The History of Cardon
by J. S. Utley

Editor's note: In August 1937, the Log Cabin Democrat held its 12th annual picnic for its 114 correspondents who reported the news from their rural communities. The picnic was held at Cedar Park (now the Cadron Settlement Park), then owned by J. D. Dunaway. Judge J. S. Utley of Little Rock was supposed to deliver a speech, but was called out of the state and found it impossible to attend. The speech was published in the August 12, 1937 weekly edition of the Log Cabin Democrat. In the article, below, the footnotes and information in brackets [] have been added for this edition of Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings.

Joseph Simeon "Sim" Utley (1876-1943) was born near Greenbrier, a graduate of Hendrix College, and Arkansas Attorney General (1921-25). His hobby was the study of early Arkansas history, and he was especially interested in the Cadron settlement.(1) As time is counted in this country the early history of Cadron is clothed in the mists of antiquity. Except that it was claimed and occupied by the Osage Indians, we know nothing of the place prior to the American Revolution.(2) Nuttall, a scientist who explored a part of the Arkansas river and spent four days at Cadron in the spring of 1819 and 17 days of December and January following, as he returned, made copious notes of what he observed on these visits.(3) In a footnote to Nuttall's reference to the name Cadron, his editor says that it was derived from "Quadrant," a name applied to the neighboring creek by French hunters, probably in commemoration of some observation made there by that instrument to ascertain the latitude. One who is interested in the matter can get food for thought by examining a map of that period, if one is available, and studying the shape of the tract of land that lay between the Cadron creek, the Arkansas river, and the hill just up the river from Cedar park, and observing that it is somewhat like a quadrant. Maybe the shape of this tract suggested the name "Quadrant" to the hunters and trappers who must have been in this region long before the time of which we have any account.

In a letter written December 6, 1777, by Francisco Cruzat, Spanish commandant at the Post of St. Louis, to Don Bernardo Galvez, governor of Louisiana, the writer said he had given permission to some traders to deal with the Big Osages and that they left St. Louis Post on August 1, 1777, on the expedition; that on their return they made a report in writing, that on their arrival in the Indian nation, they were informed by the principal chief that a party had been sent out in search of trade promised them at the fort called El Quadrante, but not having found it, they had determined to send six men to inspect closely for that fort to see if they could find it.

Goodspeed's history, published in 1889,(4) says that in the year 1778 John Standlee and others explored the country along the Arkansas river, and Mr. Standlee then selected the spot of ground on which he desired to make his future home. Afterwards, in 1811, his son-in-law, John C. Benedict, with his family, settled in the county subsequently known as New Madrid, in Missouri. From that county, in the fall of that year, Mr. Standlee, Mr. Benedict and William and David Standlee set out to explore the country and were absent from their home two years. In 1814 John Standlee retured and settled with his family upon the exact spot he had selected 36 years before. Here he resided until his death in August, 1820. This tract was in what has long been known as the "Benedict settlement," in the southwestern part of Faulkner county.

In the spring of 1818, continues Goodspeed, John C. Benedict and his family, consisting of wife and five children, set out to find a home in the Arkansas country, near where Mr. Standlee had settled. They were accompanied by two Scotchmen named Anderson and Frazier. They reached Cadron on April 18, where they found a blockhouse which had been erected by settlers preceding them, as a place of safety against hostile Indians. The preceding settlers then located in and about the blockhouse were John McElmurray and his sons, David, Robert and Harvey; Benjamin Murphy, the McFarlands, Harvey Hager, and the Newells lived just below the Cadron Bluff. At that time John McElmurray and Richard Montgomery were engaged in selling goods at the mouth of the creek, as indicated by the foregoing source of information.

[Dallas T.] Herndon, in his Centennial History,(5) says the first settlement in what is now Faulkner county was made at the mouth of Cadron creek by John Standlee in 1814; that within the following five years Standlee was joined by his son-in-law and two Scotchmen; that the Flanagins and Massengills settled near the mouth of Palarm creek, a few miles farther down the river; that John and William Standlee built the first sawmill and grist mill in 1818; and that Jonathan Hardin, a Kentuckian, located a few miles up the Cadron creek, near the present village of Holland, in 1818.

