in Missouri and slaves venture upon the same road, but instead used the paths through the hills. The slaves joined others hiding out above Kickapoo Bottoms (just north of Jack’s boat dock) about two miles up river from Sylamore in the fall of 1861. A group of locals had banned together to help the slaves move north to free states but were stopped cold in their tracks when Governor Rector ordered that the Izard County Investigative Committee to seek out those disloyal to the Confederacy. They arrested 47 members of the Peace Society but reported that most of them were young boys not aware of the consequences of their actions and thus allowed the opportunity to “wipe out the foul stain” by joining the Confederate Army. Three were executed, the other 47 ‘volunteered.’

The slaves continued to hide out on the hills above Kickapoo Bottoms which is named for the Kickapoo Indians tribe of Chief Peter Cornstalk II whose primary emcampment prior to 1830 was in the present day fields of Hale Hayden. An “‘uprising’ at Sylamore occurred that required the Arkansas Militia to repel an insurrection of 40 or 50 days,” from December 1861 to Feb 1862 near Kickapoo Bottoms. Batesville, some 35 miles away, fell to the Yankees on May 4, 1862 becoming Union headquarters on the White River. In late May 1862 the slaves encountered another skirmish just above Kickapoo Bottoms that involved “about 150 Union soldiers and a herd of the same number of rebel outlaws (Confederates). Three Confederate men were killed and about 25 captured, along with 40 horses and mules.” Following the skirmish, many these black men joined with the Union troops making their way back to Batesville, where they formed one of the first colored troops of the Union Army in June 1862.

Each black man was required to report in oral testimonial his status including ownership upon enlistment. Richard Gravelly joined in 1864, wherein he reported he was born in Riggsville in 1835 and believed himself to be the son of Thomas Riggs. He had been sold at the age of three or four in 1838 or 1839 to William Hill Dillard at Round Bottom. He remained a Dillard slave until Lucy Dillard, “Bill’s” sister, married Henry Hill Harris; he then became a Harris slave at Sylamore. While owned by the Harris family he was employed in building homes along the river including around 1850 the construction of the home of Henry Harris and his wife, Lucy Dillard Harris, present day home of Guy and Liz Harris, the two story former Dobbins home (at present day Allison) in the Harris Township of Stone County. Gravelly was a Harris slave residing with the Harris family when the Civil War broke out. The Harris family owned a vast amount of land on the west banks of the White River from Sylamore to Optimus including Kickapoo Bottoms.

Gravelly’s mother was from Alabama and had moved first with the Riggs to Mississippi in 1833, then was brought by Mr. Riggs along with two male slaves to Riggsville, where his mother gave birth to him in the summer of 1834 or 1835. Gravelly served in the Union Army out of Batesville until the end of the war in 1865. He then made Batesville his home. Following the war, in 1868, he married Matilda Pinkett. Richard Gravelly is more than likely the first person of record born in Riggsville. No census was taken until 1840, three years after statehood. Hundreds of slaves were reported in the Slave Census’ of 1840-1860 in Stone County. A young black boy is listed in the Slave Census of William Hill Dillard, Round Bottom Landing in 1840. It is entirely possible that he is the son of Thomas Riggs as Gravelly was sold at the age of three or four, just prior to the arrival of Mrs. Riggs from Mississippi to Riggsville. The selling of young children was not typical of the day which supports he was sold to hide his paternity. It’s possible that Richard Gravelly’s mother is buried in an unmarked grave in the East Richwoods (Kemp) cemetery on Luber along with many other slaves and former slaves who are buried there and throughout Stone County. Gravelly worked as a stone mason on a number of the buildings around Batesville and died there in September 1921 at the age of 86. The William Dillard home of 1837 at Round Bottom is on the National Registry of Historic places.

