Random Recollections Monticello and Drew County During the 30 Years From 1872 to 1902, by L. H. Published Dec. 27, 1934 In the installment captioned "The Beginning of things," I quoted liberally from Dallas Herndon's "Centennial History of Arkansas" in which he located Drew county's first post office at the store of Carney O'Neal "three miles west of where Monticello now stands, at a place called Montongo." This would be on the Wilmar road somewhere in the neighborhood of the old J. H. Manees, Fountain Stanley, and Capt. Rice homesteads, whereas the Montongo I knew and still know is located about seven or eight miles up the Ridge toward Lincoln county, and northwest by north of Monticello. It was for many years the home and headquarters of the Cavaness family, whose capable head was known over a wide territory for his business ability and personal integrity. There was a Methodist campground nearby, a roomy church in the forks of the road, and a cold spring down in the little valley. Mr. Cavaness conducted a general store at Montongo and had extensive real estate and business interests elsewhere. The land about Cornish Landing, on the Saline river, belonged to him, and in my boyhood there were still half a dozen cottages standing on each side of the landing past the Cavaness warehouse to the river. Timbers of an old barge that had come to grief in the river years before were still to be seen at low-water stages, and inside the warehouse, near the rear, was an empty barrel in which some one had placed the skeleton head of an alligator gar. It came from a monster fish, and the nose bones of the skeleton protruded well above the upper chines of the barrel. The last time I remember seeing this old warehouse and the vacant cottages along the Monticello-Warren highway was about 1887. There was to be a fish-fry at Cornish Landing, which was a popular "watering place" in those days, and Jim Williams and I "footed it" from Monticello to the river (13 miles) the night before. We carried our lunches in paper bags, intending to catch a lot of fish when we got to the river, eat breakfast, have a swim and await arrival of the fish-fry party next morning. Arriving at the ruins of the Cap. Strong mill between Barkada and the river about one or two o'clock in the morning, we decided to have a brief nap in the weather-stained pile of sawdust beside the road. We slept until nearly daylight, and awoke to find our breakfast gone. Some hogs had visited us during our nap and dined on the contents of our paper bags. So we were ravenously hungry when the fish-party arrived about ten o'clock in the morning. The fish declined to bite when we got to the river, but we had our swim. Mr. Cavaness' eldest son, Joe, was in business at Cornerville, Lincoln county, for several years, moving from there, I think, to Texas. The other children were Sallie, Effie, and Virgie, and two boys, Andrew and Garvin. The last time I saw the Cavaness store at Montongo it had been closed and its outside walls were plastered with circus advertisements - Clark's circus, I believe. Mr. Cavaness was killed by a train at the old union station in Little Rock. Mr. Herndon relates that the first county court met in the house of Alexander Rawles, but he does not give the location. What a pity! Several subsequent sessions were held in the Rodgers (Rogers?) school house, he says, and again fails to give the location. Perhaps it was the Hugh Rodgers (Rogers?) school of which I heard a great deal in my youth, but never saw even the building in which the school was conducted. I am on familiar ground, however, when Mr. Herndon brings his narrative down to Rough and Ready and on into Monticello. One of my earliest recollections hovers about a two-story frame building standing weather-worn and forlorn in a grove of magnificent oaks on the top of the hill almost due east across the highway from the old Pete Sain homestead, which stood on ground now occupied by the home of E. H. Dozier. Even at this late date (1877 or 1878) the empty building was known as "the old court house," and it continued to be so known until it was razed years afterwards. I naturally assumed that the old building had been erected by the county as its court house, but I judge from Mr. Herndon's statement that it must have been a residence generously donated by its owner for court purposes. Nevertheless, I was told many times that Monticello was "moved from Rough and Ready," which would indicate that the town stood originally on the top of Rough and Ready Hill. The fact that there were numbers of homes close by, apparently built along regularly-platted streets, is further proof that Rough and Ready was once the actual county seat. Three of these homes I remember as belonging to Mrs. Barbara Wells, mother of James K. P. and Roll Dan Wells; "Grandpa" Bennett, father of R. C. (Bob), John, and Frank Bennett, and a Mr. Crane. Down in the valley skirted by the Hamburg (Lone Prairie) road on the east and on the west by the road to the Judge Billy Wells plantation was an old tan year and distillery, remains of which were still to be seen when I was a boy. The ground all about a tumble-down frame building was thickly carpeted with decayed and decaying tan-bark, and there were many vats - resembling open graves lined with planking - where hides were formerly soaked in the process of tanning. There was also a big copper retort and a copper worm, relics of the distillery. A company of Confederate soldiers camped there one winter during the Civil War, and one of them (F. M. Rosenburg) whom I met years afterwards in Pine Bluff, spoke of both tanyard and distillery. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/