The Independence County Historical Society was organized in 1959 in Batesville, Arkansas.
Vol. I, No. 1 of the Independence County Historical Society Chronicle was published in October of 1959.  
Paul T. Wayland was the first president of the ICHS.

Regular membership dues are $25.00 annually.
Contributing membership dues are $50.00 annually.

Back issues of the Independence County Chronicle are available at $6.00 per issue; please add
$1.25 for postage.  Write to: 
	Kenny  Gerhardt, Treasurer
	ICHS
	P. O. Box 2722
	Batesville, AR  72503
Checks may be made payable to the Independence County Historical Society (ICHS).



A History 

of 
Independence County, Ark. 
By 
A. C. McGinnis 

Batesville, Arkansas 

1976 






INTRODUCTION 

A commitment to undertake the writing of Independence County history in brief form was 
made to the County Bicentennial Committee late in 1975 as a Bicentennial project and 
because there had been a request from many sources for a general outline of the county's 
development from early days.  The last attempt to present a narrative of local history in 
one booklet was "A History of Batesville" published by the senior class of Batesville High 
School in 1919. This useful publication of thirty-eight pages, edited by Willie Sensabaugh, 
Homer Whitener, Homer Lindsey, Lewis Gardner, Mary Parsons, Lorraine Hardister, 
Thelma Creager, and Carter Campbell under direction of J. R. Bullington, a teacher, and 
dedicated to Mrs. Mary A. Neill, Mrs. Susan Alexander, Theodore Maxfield, and 
Col. V. Y. Cook, has long ago become practically unobtainable, although it was reprinted.    
 A History of Batesville, 1919


The task of writing even a short history of the 156 years since the county was created in 
1820 has been no easy matter and problems have been presented.  What were the really 
significant events which have affected the generations of people who have lived in 
Independence County?   A more difficult question is who were the men and women most 
responsible in shaping the course of the county's history? People made the history and 
it is disturbing that more is not known and more could not be included in these brief 
pages concerning the county's families in all periods.   It is hoped that a larger volume 
of wider scope, now beyond the resources at hand, may someday be undertaken which 
will include all communities, describe in great detail the steps and setbacks of the past, 
chronicle the professions, businesses and institutions, and above all, record more of the 
families than has been possible here.  In the writer's view, Independence County is seldom 
duplicated among the counties of Arkansas in depth of historical wealth.

This history is made possible by the membership of the Independence County Historical 
Society; without this support it could not have been published.  To our present president, 
Leo Rainey, and our president-elect, W. M. Harkey, and to all members, scattered in many 
states and including those who have never seen Batesville, Salado Creek, Oil Trough, or 
other places in the county, a word of appreciation is expressed.

In the following pages, credit has been given to numerous individuals quoted as sources 
of information and writings. John P. Morrow, Wilson Powell, and Malcolm Moore of Batesville; 
Robert Stroud and Betty Stroud of Desha; and Duane Huddleston of North Little Rock have 
been generous in sharing priceless resource materials. Without their encouragement and 
patience, the effort would not have been completed.   C. W. "Tark" Maxfield has taken time 
from his business, the C. W. Maxfield Company, on numerous occasions to share his 
knowledge of Batesville and its people, for which gratitude is expressed.  Probably fifty 
residents of Batesville and Independence County have been interviewed for information 
for this number.  The cover was designed by Craig Ogilvie, a commercial artist, writer, 
former editor of the Batesville Guard, and a past president of the Society, who has given 
the Chronicle valuable help over a long period.   And without the help of my wife, Marian 
McGinnis, the whole idea would have perished long ago.

This number will be printed in 1000 copies; 619 will be sent to Society members and the 
others will be offered for sale.

Batesville, Arkansas 
A. C. McGinnis
April 1, 1976

THE 
INDEPENDENCE COUNTY 
CHRONICLE 
VOLUME XVII APRIL 1976 NUMBER 3
CONTENTS 
BEFORE 1820
THE COUNTY IS FORMED
FROM THE WAVERLY TO THE WAR
THE CIVIL WAR
BROOKS-BAXTER TO Y. V. COOK RIFLES
LOCKS and DAMS TO THE RIVER BRIDGE
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
KING COTTON DEPARTS
THE POPULATION OF INDEPENDENCE COUNTY
THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES IN INDEPENDENCE COUNTY
THE INDEPENDENCE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY



BEFORE 1820



Independence County, Arkansas, was created by the Arkansas Territorial Legislature 
meeting at Arkansas Post, then the capitol of the Territory, October 20, 1820. The post 
office at Batesville was opened the following November 7.   These two events, of course, 
mean that there was some activity by white men on the scene before the creation of the 
county and Poke Creek post office and the history of the county should include some 
information of years before 1820.

The history of Arkansas as far as the white man is concerned begins with the crossing 
of the Mississippi River by the Spanish explorer, Hernando De Soto, and his expedition 
of about 400 men in the year 1541. De Soto spent about ten months in aimless wandering 
over what is now Arkansas in search of gold and silver, neither of which, so far as known 
records show, was found. The route of De Soto is not altogether clear; most historians 
believe he crossed the Mississippi in the vicinity of Helena, and various claims have 
been made that his search for treasure led him into Southeast Missouri, Northwest 
Arkansas, and other places in the unexplored land populated only by Indians. It is, of 
course, possible that De Soto or some of his men may have come into what is now 
Independence County and if so, they were the first white men to set foot on the land; 
however; no clear evidence has been offered to verify as historical fact that the party 
came here.

De Soto lost his life, a victim of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi, according 
to history, and his expedition was fruitless.   His government made no effort to claim 
the territory as a result of his explorations, and the next white men to come to Arkansas 
were French--not Spanish.

It was 132 years after De Soto's crossing of the Mississippi when the next known 
explorers reached Arkansas. In 1673 a Jesuit priest, Father Jacques Marquette 
and a trader, Louis Joilet, came down the Great River as far as the mouth of the 
Arkansas, and in 1682 another French explorer, La Salle, claimed all the land 
drained by the river and named it Louisiana for his King Louis XIV.  This period 
of French ownership was marked by numerous attempts through various plans 
to get colonies started in Louisiana and provides an interesting chapter in the 
history of the country, although only a few events which affected what is now 
Arkansas can be mentioned here.

Arkansas Post, on the lower Arkansas River, was established in 1686. Bernard 
de la Harpe in 1722 explored the Arkansas River, ascending to about where 
Muskogee, Oklahoma now stands.

The most notable example of the effort of the French government to get a colony 
started in Arkansas was the grant of about 80,000 acres made in 1719 to John Law 
on the lower Arkansas River.   Law had agreed to settle 1500 colonists on the grant 
and to maintain some soldiers as protection for the settlers.   Under this ambitious 
undertaking, sometimes called the Western Company, Law sent a number of men 
and slaves to the grant, but the effort was doomed to failure.   Law, whose activities 
are a story within themselves, was heavily involved in financial circles in France, 
and when his financial empire collapsed, the settlers on the Arkansas became 
discouraged and left. La Harp noted when he came up the river in 1722 that 
forty-seven persons were still on the grant, but these had disappeared when he 
passed the site again in 1723.

Two developments during the period of French ownership should be mentioned, 
the introduction of cotton and slavery.

It is probable that during the period of 1682-1763, white men first visited the territory 
now embraced by Independence County as explorers of the White River, but this is 
speculation and there are no records to confirm this assertion as historical fact.

The ownership of Louisiana by France came to an end in 1763; the end of French 
rule was part of a larger picture, the realignment of colonies in North America under 
terms concluding the French and Indian War. The war was ended by the Treaty of 
Fountainbleau in 1762 and the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and Louisiana became a 
possession of Spain.

Spain, at first desiring friendly relations with the American colonies, recognized the 
Independence of the United States in 1778, but this friendship cooled with the 
admission of Kentucky as a state in 1794 and as Spain saw the westward movement 
of settlers of the young United States.   Spain fell upon the plan of offering large grants 
of lands as inducements to increase the population of Louisiana, and as a further 
measure of meeting the threat of the United States, an intriguing scheme aimed at 
creating a revolt in Kentucky and Tennessee was recommended by one Spanish governor.

Although the United States and Great Britain had been granted free use of the Mississippi 
River by treaties, Spain harassed American shippers by requiring them to land at various 
ports and pay revenue duties. The Treaty of Madrid, negotiated in 1795, reaffirmed free 
and unrestricted use of the Mississippi by the citizens of the United States and granted 
a right of deposit in the city of New Orleans in order that shippers could store their goods 
at the port while awaiting export.   As we shall see later, this right was vital to shippers east 
of the Mississippi.

Emerging difficulties with the United States may have had some influence upon Spain 
in ceding Louisiana to France in 1800, although it is doubtful.   Napoleon Bonaparte 
dreamed of a colonial empire for his country with a vision of regaining Louisiana and 
entered into bargaining with the Spanish rulers to this end. The involved details of the 
terms of the Treaty of San Ildefonso under which Louisiana was retroceded to France 
cannot be examined here, although some historians have used coercion in explanation 
of the action of Napoleon in the negotiations.    The secret Treaty of San Ildefonso was 
agreed upon October 1, 1800, and thus what is now Arkansas and all the rest of Louisiana 
belonged to France.

Retrocession of Louisiana to France was a top secret transfer, and the United States 
did not know of the action for about eight months.   The Spanish officials had been 
continued in office in New Orleans on a business-as-usual basis. News that the flag 
of France was to fly over Louisiana created fears and unrest among the people of the 
United States, particularly those living on tributaries of the Mississippi and who 
recognized the importance of the river. President Thomas Jefferson, keeping close 
watch on the situation to see how commerce on the Mississippi might be affected, 
was uncertain of official position this country should take and was slow to announce 
the nation's policy.   While Spain might be troublesome at times, she was a relatively 
weak nation and did not present the potential problems foreseen in dealings with the 
ambitious Napoleon.

Swift developments put an end to uncertainty and embarked the United States on a 
definite course which brought about one of the nation's most significant milestones--
the Louisiana Purchase.

In October of 1802 Spanish officials who were still in authority withdrew the right of 
deposit in New Orleans, an act which precipitated storms of protest in the Ohio and 
Mississippi valleys. So strong was the opposition to the order that it was rescinded 
early in 1803, but revocation did not altogether calm the fears which the action had 
aroused.

The value of New Orleans in hands of the proper government was not underestimated 
by President Jefferson and early in 1803 he instructed the United States minister to 
France, Robert R. Livingston, to undertake negotiations with French officials for purchase 
of the Island of Orleans, which included the city, as the prime object, but if France was 
unwilling to consider this proposal Livingston was to seek a secondary goal, the right 
of deposit and free use of the Mississippi. The President sent James Monroe to France 
to assist in the talks. The negotiations concluded with the United States acquiring not 
only New Orleans but also the entire Louisiana Territory, which embraced the present 
states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, 
nearly all of Kansas, parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota.   Different 
figures have been cited as the cost of Louisiana to the United States, although the 
highest was $27, 267, 621, which included interest.

By any standard the Louisiana Purchase must be considered as one of the most 
momentous developments in the life of the United States, and the wisdom of the 
country's leadership at that time must be recognized.

Perhaps the most notable act on the part of the Spanish government in the period of 
1763-1800 as far as what is now Arkansas is concerned was the land grants--the 
Valliere Grant, Villemont Grant, and others.   Independence County has been credited 
with three of these--the Angel Lagercenier Grant at Earnhart's south of Bethesda; the 
August Friend-Furnash Grant at Rutherford; and the McFarland Grant in Greenbrier 
Bottom west of Desha, although titles to the property have not been traced to grantees 
during the time of Spanish rule.

We have seen that what is now Independence County, as a part of Louisiana, 
belonged to France, 1682-1763; to Spain, 1763-1800; and again to France, 1800-1803.

In the seventeen years between the Louisiana Purchase and the creation of Independence 
County in 1820 there were many notable events which should be mentioned here. In fact, 
a fascinating period of this country's history extends from 1803 to 1836 and much is 
known of these years through the publication of the Territorial Papers of the United States 
by the Governments Printing Office.   The Territorial Papers are a collection of letters, 
orders, reports, and records found in the National Archives and other departments 
of the government.   Three volumes deal with the period from 1803 to 1819 and three 
volumes with the territorial period in Arkansas.  The Louisiana Purchase more than 
doubled the size of the United States and virtually all the new territory was unexplored 
and inhabited only by Indians.   Before it could be opened for settlement by white men, 
treaties had to be negotiated with the Indians, land surveys made, and units of government 
established for maintenance of law and order.   These requirements could not become 
realities overnight.

The government divided Louisiana into two parts, the Territory of Orleans, which is now the state of Louisiana, and the District of 
Louisiana, in 1804, and in 1805 the District of Louisiana became the Territory of Louisiana. The capitol of the Territory was in 
St. Louis and for administrative purposes the Territory was divided into various districts, one of which was the District of 
New Madrid, created March 3, 1805, which included Arkansas.

The following year, June 27, 1806, the District of Arkansas was formed "from the Southern part of the District of New Madrid." 
The boundary between the two districts was not clearly defined, but if the later New Madrid County's southern boundaries were 
the same as the District of New Madrid, what is now Independence County was not part of the District of Arkansas.

November 10, 1808 is an important date in the unfolding picture of the developments in the Territory of Louisiana as that is the 
date of the Osage Treaty which extinguished the Indian claims to a large part of North Arkansas and Southern Missouri. The Osages 
released all lands east of a line extending from Fort Clark or Fire Prairie east of the present site of Kansas City on the Missouri River 
south to the mouth of Frog Bayou on the Arkansas. Frog Bayou empties into the Arkansas River at a point south of the present town 
of Alma in Crawford County. Much could be written of this treaty and later dealings with the Osages, but this treaty officially removed 
the tribe from ownership of most of North Arkansas.