NEXT WEEK Part VI – The Conclusion of Riggsville

Riggsville Expedition: Part 4

2009-11-30T06:34:00.000-08:00

“The Indian Massacre”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

Living among Indians was not new to the Riggs family. The Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee and Creek populated the areas of present day Stone County with two major encampments near the settlement of Riggsville. John and Jane Riggs moved to Nolanville, Texas about 100 miles south of Dallas at the edge of conflict between the Mexicans and the Comanche. Their children were Rhoda 9, Margarett, 7, William, 3, and John nine months old, when on March 16th, 1859 a band of a dozen or more Indians began a murderous rampage. The last recorded Indian massacre in Texas included the deaths of John and Jane Johnson Riggs. They first killed a man by the name of Pierce a few miles from the Riggs home. About 9 o’clock in the morning they came upon John Riggs and Dave Elms returning from town, only 400 yards or so from the Riggs home. Elms, a sixteen year old boy was driving the Riggs second wagon loaded with supplies was pulled from the wagon, whipped unmercifully and stripped of his clothes. He wrangled free dashing into a thicket escaping.
John Riggs unarmed, threw rocks at the Indians as they shot arrows through his body. His wife, Jane hearing his screams ran to the aid of her husband who then shot arrows through her body as she ran towards her husband. They both died from multiple arrow wounds. The oldest of the children Rhoda and Margarett, at their mother’s instructions, tried to run away but were seen and captured. The Indians fled with them on horseback leaving William and John behind. Perhaps the Indians did not realize there were smaller children, prized boys, inside the cabin when they fled with the girls. Further down the road the Indians encountered a Mr. Cruger and chased after him but he managed to outrun them, making his way to Belton and alerting the townsfolk. By mid afternoon the locals had formed a posse of men to begin pursuit of the Indians but not before there was another attack, killing a man by the name of Peavy.
The Riggs daughters were still being held captive, riding back side of their capturer’s horses. One of the Indians made an effort to pass the younger sister, to another rider while continuing riding and dropped her. Seeing what had happened to her younger sister, Rhoda jumped from her horse to the ground running to her sister’s side. The Indians hesitated only briefly then moved on, leaving the young girls behind. Darkness was approaching. Bruised, barefoot and hungry the girls started back from the direction they had come. In the distance they saw a chimney and walked to find a vacant house. It was dark and growing cold so they took shelter in the house with “Rhody” removing most of her clothing, wrapping her younger hurt sister Margarett to keep her warm.
In the darkness, the posse of two dozen or more men camped only a short distance from the house but didn’t find it or the children until morning. They took the girls to a nearby home where they were fed and clothed. Word was sent to Arkansas to Thomas Riggs of the massacre and the fate of his grand children. Although the posse continued pursuing the Indians for a hundred or more miles, they were informed some where near Fort Colorado that the soldiers were also in pursuit. They were never captured. Knowing there were children in the Riggs home, local folks arrived to find the nine month old baby boy, John, sitting in his mother’s blood, crawling on her in an effort to nurse. Thomas Riggs (Jr) and Walter Clark came from Riggsville, Arkansas, the family homestead of John Riggs’ father, to get the four children returning them to Riggsville to the home of their grandparents. John and Jane were buried in the Sugarloaf Mountain Cemetery in Bell County. Their deaths along with the above information are denoted by a Texas historical marker in Comanche Gap, Nolanville, Texas (Bell County) at the intersection of Comanche Gap and FM2410 Road, 2 miles South West of Nolanville.
Thomas Riggs had acquired additional land in 1855 for his sons, increasing the Riggs family holdings of real estate and slaves with every intention of remaining in Riggsville and had begun expanding into the valley closer to present day South Bayou Drive and the home of Judge John Dan Kemp. As the story goes, while up north, John Jacob Kemp heard rumors that war was imminent. He got word to Riggs he was in the market for cattle. Riggs purchased his slaves and Kemp replaced his holdings with cattle. Then Riggs’ son John was shot by Indians, his grand daughters held captive and Civil War broke out. NEXT WEEK: Part V “Civil War Comes to Riggsville”

Note:

Tax deductible donations to the Nikki Lee Atwell Foundation, a non profit organization supporting the Arts, Music and Humanities can be mailed to P O Box 2133 Mtn View, Arkansas. All proceeds from “Voices of Our People”, The Mountain Music Project and next years book “Places of Our People” based on the stories appearing in the Stone County Citizen by Phillips’ benefit the foundation.