The story of John Standlee and John C. Benedict was obtained from a very aged son of Benedict, but who evidently remembered having heard the story many times from his father.(6)

About 1815 Jacob Pyeatt and some of his neighbors moved from their home at Crystal Hill, which was some 12 miles up the Arkansas river and on the north side of it from Little Rock, and settled 25 miles farther up that stream and called their new home Cadron, a name that, as already said, had long been applied to this region. Exactly where they established themselves I do not know, although it is certain that the town of Cadron itself was at the mouth of Cadron creek, just above and adjacent to the hill that lies immediately to the west of Cedar park [now known as Cadron Settlement Park]. Probably the settlers were scattered all up and down the river from that point for, in the Arkansas Gazette of March 25, 1823, Junkin Williams offered for sale "an extensive and well-improved tanyard, with a bark mill and a quantity of leather, hides, and bark," the notice stateing that the property was near the Arkansas river and about two miles below the town of Cadron.

The first old settler to remain at Cadron was John McElmurray, who came prior to 1818. In the spring of that year he had for his neighbors Benjamin Murphy, Harvey Hanger and two families named McFarland and Newell. McElmurray fastened a "preemption claim" on that part of township 5 north, in range 15 west, which afterwards constituted the Cadron town site, and associated with him as "proprietors" John Chamberlain, James N. Menifee and Thomas H. Tindall. Some time in 1818, or before, they laid out the town of Cadron near the mouth of the creek. At that time the mouth of the creek was near the foot of the hill you see just above Cedar Park. The fact that it is now several hundred yards farther up the river was caused by the fact that during a big overflow, the river shifted to its present channel, just above the hill and caused a change in the location of the mouth of the Cadron. You would be interested in driving back over the rural mail route that leads up and over the hill and viewing the old town site immediately above the hill. There are many signs of this vanished town of a hundred years ago still plainly visible.

In the spring of 1818 McElmurray and his associates put on a big sale of town lots from which they realized $1,300, and announced another for the following May [1819]. The Missouri Gazette of February 3, 1819, stated that the town which they proposed to promote was on the east side of the Arkansas river, at the mouth of the Cadron, "in the center of the best settlement on the Arkansas river."

Thomas Nuttall, a member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, who made a tour up the Arkansas river in the interest of science, reached Cadron on March 27, 1818, and stayed there four days. The following is taken from his journal: "On the 27th we arrived at the Cadron settlement, containing in a contiguous space about five or six families. Mr. McIlmery (referring presumably to John McElmurray), one of the first, is at present the only resident of the imaginary town plot. A cove of rocks here affords a safe and covenient harbor and a good landing for merchandise....Town lot speculations have already been tried at the Cadron, which is yet but a proximate chain of farms, and I greatly doubt whether a town of any consequence...will ever be chosen on this site....There is scarcely a hundred yards together of level ground and the cove in which Mr. McIlmery lives is almost impenetrably surrounded by tiresome and lofty hills, broken into ravines, with small rivulets of water....What necessity there may be for projecting a town at this place, I will not take upon myself to decide, but a house of public entertainment, a tavern, has long been wanted, as the Cadron lies in another of the leading routes through this territory. It is one of the resorts from St. Louis and the settlements on White river, as well as to the hot springs of the Washita and the inhabitants of Red river. From Arkansas (Post) to this place, about 150 miles by land, there is a leading path which proceeds through the Grand Prairie."

The "leading path" mentioned by Nuttall doubtless referred to the road established by Jacob Pyeatt and others who, some time after their settlement at Crystal Hill in 1807, bazed a trail from Cadron down the north side of the Arkansas river, by Crystal Hill, and on to the Wattensaw, where they struck an Indian trail running to Arkansas Post and which trail they adopted as the route of the new road.

Most of the 28th -- the next day after his arrival at Cadron -- Nuttall spent in walking out two or three miles over the nearby hills. He was not favorably impressed with the land and he said in his journal that "ages must elapse before this kind of land will be worth purchasing at any price." He said, however, that the hills would make a good range for cattle and that the alluvial soil in the small depressions and along the creek would be good for cotton raising.

At that time prices of commodities in Arkansas were very high. Flour was selling at $12 a barrel at Arkansas Post, sugar for 25 cents a pound, and coffee at 50 cents. Nuttall attributed some of this to the absence of facilities for utilizing raw materials, as for example, grist mills.

