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[ Johnsville, Ninety Years Ago ] [ Next Page ] [ Back to the Index ]
DEMOCRAT NEWS-THURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1915 (1951?) Johnsville, Ninety Years Ago: Bradley County, Arkansas Letter written from W. T. Martin to G. M. Hampton. Mr. G. M. Hampton Fordyce, Ark. Dear George: Jas. Meek told me that there was going to be an old settler's meeting at Johnsville next Sunday and that services would be held in the Presbyterian church and asked me to go and tell what I knew of the history of Johnsville and the people who settled in that country before the war. In fact to tell as far as I knew the country and its history, that perhaps it may be of some interest as well as information to the younger generation. I would state that there is nothing that I could participate in that would afford me more pleasure than meeting with the few remaining old settlers of that country and rehearse some of the many incidents that transpired there during those early days and gather from the dusty archives almost forgotten lore, and weave into garlands of flowers - - sparkling with dew drops - - radiant with sunshine to place upon the pulpit and the pews of the dear old church and a more holier and tender glow will eminate from the bosoms of the remaining few as the strains of sacred music floats out on the morning air. The old walls would swell and sway as of yore in its palmy days, when its lyric was tuned in the school of culture and refinement, for there were no people in the broad Southland that stood higher in the social and intellectual scale - - an Arcadia of Southern chivalry. The best blood of the cavaliers of the old challenges the admiration and love of the example and emulation to the most remote generations. On the 20th day of September 1856, my father, Jas. Saddler Martin, arrived from the State of Mississippi, crossed the Saline river at Moor's Mill, Bradley County and passed Col. John R. Hampton's place and stopped at Henry S. Rawls, who had settled on the river hills two miles above Col. Hampton's. In a few days my father moved to the Boyd place, a mile from Col. Hampton's and in a few days Col Hampton came over to our house and bought one of my father's wagons and teams. In that early day there were quite a number of people who had recently come into the country and had settled in the woods and cleared land and built houses and Negro quarters. Charlie Moore, Jas I. Robinson and Mat Stuart bought a saw mill and began operating if on the Saline river about 1850 at the Jack Fogle place. It was a lively place in those days and it was the only place where people could go to learn the general news of the country and congregate for social intercourse. The nearest store was at Longview, then miles up the river where Phil Derden did a general merchandise business, which was my father's trading point. Dr. Cabeen, father-in-law of Col. Hampton, lived about two miles West of Longview at the foot of the big hills West of the river. He moved there in the Thirties from near Monroe, La. and his other son-in-law, Sam T. W. Meek, lived on the West bank of the Saline River one mile South of Longview. Jno. G. Martin, an uncle of mine, lived on the hills close to Dr. Cabeen and old man Jim York lived on the hills about half a mile west of Johnsville. In the early Forties he left Alabama and started to move to Texas, and for as far as Dr. Cabeen's, Bradley County this state, then the Llages and Quachita River overflowed and he could go no further. Dr. Cabeen took him about the country and showed him the land where he settled and afterwards he cleared a field about half a mile East of his house. Afterwards his son-in-law, by the name of George lived there and another son-in-law by the name of Brunson settled about a mile southeast where the first Methodist church is that country was built. Afterwards the place was sold to a man by the name of Hoviss and I believe Berry Givens, colored, owns it now. A man by the name of Rix sold his place to old man Sam McClain, who moved from Mississippi in 1858 and settled there and he sold to a man by the name of Walpoole in 1878. John Gillis was another settler. He came from Alabama in the Thirties and settled on the Saline River just above where Col. Hampton's gin-house use to stand, and married one of Jack Fogle's sisters. My father settled on Improvement Creek two and a half miles northwest of Col. Hampton in 1857. Isaiah Lansdale had settled some time in the Forties on the river hills about a mile southeast of where the Methodist church now stands. A man by the name of Johnson Runnels lived on the big road three miles South of Johnsville. Mat Stuart lived on Improvement Creek one half mile South of Col. Hampton's. He sole the place to Col. Hampton who afterwards gave it to his daughter, Mrs. Sue Newton, who had married Dr. Wiley Newton of Union County. Jack and Pete Fogle lived on Saline river near Moor's Mill and Fog Fogle lived a mile west. He married a widow, Lacature. Jas. I. Robinson lived on the Saline River two miles South. There was another one of the Fogle brothers by the name of Bat who died at Henry S. Rawls' in 1859. Jas. I. Robinson had a brother named Eli who died after the war. Dr. Miller lived at Longview and in after years went blind and died on the Rawls place in 1867. A man by the name of Hunnicut had settled on the West side of Improvement Creek about a mile West of Col Hampton's. My father bought his improvements. Mrs. Cook and her sons-in-law, Isaiah Slator and Grumbles, lived on Snake Creek not far west of the river. Grumbles afterwards moved to Branchville, Drew County, in this state. Lock Stuart and Jas. Thompson, Wallace Cabeen and Dr. Brandon lived further