Expedition to Riggsville - Part 3

2009-11-20T10:16:00.000-08:00

“Old Military Road”
By Freda Cruse Phillips

Leaving the dam and the creek, we climbed the hillside to a clearing and there it was, without fallen timber, with the morning sun filtering through the trees, “Old Military Road.” Mister Decker, Hinkle and I had walked on part of it at the base of the mountain not realizing due to the downed trees and thickets of vines, it was in fact “the road”. But here, on top of the hill under the canopy of the trees, it was as clear that this was the old road, as the hand hewn rocks were the foundations of once thriving businesses along its path.
“Old” Military Road was the first road west of the Mississippi to be granted Federal monies for improvement. Its beginnings started as nothing more than an Indian trail known as the Natchitoches Trail, which was a network of trails, not a single trail. The trail across present day Stone County came up from the White river at what is present day Round Bottom or Herpel, topping the hill just west of where Mountain View School sits, continuing south (near the Shell station) to the Cherokee Tsalagi Indian encampment (farm of Richard Decker behind Wilson’s Town and Country), then south along land presently owned by John Dan Kemp (South Bayou Drive) up the valley and across the mountain on the east side of Cooper Point, to present day Misenheimer Road, south to Luber Road, east and south towards the Little Red River and the settlements of then Heber and Springs to the Caddo Indian settlements.
In 1830, President Jackson attached funding to military appropriations bills that provided for improvements to the road which included, cutting trees, pulling stumps, building bridges, dams and in some cases leveling the road and digging ditches. Arkansas has several “military roads,” including the well-known Memphis to Little Rock Military Road. The chosen route that parallels the Natchitoches Trail, later called the Southwest Trail, remains the acknowledged “Old Military Road” for the state and does not include these side trails or roads. However it does not diminish the importance of the large number of smaller connecting roads which included Riggsville and likely the building of the Riggsville Dam as well as the road south of Tucker’s Ferry, a few miles outside of present day Batesville.
“Old Military Road” through this part of Arkansas was the project of Sam Houston, first President of the Republic of Texas and brother to John P Houston, Little Rock lawyer and first clerk of Izard County, 1830-1836. The military road project began in St. Louis and crossed the length of Arkansas ending in the Red River Valley of Texas and was a vital part of Sam Houston’s military plans in his battles with Mexico. Sam had been living in Arkansas with John Jolly, then Chief of the Cherokee near present day Clarksville (Johnson County). Steve Austin, former territorial legislator in Missouri and lead mining tycoon had moved into Arkansas. Austin’s father, Moses, had received a land grant in Texas of almost 5,000 acres as an incentive to help defend against the Mexicans. It is clear that both Thomas Riggs and Steve Austin knew Sam Houston and each had a vital interest in the installation of our “Old Military Road”, especially Austin who needed to get his lead ore south to Texas. John Houston was enticed to move from Little Rock, to the remote area of Izard County and take the position of clerk. Jehoiada Jeffery, one of the first settlers along the White River, just north of Sylamore, in 1816, was selected as surveyor which included the work done both near Batesville and Riggsville along with portions of the now famed “Old Military Road.” Friends with Thomas Riggs already one of the largest land and slave owners in the area, it seems clear that Riggs used both his slaves and the Cherokee Tsalagi Indians to build the road and perhaps the Riggsville dam around 1830.
For Riggs, the building of this road not only provided access to the land he had acquired around Stair Gap (so called due to the almost step like conditions of the terrain which is current day Star Gap) and the settlement of Richwoods atop Dodd Mountain, but helped cement his relationships with prominent persons in Texas which is where the majority of his family moved following the Civil War, including Riggs who died there in 1867. The use of “Old Military Road” during the Civil War by both Union and Confederate soldier’s is documented in numerous records, providing both growth and safety to the settlers who resided in Riggsville.
In 1855 with talk of Civil War in the air, Thomas Riggs began recording his homesteaded land which included acreage for his daughters, Martha who married Commodore Copeland and Margaret who had married Charles Stuart (Stewart); land presently owned for the most part by Danny Stewart at Star Gap. He then began moving the growing town of Riggsville recorded as the largest settlement in the area closer to what had been the Indian encampment on the knolls, where the last remaining buildings, the barn (built by John Cartwright in 1890) and the store still stand. It seems clear that the 1862 date on the Riggsville Dam was an act of ownership due to the 1862 Homestead Act, just prior to Lincoln freeing the slaves Jan 1, 1863 in the midst of the Civil War.
The high expectations and prospects of the Riggs family from 1850-1855 could not have forseen the misfortune of the late 1850’s. The Riggs second son, John, moved his wife, Elizabeth Jane Johnson and their three children, Rhoda, Margarett and William, all born in Riggsville to Texas, where their youngest child, John was born in the summer of 1858. His tale as a 9 month old sitting in a pool of his mother’s blood arrows piercing her body has been depicted in a 1,000 western novels and movies.