One of the most regrettable things, according to Nuttall, was the high percentage of illiteracy among the native population and the settlers in general. Concerning this condition, he said: "It is to be regretted that the widely scattered state of the population in this territory is but too favorable to the spread of ignorance and barbarism. The means of education are, at present, nearly proscribed, and the rising generation are growing up in mental darkness, like the French hunters who have preceded them, and who have almost forgot that they appertain to the civilization of the world. This barrier, will, however, be effectually removed by the progressive accession of population which, like a resistless tide, still continues to set toward the west."

At the time of Nuttall's visit to Cadron the United States government was having a survey made of the alluvial and other saleable lands, which were to be ready for disposal in about two years from that date, and one surveyor, a Mr. Pettis, was then laying off into sections the lands contiguous to Cadron. The poorer and hilly lands were not then thought to be worth the expense of a public survey. Pettis was being paid $2 a mile for surveying river lands on account of the difficulty of the work caused by canebrakes, lagoons, etc. Another surveyor was engaged at the same time in surveying and was proceeding from Arkansas Post toward Cadron.
Preemption rights formed the basis of John McElmurray's claim to the Cadron townsite. This was a species of reward or indemnification for injuries sustained in the war of 1812; and certain individuals, who were eligible and who would comply with the government's requirements, were permitted to "preempt" one or more quarter sections. These rights were traded around and trafficked in at from $3 to $10 an acre -- a sure sign of the growing importance of the new country. Much of the lands on which these claims were afterwards plastered are not yet worth that price.

It is easy to see that the laying out of a town on preemption-claimed lands and selling the lots before the United States government issued its patent to the claimants was hazardous business; hence, in order to protect themselves and at the same time satisfy their buyers, those who sold lots at Cadron usually gave their "title bond" conditioned that a warranty deed would be substituted as soon as patent could be procured from the United States. Thus, on November 2, 1818, John McElmurray, for a consideration of $500, executed one of these bonds to Jonas N. Menifee, conditionally conveying a one-fourth interest in the Cadron-site claim, the exact description in the document being "lands on the east side of the Arkansas river at the mouth of Cadron river," reserving, however, one-half acre on which then stood the dwell-house of McElmurray.
At the time of his purchase Menifee was a resident of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, which was quite a distance from his investment, so he appointed his brother, Dr. Nimrod Menifee, as his agent to handle his Cadron business. By the last of October, 1824, however, he had decided to sell out, and, on that date he sold to Thomas N. Tindall, for $100, all his interest in Cadron, including his right to the proceeds of the sale of lots, for which notes had been given.

During 1819 and the early 1820s town-lot speculation at Cadron was active. An interesting conveyance made on October 2, 1819, illustrates this fact admirably. Thomas N. Tindall of Pulaski county, Arkansas, sold to Thomas Fletcher of New Madrid county, Missouri, for $500, lot 6 in block 14, "adjoining the public square in the town of Cadron on the Arkansas river," etc.

The boys in Arkansas seemed anxious to give their former neighbors in Missouri a "break," and in a few instances at least their ambitions were realized, as doubtless the Missouri boys would afterwards have admitted.
Nuttall left Cadron on the 31st of March, 1819, four days after his arrival, and proceeded on his journey up the river. He returned December 18, 1819, and remained till the 4th of the following January, when he took passage on a boat with a Mr. Barber, a New Orleans merchant homeward bound.

Nuttall was nothing if not frank in recording his opinions of the places he visited; hence, we are not surprised that he gives us some vivid glimpses of life at Cadron at the close of 1819. His first observation was that there were now three or four families there, instead of only one, as when he passed up the river in March preceding. Then, too, some other notable changes had taken place there. Travel by that place had picked up wonderfully. The proprietor, or some other enterprising gentleman, had erected a tavern and it seems that McElmurray or one of the proprietors was running it. Here is what Nuttall said in his journal about it: "A considerable concource of travelers and some emigrants begin to make their appearance at this imaginary town. The only tavern, very ill-provided, was consequently crowded with all sorts of company. It contained only two tenantable rooms, built of logs, with hundreds of crevices still left open, notwithstanding the severity of the season."

During the first nine days of Nuttall's stay at Cadron in December, 1819, there was frost at night, and on the 28th snow fell all day, and remained on the ground as late as January 3, at which time there was ice on the river. The tavern, one can easily imagine, was an uncomfortable place then.