up on the creek. Mortimer Martin lived still further up the creek on the place in after years known as old man Deab Johnson's place. Jas. Gill lived four or five miles further North. Nelson B. York lived about a mile west on the half-way creek. John Scarbrough lived on Dr. Jackson's place about a mile north of Johnsville. Two men by the name of Love and Boyd lived on the river hills about a mile to the southeast of Johnsville. The big road used to run by the Boyd place from Moro to Longview and went by Dr. Cabeen's. Dave Jones and Mason B. Lowery, who were brothers-in-law, lived about two miles and a half northwest of Johnsville and Mason B. Lowery lived about one mile north of the Smyrna Baptist church. He sold the place to a man by the name of Irwin, and then settled at the edge of the bottom two miles southwest of Johnsville, where he lived during the war. A man by the name of Walls lived about a mile east of Smyrna church, Uncle Mortimor Martin bought Heathington's place and run a tan-yard there during the war. Stuarts and Atkins, Castleberrys, Dubrons and the Forrests lived two or three miles north of the river hills. One of Wall's daughters married a man by the name of Carcuff who lived on the river. His place now goes by the name of Carcuff's Landing. Dunk Pippins owned and operated a warehouse on Saline River about four miles south of Moor's mill where the Rock Island railroad crossed the river. He used to operate a ferry, too, that's where my father, in crossing on his ferry boat, lost one of the finest horses that was ever in that country. Ther was a landing on Saline River close to Dr. Cabeen's house and a graveyard close by and some old vacant houses there when we came to the State. Dunk Pippin told my father that he and another raftman were camping there and this old raftman had a pot of gold which he buried one night near that place and died in a few days thereafter and he (Pippen) looked for it but never found it. This gold was buried sometime in the thirties. A man by the name of Gerrels lived about two miles south of Johnsville in a big old log house that used to stand over the field east of the road and close to where McKinney's mill stood. After Col. Hampton put up the sawmill, Gerells built a little white house on the road just south of the mill close to the Methodist church. Dr. Alpheus Rawls and Stephens Barefield afterwards lived in his new house and his widow afterwards married a man by the name of Jerry Radden. Uncle Joe Martin came to this country with my father and settled about a mile north of Henry S. Rawls on the river hills. These people I have named are about who lived in this country in those early days when my father moved there from Mississippi in the year 1856. There were a few French living on the river down in the corner. There were the Acans, Cokers, Laeboffs, Hamiltons and Pevetoes. After 1856 people began to move in fast, mostly from Mississippi and South Carolina. The Crawfords, Wilfongs, Pagans, Chambers, Meeks, Elisons, Garrisons, Jacksons, Saddlers, Rosses, Kings, Montgomerys, Ferrells, Thomases, Givens, McKerrs, Thompsons, Riff, Dan, and James McClain, all came from South Carolina and settled in that country a few years before the war. Sam McClain, the Godfries, Martins, Temples and Rawls were from Mississippi. In 1857 John Brady came from Warren and built a store at the cross roads of the Moro and Long view road and the Warren and Moore's mill road, and I was at old Uncle Henry Rawls' house and heard Jno. Brady and some men of the community discussing what they would name the place, and it was decided to name it Johnsville for the different Johns in that community, among whom were John R. Hampton, John Cabeen, John Martin and John Brady. The Presbyterian church was built in 1858-59 and the Rev. Crawford was the preacher for several years. He moved to Arkadelphia and died years later and now and now has a son practicing law in Arkadelphia. Afterwards the Reverands Kerr, Dixon and Brown, very able men, filled the pulpit as long as I lived in that country. The present Palestine Methodist church was built in the year 1860. Before it was built there was a log church about twenty steps East. You can yet see the old chimney-place, there is a mound of dirt where it stood. Uncle Joe Martin taught school at this church and I attended this school. Geo. M. and Edward E. Hampton, sons of Col. John R. Hampton, also as well as the Rawls boys, Randolph, Jesse, and Sing, attended this school. Uncle Joe Martin taught this school in 1857, 1858, and until April 1859, when a hurricane came and blew a tree on his house and mashed it down and injured him and his son John, too. He never recovered but moved to the Gillis place down close to where Mr. Alison lived and died in 1860. I have forgotten at this late day who were the circuit rider preachers that were sent by the Methodist Conference. I know there was a preacher sent there in 1859 and 1860 by the name Marshall and they had a son by the name of Lewis, and Mrs. Marshall taught school at Davis Jones'. Their son is now living here in Camden and in an old grey-headed man. His mother died here three or four years ago in her ninety-fifth year. Mason B. Lowery was a local preacher of unusual ability and he used to preach often at the Palestine church. James I Robinson and Henry B. Rawls were also local preachers, preached there occasionally. When the church was built it was two stories. The upper story was a Masonic hall where the Masons held their meetings. For several years they held their meetings in the old log church before the present church was built. There is an old Masonic chest that used to sit in the middle of the old church that was moved to the new hall when the church was completed. It