The name of the Territory of Louisiana was changed again in 1812. The Territory of Orleans sought to be admitted as a state and it 
was felt that the first state to be carved from the Louisiana Purchase should have the honor of the name, and thus the name was 
applied to the present state of Louisiana. The old Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri, which explains at least 
the beginning of the connection of Arkansas with Missouri which is sometimes not clearly understood.

The government of the Territory of Missouri began to function late in 1812. Some of the former districts were divided into counties, 
although the District of Arkansas remained with Arkansas Post as the seat of justice. On July 5, 1813, the Missouri General 
Assembly convened in St. Louis for the first time, and at an adjourned session which began in December, the District of Arkansas 
became Arkansas County, which embraced all of Missouri Territory south of New Madrid County. A census had been ordered by 
the general assembly in 1813 and the male population of New Madrid County was 1548 and of Arkansas County 827.

Another county in Missouri, Lawrence County, was created by the general assembly on January 15, 1815. The boundaries of 
Lawrence County, which is sometimes called the "Mother of Counties: in Arkansas, appear to show that the lands embraced 
were in New Madrid County, and since Independence County was later formed of territory in Lawrence there is support of the 
contention that our county was not a part of the original Arkansas County.

The first boundaries of Lawrence County, which included a vast territory in North Arkansas and Southern Missouri, were:
"Beginning at the mouth of the Little Red River on the line dividing said (New Madrid) County from the County of Arkansas; 
thence with said line to the River St. Francis; thence up the River St. Francis to the division between the counties of Cape 
Girardeau and New Madrid; thence with the said last mentioned line to the Western boundary line of the Osage purchase; 
thence with the last mentioned line to the northern boundary of the County of Arkansas; thence with the last mentioned line 
to the place of beginning."

While records of this period are scarce, it appears that Lawrence was represented in the Missouri general 
assembly of 1816 by a Col. Alexander S. Walker and in the fourth and last session by John Davidson, 
Joseph Hardin, and Perry G. Magness.   It should be noted that in this last session three more counties, 
Clark, Hempstead, and Pulaski, were created from territory of Arkansas County. Thus, five of the counties 
of Arkansas -- Arkansas, Clark, Hempstead, Lawrence, and Pulaski -- were established while the state was 
still a part of Missouri.

Approaching a fact of which there is some curiosity, residents of the Territory of Missouri circulated petitions for presentation to 
the national Congress asking for admission as a state with the southern boundary to be latitude thirty-six degrees and thirty 
minutes. If these petitions were to be honored, the lands south of that line, almost all of the present state of Arkansas, would 
be left a no-man's land as far as civil government was concerned.

Why the petitioners pushing for admission of Missouri moved to leave out Arkansas is not altogether clear and cannot be 
explained here. The movement to seek admission of Missouri was strong in the vicinity of the territorial capitol of St. Louis, 
which in those days was a long distance from Arkansas. It is possible that because of the distance and sparse population 
of the Arkansas country the Missouri petitioners saw no advantage in including a vast and thinly settled area in the state.

It is estimated that there were ten to twelve thousand persons living in what is now Arkansas in 1817 when the drive for 
admission of Missouri as a state began. Various historians have claimed that many of these were adventurers, hunters, 
trappers, fugitives from justice, and others who were not concerned if there was a civil government or not, but there were 
also honest settlers who had come to make homes and who were troubled at the prospect of begin left out.

There were also land speculators and politicians who could foresee opportunities for nefarious schemes in a new territory, 
and these groups were eager to furnish some leadership in beginning a movement to ask Congress to admit Arkansas as a 
separate territory. In the spring of 1818, a meeting was held at Arkansas Post for the purpose of organizing a campaign for 
circulating petitions. The petitions cited grievances created by the indifferences of the governor of Missouri, Governor 
William Clark, to the people of Arkansas and asked that it be admitted as a separate territory. Some changes were made 
in describing the northern boundary.

The petition asking for admittance of Arkansas as a territory was received by Congress on January 30, 1819. The law 
creating the territory was passed by both houses and was signed by President James Monroe on March 2, with July 4 
as the date for the beginning of the territorial government.

Growth in the White River country and elsewhere in Arkansas did not wait for creation of the Territorial government and 
some developments of this period are important to our record here.
Records of the white man in the vicinity of what was to become Independence County before 1820 are extremely scarce, 
but there are enough to create great excitement and enough to stimulate the imagination. On April 20, 1814, one William 
Russell in writing to William Rector, deputy land surveyor for the Missouri Territory in St. Louis, referred to settlements 
on the White River. Speaking of Poke Bayou, his letter, which is reproduced in the Territorial Papers of the United States, states:
"There are scattered settlements on the White River from the mouth of Big Creek nearly or quite up to the Big North Fork, 
quite a promising young settlement on the Poke Bayou and on various parts of White River. A small portion of the good 
lands are held by private claim. If the public lands along this river were offered for sale, they would sell immediately. This 
is a very beautiful little river, about 300 yards wide, navigable at all seasons for boats of any size to the mouth of Black River 
and at most seasons to the North Fork and further up."

Although it is very regrettable that Mr. Russell did not tell us more of the "promising young settlement" on Poke Bayou, there 
is evidence of businesses which meant settlers were here. The first business of which there is any record on the site of Poke 
Bayou, the forerunner of Batesville, was a store selling whiskey and notions operated by John Reed, who came from elsewhere 
in the Missouri Territory in 1812. [SEE PIONEERS AND MAKERS OF ARKANSAS by JOSIAH SHINN] The account of Reed, or at 
least one account was in a narrative of the county's history written by Robert Neill, prominent Batesville attorney, and published 
in Publications of the Arkansas Historical Association in 1911.  Neill was the son of Henry Neill, who came to Independence County 
in 1832. Robert was born here in 1838 which means that during his lifetime he had access to knowledge of early settlers, which in 
addition to his profession as a lawyer, his service as a land surveyor, soldier, and prominence in political life give his writings 
some authority.

There was another merchant here in 1814 whose volume of business outstripped all other traders of his day in Arkansas, as 
records show. The facts concerning this enterprising merchant, one John C. Luttig, were carefully ferreted out by Duane Huddleston, 
a native of Marion County, teacher and principal of the Batesville High School and in 1976 a resident of North Little Rock where he 
is assistant principal of the High School.

Luttig came to Poke Bayou from St. Louis in the spring of 1814 with a stock of goods values in excess of $2300 and later in the year 
the house inventoried over $5000, mostly in pelts. Luttig died, from causes which are now unknown, in July of 1815. He had a partner, 
one Christian Wilt of St. Louis, who claimed the post's assets upon learning of Luttig's death. There was considerable litigation in 
settlement of Luttig's estate, which resulted in some detailed records which Huddleston discovered and researched for an article 
which was published in the Independence County Chronicle, quarterly of the County Historical Society, Vol. XIII, No. 1, October 1971.
Huddleston's research produced another bit of fascinating information concerning the history of Poke Bayou which is of interest here. 
Luttig's partner, Christian Wilt, wrote Luttig from St. Louis June 1, 1815, making some comments on the business at Poke Bayou and 
offering some suggestions for Luttig's guidance the letter states, in part:

"I send you Levantine silk...you should get $4 the yard for it."

Who can explain stocking $4 per yard silk in a frontier trading post in 1814?  Wilt was a businessman of some experience who 
could have been expected to know demand for goods in the wilderness outposts where beaver skins were valued at $1.75 each, 
bear skins $1, and bear oil at $1 per gallon. Silk is hardly compatible with the picture of trappers and hunters, mountain cabins, 
and austerely dressed child-bearing wives, and the variety and quantity of the stock in Luttig's trading post suggest the possibility 
of a comparatively large pioneer population and that not all of the people lived in crude huts. The letter is found in the book: 
Luttig, John C., "Journal of a Fur Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri 1812-1813," edited by Stella M. Drum, reprinted by 
Argosy-Antiquarian LTD, New York, 1964, page 129.

Huddleston's writings of John C. Luttig and Christian Wilt, which were published for the first time in the Chronicle, also tell of 
numerous early settlers on the Bayou, on White River, and in Lawrence County. The news of Luttig's death in July of 1815 was 
taken to Christian Wilt in St. Louis by James Moore, Jr. who carried a letter from James Moore, Sr., a justice of the peace and 
apparently well-established pioneer, who offered to care for the trading post until other arrangements could be made. A man 
named Moses Graham, who was a son-in-law of Abraham Ruddell and who owned a farm at Bell Point on the White River 
opposite the mouth of Salado Creek, was appointed, along with Luttig's widow, as administrator of the Luttig estate.

Persons mentioned as witnesses, court officials, and otherwise include among others, Robert Bean, Stephen Jones, 
David Magness, Asa Musick, John Lafferty, Joab Hardin, Abraham Ruddell, John Ruddell, George Gill, John Wyatt, 
Simon Miller, Charles Kelly, and David Hackerton.

Perhaps another reason for early settlement of this area was the Arkansas road, also called the National Road and 
Old Military Road, which extended from St. Louis to Arkansas Post and was a general route of travel from St. Louis 
to the Southwest in the early 1800's. This road came into Independence County in the Hazel Grove community, passed 
Walnut Grove, crossed Dota Creek at Pleasant Hill and entered the present locality of Sulphur Rock and thence to 
Rutherford where White River was crossed. On the south side of the river the road followed the Goodie Creek valley 
to the hills and thence to Pleasant Plains and White County.

John P. Morrow of Batesville, a foremost authority on Arkansas and local history, land surveyor, city engineer, and 
landowner, in writing an article for the Chronicle on the road, Vol. IV, No. 4, July 1963 stated:
"Over that road civilization came to Arkansas and to keep it civilized James Woodson Bates, Robert Crittenden, and 
Andrew Scott traveled that route to their new homes and destinies. Located between the Ozarks and the river delta, 
this had long been a famous trail for Indian travel and was a natural route when wagons began to move southwestward."

Another notable event which took place in the period 1803-1820 and which has had an important bearing on the history 
of the area is the beginning of the land surveys in Arkansas. In 1815 the government authorized establishment of the 
Fifth Principal Meridian and the Base Line in Arkansas; the Fifth Principal Meridian was surveyed north from the mouth 
of the Arkansas River and the Base Line west from the mouth of the St. Francis River. The lines intersect at the point 
where Lee. Phillips, and Monroe Counties connect and this junction forms the zero point for land surveys in fourteen 
states, according to Morrow who wrote an article in considerable detail on the beginning of the surveys and which was 
published in the Chronicle, Vol. X, No. 4, July 1969. The surveyors reached Independence County in 1817, although the 
survey was not complete in the entire county for several years.

Post offices were introduced into Arkansas with the establishment of Arkansas' first office at Davidsonville, the county 
seat of Lawrence County, in June of 1817, and another at Arkansas Post on July 1.

The first post office opened in what is now Independence County was White Run at the mouth of Salado Creek on the 
White River December 29, 1819, with Peyton Tucker as the first postmaster. White Run was established after Arkansas 
became a territory, although apparently by a clerical error records showed it to be in Missouri, and it escaped attention 
as an Arkansas office which was misleading in the belief that the first post office was Poke Creek, the forerunner of 
Batesville, which was opened November 7, 1820, about ten months later.

The Cherokee Indians had a reservation west of Batesville which included a small part of land which is today included 
in Independence County from 1817 to 1828. The eastern boundary of the Cherokee lands extended from Point Remove 
above Morrilton on the Arkansas River to Chataunga Mountain near Shields' ferry on the White River. Chataunga Mountain 
is known today generally by the name of Dean Mountain; it is the first hill seen west of Desha, and although the boundary 
line was surveyed and marked in some manner, no original physical traces of the survey in this county are known.

The western boundary of the Cherokee claim began on White River near Norfork and extended to the Arkansas about two 
miles above Fort Smith. This vast area of land had been given to the Indians by the government in exchange for a tract 
east of the Mississippi. since the area of primary activity of the Cherokees was along the Arkansas River in Pope County 
and above, it is doubtful if the reservation had much effect upon growth of the country here. The Indians were not pleased 
with their real estate, claiming that much of the land was so poor, scarcely a deer would inhabit it, and they demanded an 
outlet to the West. When the county was formed in 1820, the boundaries did not include the Cherokee lands.

Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a remarkable interesting writer and a man of some education, came down the White River in 1819 
and among the writings in his journal is the account of settlers having to move from their cabins on the west side of 
White River on account of the ownership of the land by the Indians. Schoolcraft's journal provides a highly readable 
account of the White River country which is unparalleled in contemporary writings. He describes, for example, the 
Calico Rock as it was colored by nature through centuries of seeping water, weather, and whatever other forces were 
brought together in the face of this bluff which was blasted away when the White River Division of the railroad was built.

Schoolcraft also mentions the "widow Lafferty," which establishes presence of this family on the White River at an early date. 
Another widely known pioneer family of the White River country mentioned by Schoolcraft was Jeffery; members of this family 
reside in Batesville and Independence County in 1976, and Carter Jeffery is a past president of the Independence County 
Historical Society.

On Sunday, January 17, 1819, Schoolcraft records stopping at a Mr. Williams' for breakfast and that a group of hunters had 
gathered to hear a pioneer preacher. This record is among the first contemporary reports of a religious service in this area.
On January 18, 1819, Schoolcraft reached Poke Bayou which he described as a "village of a dozen houses situated on the 
north bank of the river, where we arrived about four o'clock in the afternoon and were entertained with great hospitality by 
Mr. Robert Bean, merchant of that place."

"The situation at Poke Bayou," Schoolcraft recorded, "is pleasant and advantageous as a commercial and agricultural depot."

At Poke Bayou he decided to quit the river and started out on foot to return to Potosi, Missouri. His writings are one authority 
that White River was named by the French who called it La Riviere Blanche because of the purity of the water.