NEXT WEEK Part IV – The Indian Massacre & Return to Riggsville

Expedition to Riggsville - Part 2

2009-11-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Dicovering Thomas Riggs
By Freda Cruse Phillips

I joined Hinkle and Mister Decker at the top of the dam; the rock work was incredible. I knew there would be a date, somewhere. I looked for what my great grandpa had shown me on fences and walls; there it was, 1862 and then 1892. Did work on the dam come to a halt in 1862 when the Civil War (1861-1865) broke out and the slaves escaped to Union territories, or was it completed that year? Did the dam serve as a water and grist mill for 30 years and then another 30 years later in 1892 become part of the legal government still that was allowed until 1905? Mister Decker didn’t know the answers, only, this is Martin Holler and the still was government bonded by the Martin family. Riggsville, the first settlement of Mountain View, 1819, was situated at the base of the mountain near the spring (present day location on South Bayou Drive, up the valley towards Cooper Point and Star Gap Road, about 3 miles from the court house on private land).
How we come to know our history is as much a journey as the history was in its being lived. These lands were settled by frontiersmen who boldly challenged the Native Americans at the encouragement of the U.S. government. Prior to 1803, it had belonged to France. A time when persons traveling more than 20 miles from their declared home place had to apply from France for a passport, thus the term, “You can’t get there without a passport,” wasn’t about the terrain, but rather the distance you were traveling, at least 20 miles. If you were a traveler that had a passport, you were “from off” meaning a distance of greater than 20 miles. In the early 1800’s this county didn’t exist, it was part of the newly established Arkansaw Territories. Jacob Wolf was appointed the first representative of the new territories in 1819.
In 1822, a young Thomas Augustus Riggs, 20, married Rhoda Casey, 18, in Marion County, Alabama. It is recorded that their son William Carrell was born October 30th, 1822. Thomas Riggs was a hardworking earnest young man who had returned from a trip into the regions west of the Mississippi along the White River near Polk Bayou (present day Batesville); where he lay claim to land for he and his new bride, two days west at the base of a big spring. He reported “use of a new ferry at Polk Bayou to cross the river then traveled two days to reach lands that were abundant with wild life, including turkeys, deer and ‘injuns’.”
The ferry at Polk Bayou was established in 1819, which places Riggs in the area around 1819 but certainly before his marriage and the birth of his son in 1822. The land on the south side of the White River was the eastern boundary of the Cherokee Reservation.“The U.S. government has just moved the Osage (who had lived here for over a 1,000 years) west to Oklahoma and allowed the Cherokee to move to the Arkansaw;” thus creating the Cherokee Indian reservation which included present day Stone County from 1817-1828. The new government of the Arkansaw Territories General Assembly met for the first time in 1820. Although land west of the White River was encouraged for settlement land transactions could not be recorded until 1836 when Arkansas became a state. It is recorded that Thomas Augustus Wolf in April 1824, recorded the settlement of land in 1819 that was later sectioned by description near two springs, to be that both of the settlement of Riggsville and near present day Blanchard Springs; ‘having been working and improving the hostile environment,’ 1824 is when he appears to have made his second trip bringing with him slaves to work the land in his absence. Deputy Surveyor Charles H Pelham began the surveys of Riggsville in 1829 with recordings entered in December 1836, following statehood. The area around Blanchard was not surveyed until 1844 and is recorded as homesteaded by Isaac Teague. Most of the homesteaded land in present day Stone County was not officially recorded until 1855-1862 due to the conflicts rising between the North and the South and the need to establish ownership. Upon the Jan 1, 1863 Act by Lincoln freeing the slaves in the midst of the Civil War, freed slaves were entitled to 80 acres and a mule.
The decision to improve and make a settlement at Riggsville likely lay in the fact that it was less of a trek to the river than Blanchard. One of the earliest maps located shows Syllamo (Allison), Buckhorn (St.James), Riggsville (Mtn View/South Bayou Drive), Richwoods (Mtn View/Dodd Mountain) and Table Rock (City Rock Bluff on Culp Road near Calico Rock). Thus the path of least resistance to the river was likely the deciding factor for the location of Riggsville since both Riggsville and Blanchard Springs continue to have plenty of water for a town.
The recorded births of Riggs children support extended absences which coincide with his being in the Riggsville area. Thomas and Rhody had William, 1822, a girl child, 1824 (d 1825), John, 1825, Brannick, 1828, as reported on the 1830 Free White Persons Census in Pickens, Alabama. Barney born 1831 and Thomas 1832 were also born in Marion County, Alabama.Mr. Riggs then moved his family to Mississippi (statehood 1817), which provided him less travel distance between the new settlement and his family, Riggsville not yet safe for his young family as Arkansas was engaged in the Indian Wars. Rhoda had James, 1835 and Margarett, 1836 in Mississippi. She and the children arrived in Riggsville, sometime prior to 1839 as the 1840 census records Martha’s birth as 1839 in Riggsville. By the 1850 Population and Slave Census, Thomas Riggs reported his occupation as a farmer with real estate around $1,000 and a holding of nine slaves (a single ‘young buck’ was valued at approximately $600). He and Rhoda had had two additional children born in Riggsville, Rhoda in 1841 and Charles in 1846. Thomas and Rhody’s oldest son, William, now 27, had married Nayoma Flannery born in 1830 at Syllamo, Arkansas.
NEXT WEEK: Part III Old Military Road

