Early Days in Lawrence County

W.E. McLeod

(Reprinted from Arkansas Historical Quarterly by  permission of the author's daughter, Mrs. Ray  Cunningham, Imboden.)

The French settlers, excepting Lewis DeMunn, Peter LeMew and Elijah Vincen. (Fr. Vincent), made but little impression on the country. Their part was to lead the way. With the exceptions just mentioned, all the others seem to have disappeared by 1820, as mysteriously as they had come. After that date we hear no more of them.

Before 1811 there were, so far as known; only a few settlers other than the French settlers already mentioned, in the region defined in the beginning of this  narrative. Tradition that seems reliable says that a family of Crabtree came from North Carolina down through the region later Missouri Territory over the old Southwest Trail and settled at or near the place later known as Lawrence and Davidsonville soon after 1800, and was the first settlement there by Americans. Others soon followed, until by 1804 a considerable settlement was there.  Whether all this be true or not, the settlement was there some years before 1815, when Lawrence county was formed. As before stated, it is believed that the French were the first settlers there, as early at least as 1800, when other Frenchmen are known to have settled at other places along Black river.

The valley of the Fourche de Thomas (also de Maux and Dumas), a small river in eastern Randolph county, is a place of very early settlement of the original Lawrence county. As already suggested, it was first settled and named by the French, but, so far as known, they made no settlement there, but they probably did so. Tradition has named only a few of the first settlers, who it seems were there about 1800.

Mr. W. H. Jarrett, an intelligent old man of 94 years, now living in Little Rock, insists that his grandfather, William Jarrett, came to that part of the country in 1800 and located on land he bought from one Richard Fletcher in 1801.  The location was near where the Military Road crossed the Fourche de Thomas and where the town of Columbia was situated as early as 1815, when it was mentioned in the first records of the county. Part of the land is still in possession of Joseph Jarrett, grandson of the original owner. But little has been learned of Richard Fletcher, except that he was born about 1735 and was a soldier of the Revolutionary War. An effort is being made to learn more about him.

The William Jarrett involved in this story was for many years a doctor at Columbia and at one time was postmaster of the postoffice there called Fourche de Thomas.  The settlement came into the light of recorded history about 1815, and the names of more of its settlers became known. More will be said about it later on in this narrative.

William Hix, Sr., was the earliest known settler on Current river, where he is said to have opened his ferry as early as 1803, when the National Road was opened to it. The Pitmans were also very early settlers on that river.

John Janes, a native of Virginia, settled on the creek that bears his name in what is now the western part of Randolph county, in 1809.  He built there the first grist mill (a horse-power) in the country. It is quite possible that there were several other settlers with him, though their names can not be stated. It is hardly probable that Janes was there alone and built a mill for his use only. It was usual for settlers to come in groups or companies and settle in the same part of the country, so they might be mutually helpful to one another. A little later, Welles, Davises and Bakers are 1mown to have been in that locality.

In the Strawberry river country, the first known settler was Nathaniel McCarroll, a native of Kentucky, who came to the country in 1808 and settled on Cooper's creek on the place now known as the Hillhouse farm. Ever since, his descendants have been numerous in the county, some of them quite prominent.  Other settlers soon followed, settling along Strawberry river and its tributaries. Some of the first were Thomas McKnight, the father of William Hudson, and Reuben Richardson, prior to 1812. Higher up the river, near Center, Nicholas Norris, William McKinley, John King and Robert Lott settled in I810.

French fur traders at an early date visited points along White river to trade with the Indians, but, so far as is known, made no settlement within the limits of the original Lawrence county. In Independence county, part of Lawrence until 1820, according to Josiah H. Shinn, in his Pioneers of Arkansas, B. F. McFarline proved his claim to a square mile of land on the south side of White river about a mile above the mouth of Polk Bayou, which he had occupied continuously after 1804, and also in 1819 Nicholas Trammel proved his claim to a square mile of land in Independence county which he had occupied continuously for ten years. He then sold the land to Morgan Magness, another very early settler in the original I.awrence county. Trammel used Charles Kelly to prove his claim, which marks him as one of the first settlers in that area.