There was one other development in the latter part of this [period which probably ;had some effect upon the growth of 
Poke Bayou as an important center in the early days of the Arkansas Territory. This development should be mentioned 
here because of its importance and because in it there is some explanation of the name of Napoleon, which legend to 
this day says was an early name of the settlement which became Batesville.

In 1818 the national Congress authorized two land offices for Arkansas, one at Davidsonville for the Lawrence County 
District and the other at Arkansas post of the Arkansas County District. Hartwell Boswell, whose name was to become 
prominent in Batesville, was appointed register and John Trimble receiver for the Davidsonville office. The office at 
Davidsonville was opened for a brief period, July 23 to October 16, 1820. After the closing Boswell visited Washington 
and recommended that the office be moved to a more central location, and the place he had in mind was Napoleon. 
Trimble strongly objected, claiming that Napoleon was nothing more that a residence in the woods and there were 
no accommodations for an office or for the protection of land office money.

Trimble triumphed in his position and Boswell wrote, as recorded in the Territorial Papers, "It was expected that Napoleon 
would be the county seat, but two sets of speculators got to work and the Batesville party succeeded in getting their town 
established as the Seat of Justice for Independence County."

Napoleon was about a mile down the river from Batesville and was the home of Charles Kelly, the county's first sheriff 
and the first postmaster of Poke Creek. In the creation of the county the territorial legislature provided for the seat of 
justice to be located at Kelly's residence until a permanent site could be chosen.

Not many references to the Napoleon site at Batesville have been found outside the controversy in relocation of the land 
office, and there are no known records supporting assertion that the name was officially applied to Batesville. It should be 
noted that there was a Napoleon on the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Arkansas.

There are other indications of the settlement of the area before the formation of the county. The first water mill of which 
there is a record was Hadly's Mill which was on Spring Creek at or very near the site of the Ruddell Mill of a later date. 
According to the research of Duane Huddleston, Hadly's Mill was in existence in 1813 and he sold it to Asa Musick in 
1814. It is also of interest to note that Huddleston found a record of an election, probably the first in the newly formed 
county of New Madrid, held early in 1814 at the house of a Captain Harrison on Spring River and Asa Musick, George 
Ruddell, and a Captain Hines officiated as judges.

It is of course a regrettable fact that there is no information available of the families who were here before 1820.   A census 
was taken of Lawrence County in that year, but it has been lost. However, other pioneer families of which there is some 
record include the Hess, O'Neal, Peel, Trimble, Hulsey, Benjamin Hardin, Joab Hardin, Morgan Magness, Craig, Sherrill, 
Saffold, Kyler, Meacham, Searcy, and Ivey. A territorial tax list of 1824 which will appear later in this narrative included a 
large number, many of which were doubtless here before 1820.





THE COUNTY IS FORMED                    
 

The act to create Independence County was reported by a committee of the territorial legislature on October 18, 1820, 
and on October 20 Joab Hardin introduced a resolution to fix the seat of government for the new county which was read 
for the first and second time. On October 23 the act creating the county and fixing the seat of justice at Charles Kelly's 
was approved and signed by Territorial Governor James Miller. Were there speeches made in the legislature to arouse 
the representatives to the importance of creating the new county? Where did the movement to create the county begin 
and who were the leaders. There are no records known which will give us complete answers.

The boundaries of the new county are of interest, although they are impossible to trace in 1976. The territory embraced was:

"All that portion of the county of Lawrence bounded as
follows, to wit: Beginning at point in Big Black River halfway
between the mouth of Strawberry and Bayou Cure and running
from thence in a direct line to the dividing ridge aforesaid to the
headwaters of Bayou Cure aforesaid, then along the dividing
ridge between Strawberry River and White River to the northern
line of the territory and then with said boundary line to the
southeast bank of the main branch of White River, then down
the said river to the northeast corner of the Cherokee claim,
thence southwestwardly with said claim to the Little Red River,
thence down same to the mouth, then along the northern
boundary of the county of Arkansas to a point southeast of the
beginning to be laid off and erected into a separate and distinct
county to be called and known by the name of Independence County."

While much attention has been focused on this description, it has not been possible to portray the county as it was created. 
The county remained as it was formed for only a brief period and no map has been found which shows original boundary lines. 
Izard County was created from land in Independence in 1825.

Independence County was the ninth county created and the fourth after Arkansas became a territory.

Governor James Miller appointed John Read, Perry G. Magness, Robert Bean, Stephen Jones, and Matthews Adams 
as commissioners to "point out and fix upon the most suitable place in said county for erecting a courthouse and jail."
Ownership of the land where Batesville began is a matter of public record from February 23, 1821, the date a deed was 
executed by Robert Bean to the commissioners appointed by the governor to locate the county seat. The property was 
described as:

"Beginning at the Mouth of Poke Bayou, thence running down White River 60 rods, thence running out from White River 
Parallel with Poke Bayou to the back boundary of said Bean's claim, thence down the Bayou to the place of beginning, 
warranted to contain 75 acres, but should such bounds not claim 75 acres, then to run down the river for quantity."

On February 24, 1821, the commissioners executed a deed describing the same property to Joseph Hardin of Lawrence County. 
Richard Searcy, Charles Kelley, and Samuel S. Hall as trustees for the city of Batesville. The blocks, lots, and streets were 
marked out between February 24, 1821, and March 23, 1822, the date of the deed of partition, which bears signatures of the 
original trustees with the exception of Thomas Curran who had replaced Samuel S. Hall.

The first private ownership of this property is not altogether clear, as a patent certificate was issued t Richard Searcy, 
as assignee of Robert Bean January 23, 1827. Bean may have held the land under a preemption right, but this is not 
verified by local real estate records. It would appear that the land was legally under ownership of the government until 
the patent was issued to Searcy.

The chain of title is further clouded by a record of a preemption right made to Richard Searcy August 26, 1822, on the 
East fractional half of Section 17, Township 13 North, Range 6 West, which included the Batesville site.

The heirs of Richard Searcy in 1835 dedicated the East Half of Block 19 in Batesville for use as a cemetery for time
immemorial.  The action was restated in a deed to the mayor and councilmen of Batesville April 5, 1856. The instrument 
recites that "the grantors being desirous to confirm the original grant and to have said land set apart forever for the purpose 
of a Burial Place. . . and is to be used for no other purpose."

Joseph Hardin, one of the trustees, had been sheriff of Lawrence County, and was a member of the commission appointed 
to select a site for the county seat of that county when it was formed in 1815. His father was Benjamin Hardin, one of a 
small number of Revolutionary War soldiers known to have lived in Independence County. Benjamin Hardin was living 
in the Goodie Creek valley east of Rosie at the time of his death April 2, 1848, and is buried in the Wyatt cemetery.  His 
grave was marked with a Revolutionary War headstone in 1974.

The Hardins were among the earliest permanent settlers of what is now Arkansas, and an excellent account of the family, 
which contains much early history of Lawrence and Independence Counties, was published by Dr. Marion Stark Craig of 
Little Rock in 1972.

The Searcys are also well known in Arkansas, as Searcy County and the town of Searcy are named for this family. 
Richard Searcy was living at Davidsonville and was clerk of Lawrence County before coming to Batesville. According 
to Territorial papers, he resigned as clerk of Lawrence County October 30, 1821, and was appointed clerk of Independence 
County October 15, 1832, at the age of 36, according to his headstone in the old cemetery in downtown Batesville. 
His two brothers, James and Jesse, also came to Batesville, and Elizabeth Jett Searcy, a daughter of James, married 
Franklin W. Desha November 18, 1847. Their daughter, Elizabeth Jett Desha, married W. H. Lester, the father of the 
late Desha Lester. Betty Lester Stroud, a daughter of Desha Lester, is a past president of the Independence County 
Historical Society.

The cemetery, or at least the remaining part of it, and the gift land is on College Avenue and Third Street.
The site of the county's first courthouse was on lower Main Street in a public square at the approximate site of the 
Missouri Pacific Railroad main line and the spur track in 1976.

Although the post office was apparently established as Poke Creek and was known by that name until 1824, the name 
of Batesville was used early. In August of 1821 John Trimble, receiver of the land office, wrote the secretary of the 
Treasury concerning a land sale at Batesville which would indicate the name was in general use, and numerous 
other papers using the Batesville name before 1824 have been seen.

Robert Neill wrote in his Reminiscences of Independence County that the city was named for James Woodson Bates 
and this is also stated by John Hallum in his "Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas" published in 1887. Bates 
was born in Virginia, attended Yale, and was graduated from Princeton about 1810, according to Hallum. His brother, 
Frederick Bates, was appointed Secretary of the Territory o Missouri and was a prominent figure in the territorial 
government, serving as acting governor in the absence of Governor Clark. James Woodson Bates is said to have 
come to St. Louis about 1816 where he established a law office. He was elected the first territorial delegate to Congress 
in 1821 and was a candidate for re-election in 1823 but was defeated by Henry W. Conway. He came to Batesville in late 
1823 or early 1824 and opened a law office, practicing law and serving as a territorial judge until 1830. His appointment 
as a judge expired and he moved to Crawford County. He was a delegate to the first constitutional convention of Arkansas 
in 1835 and his last known position of public trust was as land office register at Clarksville. He died in 1846 and is said to 
have been buried on the Moore farm, although efforts to locate his grave have been unsuccessful.

Charles Kelly was the first postmaster at Poke Creek, serving until Hartwell Boswell was appointed in 1824. The name of 
the office was changed to Batesville January 7, of that year.

Charles Kelly (also spelled Kelley) was the county's first sheriff and his office was in charge of tax collections. Through the 
1824 tax list, we have the first known compilation of citizens, or at least those who paid taxes, of the county.
The list, assembled by Duane Huddleston, is as follows:

Adams, James
Adams, Jesse
Adams, John
Adams, Matthew
Adams, Richard
Adams, Robert, Jr.
Adams, Robert, Sr.
Aden, John
Aiken, Eli
Aikens, James
Alford, Matthew
Allen, Christopher
Allen, Hugh
Allen, Jason
Allen, Samuel
Atkinson, John
Ausborn, John
Bagley, James
Bailey, Alexander
Barber, William
Barnett, Elijah
Barnett, John
Barnett, William
Bates, James W.
Bates, Robert
Bates, Russell
Bean, Jesse
Bean, Jesse E.
Bend, Richard
Birchman, Isaac
Bird, John
Bloid, Eli
Boatwright, Powhatan
Boles, John
Boswell, Hartwell
Boswell, James
Boswell, William
Boyd, Andrew
Brannon, John
Brannon, Moses
Brickey, John
Brickey, Samuel
Bridgman, Martin
Bridgman, Robert
Brigham, Robert
Brown, Gyan L.
Brown, Hosiah
Brown, John
Brown, Rodah
Bruce, Robert
Bumback, Christian
Burkett, James
Caldwell, Robert
Caldwell, William
Capshaw, Essex
Carpenter, Peter
Carter, John
Carter, Morgan
Carter, Randolph
Chandler, William
Chapman, William
Chism, Benjamin
Clark, John
Clifton, William
Coats, Alexander
Coilsey, Vincent
Colby, John
Coker, Edward
Coker, William
Condry, Bird
Cook, William
Copeland, Martin
Copeland, Nicholas
Cornwall, Dexter
Cornwall, Jeremiah
Cornwall, John
Cornwall, Silas
Cornwall, Thomas
Cotrill, Gilbert
Counce, John
Crabaugh, Charles
Craig, John B.
Criswell, Ambrose
Criswell, Jane
Crittenden, Robert
Culling, Mayo
Curran, Thomas
Curzine, Susannah
Daniels, John L.
Darnell, James
Daugherty, John
Davis, Edward
Davis, Henry
Davis, John
Davis, John
Deal, Hastings
Dearman, John
Dickinson, Townsend
Dodd, John
Dodd, Thomas
Drowyer, Alexander
Dugan, John
Duggin, Stephen
Dunn, John
Egner, Joseph
Elms, Samuel
Elms, Thomas
Ervine, Ananias
Fellows, David F.
Finley, Wes
Finnicum, Mark
Flora, Elijah
Flora, Isaac
Fortenberry, Henry
Foster, Gabriel
Foster, Isaac
Foster, Jacob
Foster, Thomas
Francis, Absalom
Freeman, Benjamin
French, William
Friend, Andrew
Friend, Augustine W.
Friend, Gabriel
Friend, William
Fuget, Andrew
Fulbright, Jacob
Fulkerson, Lebrat
Gardner, Nathan
Gibbins, James
Gilbreath, James
Gill, George
Goswell, Emerian
Goswell, Morris
Graham, John
Graham, Moses
Greenlee, Ephram
Griffith, Aaron
Griffith, Christopher
Griffith, Joseph
Griffith, Thomas
Griffith, William
Hale, David
Harber, Joseph
Hardin, Benjamin, Sr.
Hardin, Joseph
Hardin, William C.
Hargrave, John
Harris, James
Harris, John
Harrison, Samuel
Harrow, Evans
Henderson, William
Hess, Samuel
Hess, Solomon
Hicklin, William
Hightower, Henry
Hightower, Joshua
Hightower, Oldham
Hill, John
Hively, Daniel H.
Holderby, Richard
Hubble, Jonathan
Hudson, John, Sr.
Hudson, John W.
Hudson, Samuel
Hudson, William
Hughes, William
Hulsey, Charles C.
Hulsey, Hardin
Hulsey, Riley
Hulsey, Wiley
Hutchison, Richard C.
Ingles, Henry A.
Irby, George
Irvin, Alphus
Ison, Jonathan
Ivy, Joseph
Ivy, William
Jackson, James
Jeffery, Jehoida
John, Pleasant H.
Johnson, William
Johnson, William H.
Jones, John
John, William
John, William, Jr.
John, William, Sr.
Judson, Joshua
Kelly, Charles
Kennedy, Elijah
Kuyler, John
Lafferty, Austin
Lafferty, Binks
Lafferty, Henderson
Langston, Absolom
Langston, Jesse
Langston, John
Langston, Samuel
Lantz, Moses
Lantz, Randall
Lawrence, James
Leggitt, Whitmill
Lindsey, John
Litchfield, David
Livingston, Robert
Magness, David M.
Magness, Jonathan
Magness, Morgan
Magness, Perry G.
Marks, Ewel H.
Martin, Hugh
Martin, John
Martin, Joshua
Martin, William
Masters, Jesse
Masters, John
Matney, William
McArthur, Charles
McCubbin, William
McKenny, William
McKnight, John
McClendon, Henry
McMahan, Benjamin
Meeks, John
Miller, James
Miller, John
Miller, Simon
Milsaps, Reuben
Minyard, Betsey
Minyard, John
Molder, Abraham
Moore, Thomas
Moore, William
Morgan, William
Morris, James
Morris, William P.
Morse, Joseph
Morton, Elijah
Morton, George
Music, Alfred
Music, Elizabeth
Music, John
Nelson, Charles
Nelson, Jacob
Nelson, William
Norman, Barney
Northard, William
O'Neal, Abijah
O'Neal, Jesse
O'Neal, John
Painter, John
Palmer, John
Palmer, Thomas
Patterson, Thomas
Peel, Richard
Peel, Thomas
Pelham, Charles H.
Pertee, Lewis
Pierce, Francis
Pierson, Jeremiah
Pierson, Lewis
Pool, Jeremiah
Price, Thomas
Ragsdale, Briton
Ragsdale, Ellis
Ramsey, Thomas
Ramsey, William
Ranney, William
Randell, Daniel
Redmon, John
Reed, Albuers
Reed, John
Reed, William
Renfro, Joshua
Reynolds, James
Roberts, Alexander
Roberts, Brown C.
Robins, Aaron
Robins, Harry
Robinson, Isaac
Rollins, Robert
Rose, Nathan
Ross, Charles T.
Ross, William
Ruddell, Abraham
Ruddell, George
Ruddell, John
Russell, George
Russell, John
R_______, Hardin
Saffold, John
Saint Clair, John
Saint Clair, Thomas
Saint Clair, William
Saylors, John
Saylors, Nancy
Saylors, Phillip
Searcy, Richard
Settle, William
Sessnoms, John
Sherrill, Eli
Siddons, Marshall
Simpson, John
Slater, Thomas
Smalley, Joseph
Smith, Douglas
Smith, Gabriel
Smith, Jesse
Smith, Lion
Smith, William
Sneed, Charles
Sneed, William
Spears, Jacob
Stanby, Langston
Stephens, Reuben
Stephenson, James
Stephenson, John
Stephenson, Samuel
Stephenson, William
Stinnett, Abner
Stinnett, David
Stinnett, William
Storey, John
Stuart, Moses
Sullens, Edward
Talbert, Frederick, Jr.
Talbert, Simeon
Talbot, Walker
Tankserby, Charles
Taylor, Edward
Taylor, Joseph
Taylor, Richard
Terrell, _________
Terry, Jesse
Thompson, George
Thompson, William
Tidwell, Absolom
Tidwell, David
Tidwell, Edward
Tidwell, John
Tidwell, Nolan
Tidwell, Peter
Tidwell, Sanders
Tinnon, Hugh
Tipton, Benjamin
Tosh, William
Trimble, George
Trimble, James
Trimble, John
Trimble, Joseph
Tucker, Peyton
Turpen, Polly
Vaughn, Nathan
Wadkin, Isaac
Waganon, John
Walker, John
Walker, Thomas L.
Walker, William B.
Ware, Elijah [WARD]
Weatherford, William
Weldon, John
Well, John
Wells, William
West, Hiram
West, John
West, Samuel
Whetstone, Peter
Wideman, Thomas
Williams, Elijah
Williams, John
Williams, Thomas S.
Wilson, Jonas
Wilson, Reuben
Wilson, William
Witbirn, John
Wolf, Charles
Wolf, Michael
Wood, Abraham, Jr.
Wood, Abraham, Sr.
Wood, Thomas
Wood, William, Jr.
Wood, William, Sr.
Wormac, David
Wright, David
Wyatt, Abraham
Wyatt, Reuben
Wyatt, Thomas
Yarbrough, Grigs
Yarbrough, John
Yarbrough, Owen
Yokum, Allen
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FROM Independence County Chronicle, October 1991-January 1992, page 43
"Early Batesville Citizens"
The following, clipped from the Batesville Republican of September 10, 1873, was shared by Mrs. Wilbur Ferguson.
Old citizens residing in Batesville, and the number of years they have resided here:

Mrs. John Ruddell 59 years
Mrs. Crow 57
Mrs. Ed. R. McGuire 57
Whitmill Leggett 55
John Miller 54
Allen D. Ramsey 50
William Read Miller 48
John Adams 45
Joseph H. Egner 45
Mrs. M. F. Neeley 45
Charles O'Neal 45
Aaron W. Lyon 44
Rev. Burwell Lee 40
Mrs. Sarah Case 39
Mrs. E. Erwin 39
Mrs. L. D. Folsom 39
Henry Neill 39
S. B. Wycough 39
M. A. Wycough 38
E. R. McGuire 37
William Byers 36
Davis S. Fraley 36
William W. Glenn 35
F. M. Milliken 35
William Milliken 35
Mrs. Nancy H. Newland 35
Franklin Desha Denton 34
Robert Neill 34
R. H. Lee 33
George Maxfield 32
Theodore Maxfield 32
W. E. Maxfield 32
Thomas Womac 30
John F. Allen 26
William M. Lawrence 26
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One of the state's best-known characters of pioneer days was Charles Fenton Mercer Noland 
who arrived in Batesville in 1826. Noland, a Virginian who had been a cadet in West Point, came 
to Batesville to join his father, William Noland, who had been appointed receiver of the federal 
land office in 1824. Young Noland found a home in Batesville, an outpost on the frontier at the time. 
He was a writer of some note and wrote articles for the Spirit of the Times in New York of bear hunting,
 Arkansas politics, and horse racing. Much could be written of Noland's career in this state, as he was 
on the scene of history making. Two years before his death in 1858, he wrote a description of Batesville 
as it was in 1826 for the Washington, Arkansas, Telegraph, as follows:

"It was in the fall of 1826 that I reached the town of Batesville
in the county of Independence. It was just after the great September
freshet of that year which had been so disastrous to the settlers on
White River. It was the county seat of Independence County, and
one of the two land offices to which the Territory was entitled was
located there. Hartwell Boswell was Register and Major William
Noland Receiver. At that time there were no towns or villages on the
White River from Batesville to its mouth. The points of note were the
mouth of Black River, Chickasaw Crossing, Nigger Hill, and the Mouth
of the Cache.

"Montgomery's Point on the Mississippi River was the great trading
point for all Arkansas north and a great portion south of the Arkansas
River.

"At that early date there were shipped from Batesville annually
one hundred bales of cotton and upwards. Hartwell Boswell was the great
merchant of the region and people came from hundreds of miles to trade
with him -- two pounds of coffee for a dollar. I remember when a
newcomer arrived with a keelboat of goods and sold coffee three pounds
for a dollar. There was great rejoicing among the old women. Old Uncle
Johnny Walker's wife that weighed two hundred pounds and large odd
downweight scorned to take more than eight yards of calico to make her
a loose wrapper. There were no crinolines or hoops in those days.

"At that period there was considerable business done in peltries.
The Delawares and Shawnees, some of whom lived on Crooked Creek,
now in Marion County, came to Batesville with their peltries and white
hunters were quite numerous. There were but two practicing lawyers
in the place, Richard Searcy and Townsend Dickinson, and Judge
Dickinson, though having his office in town, lived on a farm in the
country. There were two physicians, Dr. Jonathan Isom, a good honest
man but with but little education, and Dr. Caleb S. Manley, one of _____,
and it requires a great effort not to finish the sentence.

"Charles Kelly was sheriff, John Redmon, clerk; Robert Bates
was the only tailor, Marshal Seddons the only hatter, Eli Sherrill the
only blacksmith, Kelly kept a tavern. No preacher, one schoolmaster, 
the same who advertised a two year old yearling. Such was Batesville in 1826."

Another prominent citizen of Batesville, John Ringgold, arrived in Batesville in the late 1820's and in 1828 
built his brick home on lower Main Street which stood until recent years. Noland, who married Ringgold's 
daughter, Lucretia, n 1841, died in 1858 in Little Rock and is buried in Mt. Holly Cemetery.

Although the county had been reduced in size by creation of Jackson County in 1829, the population of Independence 
had reached 2,031 in the census of 1830.





FROM THE WAVERLY TO THE WAR                     

While the population of the county increased by only 1, 638 in the ten years from 1830 to 1840, there were significant 
developments during the decade. Perhaps the most notable was the beginning of the Steamboat era on the White River which 
was ushered in by the arrival of the Waverly in January of 1831 under Capt. Phillip Pennywit with Capt. Thomas Todd Tunstall 
as pilot. A story in the Arkansas Gazette January 16 noted the arrival of the Waverly in Batesville, "where she was received 
with great manifestation of joy by the citizens of that place and the surrounding country."

The next month another steamer, the Laurel, reached Batesville, and for over fifty years the steamboats were relied upon as 
the major transportation of passengers, merchandise, farm products and other freight for Batesville, and even after the coming 
of the railroad in 1883 the steamers were the principal commercial carriers between Batesville and the upper counties.

The steamboat period of the White and Black Rivers has been very carefully researched by two members of the Independence 
County Historical Society, Capt. Charles H. Warner (1905-1971) and Duane Huddleston (now deceased). Both men have written 
numerous articles on the steamers, their owners and pilots.

The first steamboats ere greeted probably not unlike the first trains of a later date. Doubtless the beginning of the steamboat 
traffic on the White River had a highly significant effect upon the agriculture of the county and the area, as faster transportation 
of cotton was provided. Noland mentioned that upwards of 100 bales of cotton were shipped from Batesville in 1826 and there 
are references to the production of the crop here in earlier years. No record has been seen on the transportation of cotton from 
Batesville before the steamboats, although the crop was probably shipped by keelboat.

The Waverly's pilot, Captain Thomas Todd Tunstall, decided to remain in Independence County, and he became a prominent 
North Arkansas pioneer, establishing headquarters on his farm on Dota Creek east of Sulphur Rock. In addition to steamboat 
ownership and mercantile business, he was a lover of horse racing and entered good horses in races in Batesville, Little Rock, 
Fort Smith, Van Buren, and in out-of-state cities. He had a track on his Dota Creek farm where he bred champion horses. He 
became a close friend of Noland, who wrote of his racing interests, and Duane Huddleston has researched various newspapers 
and other records in writing a history of the captain and horse racing in Arkansas of the pre-Civil War era. This account, 
"Of Race Horses and Steamboats, the Pride of Captain Thomas Todd Tunstall," was published in a 144-page special issue 
of the Chronicle, Vol. XIV, No. 2, January 1973. Captain Tunstall also started the historic town of Jacksonport in Jackson County.

Captain Tunstall was a contemporary of Col. Morgan Magness, and although the captain was successful in a number of 
enterprises and doubtless was considered a wealthy man for the period, Colonel Magness was the legendary richest man 
of Independence County before the Civil War. In 1860 Magness was owner of nearly 4,000 acres of land and the largest 
slaveholder of the county, according to property assessment records. Magness, born in 1796 in Davidson County, Tennessee, 
was the son of Jonathan Magness who came to Independence County and settled on Miller's Creek when the land was still a 
part of Missouri. The Magnesses were certainly among the earliest settlers, although the exact year of their arrival is uncertain. 
The biography of Colonel Magness in Goodspeed's Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northeast Arkansas" state that he 
was sixteen years of age when his father reached Arkansas, which would have been 1812. The secretary of war appointed 
Colonel Magness one of three men to survey a route form Little Rock to Fort Gibson in 1825 and in 1829 he was appointed 
a magistrate from Black River Township.

About 1834 he settled on White River south of the present Magness post office, and although he served in both territorial and 
state legislature, he apparently devoted his time primarily to farming and becoming wealthy. His name is mentioned frequently 
in county court records in the pre-Civil War years, indicating prominence in local leadership. He died in 1871 and is buried in 
the Magness cemetery at Magness. His great-grandson, Joe Waldrip, and a great-great-grandson, William J. Waldrip III, reside 
in the county 1976, and another great-grandson, Bob Magness, the last direct descendant bearing the surname residing in the 
county, died in 1973.

Henry Neill, first of the family which became well known in Independence County, rode into Batesville and stopped at Bobby 
Bates tavern in 1832. Neill, born in Mason County, Kentucky, in 1808, worked for a year in the Lacefield tanyard located near 
the present intersection of St. Louis and Neeley Streets in Batesville for about a year and then moved to Alderbrook, which is 
now the Desha community, and began his own tannery. While he devoted his time primarily to his tannery and farming, he 
served in the state legislature in 1846 and was county judge in 1874-76. He was also the first postmaster of Alderbrook.

Henry Neill married Dorcas Stark and they were parents of six children. Job Neill wa a member of Independence County's 
first company recruited for the Confederate Army and was killed in the Battle of Wilson's Creek, and another son, Henry, 
died at an early age. Robert Neill was a successful lawyer and served as congressman from his district in 1893-97. The 
three daughters married into prominent county families: Elizabeth married Dr. L. A. Dickson, one of the county's first trained 
physicians and a Confederate Army surgeon who returned to Alderbrook for a long and useful medical practice after the war; 
Florence married George W. Rutherford, a Confederate Army captain; and Delia married Marion D. Hulsey, an Oil Trough farmer.