Nuttall's description of night life at the Cadron tavern is interesting and colorful. If, perchance, some of the descendents of the proprietor of this ancient hostelry happens to be listening, I am sure they will appreciate all the more that their hardy forbear was quite able to take care of himself and was not lacking in the elements of character which alone enabled him to hold out under such an environment. Here is what Nuttall wrote:
"Every reasonable and rational amusement appeared here to be swallowed up in dram-drinking, jockeying, and gambling, even our landlord, in defiance of the law, was often the ring-leader of what it was his duty to suppress. Although I have been, through life, perfectly steeled against games of hazard, neither wishing to rob or be robbed, I felt somewhat mortified to be thus left alone, because of my unconquerable aversion to enter this vortex of swindling and idleness."

The first post-road in the present boundaries of Arkansas was authorized by an act of Congress, approved April 30, 1816, and the route passed from St. Louis southward through Potosi and Davidsonville to Arkansas Post. The second was authorized by an act approved March 3, 1819, the next day after Arkansas was made a territory. In 1820 the St. Louis-Potosi-Davidsonville road, then known as the Great National road, was extended from Davidsonville, through Batesville, to Cadron; and in 1821 it was extended down through Clark and Hempstead counties to Red river, which was the Mexican boundary line and the limit of our domain. By the spring of 1820 Cadron had been made a postoffice and, in a list of Arkansas postoffices given in the newspapers in December of that year, Thomas H. Tindall is shown as postmaster.

The fight put up by Cadron for the honor of being the state capital and also the permanent county seat of Pulaski county is interesting to read about. In the winter of 1820 a bill passed the House of Representatives of the territorial legislature providing that the capital should be moved from Arkansas Post to Cadron. When the bill got over to the council (Senate) it was amended by taking out the word "Cadron" and inserting in lieu of it the words "Little Rock." The bill seems never to have gotten any further at that session, for it was soon seen that the members of the two bodies could not agree and so the question was left undetermined and went over to the adjourned session to be held the following October. On February 12, 1820, a bill was introduced providing that Cadron should be the county seat of Pulaski county and just before the body adjourned, this bill passed and was signed by the governor on June 28 following.

When the legislature met in adjourned session the following October the matter of removal of the territorial capital again came up and on October 11 the amendment proposed in the preceding winter, by which Little Rock should be designated instead of Cadron, was adopted. Doubtless the Cadron members had decided that they could not win in a fight for the capital and entered into an arrangement by which, in return for their aid to Little Rock for the capital, the Little Rock supporters would help the Cadron delegates in having the permanent county seat located at Cadron; for Joab Hardin, Thomas H. Tindall and Radford Ellis, three Cadron supporters, voted with the Little Rock members on the new-capital bill.

On the very next day, October 12, Tindall called up his bill providing for the erection of public buildings at Cadron, the new county seat, and on October 23, it became a law. It provided that there should be erected at Cadron, within eights months thereafter, "a good and sufficent common jail" on behalf of the county, not to cost over $1,000, donations included; and a courthouse within the same period, not to cost exceeding $400, exclusive of donations." The act appointed John Tucker, James Lemmon, and Thomas Burrows to erect the buildings and report their actions to the circuit court of the county. If these buildings were ever erected, I have not been able to learn about it.

Now that the county seat had been located at Cadon, with provision made by law for the erection of a courthouse and jail, and the capital had been moved to Little Rock, it would seem that all differences had been ironed out, but not so. The law provided that the capital-removal act should become effective on the first of the following June, 1821. The seat of territorial government was duly moved on schedule time. On the convening of the legislature in October, 1821, about four months after the new government had been set up at Little Rock, Edmund Hogan, a Little Rock supporter, filed a contest against Thomas H. Tindall, a Cadron member, for a seat in the House of Representatives and won out. Whether Hogan's vote was decisive in the county seat fight immediately following his entrance to the house I do not know, but it certainly crippled the Cadron supporters.
On October 24, 1821, a law was passed that designated Sam C. Roane of Clark county, James Billingsley of Crawford county, and Robert Bean of Independence county to select a permanent seat of justice for Pualski county. Early in the following March they reported to the court that they had chosen Little Rock. Roane and Bean had favored the change. Thereupon, the court at once appointed Henry Armstrong, Archibald McHenry and Wright Daniel to superintend the erection of public buildings for the use of the county.

