>Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 10:57:36 -0700 >To: jbass@digital.net >From: sam kelly <imsamtoo@yahoo.com> > >Source: ROBINSON-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [ROBINSON] Lawrence Co ARK early settlers > >Part Three Lawrence County Historical Society Quarterly >Winter 1978 Volume 1 Number 1 > >Early Days in Lawrence County >W.E. McLeod > > (Reprinted from Arkansas Historical Quarterly by permission of the > author's daughter, Mrs. Ray >Cunningham, Imboden.) >In the region defined in the beginning of this narrative there were four >areas of settlement called >after the rivers in the valleys of which they were located: The >"settlement of Fourche de Thomas," >centering in the town of Columbia; the "Settlement of Spring River," >centering in the town of Lawrence (later Davidsonville); the "Settlement >of Strawberry," centering about the mouths of Reed's Creek and Big Creek; >the "Settlement of White River, " centering about the mouth of Polk Bayou, >later Batesville. They are mentioned by those names in the first records >of the county in 1815. Into all these settlements, settlers poured from >1811 to 1815. The names of only a few of >them may be given. > Into the settlement of Fourche de Thomas came the Russells, Harrises, > LINDSEYS, Fletchers, Jarretts, Sweezes, Hoovers, McDonalds, Robinsons, > Borans, Daltons, Forters and Pitmans A group of these settlers located at > and near the place where the Military road crossed the Fourche de Thomas > river, and made the town of Columbia. >The Fletchers, LINDSEYS and Hoovers were there, and there were enough >others for the place to >be called the town of Columbia in the first records of the county in 1815. >In that year it was the rival of the town of Iawrence for the county seat >site. In 1819 it had a post office with R. P. Pitman as postmaster. >Somewhere there Caleb LINDSEY taught a school to which he invited all >children free of tuition. It was probably the first free school in >Arkansas. John Young LINDSEY was a Baptist preacher there. It is related >of him that he would preach for two or three hours at a time and then >invite his congregation home with him for dinner. He later moved to >Saline county, where he is said to have built his own church house and >maintained his own church. >John Gould Fletcher, who lived and died and was buried there in the old >LINDSEY graveyard, in 1825, was the successor of the Pulaski county Fletchers. > > Columbia flourished until after Pocahontas was established in 1835. It > was a station for the stage coaches which are said to have operated at > one time over the Military road. Not many persons now know that there > ever was such a town. > > The beginnings of the settlement of Spring River and the town of > Davidsville have already been mentioned. Many settlers located there in > the period of 1811-1815 and a little later. Among them may be mentioned > John T. Miller, John Davidson, Martin Armstrong, C. T. Stuart, Robert > Smith, Joseph Hardin, Jr., Richard Searcy, Jansen, Staple and Stephen > Chamberlain, John Lewis, Sr., and John Lewis, Jr., Jacob Jarrett, James > Taylor, Polly Taylor, Benjamin Porter, William Cox and >Mr. Maxwell. William Looney, David Black, the Stubblefields, Vandergrifts >and Holderbys lived along >Eleven Point river and were part of the Spring river settlement. Solomon >Hewitt was living in 1815 on the north bank of Spring river about two >miles above the mouth of Eleven Point river, and just across the river >from him Nevil Wayland, Mose Robertson and a Cravens lived. >A mile down the river from Imboden, James Campbell settled in 1812. >Richard Murphy lived in 1815 at the place later known as the McKamey farm >between Imboden and Ravenden. In the vicinity of the present town of >Ravenden several settlers, among whom were Sloans, Bennetts and Wellses, >were living in the period 1815-1820. >In the same period, on Spring river near the present town of Willford, >lived William Gray, William Willford, Stephen English, William Morgan, >Robert J. Moore, Joseph Kelley, John Walker, Samuel >Beastly and L. D. Dale. B. Ferguson Booth and John Garner lived at the >head of Martins Creek. It has not been possible to learn the exact date >when these pioneers located, but they were of the first settlers to that >part of the country. They belonged at first to the settlement of Spring >River though they were several miles from its center at Davidsonville. > > In the settlement of Strawberry there were a goodly number of settlers > immediately after 1815. William Taylor, Samuel Rayney and Jacob > Fortenberry came with their families on pack horses from southeast > Missouri and settled on Strawberry. Cooper's Creek and Reed's Creek, in > 1816. About the same time the Finleys, Childerses, Gibsons, Hillhouses. > Davises, D. Richie, George Bradley, James Allen, Napoleon Ferguson, > Archibald Hodges and John B. Maxwell located in the Valley. They were in > what is now Lawrence and Sharpie counties. > > As previously stated, this settlement of Strawberry centered about the > mouth of Reed's Creek and Big Creek. On