An important event of the decade was the first military organization recruited in the area for service outside the territory, 
Captain Jesse Bean's Arkansas Mounted Rangers of the Army of the United States. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, 
commissioned Bean to raise a company for the military force at Fort Gibson on the Arkansas River above Fort Smith. 
The Company was recruited in 1832 and was in service for about a year.  Paul Wayland, charter president of the 
Independence County Historical Society, wrote an article concerning the Rangers which appeared in the Chronicle, 
Vol. 1, No. 3, April 1960. Washington Irving mentioned the Arkansas Company in his book, "A Tour on the Prairies," 
published in 1835.

The muster roll of the company includes names well known in Independence County in 1976: Aikin, Allen, Caldwell, 
Elms, Gill, Wayland, Hulsey, Meacham, O'Neal, Peel, Wilson, and Young, among others.

It is perhaps notable that Noland in describing Batesville as he found it in 1826 stated that there was a schoolmaster 
in the town. What teaching he did is not known, but there was an effort to get a school established in Batesville in 
1836 -- the Batesville Academy. The academy was chartered, but the extent of its operation is not clear. One of the 
trustees was Dr. A. W. Lyon who had come to Arkansas as a teacher of the Cherokees at Dwight Mission on the Illinois 
Bayou in what is now Pope County. Lyon later became a trustee on the Arkansas College Board.

There were two other events of note in 1836, the admission of Arkansas to the United States as a state and the first 
conference of Methodists in Arkansas, which took place in Batesville.

It is well known that Arkansas became the twenty-fifth state to be admitted to the union, passing from territory to 
statehood status in 1836. The people of the state were not altogether united in the movement to advance as a state; 
there were advantages in remaining a territory. The federal government paid administration expenses in a territory, 
or a large part of them, and there were those who opposed statehood on the grounds that it would be better to wait 
until Arkansas had more people and more prospects of revenue.

A census of the territory was made in 1835 and it was found that Arkansas had a population of 52,240 which included 
9,838 slaves and "persons of color." The population requirement for statehood was met. Mass meetings to encourage 
the statehood movement were held at various places, including one at Batesville on July 6, 1835, and in the end the 
pro-statehood group was successful. Late in 1835 the territorial legislature passed a bill providing for election of 
delegates to a constitutional convention. John Ringgold and Townsend Dickinson were elected from Independence 
County. The constitutional convention met in Little Rock on January 4, 1836, and framed the state's first constitution, 
which was completed January 30. Noland of Independence County was chosen to carry a copy to Washington.

Noland did not reach the national capitol until March 8, and there are some records indicating fears that he may have 
met with some misfortune which caused the delay. However, he did reach Washington safely to present the constitution 
to the secretary of state, and legislation to admit Arkansas as a state was passed by Congress and was signed by 
President Andrew Jackson June 15, 1836.

Noland mentioned that there was no preacher in Batesville in 1826, although there are some contemporary records 
of religious services in the area before that date. Schoolcraft noted in his journal the gathering of a group of hunters 
to hear an itinerant preacher on White River in 1819. The Methodists were active here as early as 1815.   According 
to James A. Anderson's "Centennial History of Arkansas Methodism," Eli Lindsey preached in a wide circuit between 
the Little Red River and the Missouri line, and he was most likely the first minister to preach in Batesville.   Since the 
organizing conference took place in Batesville, it might be assumed that there was a Methodist church to act as host 
to the conference, but no record supporting such an assumption is known.   The First United Methodist Church in 
Batesville, located at Sixth and Main Streets, dates its history from 1836.   The first conference took place in a 
building on the corner of Main and Broad Streets.   A stone marker embedded in the wall of the present building on 
the site was placed there by the Maxfield family.

Duane Huddleston has done research on the early churches and preachers of the Independence County area and 
his article on early religious activity is published in the Chronicle, Vol. XI, No. 4, July 1970.   While the first preaching 
known was done by Lindsey, the oldest church in Independence County is the Rehobeth Baptist Church at Moorefield, 
which dates from the 1820's.   Cumberland Presbyterian ministers were also active in the area in the 1820's, and two 
congregations were organized, at Mt. Olive and Strawberry, according to Paul Wayland.

Batesville was affected in 1838 by an action of the state legislature to remedy the shortage of money in Arkansas. 
The constitution of 1836 empowered the general assembly to obligate the state to raise funds for a State Bank and 
a Real Estate Bank.   The central banking house of the State Bank was in Little Rock and branches were established 
in Batesville, Fayetteville, and Arkansas Post.   John Ringgold was cashier of the Batesville branch; D. W. Lowe, 
president; and Dr. Chapman, William Byers, Thomas S. Drew, and A. W. Lyon, directors.   A two-story brick building, 
forty by fifty feet, possibly the first brick business house in town, was constructed at the corner of Main Street and 
Central Avenue to house the Batesville branch, which began business in 1838.

The bank was in trouble from the beginning; officials were not experienced in banking operations, at least in the 
collection of loans, security taken was often of doubtful value and those conditions coupled with other poor management 
forced a closing in 1843. Few assets were found and the course of the banking venture cast a shadow on the state 
government's credit which was to plague Arkansas for forty years. A record of the experience of the Batesville branch 
was written for the Chronicle by John P. Morrow and published in Vol. VI, No. 2, January 1965.

The last significant development of the 1830's mentioned here is the beginning of newspaper publishing in Batesville 
in 1838. The newspaper era was ushered in by the Batesville News published by Byers and Jordan. Only scattered 
copies of the News have been seen and it cannot be stated with accuracy when the publication ceased. Fred W. Allsopp 
states in his "History of Arkansas Press for a Hundred Years or More" that another newspaper, the North Arkansian, was 
started by W. J. Locke and W. Jasper Blackburn in 1843 and that this paper supplanted the News.

In the ten years from 1840 to 1850 some additional milestones were recorded for Batesville and Independence County. 
In 1842 the First Presbyterian Church was organized, although Presbyterians had lived in Batesville for several years 
and had started a Sunday School before their church was established. There were twelve charter members of the church -- 
John McGuire, his wife Cynthia McGuire; Elam S. McGuire, Mary P. Agnew, Jane Burkholder, Dorcas Feimster, Elon Feimster, 
D. C. Montgomery, Aaron W. Lyon, William Temple, and Elizabeth Temple. After meeting in homes for several years the 
congregation built a church at Main and Fourth Street in 1848. The fact that the First Presbyterian Church of Batesville is 
the second oldest in the Arkansas Presbytery is further evidence of the prominence of Batesville in pioneer days and 
attests character of the city's founders. A history of the church in the early days was written by Mary Rutherford of 
Batesville and was published in the Chronicle, Vol. I, No. 3, April 1960.

Batesville has a long history of prominence in Masonic circles and Mt. Zion Lodge No. 10 Free and Accepted Masons, 
was chartered in 1842.

The first of three men from Independence County to serve as governor of Arkansas was Thomas S. Drew, who was elected 
in 1844 and again in 1848, but he resigned in 1849, claiming that the salary of the office was too small.

Doubtless there was considerable excitement in Batesville and the county in 1846 when two companies of men answered 
the call of the President for volunteers to fight in the War with Mexico. It is significant to note that there were about eighteen 
companies raised in the state and two of them came from Independence County. Company D was commanded by Capt. 
Andrew R. Porter, who lost his life in action, and was succeeded by Capt. Franklin W. Desha. Company E was under the 
command of Capt. Charles H. Pelham. Personnel of both companies are given in an account in the Chronicle, Vol. V, No. 4, July 1960.
A further record of Captain Porter's death is told by Duane Huddleston in Vol. X, No. 2, January 1969. Captain Porter's body 
was returned to Batesville and rests today in Oaklawn Cemetery. He was first buried in a cemetery at Main and St. Louis 
Streets and was later moved to Oaklawn.

One of Batesville's notable homes, known in its latter years as the Ewing house, was built on Main Street on the corner 
of the block east of the present site of the First United Methodist Church by James H. Patterson in 1845. Patterson suffered 
some financial reverses and moved to Woodruff County, selling his Batesville home to Thomas Cox, a Batesville lawyer 
and landowner. Cox, who had 2,650 acres of land in 1860, was behind only two other owners, Col. Morgan Magness and 
the W. W. Tunstall estate in amount of land assessed under a single ownership. Cox was married in 1859 to Laura Erwin, 
a sister of William J. Erwin, who acquired considerable wealth and became president of the Citizens Bank of Batesville. 
The Erwins came from Maury County, Tennessee, in 1840.

Cox died in 1871 and his widow married Dr. Ewing in 1874.  As we shall see later, use of the three-story brick home was 
appropriated by both Union and Confederate officers during the Civil War. After the unsettled conditions of war time, the 
house was the scene of parties and entertainments, for which the Ewings became well known.

The age of other older homes of Batesville is established by the writings of a visitor in 1849, James Rutherford. Some 
fifty years after his arrival in Batesville he wrote of riding down Main Street for the first time:

"I rode down Main Street of Batesville, near the lower end of said street,
and put up at the hotel run by Robert Bates. I was at my journey's end.
"The hotel stood opposite the residence of the now Mrs. Sophia Lawrence,
but then the residence of John Ringgold. C. F. M. Noland, his son-in-law,
lived with him. Mr. Noland was a writer of ability, writing under the name
of Pete Whetstone. He has long since died but I have always remembered
him kindly for he took an interest in me when I was a young man.

"Mrs. Miniken's residence, John W. Ferrill's residence, then occupied by
E. T. Burr, the Reed storehouse, the Folsom residence now occupied by
Mr. Wiggins; the W. E. Maxfield and I. N. Reed residence improved so much
that you would hardly know them. Theo. Maxfield's residence was just
finished. Mrs. Case's residence and the residence of Harvey Miniken,
Uriah Maxfield, now occupied by Mr. Fitzhugh, all improved so much they
would not be known, and another I recollect and the first house I ever saw
in Batesville is the old stone house on the Bayou."

Four of the dwellings mentioned by Colonel Rutherford are standing in 1976 -- the Theodore Maxfield house at Seventh 
and Main, the W. E. Maxfield house at Sixth and Main, in 1976 generally known as the Garrot house and used by Mr. and 
Mrs. Carl Johnston for an antique shop; the I. N. Reed house directly across Main from the W. E. Maxfield home; and the 
Uriah Maxfield dwelling at 410 Harrison which is now the home of Mrs. John Spragins, a great-granddaughter of the 1849 owner.

The Ferrill family, mentioned by Colonel Rutherford as the occupant of E. T. Burr's former residence, came to Batesville from 
North Carolina in 1854. The Ferrills have been one of the county's prominent families for decades.  Edwin Burr, born in 
Massachusetts in 1816, came to Batesville in 1839, married a daughter of Dr. Phillip P. Burton, and by 1860 had built up 
the largest mercantile business assessed in Batesville or in the county. He died in 1876 at Engleside, his country home 
which has been described as a place of beauty, on the north bank of White River just below Riverside Park.

The First Baptist is another of Batesville's churches which dates form the 1840's. The exact year the church was organized 
is uncertain, although records indicate that it was in October of 1847 when a group of Baptists met in the classroom of one 
John C. Briekey, a school teacher who had emigrated from Missouri to Batesville. Elder Henry McElmurry assisted the group 
in the formation of the church and became the first pastor. The second minister to serve the church was P. S. G. Watson and 
under his ministry the Baptists had their first building, on Main Street near the Marvin Hotel. This building served the congregation 
until the 1880's when another church was built at Sixth and Main, the site of the present First Baptist.

At least one other newspaper was started in Batesville in the 1840's, the Batesville Eagle. Allsopp says in his history of the 
Arkansas Press the Eagle was published in the early 1840's; however, one copy of this weekly, Vol. 1, No. 9, is known in 
Batesville and it bears the date of June 27, 1848. The indefatigable Noland was the editor and W. T. Cochran was listed as 
publisher and proprietor.

The year 1849 marks the most ambitious undertaking in the field of education known in Batesville to that date, the Soulesbury 
Institute, which has also been known as Soulesbury College. Soulesbury was at Sixth and Water Streets, the site of the Glenn 
home in 1976. In fact, the school was rebuilt into the present residence. Soulesbury was a Methodist school which apparently 
operated until the Civil War and for a brief period afterward. An article on the school appears in the Chronicle, Vol. V, No. 3, April 1964.

The decade beginning in 1850 included glorious years for the county. In the ten years, 1850 to 1860, the population of Independence 
County rose from 7,767 to 14,307, an increase of 6,540. In no other ten years of the county's history has a gain of this number been 
recorded. The population of the entire state showed a sharp rise, increasing 209,897 to 435,450. There was a great migration of 
people from other Southern states into Arkansas, and particularly the state of Tennessee furnished many new citizens to 
Independence County. Since the county was, of course, primarily a county of smaller farmers, the rural areas became of 
more significance. Fifteen new post offices were established in the county from 1850 to 1860.

Lawyers came to Batesville early; Richard Searcy was in the town not later than 1821 and James Woodson Bates by 1823. 
Noland recorded the presence of two lawyers, Searcy and Townsend Dickinson, in 1826, and it is probably that every period 
of the county's history has been served by capable lawyers. In 1853 or shortly afterward there came another lawyer to 
Batesville who became a notable member of the bar, Judge U. M. Rose. Rose was born in Lebanon, Kentucky. He was 
admitted to the bar in 1853. His residence in Batesville apparently was not lengthy, as he was appointed chancellor of 
the Pulaski chancery court by Governor Elias N. Conway in 1860 and moved to Little Rock. He accompanied the state 
administration when it moved to Washington during the War and returned to Little Rock to practice law when the War ended.

