The following article was written by Green Beauchamp and published in the May 23, 1873 edition of The Eufaula Times: Rev. Joseph Harley was the first man that ever preached the gospel in this country. He was a Methodist. We wish we could give some further account of one whose voice was heard 'crying in the wilderness," but we have been unable to obtain any further account of one whose voice was heard "crying in the wilderness," but we have been unable to obtain any further information. Perhaps some reader may yet furnish it. The first was on the Attabbee, on the old Columbia road, near where Mr. Thomas Robinson now lives. Mr. John Bartley is said to have been the first man who ever taught a school in the country. We make these statements, in respect to Mr. Harley, and Mr. Bartley upon the information of Mr. Green Beauchamp and Mr. John Whitehurst. The latter was eighty years old on the 10th of March last. He emigrated from Twiggs County, Georgia, and settled on the 6th of January 1819. There was then a block house on the west side of the river, erected there by Jackson's army, and the settlement was known as the block house settlement. The block house stood for many years after Samuel Walden and Pillitier Whitehurst, brother of John, came together, and they were for some time the only people in that part of the county, except one Ellison, who preceded them but a few days. There was a sunken flat in the river, which had been used by Jackson's army in crossing to or from Pensacola. This flat Ellison had already raised, when the Whitehursts and Walden arrived, and it was used for many years after in crossing the river. Ellison remained in the country only about a year. In 1826 the people undertook to cut a road from about where Mr. Matthew Fenn now lives to Eufaula. About three hundred men black and white got together for the purpose. John Purifoy, who married a sister of Hon. Judge S. Williams, was the overseer. Luke Bennett's son, Ryan, a well known and highly respected citizen now living among us, was of the party, although not then old enough to be liable to road duty. Allen V. Robinson, who has taught three generations of us, "how to dance," and who can do it yet about as well as ever, was also with this company of engineers. They worked along merrily and without interruption, cutting what is now the road from Eufaula to Clayton, till they got to Barbour Creek. It was called the Baba then, which was seven years before the county got its name; but as we stated heretofore, that was an abbreviation of the Indian name, Faukababa, meaning grape vine creek. The working party struck the creek about fifty yards below where the upper bridge now stands. They dug down the bank on the other side and some blacks, and a few whites crossed over; among the latter, Noah A. Tyson and Peleg Green. They had barely got across when suddenly a frightful yell arose on this side of the creek. That yell, or war whoop some say it was, came from more than a thousand hostile Indians hitherto concealed in the level pine woods, where Rev. Mr. Reeves plantation now is. Those who had crossed over evidently thought it was the latter kind of vocal exercise on the part of the aborigines, for it is said they promptly made good time in placing themselves on the Clayton side of Faukababa. Peleg boiled out of the creek gesticulating wildly, and rushing up the bank, undertook an explanation to the astonished pioneers. But Peleg was a stutterer; and on this occasion he is said to have excelled himself in that sort of elocution. His gestures were highly animated and expressive, but as to articulation, he seemed unable to do justice to the subject, and, after five or six most energetic efforts, he just gave up and made no spoken remarks at all. Some of the whites, however, desiring to see as well as hear, crossed over and found the piney woods swarming with highly excited Indians, armed with guns and tommyhawks. They were yelling, jumping the logs, and capering about in a very unpleasant manner altogether. It seemed impossible to prevent their attacking some blacks of our party who, somehow hemmed up on this side, had their axes drawn to defend themselves. Suddenly however a chief spoke and the Indians subsided in an instant and were as mute as mice. The Linkster (Indian interpreters) then came forward from their party and said that John Winslett (a white man who lived among them near the Uchee creek) had told them that we were going to cut that road to their Eufaula town, that we must come no further unless we could show an order form the Great Father at Washington city. That order the whites could not produce; and, as they had neither guns not tommyhawks about them, and had come out not to fight but to work the roads, they concluded to withdraw. So, after one bold fellow on our side, a man named Martin Johnson, had mounted a log and indulged himself in some protracted and stentorian profanity in respect to the President, mankind in general, and Indians in particular, the whites picked up their tools and retired in disgust, expressing on their way home, no very complimentary opinions of either the enterprise or the sociability of the then inhabitants of this fair city. Soon after this a lieutenant from Fort Mitchell, where was then a garrison of the United States troops, came down and had a talk with these Eufaulians-told them the road would benefit instead of injuring them, bringing goods into their country, etc. The Indians became reconciled. Their hostility was changed to co-operation, and they joined the white party when it returned to work, helped them fix the ford on the Baba and cut the road into Eufaula town. ========================================================= Richard Price SOS 6-3