Reed's Creek John and Jacob > Hardin, John Milligan and Mr. Mobly lived. John Milligan was a > Presbyterian minister of considerable note. He organized the Milligan > Camp Ground congregation of Cumberland Presbyterians in 1825, which is > said to have been the first organization of that denomination in the > state. In this settlement near the present village of Jesup, Eli > LINDSEY, a Methodist preacher, is said to have lived. He is famous as the > organizer of the Spring River Circuit of Methodists, the first in > Arkansas, in 1815. He was a cousin of the previously-mentioned Baptist > preacher, John Young LINDSEY. Eli LINDSEY was a rather noted character. >Several good stories about him are told. > >Schoolcraft, German traveler and explorer, in giving an account of his >journey across the country from Polk Bayou to Potosi, Missouri, in 1819, >states that he traveled thirty miles northeast from Polk Bayou and came to >the south fork (Big Creek) of Strawberry river, along the margin of which >were scattered about fifteen houses. including a grist mill, a whiskey >distillery, a blacksmith shop and a hotel, and that he was told that there >was mineral in the vicinity. He gave no name of the village. His >description of it fits the place where the branch of the old Military Road >crossed Big Creek near Calamine. It was as large a village as Batesville >was at the time, but, strange to say, no memory or tradition of it has >come down to the present. At the place where it is supposed to have been >some metal pieces of machinery have been found. Big Creek or Schoolcraft >would be a suitable name for >the lost village. > > A few very early settlers in the Settlement of White River have been > mentioned. Others in the years 1815-1820 were Jonathan Magness in 1812, > and Samuel Miller in 1815, both on Miller Creek, which was named for the > latter; Robert Bean and James Meacham at the mouth of Polk Bayou in 1814; > Abraham Ruddell near Polk Bayou in 1816; and James Trimble at Sulphur > Rock in 181'7. Colonel Hartsell, Boswell, John Ringold, Henry Engles, > Joseph Hardin, Sr., John Redmond, Robert Bruce, Charles Pelham, John > Morgan and Fenton Noland located at Batesville by or before 1820. >James F. Moore and John C. Lutteg were justices of the peace for the >Settlement of White River in 1815 and Lutteg was a justice of the peace >for it in 1814, while it was part of New Madrid county in Missouri Territory. > > Josiah E. Shinn, in his School History of Arkansas, states that a > settlement of fifteen Kentucky families was made at Greenbrier, across > the river from Batesville, in 1814, and that in 1815 it increased to > nineteen families. It is believed that Benjamin and Joab Hardin of the > noted Kentucky-Arkansas pioneer Hardins were of those Kentucky settlers > at Greenbrier. Joab Hardin is known to have been settled on White river > about five miles above Batesville in 1816. It was from there he went in > 1820 to represent Lawrence county in the first territorial legislature. >The exact site of the Greenbrier settlement is lost and forgotten, but it >was probably somewhere on >Greenbrier Creek that runs into White River a few miles above >Batesville. The settlement was as large as Batesville was at that time. >Colonel William Stuart, James M. Kuykendall and others settled in Flat >Creek valley three miles west of Powhatan in 1816. > > In the foregoing pages a brief account of the early settlers and > settlements in the region define in the beginning of this narrative has > been given up to 1820. All this time it was under the same control as > Missouri. From 1815 it was part of New Madrid county in Missouri > Territory. The only officers in it then were Martin Armstrong, living > near the mouth of Spring River, and John C. Lutteg, living somewhere in > the vicinity of Batesville, justices of the peace for the Settlement of > White River. > > On January 5,1815, the legislature of the Territory of Missouri passed > the act creating Lawrence county from the southern part of New Madrid > county In that territory. For the next four years it was Lawrence county > in Missouri Territory. During that time it was under the jurisdiction of > Governor William Clark of Missouri Territory, and his first action > pertaining to the government of the county was the appointment, in > January,1815, of two justices of the peace for each of the four > settlements of the county. The justices appointed were as follows: > Richard Murphy and Perry G. Magness for the Settlement of Spring River; > William Russell and William Harris for the Settlement of Fourche de Thomas; > > On to Early Day - Part Four Back to the Lawrence County Historical > Quarterly Index Page > >pama,Sam >===== >AiSv Nv Wa Do Hi Ya Do--Cherokee for Walk in Peace > >__________________________________________________ Josephine Lindsay Bass Confederate Southern American 216 Beach Park Lane Cape Canaveral, FL 32920 321-868-1771 My Southern Family, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mysouthernfamily/ Harrison Repository, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~harrisonrep/harintro.htm