Characterized as an essayist and jurist of national distinction, Rose was elected president of the American Bar Association 
in 1901 and in 1907 President Roosevelt appointed him a United States commissioner to the International Peace Conference 
in The Hague. As one of the state's great men, his statue is in the Hall of Fame at Washington.   D. C. Rose died in 1913.

By 1850 Batesville was well past the stage of a frontier town; the number of lawyers, doctors, and businesses increased 
in the decade. The county's second courthouse, a brick building, was constructed in 1857 on a new site on Main Street, 
the location of the courthouse in 1976. Progress was highlighted by the construction of the Batesville Institute, a three-story 
brick structure on Main Street, between State Street and Central Avenue, to house the city offices, a library, lodge halls, and 
public entertainment. The General Assembly of the State of Arkansas approved a charter in 1853 "to establish in the town of 
Batesville an institution for the promotion of the Fine Arts, Mechanism, Science Education, Commerce, and the diffusion of knowledge." 
The cost of the undertaking, $23,000, all raised locally, was no small sum for the times. Major stockholders included 
W. Byers, $1,000; John Ruddell, $1,000; Thomas Cox, $1,000; Mt. Zion Lodge, $1,000; Batesville Chapter, $500; 
R. A. Childress, $250; B. H. Neeley, $100; G. W. Daugherty, $150; and Hirsch and Adler, $100.

W. Byers was president of the first board of directors; B. H. Neeley, secretary; and Henry Neill, treasurer. The Institute 
was the first three-story structure in the town and is said to be the first three-story brick building in the state, although 
there has been no verification of this claim.

Unfortunately, the life of the Institute was measured by months. It was completed and ready for occupancy September 1, 1858, 
and an elaborate dedication program was held on September 29. In the early morning hours of January 16, 1859, fire broke out 
in a nearby building, spreading to the Institute, and all efforts to control the flames were fruitless. The destruction was complete; 
the loss was estimated at $25,000 and there was no insurance. The story of the Institute is told in an article written for the 
Chronicle, Vol. II, No. 3, April 1961, by the late Mrs. George Terry.




THE CIVIL WAR                     


While actual fighting in this county during the Civil War was limited to no more than skirmishes, it would be a mistake 
to assume that the county was not seriously affected. Population growth practically ceased during the ten years from 
1860 to 1870, and in terms of county men serving in the armies, privations of homefolk, financial disasters, and 
disruptions of the lives of the people the war was no minor catastrophe.

Who can pinpoint the beginning of the collision course between the North and South, unless one goes back to 1619 
when slavery was introduced into the American colonies? George Washington in his will provided for the emancipation 
of his slaves and spoke against slavery. Other early leaders -- Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, and others -- declared their 
opposition to the institution, and th abolitionist movement had an early beginning in the North, although much of the 
effort was a transfer of the slaves to the Southern states. The resentment against slavery became so entrenched that 
the fires of bitterness between slaveholding and free states burned freely in the national congress, in churches, and 
when a new state asked for admission.

History books by the score have documented the intense feeling which existed on slavery in the years immediately 
preceding the war, and the outlook of the people of Independence County on this issue has been a subject of research. 
No evidence has been found to support belief that the county's leadership was made up of uncompromising slaveowners 
harboring hatred for the North. There are some complete yearly files of the Independent Balance of the late 1850's extant 
and very little publicity was given to slavery locally and less to divisions of the people of the issue.

Slavery had existed in Independence County at least since 1815, as correspondence between John C. Luttig and Christian 
Wilt mentioned a slave girl. However, slaves of all ages in the county in 1860 numbered only 1,309, slightly less that ten 
percent of the total population. Census statistics on slavery in the county were researched by Morgan A. Powell, a native 
of the county, graduate of Annapolis Naval Academy, and retired admiral, and were published in his article on the subject 
in the Chronicle, Vol. III, No. 2, January 1962.

County tax records show that 918 slaves between the ages of five and sixty years were the property of 221 owners in 1860. 
Nine men -- Col. Morgan Magness, Abraham Allen, W. M. Byers, Robert Calaway, John Miller, Sr., John Ruddell, J. Stone, 
R. Stone, and Robert Smith -- owned twenty-two percent of the slaves. Probably no more than ten to twelve percent of the 
households in the county had slaves.

The value of the slaves, however, was significant. The assessed value of all slaves on the tax books in 1860 amounted 
to $614,536. Col. Morgan Magness assessed his 39 slaves between the ages of five and sixty years at $19,500, while 
his landholdings, which included 3,813 acres, were assessed for $15,167.

While the records do not show that the people of Independence County were in 1860 stirred to the same depth of anti-union 
feeling as existed elsewhere in the South, it would be a mistake to assume that there was no division of the people on the 
issue. In May of 1861 Alfred Matthews, who was making a trip on foot from Louisiana to St. Louis, was in Independence 
County and he reported a fear among the people of the federal government based upon rumors of cruelties of Northern 
troops. He also reported he was told while spending the night in a farmhouse ten miles north of Batesville that secessionist 
leaders in the town had arrested a neighbor for outspoken Union feelings and were going to hang him. Friends had intervened 
and saved the man's life.

There was some caution on the part of the people in Arkansas to leave the Union and join the Confederacy. The state 
legislature was in session from November 5, 1860, to January 21, 1861, and an act was passed providing for the governor 
to issue a proclamation ordering an election for all counties to vote for or against holding a state convention and to vote 
for delegates to the convention if one was to be held. This convention would decide what Arkansas was to do.

An election was held February 18 and the voters decided in favor of the convention. Urban E. Fort, a former county sheriff; 
M. Shelby Kennard, editor of the Independent Balance; and Franklin W. Desha, landowner, lawyer, slaveowner, and veteran 
of the Mexican War, were elected as delegates from Independence County. The convention met in Little Rock March 4 and 
was in session until March 21 without making a decision to leave the Union. The majority of the delegates apparently favored 
remaining in the Union, as resolutions to secede were made and failed to pass. The convention adjourned with plans to meet 
again August 19 or on call of the president, David Walker of Fayetteville.

Sentiment in the state apparently underwent a drastic change very quickly. Fort Sumter fell on April 13 and President Lincoln 
issued his call for troops. The convention met again May 6 and a definite decision was made for Arkansas to join other 
Southern states in seceding. Only one vote was cast against the Ordinance of Secession -- that of Isaac Murphy of Madison County.

Once the decision was made for Arkansas to leave the Union, Independence County lost no time in mobilizing for war. One 
company of men commanded by Capt. William E. Gibbs, a Batesville lawyer, was mustered into service June 9, 1861. 
James W. Butler, grandfather of Virgil Butler of Batesville, was first lieutenant and Robert Neill was first sergeant. The 
military experience of Captain Gibbs is unknown, and the training of his company is also a question, as they were 
committed in combat August in the Battle of Wilson's Creek near Springfield, Missouri. Job Neill, a brother of the first 
sergeant, was killed and Captain Gibbs was missing and was never heard of again in Batesville. Ernest Neill, a son of 
Robert Neill, said he believed the captain was so humiliated in the battle that he deserted.

In all, twenty-three companies of troops were enlisted in Independence County for the Confederate Army. Four captains -- 
John H. Dye, Ganum Brightwell, J. W. Cullins, and E. N. Floyd -- organized two companies each, and fifteen captains -- 
William E. Gibbs, Thomas J. Morgan, Winfred S. Smalley, J. T. Tracey, George W. McCauley, Simeon Cason, A. T. Jones, 
E. Houser, E. W. Echols, L. E. Knight, Thomas West, Samuel Jordan McGuffin, C. S. Washburn, Samuel R. Fetzer, and 
George W. Rutherford -- organized one each. The names of the captains and their units are inscribed on the Confederate 
monument on the courthouse lawn in Batesville.

An excellent account of the Civil War in Independence County was written by Nola James in 1967 as a thesis when she 
was in the graduate school of Memphis State University. Muster rolls, information of the number of men serving in the 
Union and Confederate Armies, together with troop activity in the area are included.

The first federal occupation of Batesville occurred May 3, 1862, with the arrival of Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, who had been 
victorious over the Confederated at Pea Ridge on March 7-8. Curtis found Batesville occupied by Confederate forces, 
although they moved across the river when he arrived. Curtis' men were not engaged in combat here and he moved 
his Army to Jacksonport early in July. It perhaps should be noted that evidence of strong Union sentiment surfaced 
while General Curtis was in Batesville as 365 men and 14 officers were recruited for the federal Army and left with him. 
According to Mrs. James, the men served for six months. Another organization for the federal forces, the Fourth Arkansas 
Mounted Infantry Volunteers which included about 450 men, was recruited by Col. Elisha Baxter, a Batesville lawyer, late 
in 1863.

It is possible that the people of Batesville may have had some warning of the likelihood of a visit by General Curtis, 
as on April 18, 1862, less than seven weeks after the Battle of Pea Ridge and slightly more than two weeks before 
Curtis' army reached Batesville, the county court entered an order for the County Clerk M. A. Wycough to remove 
the county records from the courthouse to such place as he might consider secure as a safeguard against their 
destruction. Where the records were placed for safekeeping is unknown. The order for the safety precaution was 
signed by County Judge Nicholas Peed, Jas. M. Shepherd, and A. G. Goodwin.

Because of the geographical position of Batesville in North Arkansas, it could have been expected that the county 
would be visited by both Union and Confederate Armies, although the occupations of the various commands during 
the four years cannot be included here. General Sterling Price and his army crossed the county and were at Jacksonport
in April of 1862. After Curtis left, there were Confederate troops of smaller commands here until January of 1863 when 
Gen. John S. Marmaduke and Col. J. O. Shelby arrived. Marmaduke made his headquarters in the Ewing house on Main 
Street, which was also headquarters of Curtis. Marmaduke's soldiers were camped for the remainder of the winter near 
Oil Trough Bottom. Shelby at first had his headquarters in the F. W. Desha house, which is standing and well-preserved 
in 1976. Marmaduke and Shelby remained here until June of 1863.

The Ewing House was again headquarters for a Union command in late December of 1863, as Col. R. R. Livingston and 
about a thousand federal troops arrived in Batesville on Christmas Day. Livingston's men were engaged in the skirmish 
at Waugh's farm north of Bethesda in Independence County February 18, 1864, in which a few men, including Captain 
Castle of the Union Army were killed. Castle was in command of a wagon train escorted by soldiers sent out to gather 
forage for horses, and the train was attacked at daybreak by Capt. George Rutherford and his company. The federal 
soldiers were taken by surprise and Rutherford escaped across White River with some 200 head of government 
horses and mules.

Livingston left Batesville in May and shortly afterward Shelby and Marmaduke returned with their commands. Apparently 
these soldiers remained in the Batesville area until joining Price's Confederate Army for his "Missouri Raid." Price took 
with him practically all the Confederate soldiers of the area.

"Pap" Price's raid into Missouri signaled an end to organized combat between Union and Confederate soldiers in North Arkansas. 
The expedition into Missouri was a failure, and the remnants of Price's army came back into the state in Northwest Arkansas in 
the late fall of 1864 and most of the soldiers came home on foot.

There were two other important concerns of the people here during the Civil War which should be mentioned. One is that 
North Arkansas was plagued by large numbers of lawless men called bushwhackers by Southerners. Bushwhackers belonged 
to neither army; they preyed upon defenseless farmsteads and were feared more than the federal soldiers, at least in some 
quarters. There was perhaps some distinction, at least in early months of the war, between bushwhackers and guerrillas. 
Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, an Arkansas general, sanctioned guerrilla warfare in which soldiers in small bands fought and 
harassed the Federals. Some of these small groups of soldiers, or civilians following the pattern, degenerated into the 
bushwhacker-type characters, robbing, plundering, and committing other vile acts of lawlessness. It was the general 
policy of the federal army to consider both guerrillas and bushwhackers outside the protection of rules of warfare and 
numerous commands issued orders for them to be shot. The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion disclose 
numerous instances in which these men were killed in the hills of North Arkansas. Certainly they were a menace in
 
the Independence County area.
Another problem which the local citizens had was the supply of provisions to the armies. While it was the stated intention 
of both Confederate and Union commands to issue vouchers as a guarantee of payment for forage and other provisions 
taken from local persons, actual payment was another matter. The Official Records contain a report of 2nd Lt. A. N. Harris 
of Company K, 11th Missouri Cavalry, which was stationed in Batesville in January of 1864, who set out in charge of a 
company of forty federal soldiers to the Black River bottoms in search of a herd of beef cattle said to be grazing in the 
canebrakes. Harris was successful in finding twenty-one head of cattle and four "secesh" prisoners which he brought to 
Batesville. While the lieutenant included no information on ownership of the cattle, as he probably did not know and made 
no effort to find out, it is highly unlikely that the animals were without owners. The Confederate soldiers also had to have 
food for themselves and forage for their horses and much of these necessities had to come from the land as they passed 
through. As the War progressed, Confederate money decreased in value which made it virtually impossible to pay for supplies.

A contemporary record of the uncertainties the people faces, the hardships endured, the losses suffered, and the clouds of 
violence which broke open in the war years in Independence County in found in a letter written by Emeline McGuire, wife of 
Edwin Ruthvin McGuire, to her son, James Clinton McGuire in California in August of 1864.

Edwin R. McGuire was the son of John and Cynthia Sharpe McGuire, who were charter members of the First Presbyterian 
Church of Batesville. Edwin became a prosperous farmer in Oil Trough Bottom and the Oil Trough Masonic Lodge, which 
was moved to Thida some years ago, was named for him. Edwin, who owned considerable land, was residing in Oil Trough 
during the war, or at least until the misfortunes described by his wife, which left them homeless, and they went to Kentucky 
for a temporary period. The letter states, in part:





                         Oldham County, Kentucky
                         August, 1864


My Dear Son,
How to commence this letter to you I do not know. I have so much melancholy things to tell you about. 
In the first place, I know you will think it strange, when you look at the heading of my letter, that your 
Ma is in Kentucky. Well, I will tell you how it was that we came here. We have had first the Confederate 
soldiers and then the Federals changing first one and then the other ever since the war commenced, 
and last winter a band of Jayhawking thieves came into Independence and all the adjoining counties, 
going to the people's houses of nights and demanding all their money and threatening to kill them if 
they did not and they did kill some.

