This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AW.2ADE/821.1 Message Board Post: Hello Martha, This may not help but the Belle Point which is most popular in our Arkansas History was located on a hill overlooking the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau River in northwest Arkansas, founded in 1817 to ease tensions between the Osage and Cherokee tribes. On Christmas Day 1817, Major William Bradford arrived at Belle Point and established Fort Smith. The area had already been settled by white men. It was later the site of the first Fort Smith, Arkansas. The Fort was closed in 1824, and intermittently occupied through the 1830's. The Belle Point is a very historic place now located in Sebastian Co., AR. There is an old historic cemetery there,consisting of 21 acres with almost 10,000 graves, among them Judge Isaac Parker "The Hanging Judge" and "Darby's Rangers" founder William O. Darby. Best regards, Gary Telford Family Roots Woodruff County Monitor McCrory, AR 72101