"Civil War in Izard County" by Roger Harvell

2009-11-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

Following is the video of Part 1 of Roger Harvell's presentation during the Izard County Historical & Genealogical Society's Fall meeting at Lunenburg's newly remodeled Community Center. The event occurred this past Sunday, October 8th, 2009.

The town of Riggsville played a significant part of Colonel Elisha Baxter's Campaign in Early 1864.

Links to the rest of the presentation are located at bottom of post.

Enjoy!

View the rest!

Part2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7

Expedition to Riggsville - Part 1

2009-11-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

Following is Part1 of the article covering Freda's trip to Old Riggsville with Richard Decker. The excursion took place in August and the coverage will be published as a series over the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

By Freda Cruse Phillips

I have heard the stories for years about the government bonded whiskey still (1888-1905) in Martin (Still) Holler; stories about drunken pigs and revenuers, in Riggsville, our first settlement. Riggsville had a water mill, tanning yard, blacksmith shop, general store and at least two churches, both Flatwoods and the Methodist Church were started at Riggsville. It was the major trading area for citizens before and during the Civil War and had more slaves than it did white folks. Mister Richard Decker lived in the area as a young boy, now almost 92, his stories of life, lived by his parents and grand parent’s, lead me to state and county records, historical archives of marriages, births, deaths, land transactions and census. I learned there was a time you paid for the right to vote with a poll tax, women couldn’t vote and slaves were listed along with cattle, hogs and real estate as personal wealth. I have researched enough records that I am confident of what I have written. However, I am not a historian, but rather a folklorist, a cultural historian at best. The story of Riggsville will be unfolded over the next few weeks as I begin “Places of Our People.”
Part I - Finding Riggsville: It was an unusually cool August morning when I picked up Richard Decker for our trip out to Riggsville. I knew there would be ticks and chiggers, but I didn’t anticipate the downed trees we’d have to climb over and under, the boulders and the rocks, the terrain that challenged me, much less, Richard Decker, about to turn 92, without a doubt the oldest man in Stone County to visit the oldest remains of our beginnings as a town perhaps 50 years before there was Mountain View, before we were a county; there was the settlement of Riggsville. We drove out to his nephew Hinkle Decker’s, who was joining us. He and Danny Thomas, had rode out a couple days before, Hinkle on his horse and Danny on his mule, in an unsuccessful effort to locate the Riggsville dam. We went through a couple gates and breaks in the fence, crossed some deep ditches and over fields, the unmarked path, clear in Mister Decker’s mind as he pointed the way.
At the far end of the property where the fields gave way to the break of the mountain we parked and climbed over a fence then walked along the uneven and rocky creek bed. The ice storm earlier this year had left a tremendous amount of felled trees which impeded Hinkle and me from realizing that we were at the base of ‘old military road’. But not Mister Decker, as Hinkle and I would wander off towards the bigger creek bed, he would boom out, “I don’t know where you two think you’re going, it’s this way.” Climbing over and under trees, holding back branches and vines, on all fours I saw a foundation. “Mister Decker, this is a foundation. What was here?” You could see the smile come over his face, the delight in returning to a place that he knew as a young man. “This is where the spring house was at, the mill. The flume, you see, came down the creek from the dam, to here,” he said, pointing to the huge hand hewn rocks that clearly served as a foundation for the building that had once been the mill for the town of Riggsville. “And here, this was the still,” he said. “As a boy, I’d come up here digging around, finding the old whiskey bottles and then trade them to the other boys, Buster (Decker) you know, for things I wanted. This was a building here; I’m not sure what it was. The houses were over there, along the base of the mountain, above the high water line,” he said, pointing back to a knoll in the field. Standing where we were at, it was clear that we had driven over what had once been the residential area of the settlement of Riggsville just along the tree line above the high water mark of a flood; a rock wall that lined both sides of the road leading up to the town, virtually intact, still clearly visible.
I could see Riggsville, the horses that would ride up the road, children playing, fields being worked, women, children and slaves, young men building homes and businesses, parties in the tavern and worship in the churches. It was there as clear in my vision as it was in Mister Decker’s memory, stories his parents and grand parents, lived.
Walking along the creek bed, I could see the boulders that were un-naturally out of place, symmetrically lining the edge of the creek, where the flume had traversed the water way from the dam to the mill. Was it the sweat of the brow of slaves, men, white and black working together, who had moved these monstrous boulders into place, 10-15 feet apart along the bed of the creek, foundation supports for the flume that ran from the dam to the spring house, the mill, later the whiskey still? As I crested the high point of the west bank of the creek, I saw it. There it was; the Riggsville Dam, crossing from one side of the creek to the other, approximately 50 feet wide, 10 ft tall, almost no damage. I yelled out that I could see it. “I told you it was just over here,” I could hear Mister Decker saying to himself. I watched from the creek bed, as he made his way off the hillside to the top of the dam. I was honored, silenced, in the presence of this man returning to this place. I watched as he walked out onto the top of the dam. Hinkle helped him sit, his feet dangling over the side, he was that kid that use to come here fishing, looking for whiskey bottles, with his buddies or his girl. Hinkle and I, we both felt it. The sound of the water spilling over the top of the dam in harmony with the chirping birds, reminders of people who heard these sounds, inhabited this valley nearly 200 years ago silencing us.
NEXT WEEK Part II – Discovering Thomas Riggs