One night three men rode up to our gate and hallowed and your Pa went out thinking it was some of 
our neighbors wanted something, when to his surprise they took hold of him and said he was their 
prisoner. They were all armed and he had only an old pocket knife. They took him nearly a mile into 
the woods and asked him for a large sum of money. I do not recollect how much and they said they 
would kill him if he did not give it to them. Your Pa told them they would have to kill him then for he 
had not near much money. They told him he had to give all he had. They then searched his pockets 
and then brought him back to the house and told me to bring out all the money or they would burn 
the house. I took the money out and they released your Pa. About three weeks after that a gang of 
those thieves came to our house about eleven o'clock at night. We had our doors locked and Pa 
had his guns and pistols loaded. They did not say a word but commenced trying to burst the doors 
open. Finding the doors too strong, one of them came to the window and burst the shutter off. Just 
as he did so your Pa shot and killed him. He loaded his gun again and went into the cellar with the 
intention of trying to get out. Knowing that they had got all the money before, your Pa believed they 
had come with the intention of killing him, and he said he was determined to sell his life as dear as 
he could.

As soon as this man was killed, they made the negroes carry him to Lamburtons and they set the 
house on fire. They put the fire at the end of the old store room and the house was all in flames 
before I knew it. Your Pa managed to get out of the cellar but not until he was wounded in the left 
arm above the elbow and he killed another one of those thieves.

He then had to run through the open lot and them following him and shooting at him all the time. 
Just as he jumped the lot fence by the negro cabin, they shot him the second time in the same 
arm which I fear will make him a cripple for life. But he succeeded in getting away with life for 
which I am thankful to my blessed Savior, for I know it was nothing but his interposition that 
saved him. Our dwelling houses, kitchen, smokehouse with everything that was in them burned 
up with the exception of a few things Auntie and myself carried out. A few days afterward our mill 
and gin was burned and all our negroes left us and went to the Federals except Jo. . .
Our house was burned the fifth night of December (1863). We left Arkansas in March.



Your mother, Emeline McGuire


How many times the robbery, shooting, and burning were duplicated is, of course, unknown, but there is no evidence 
that the McGuires were reserved for special treatment. James Clinton McGuire was the father of Elizabeth Ewing McGuire, 
the mother of Eleanor Gray of Batesville, whose courtesy has added to the Civil War record in this county through use of 
the letter, which is in her possession.

It is well known, of course, that many items quickly became scarce in Batesville, adding to the discomfort and inconvenience 
of the people. For example, newsprint became unobtainable quickly and the Independent Balance, the last known local 
newspaper printed here during the War, ceased publication in July of 1862. Salt quickly became scarce and could be 
obtained only at an extremely high price if at all.

According to Mrs. James, known muster rolls show 1,525 men from the county served in the Confederate Army and 815 
in the Union, and there were others who joined units of both sides outside the county. The soldiers went far afield from 
home fighting for their convictions and it is not possible her to chronicle the battles in which local men took part. Thomas 
Jefferson Morgan was the highest ranking officer from this county, reaching rank of full colonel. His grandson, Admiral 
Morgan Powell, recorded known facts of his life both as a soldier and a civilian and presented them for publication in the 
Chronicle, Vol. VII, No. 2, January 1966. Admiral Powell's article includes battles in which Colonel Morgan took part, 
including Price's raid into Missouri.

Franklin W. Desha's commission as a lieutenant colonel is in the papers of the Desha Lester family, and another 
Independence County native, Sam Peel, reached rank of colonel, although he had removed from the county before 
the Civil War. Colonel Peel practiced law at Bentonville after the War and served as congressman from Northwest 
Arkansas. He is buried in the Bentonville Cemetery.

Even before General Lee's surrender at Appomatox on April 9, 1865, many Confederate units had disintegrated and 
the men walked away, without formal discharge. These men as well as organized units met at Jacksonport on July 5, 1865, 
and were given parole certificates containing agreement that they would not bear arms against the United States. 

An estimated 6,000 Confederate soldiers went to Jacksonport for their paroles, according to an account of the surrender 
written by Mrs. Lady Elizabeth Luker of Newport and published in the Chronicle, Vol. VI, No. 4, July 1965. Nobody knows 
how many soldiers never went to Jacksonport or elsewhere for their parole, as it was nothing uncommon to hear old 
soldiers in later years comment that they had never surrendered.

During the Civil War a newspaper, the Batesville Bazoo, was published in Batesville by troops of Col. Robert R. Livingston. 
One copy, Vol. I, No. 2, dated February 6, 1864, was discovered for the County Historical Society by Admiral Powell and 
facsimile copies were published during the Civil War Centennial for Society members. Copies of No. 1 are unknown, and 
the original of No. 2, which is in the collection of the Missouri Historical Society, may be a unique item. It is not known if 
later numbers were printed.

Another reference to Civil War in Batesville and its effects upon the local populace is a narrative of the ordeal of Emily Weaver, 
a true spy story of the War, written by W. J. Crowley of Homewood, Illinois, and published in the Chronicle, Vol. XVII, No. 1, October 1975. 
In 1864 Miss Weaver was traveling via St. Louis to Memphis to visit her father, and while she was in St. Louis, federal authorities 
arrested her as a spy. In a subsequent trial she was found guilty and sentenced to death, although the sentence was never carried out.

Companies were formed in adjacent counties with volunteers of names well known in Independence County. In 1861 Capt. 
William G. Matheny recruited a company at Evening Shade, which was then in Lawrence County. Captain Matheny, promoted 
to rank of lieutenant colonel, was captured in the Battle of Vicksburg and after the war returned to Sharp County. One of his sons, 
I. J. Matheny (incidentally, his brothers were named A.B., C.D., E.F., and G.H.) was an attorney in Batesville who served four terms 
in the state legislature and William A. Oldfield, a grandson of Captain Matheny, was a lawyer and congressman from this district.

An excellent general reference to the Civil War in the Batesville area is "Fight and Survive!" by Lady Elizabeth Luker of Newport. 
This 203-page book, published in 1974, is primarily an account of Jackson County units and includes records of army movements, 
both Confederate and Union, affecting Independence County.

The surrender of General Lee and the Confederate forces was not the end of perilous times for the South, Arkansas, or 
Independence County. A constitutional convention met in Little Rock January 4, 1864, and declared the Confederate 
constitution of March 1861 null and void and returned the state to the 1836 convention with some slight changes. 
Calvin C. Bliss is listed as the delegate from Independence County to this constitutional convention. The people of 

Arkansas approved the 1864 constitution by a vote of 12,177 to 266.
Isaac Murphy of Madison County was elected governor in 1864 and Calvin C. Bliss was elected lieutenant governor. 
A biography of Bliss has not been found, but his representation of the county in the constitutional convention would 
indicate he was a resident of the county. President Lincoln was interested in the constitutional action in Arkansas 
and sent messages of support to the Murphy administration. It is, of course, well known that Lincoln intended to 
pursue a liberal policy in returning the former Confederate states to the Union and he encouraged the citizens to 
form loyal state governments.

The plans of President Lincoln, however, were thwarted. After his assassination, the power of radicals in the national 
congress ascended. They refused to seat the representatives sent to Congress by the former Confederate states and 
pursued policies calculated to punish the South, with the resulting carpetbag state governments and destructive 
reconstruction. Arkansas' carpetbag constitution was adopted in another constitutional convention in 1868. 

Peter G. Misner and George W. Dale were the delegates from Independence County to this convention. Efforts to 
find out where these men lived in Independence County, their prominence in politics, and how they made their living 
have been fruitless.

The power of Powell Clayton, the carpetbag governor of Arkansas, was on the rise with the movement to call the 
constitutional convention in 1868. Clayton, commissioned a captain when the war began, was a native of Pennsylvania, 
was educated in a military school, and in 1855 became a resident of Kansas. He spent most of the war years in Arkansas 
and held the rank of brigadier general when the war ended. Deciding to remain in Arkansas after the war, he married a 
Helena girl and purchased a plantation near Pine Bluff. He was inaugurated as governor July 2, 1868. The Powell 
administration is characterized by influence of voting laws to control elections, primarily by use of Negroes, raids 
on the state treasury, as large sums of money were appropriated for levees and railroads which were not built, 
and for use of the state militia. Arkansas was divided into military districts, and companies of militiamen rode 
over the country to control the civilian population. Once again security in the hills was threatened. The militia 
was well known in Batesville and elsewhere in North Arkansas.

Early in 1871 there was a vacancy in the U. S. Senate from Arkansas and the state legislature elected Powell Clayton 
to the office, an act that immediately precipitated a fight in the governor's office. W. B. Padgett of Independence County 
presented a motion that Clayton be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors while he was still governor. The 
Republican party split into two factions, one of which was led by Joseph Brooks, who opposed Clayton, and the other 
by Ozra Hadley, who came to Arkansas in 1865 from Minnesota, a Clayton man who was chosen acting governor. 
Clayton continued to have influence in the state administration from his senate office in Washington.

The trouble in the state administration reached a boiling point in 1872, beginning when both groups of Republicans 
held conventions to nominate candidates for state offices. The liberal faction nominated Brooks, while the regular 
Republicans nominated four candidates for governor: Hadley, Gen. A. W. Bishop, Alexander McDonald, and Elisha 
Baxter of Batesville. Baxter won, but Brooks and some of the men claimed votes had been improperly counted and 
that he was the actual winner. The details of the claims of both men to the office of governor are somewhat complex 
and cannot be examined here, but after court battles, the well-known Brooks-Baxter War of Arkansas erupted. Both 
men were supported by bodies of armed men and a small number was killed and wounded. The affair was ended by 
recognition of Baxter as the lawful governor by President Grant. The effect of this state of affairs when there was need 
of rehabilitation and rebuilding was to prolong recovery of the state from the effects of the War.

While Independence County is not directly concerned with return of Powell Clayton to Arkansas after expiration of his 
term in the senate, it is of interest that he settled in Eureka Springs and built the Crescent Hotel, which is standing in 
1976. He was also prominent in the beginning of the railroad from Seligman, Missouri to Eureka Springs, a line which 
later became a part of the Missouri and North Arkansas and still later the Missouri and Arkansas Railroad, which was 
extended from Joplin, Missouri to Helena in Arkansas. From 1899 to 1903 Clayton was United States minister to Mexico. 
He did not return to Arkansas to live and spent his last years in Washington where he wrote a book, "The Aftermath of the 
Civil War in Arkansas," published after his death in 1914.

Elisha Baxter was the second governor of Arkansas from Independence County. A native of North Carolina, he came to 
Batesville in 1852 and with his brother, Taylor, established a mercantile business. Elisha was elected to the state 
legislature in 1854 and his interest in politics is said to have been the cause of failure of the business. He worked for 
the Independent Balance, the Batesville weekly newspaper, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1856. When 
the War began, he opposed secession and left Batesville but was captured in Missouri. He was released and ordered 
to go to Little Rock where he was arrested again and charged with treason but escaped before trial. He sought protection 
of the federal troops and was authorized with a commission as a colonel to recruit a regiment, which was the 
aforesaidmentioned Fourth Arkansas Mounted Infantry Volunteers. Under the Murphy administration he was chief 
justice of the state supreme court and was later elected to the U. S. Senate, but was not allowed to take his seat. 
After leaving the governors' office in 1874, he returned to Batesville to practice law and farm. He died here in 1899 
and is buried in Oaklawn Cemetery in Batesville.




BROOKS-BAXTER TO V. Y. COOK RIFLES                    
 


In 1874 Arkansas adopted another constitution which is in effect in 1976.   Independence County delegates to this 
constitutional convention were James W. Butler and James Rutherford.

Although growth of Independence County was almost stopped in the ten years from 1860 to 1870, when the war ended 
the people began to make adjustments to the post-war conditions and turn their attention to normal pursuits. At least two 
newspapers, The North Arkansas Times and the Batesville Republican began publication in the late 1860's. The Times, 
which listed Charles Maxfield as publisher, began on March 10, 1866, and the Republican started in 1867. As far as is 
now known, the Independent Balance, the last newspaper to suspend during the War, did not resume publication, as no 
post-war copies have been found.

The Soulesbury Institute re-opened, after the War, although length of its post-war life is not known. The property passed 
into private owners, the Glenn family in 1872. The house is still under ownership of Glenn heirs in 1976.

S. A. Hail, a former Confederate soldier, arrived in Batesville from Lawrence County in 1867 and a few years later started 
Hail's Book Store. With his son, Conway Hail, he started the Hail Dry Goods Company in 1911, and the enterprise is still 
in business and operated by members of this family. The Maxfield store, another business which is still in operation in 
1976, was started in 1869 by Theodore Maxfield, son of Uriah Maxfield, who came to Batesville in 1842. The Maxfields 
have long been engaged in general stores, hardware, furniture, drygoods, banking, and other businesses.

Another Confederate soldier, V. Y. Cook, of whom more will be said later, emigrated to Arkansas and settled at Grand 
Glaize in Jackson County in 1867.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church was organized in Batesville in 1866 by Henry C. Lay, Episcopal Bishop to Arkansas, 
although the town had had a number of Episcopalians for many years, including Charles Fenton Mercer Noland. 
Before 1866, Batesville had been considered an Episcopal station.