was made by old Simon, a Negro carpenter who belonged to Henry S. Rawls, and he also did the frame work of the church. I saw this old chest a few years ago, still in the old Masonic hall. I used to sit on it fifty-eight years ago. The Baptists built a church about two miles North of Johnsville on the hill north of the Spring on a branch, and named it for Smyrna. The ruling spirits in that church were Nelson B. York, Sam Meek and old man Irwin. Their preachers were Rev. Duboise, Rasberry and Denson. These three churches had about the same number of members, which attended regularly, and all three were in a flourishing condition. In that day no country had better preachers of refinement and learning. Most of the people were slave holders and had plantations and gin houses on every plantation. In Southern parlance, most of them were rich slave owners, who shipped their cotton to New Orleans and they generally went with it to buy their year's supply of groceries and dry goods for the plantation. Captain Bob Withers keel boated in the Saline river when we first came to the state, but in a year afterwards he bought a little steam boat named the Marshall and afterwards bought a larger and better boat -the Nelson Morgan- and ran it in there for several years. It was lying at the landing at Longview when the Yankees made a raid on Gen. Dockery's command at Longview and he cut her loose and it drifted down the river. When it got out of range of the Yankee's guns, he put on all the steam he could and ran it down the river and hid it in a slough close to Horsehead. The Yankees burned Dockery's wagon trains in the creek bottoms on Jno. G. Martin's place. The next day Bob Lowery and I were shooting doves around old Man Mason B. Lowery's bottom field corn pens, and every now and then a soldier would put his head over the fence to see what all of that shooting was about, until there were a hundred or more that came to the field where we were and that was the first we know that the Yankees had run in on Gen. Dockery's command and stampeded his men. A good many thought that shooting we were doing was the Yankees and Gen. Dockery's menfighting. When the call for volunteers came in 1861 there were sixteen of the oarge boys joined the army. Among them were J. E. Hampton, Mack Pagan, George Hogue, Sidney Walls, Jim York, Jim Stuart, Bob Ramsour, Sam Godfrey and Boom Chambers. I cannot recall the others just now. Most all the young men in that country joined too, and they organized the old Gee shop that stood not far from where T. B. Craig's store now stands. If my memory serves me right they elected Buck McKinney captain and Dr. Ross lieutenant. After they had their brown geans uniform made, which consisted of round-about coats and trousers with red stripes down the legs, they marched to the Presbyterian church to have services and bid their friends "good-bye" before they left Johnsville. There was a shadow of sadness over the patrons of the school as well as on the brows of Mr. Hogue, for their boy, George, too, had obeyed the call of his country and had gone with the other boys. Every morning Mr. Hogue opened school with prayer and he always asked the good Lord to guard and protect the boys at the front. Every now and then news came that some of the boys were dead, killed or wounded, and when the conflict closed only a few of that noble band of young men returned to their desolate homes. How well I remember the day when the sad news came to Mr. and Mrs. Hogue that their boy George was dead. My heart swells with tender emotions when I recall the many incidents that transpired while I attended that school, which in blissful retrospection I always find a temporary Elysium. Even now, I see the hale of the glory of the Old School rising from its ashes in a new generation, emulating the virtues of their fathers. The old field pines and thrown out plantations tells a history in song and story of their departed glory of 1860. A civilization built upon the virtue and of honor of its citizenship. The North has erected stately marble shafts to commemorate the deeds of valor of its soldiers who fell in battle and the National cemeteries contain their last resting places and marble slabs are kept smooth and bright with smiling flowers and trailing vines to add a charm of pathos and beauty in death, but where are the stately granite shafts over the Southern soldiers graves? Look at the everlasting southern hills that smile in beauty against the southern skies alive with smiling flowers and singing birds and listen to the gentle murmur of the babbling brooks and the sigh of the pines whispering their deeds of bravery. These mark the last resting places of most of the boys who left the school that fair and beautiful day in May in 1861, to uphold their country's honor in the thickest of the fight. After the war most of the people moved to Texas while some moved to other parts of this State and now there are not many of the old timers there. Mac Pagan, L. E. York and Billy Martin are about the only ones left. A great many of the old timers have died and are buried in the three graveyards there. There were only two graves at the Palestine church when me moved there and one at the Baptist and Presbyterian. One of them was the grave of a man named Boyd and the other was a man who died at Lock Stuart's place in 1852. I will quit. I could write a book in detailing what I know of that country and its people so I will close and subscribe myself as one of the old Settlers and your life long friend. W. T. Martin Article also appeared in the Eagle Democrat, Warren, Arkansas, December 24, 1946. [ Johnsville, Ninety Years Ago ] [ Next Page ] [ Back to the Index ] |
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