Josiah H. Shinn says, in his Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas,(7) that if the question had been left to the voters of Pualski county in 1822, they would have selected Cadron not only for the county seat but also for the territorial capital. Among the Cadron supporters would have been John McElmurray, Thomas H. Tindall, Dr. Nimrod Menifee and others, all men of powerful influence. One can imagine such a determined character as Joab Hardin paying back the Little Rock boys for not keeping their promise to leave the county seat at Cadron. The movement would have had the support of Governor James Miller, no doubt, and his 150 neighbors at Crystal Hill, for tradition has it that Governor Miller did not think the Cadronites had had a fair deal. Shinn then refers to a communication in the Arkansas Gazette in January, 1823, in which the writer said that at the beginning of 1822 Little Rock had only one hotel, one boarding house and one private residence. Although this was not denied by the editor, it would appear to be an exaggeration by one who felt keenly the conduct of the Little Rock people about the county seat matter.

After the county seat was moved to Little Rock, Cadron never made much progress. One by one, the old settlers passed away or moved to other places. Joab Hardin died in 1824 and John McElmurray about two years later. The Pyeatts moved to northwest Arkansas. Dr. Nimrod Menifee turned his attention to having the county seat of Conway county located at Lewisburg.(8) When Conway county was created in 1825, it was provided that until the voters could hold an election to choose a permanent seat of justice, the temporary seat should be at Cadron. Cadron held the honor only about four months.

By May 25, 1829, the name of the postoffice had been changed to Cadron Hills and mail arrived and departed but once a week. During various times in the period 1829-1832, Abner Pitts, Benjamin Hogan, Joseph Borden and Rodney Earheart served as postmaster.

Rodney Earheart was an exception to the rule that old settlers lost interest in Cadron when the county seat was taken away. He was active in the conduct of his own business affairs. Various issues of the Arkansas Gazette carried his notice dated September 27, 1829, announcing his wish to hire three or four industrious negro men to get out logs, and promised to exercise the greatest care in seeing that these slaves were properly cared for and well treated. The owners would be paid, he said, "in scantling,(9) house frames or cash, at extraordinary prices." In the same paper of February 8, 1832, Earheart carried an ad dated January 17, saying that on February 11, he would rent to the highest bidder, for twelve months or two years, "The ferry at the Cadron, together with the ferry boat, dwelling house," etc. He represented that the ferry was on the Cadron creek, about 35 miles from Little Rock, at the point where the military road leading from Little Rock to Cantonment Gibson crossed, and at a point where the stream was not fordable at any season of the year, and an excellent stand for a public house, store, blacksmith shop, etc.

The Arkansas Gazette of April 22, 1834, gives an account of the disastrous effects of cholera among Cherokee Indian emigrants who had encamped at Cadron because the water was too low for them to proceed up the river. About 35 had died since they landed. Who knows but that the bodies of these Indians now sleep in the graves still to be seen on the hill southeast of the old town-site and near Cedar Park? Dr. J. C. Roberts, one of their physicians, died of the disease, and Dr. John T. Fulton, another, suffered a severe attack. Grant Foreman, in his Indian Removal, sets out rather fully the troubles encountered by this party of emigrating Indians while they were at Cadron.(10)

In 1834 Cadron Hills postoffice was discontinued. Little is known of the town after that, except that Burr's map, made in 1839 from information taken from field notes of United States surveyors, shows Cadron as the first town above Little Rock on the Arkansas river. Crystal Hill had long before that passed into the class of vanished towns, and before the final chapter was written, the whole site had been sold for taxes amounting to not over $3. Before the end of the 1850s Cadron had perished, for when the war broke out in 1861, there was not a town, village or hamlet, says Goodspeed, within the present bounds of Faulkner county, except a small store at Duncan's Gap in what afterwards became Cypress township. Faulkner people [people who lived in the area that became Faulkner County] did most of their trading at Springfield [Conway County].(11)

On February 8, 1860, Elias Stone, who owned the land, laid off a few streets and lots just north of the ancient town-site and called it Cadron Burg. It probably served as a stage stand and as a place where travelers could make small purchases of such articles as they desired. It does not seem to have amounted to much as a town. It lay on both sides of the United States road surveyed in 1819. Through the courtesy of Mr. Frank Stermer, I have a plat of this townsite and it is interesting to study it. It was situated a short distance southeast of the mouth of the creek, and on the bank of the river.