Two other events of this period are indicative of a desire and effort of the people to put the war behind them and 
return to peach-time pursuits. Spring Mill, last of the nineteenth century water mills to operate in Arkansas, was 
built in 1867 by the Confederate Veteran Col. J. A. Schnozzle of Jacksonport for A. N. Simmons. The mill passed 
through various owners until 1917 when it was purchased by J. A. Lytle, Jr., and the mill is in 1976 owned by the 
Lytle family. Mrs. John A. Lytle, Jr. operated the mill to grind meal in 1976 for distribution by the Bicentennial wagon 
train on its trip from Arkansas to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

Colonel Schnable was also a major figure in the second of two events mentioned here, the construction of the stone 
bridge across Salado Creek west of Rosie. The contract for construction was awarded to Schnable and James Moore 
in 1867, although the work was not completed until early 1870. The bridge, financed by the county, was unique for the 
area and perhaps for Arkansas, as it was a spandrel-arch type structure with twin arches. After World War II, the bridge 
attracted considerable attention and an effort was made to preserve it. Legislation was passed to include the bridge and 
access road into the state highway system, although nothing was done to reinforce the weakened spans, which collapsed 
in a flood in January 1958.

There were at least three notable developments in the county's history which took place in the period 1870-1880, two of 
them concerning education and two which might well be considered milestones.

The awakening interest in education in the early 1870's was remarkable. The 1868 constitution of the State of Arkansas 
contained a provision for creation of a state university when funds were available, and the legislature of 1871 authorized 
establishment of such an educational institution. Cities and counties were given a chance to make offers for location of the 
school and Batesville and Independence County made a strong effort to bring the University of Arkansas to Batesville. 
According to Dr. Robert A. Leflar's history of the University, published in 1972, Batesville offered $50,000 which was 
increased by an additional $19,000 in cash and lands from private hands and the county voted on a bond issue of $100,000. 
The proposal in the town of Batesville was overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 90 to 0, but the bond issue in the county 
lost by a vote of 590 to 428 and the University went to Fayetteville. According to Dr. Leflar, the committee deciding the location 
came to Batesville for an inspection and was impressed by the offer and the enthusiasm of the people for the school. When 
the committee voted on a location, Batesville received two votes.

The efforts of the town and county to bring the University of Arkansas to Batesville, which came very near success, must be 
viewed in light of the economic conditions at the time. The population of Batesville in 1870 included only 647 white persons. 
The town's businesses were owned by small merchants and most of the county's population was made up of families of small 
farmers. the Civil War had been ended only six years and the county still faced uncertainties of reconstruction. In face of these 
considerations, the efforts of the local leadership to get the location of the state school can be judged as altogether laudable, 
and it is of interest to note that only three places in the state -- Batesville, Little Rock, and Fayetteville -- mustered serious bids.

However, Batesville was to have an institution of higher learning -- Arkansas College, which in 1972 celebrated its one hundredth 
birthday anniversary. Arkansas College was started in 1872 by Dr. Isaac Jasper Long, a Presbyterian minister whose first visit to 
Batesville was in 1866. Dr. Long, a native of South Carolina, was sent to Arkansas by the Presbyterian Church Committee on 
Domestic Missions to gather information on churches of the Synod of Arkansas, and the North Arkansas Times reported 
August 18, 1866, that he was in Batesville, holding a revival with Rev. Silliman. His preaching here must have had a profound 
effect upon the people, as after he left he was asked to return as pastor of the local Presbyterian congregation. The letter asking 
him to return is said to have been signed by twelve Presbyterians, several Methodists, Baptists, and others who were members 
of no church. Dr. Long apparently was impressed by the people of Batesville, as he resigned his pastorate at Concord Church, 
South Carolina, and came to Batesville beginning his service as pastor here April 14, 1867. He was pastor of the First Presbyterian 
Church here until 1883.

At the urging of Dr. Long, the Presbytery, meeting in Searcy on April 15, 1872, accepted the idea of creating a college in Batesville 
and appointed a provisional board of trustees which included Dr. Long, J. F. Allen, M. A. Wycough, W. L. McGuire, D. C. Boggs, 
W. W. Kerr, W. K. Patterson, W. J. Burt, and E. Mount. The school opened September 2, 1872, with an enrollment of sixty-five 
students. A charter for the college was signed by Acting Governor Hadley, James Johnston, Secretary of State, and Thomas Smith, 
superintendent of education. The first campus of the college was between College Avenue and Boswell Street and between Seventh 
and Eighth Streets. The first permanent building, which is in regular use by the First Presbyterian Church in 1976, is now known as 
Morrow Hall, honoring the family of the late John P. Morrow, Sr., a member of the college board of trustees for thirty-eight years at 
the time of his death in 1965.

Two facts concerning the college should be mentioned here. Although it was under Presbyterian auspices, it was a non-sectarian 
school and has remained so. When the school began, it had both elementary and high school departments in addition to a four-year 
college course, which made it possible for students to enroll in the primary department and attend until graduation with a bachelor of 
arts degree. One such graduate was Mrs. Agnes Maxfield Ball of Batesville, and another student, the late Fred Fitzhugh of Batesville 
received all his formal education at Arkansas College, although he withdrew from school before graduation to enter the Navy in 
World War I.

In 1876 the college graduated its first class with seven students receiving degrees. They were T. J. Horne, J. L. D. Houston, 
C. W. Maxfield, Mary V. Maxfield, W. K. Patterson, Cynthia J. Scherer, and Will H. Wycough. A summary of college history was 
published in the Chronicle, Vol. XIV, No. 1, October 1972.
The interest in education which surfaced so soon after the Civil War ws by no means limited to efforts to get the state university 
located in Batesville and the creation of Arkansas College. By 1872 the Washington High School Association was formed at 
Bethesda with A. B. Bennick, William J. Bell, Hugh P. Montgomery, Charles P. Grigsby, Jacob F. Martin, Fordice Simmons, 
and Ephraim R. Brown as directors and trustees. A two-story school which became the Bethesda Academy was built.

The next year another academy was started at Sulphur Rock and well into the twentieth century the town had a wide reputation 
for good schools. The Sulphur Rock school had its beginning as the Sulphur Rock Male and Female Academy and a list of 
contributors to the initial building fund in 1872 includes many prominent names of the county, including H. W. Vaughn, 
W. D. Meriwether, W. Gibbs, John J. Palmer, W. D. Magness, M. K. Crow, John G. Martin, M. W. Gibbs, H. C. Dye, Jesse Futrell, 
C. C. Kirkland, N. D. Nail, W. P. Hoover, Thomas M. Gibbs, A. Pritchard, J. O. Tuggle, J. G. Ashley, Dick Riddle, E. Jennings, 
Joseph Wright, E. M. Dunnington, J. M. McArthur, Austin Boulware, James Rutherford, Joe Edgar, J. T. Harper, W. C. Ashley, 
W. H. Jernigan, Thomas B. Carpenter, Jabe Prater, J. M. Sanders, J. J. Waldrip, W. C. Riddle, Bryant Bass, W. H. Suits, 
Rufus Harbison, Ed Carter, and Hugh Wright. An account of the Sulphur Rock school was written for the Chronicle, Vol. VII, 
No. 1, October 1965, by Linda Matthews.

There were other academies in the county -- Oil Trough, Pleasant Plains, Jamestown, and perhaps others -- whose history is unknown.
The public school system in Batesville has been traced to the early 1870's, although public education here is probably of earlier origin. 
The complete history of the public schools in Batesville has not been written. [See Chronicle, Vol. XXI, No. 2,  January 1980, "The History 
of Black Education in Batesville, 1867-1875," pp. 1-24, by Lawson, Curtislene.     See Chronicle, Vol. XXVII, Nos. 1-2, October 1985-January 1986, 
"The History of White Public Education in Batesville 1869-1889," by Roger D. Ried.]

In 1876 Franklin Desha Denton began assembly of type and equipment to publish a newspaper, and on January 11, 1877, the Batesville 
Guard issued Vol. 1, No. 1. The county has had probably close to two dozen newspapers which were founded before 1900, but the Guard 
alone has survived and will observe its one hundredth birthday anniversary in January of 1977. Denton was born in Batesville in 1841. 
His mother was Mrs. Margaret F. Desha Denton, a sister of F. W. Denton, the veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars, attorney, and 
landowner. 

According to Goodspeed's History, Denton was attending Center College at Danville, Kentucky, when the Civil War broke out, 
and he came home to enlist in the Confederate Army. He was twice wounded, captured by the Federals, and exchanged to 
fight again. After the War he tried his hand at farming, was elected county sheriff and, according to Goodspeed's, was 
unsuccessful as a merchant, before engaging in the newspaper business.

The third man from Independence County to become Governor of Arkansas was William Read Miller, born on Miller's Creek 
in 1823. He served as clerk of Independence County, and several terms as state auditor before being admitted to the bar in 
Little Rock and returning to Batesville to practice. The state capitol beckoned again, however, and he went back to Little Rock
 to serve another term as state auditor after which he successfully sought the governor's office, serving two terms, 1877 to 1881. 
He died in Little Rock in 1887 and is buried in Mt. Holly Cemetery. Miller's headstone notes that he was the first native-born 
governor to serve the state.

The population of the county increased from 14,566 in 1870 to 18,086, a gain of 3,520, in 1880.

Noland wrote that there were two physicians in Batesville in 1828 in 1826, although he casts some doubt upon their 
medical training. However, doctors educated in medical schools have served the sick and injured in Independence 
County from early pioneer days. Dr. Isaac Folsom, Sr., was in Batesville in 1828 and Dr. William M. Lawrence, 
prominent in medical circles of his time, came in 1847. Dr. Sterling W. Allen, a Tennesseean, was a graduate of 
Memphis Medical College in 1848 and he practiced at Floral before the Civil War. The Independence County Medical 
Society was organized in 1880 and Dr. L. A. Dickson of Desha was the first president.

Another milestone was reached by the county in 1883 -- the coming of the railroad, which brought significant changes 
to the White River valley. Known first as the Batesville branch of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad, 
the tracks extended into the county from Diaz in Jackson County. The Batesville Guard reported December 13, 1882 
that the first train of cars passed over the Black River bridge east of Newark on December 7. Apparently, much work 
had been done on the track construction west of Black River by that date as the Guard reported the first passenger 
coach to arrive in Batesville was on March 26, 1883, and a story in the newspaper on April 11 said that passenger 
trains would begin running on regular schedule the following Sunday, which was April 15.

The railroad was not built up White River for another 22 years, which meant that Batesville was the rail shipping 
terminal for a wide area, and this, of course, increased the importance of Batesville as a trading point.
Newark, the county's second largest municipality, began to grow after the railroad came through. John N. Tomlinson, 
called the father of Newark, because he once owned all the land of the original town, was postmaster of the post office 
there which opened June 5, 1883. There was one store on the site earlier, however, owned by J. H. Murphy, the father 
of the late W. D. Murphy, Sr., of Batesville. The growth of Newark signaled the end of the settlement of Akron, which 
was about two miles south on the road to the Oil Trough ferry. Akron was an old village of the county whose first post 
office, established in 1854, was known as Big Bottom. For reasons unknown the name was changed to Akron 
May 17, 1890, only a few days more than three months before the post office was discontinued September 4. 
Paroquet was the name of another post office which sprang up on the railroad between Newark and the Black 
River bridge. Joseph H. Anshutz was the first postmaster when the office opened October 2, 1884. Still another, 
Moorefield, just east of Batesville, with Jesse A. Moore as postmaster was established October 31, 1883.
Batesville's first passenger depot was a frame building constructed on the main line at the foot of Seventh Street. 
A later passenger depot was built at an unknown date near the corner of State and Lawrence Streets in Batesville. 
This depot, a frame building, was replaced by a brick structure in 1914 and the old passenger station at the site 
became the freight depot. Both of these stations were about three blocks off the main line and for years passenger 
trains either backed into or out on the spur track to reach the depot. There was a reason for the location of the depot 
at the State and Lawrence site; when the Batesville branch was constructed, the tract was built on the Sulphur Rock hill, 
a steep grade for steam locomotives, and for years there was talk of building a new track closer to the river which would 
eliminate the troublesome grade, and if the tracks had been relocated the passenger depot would have been on the main 
line. Why the plans for the relocation were dropped is not known.

An example of the railroad benefits was the Handford Cedar Yard, which began in Batesville in 1884 by two brothers, 
Charles Robertson and James Stanley Handford. There were many fine stands of cedar timber in the hills north and 
west of Batesville and in the era of railroad construction there was a ready market for crossties, piling, poles, and posts. 
The business was on the north bank of the river on a site which is at the mouth of the Bayou in 1976; while rail transportation 
made the river business possible, there was a heavy dependence upon the river. On April 23, 1893, the Weekly Bee, 
a Batesville newspaper, reported the arrival of the steamer Ralph E. Warner from McBee's, in Marion County, the landing, 
at the mouth of Fallen Ash Creek, for Flippin and Yellville, and passengers on the boat said they had passed twenty-seven 
rafts of cedar logs. Goodspeed's history says the Handford brothers shipped 834 carloads of cedar products from Batesville 
in 1888, thirty-four percent of the freight shipped out that year, and their products were second only to cotton in number of 
carloads. The Handford brothers branched out into banking, the lime, stone, and other businesses. The brothers are also 
known for the handsome homes they constructed at 658 and 659 Boswell Street in Batesville. The unique feature of the 
homes, which face each other, is that they are identical. They are said to be the first homes built in Batesville with indoor 
plumbing and to have concrete sidewalks.

J. S. Handford became the first president of the Bank of Batesville, which was chartered and opened on Main Street 
opposite the courthouse in 1889. The claim that the Bank of Batesville was the beginning of modern banking in the 
town has been challenged, and advertisements of banking services have been found in Batesville newspapers of 
an earlier day. In 1887 Simon Adler advertised as a "Ba