Video: Magical History Tour - Part 1

2009-11-01T06:45:00.001-08:00

Following is part 1 of the video covering Exploring Izard County's recent "Magical History Tour"!

Enjoy!

Watch Part Two by clicking here!

You can view lots more videos of the Izard County area by clicking here!

Videos: Tri-County Traverse, Izard-Stone County Traverse!

2009-10-05T06:06:00.000-07:00

As the administrators of Exploring Stone County brainstorm about how the blog will develop, we offer readers these two videos from Exploring Izard County.

Enjoy!

Riggsville & Ruddell

2009-09-03T21:58:00.000-07:00

I spent yesterday morning with 92 year old Richard Decker of Mountain View, exploring the remains of the first settlement of the Mountain View area, known as Riggsville. I then spent the afternoon with Alvin Pitts late 80's, exploring Ruddells (south of Sylamore). I am looking for any information that people may have to contribute related to W.O. Bill Dillard from Calico Rock who owned a large number of slaves from at least 1830 to pre Civil War, 1860. Including Julius Ceasar Dillard who may have attempted to claim to be Choctaw as he was a mulatto and possible son of a white man; Richard Gravely was born at Riggsville, owned by Thomas Riggs, who was perhaps his father, who sold him at 3 or 4 to Bill Dillard. He later served in the Civil War Colored Troops and settled in Batesville. Will Harper was a preacher at Ruddells and his wife Julie is buried there, died in 1903. He was known to preach to whites and blacks, seating the whites in the back of the church. Thomas Riggs was recorded to have 13 slaves in 1840 census that included Riggsville. Please contact me at fredacruse@yahoo.com

Under Construction

2009-08-30T16:23:00.000-07:00

If you love the Arkansas Ozarks and it's picturesque White River Valley, you'll want to bookmark this page! We intend to build a site that covers the history and natural beauty of Stone County to share with the world.

We'll begin publishing articles, posts, and photos in the near future and hope you will encourage our efforts by adding us to your list of blogs to follow!

Jones Bottom

2008-12-04T14:21:00.000-08:00

A drive across the river from Guion and along White River's Jones Bottom resulted in some interesting photos, most notably the 1944 Mountain View Herald edition with the shocking headline story as well as the Tuberculosis screening announcement.

(Re-Posted from Exploring Izard County