According to good authority, the real settlement of the White river country began in 1810, when John Lafferty with the family left Tennessee and, floating down the Mississippi river and boating up White river to the mouth of Polk Creek (Polk Bayou), landed and lived for a short time and then moved up the river to the mouth of the creek which bears his name.  There he settled permanently on the south side of the river. He and his sons were prominent in the activities of that part of the country.

The first settlement at Batesville, at first called Poke Creek and Polk Bayou, is usually attributed to John Reed in 1810. The place was not called Batesville until 1820, after James Woodson Bates had settled there and Independence county was formed. The town was then named in his honor. Robert Bean was the original owner of the land on which the town was established. Roads are the precursors of civilization, and before going further into this narrative, it seems well to pay attention to the part they had in the early settlement of this region. The o1d road commonly called the Military Road was the most important factor in the early settlement of southeast Missouri and Arkansas, particularly the highlands of the northeast quarter of it. The route of the road was at first an old Indian trail running southeast from the Illinois country to Texas. Many a moccasined foot traveled it long before white men ever saw it. It was at first called the Southwest Trail. West of the Mississippi river it began at Set. Genevieve and ran a southwest course through southeast Missouri and central Arkansas to Monroe, Louisiana. After Congress made an appropriation for its improvement, soon after 1803, It was called the Congress or National road.  After it was used for the movement of military troops from the East to the West and Southwest, it was called the Military road.

The road entered Arkansas at Hix's Ferry, aptly called the "Northern Gateway" to Arkansas, and went in a southwest direction across Randolph county by the now extinct town of Jackson near the present town of Imboden. It crossed Eleven Point river at Black's Ferry, where it could  usually be forded, and Spring river at another shallow ford later known as the Miller ford; thence it passed in a southern direction across Lawrence and Independence counties by the places now known as Denton, Lynn, the Military crossing on Strawberry river, a little west of Saffell post office, by Walnut Grove and Sulphur Rock to its crossing on White river eight and a half miles below Batesville.

The road did not go, as some maps show it, by Fayetteville, though it was at first have been so located, because of the difficulty of crossing Spring river a short distance to the south. Neither did it go, as has been erroneously stated,  by Smithville and Batesville, but a lateral or branch of it did so. It was opened very early, before Batesville was established. It was probably one of the two roads ordered laid off by the first court of the county in 1815, "from the town of Lawrence in the direction of the Post of Arkansas to the line of Arkansas county." It crossed White river at Shield's Ferry, a few miles up the river from Batesville. It was an early mail route and much traveled by the early settlers, which has probably given rise to the error that it was part of the main road.

Another important road began at Wittsburg on the St. Francis river and went by Litchfield in Jackson county and Sulphur Rock and Batesville in Independence county. These roads were much traveled by incoming settlers for many years. The Military road in many places became so much work that it may still be traced where it has not been disturbed by cultivation, and stretches
of  it, here and there, are still in use. Over it passed thousands of immigrants, not only into this region but into lands far to the south. It might appropriately be called the Immigrants' road. One branch of the road extended from Jackson westward to North Fork, Fayetteville and Fort Smith.  It was used in the movement of the Indians to the West.

If that old road could speak, what a story of sadness it could tell of the Indians, who, reluctantly turning their faces away from their ancestral hunting grounds, treked their silent march to a country they knew not; and of the experiences of sturdy pioneers who, giving up their homes on the other side of the Mississippi, followed that old trail to the new land of hope.

With the opening of the Military road some time between 1803 and 1811, a great influx of immigration set in, which augmented the scattering settlements already made and made new ones.  These new settlers were mainly from Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia. They were, for the most part, desirable immigrants, not wealthy as a rule, but substantial good
people.

On to Early Day - Part Three

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