Nothing more was ever heard of Cadron, except that, for several years, the name was applied by the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad Company to a flag-stop at that point. Some believe the site of the town of 1818-1819 is now in the Arkansas river. The old maps show that there was once a considerable body of land between the foot of the hill and the river, just above Cedar Park. This makes the story all the more tragic.

As one stands today and looks out over the community in which this town of a hundred years ago was located, he is forcibly reminded of [Oliver Goldsmith's] "The Deserted Village" and of Washington Irving's line as he left Westminster abbey: "How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name." In addition to the sources listed in the footnotes, see the following for other accounts of the Cadron settlement:Margaret Smith Ross, "Cadron: An Early Town That Failed," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Fall 1969), pp. 55-76. First printed in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, XVI (Spring 1957). This is the most completely documented history of Cadron.
Louise Clayton, "Cadron," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (September 1959), pp. 3-13. "Cadron Settlement Marker," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (September 1959), p. 14. An account of the discovery, repair, and removal of the 1936 Cadron Settlement historical marker at Gleason to Cedar Park (now the Cadron Settlement Park).
Waddy W. Moore, "Report on the Cadron Settlement Park," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Winter 1972), pp. 3-6. An account of the joint effort of the Faulkner County Historical Society and the Conway Chamber of Commerce to preserve and protect "Old Cadron."

Col. Donald G. Weinert, "Report on the Status of the Cadron Settlement Park," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Spring 1973), pp. 4-16. An address by the District Engineer of the Little Rock District, U.S. Corps of Engineers, to the Faulkner County Historical Society annual meeting in March 1972. This detailed report contains an explanation (pp. 13-14) on the place at which Cadron Creek earlier entered the Arkansas River.

Will A. Berry, "How Cadron Village Came Within One Vote of Being Chosen as Site for State Capitol," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Spring/Summer 1978), pp. 10-12.

Guy W. Murphy, "Dedication of the Cadron Blockhouse," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (1980), pp. 1-3.
Fred Petrucelli, "Cadron Park's Link with History," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Spring/Summer 1991), pp. 8-13.
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(1) For more information on J. S. Utley, see the article on the Francis David Utley family by Arch Troxell, Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Fall 1983), especially pp. 6-7. The article on the Utley family in Faulkner County: Its Land and People (1986), p. 416, is by Mildred A. Dunn.
(2) Although there is no positive proof, several historians believe that the expedition led by Hernando DeSoto passed near Cadron in 1541, and an historical marker to this effect was erected at Cadron Settlement Park in October 1991. Fred Petrucelli, "The Odyssey of Hernando DeSoto," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Fall/Winter 1991), pp. 17-25.
(3) Thomas Nuttall, A Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory, During the Year 1819 (Philadelphia: Thomas H. Palmer, 1821). See the re-print edited by Savoi Lottinville and published by the University of Oklahoma Press (Norman: 1980), especially page 243 with footnote.
(4) Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas (Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889), pp. 708-709. Hereafter cited as Goodspeed (1889).
(5) Dallas T. Herndon, Centennial History of Arkansas (Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1922), Volume I, p. 755.
(6) Russell W. Benedict, "Story of an Early Settlement in Central Arkansas." Benedict probably wrote this account between 1878 and 1888, and J. S. Utley obviously had read the original manuscript, parts of which appeared in Goodspeed (1889). The document was later made available by Conway News publisher Edgar B. Parker to Ted R. Worley, then a member of the history department at Arkansas State Teachers College. Worley edited the account for publication in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly (Summer 1951), pp. 117-137, adding very informative footnotes. The article was re-printed in Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (January 1961), pp. 3-33.
(7) Josiah H. Shinn, Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas (Chicago: Genealogical and Historical Publishing Co., 1908), pp. 37-38.
(8) Lewisburg was an important port and onetime seat of Conway County on the north bank of the Arkansas River. The site is now in the city limits of Morrilton.
(9) "Scantling" is a small piece of lumber, such as an upright piece in house framing.
(10) Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1932), pp. 256-261. See the article taken from Foreman's book in this issue of Facts and Fiddlings, pp. xx-xx.
(11) Goodspeed (1889), p. 711.