Entries - County: Independence

Adler, Simon

Simon Adler, born in Bavaria in 1832 (according to his tombstone), was one of the first Jewish immigrants to settle in Batesville (Independence County). He established a successful business career, operating a general merchandise store, working as a real estate speculator and agent, and serving as a cotton broker, as well as founding his own bank. He was a popular and respected man, for census records show that he had at least a dozen namesakes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Simon Adler, along with three of his brothers, moved to Batesville to join yet another brother, Israel Adler, who had formed a business partnership in a general store with French immigrants Aaron and Samuel Hirsch. Simon Adler’s …

Akron (Independence County)

Drivers heading south from Newark (Independence County) on Highway 122 will see an isolated cemetery marker at the dividing line between a wooded area and a farm field. The sign reads “Akron Cemetery” and marks the only remains of a once vibrant community. The community was at one time called Big Bottom for the rich and extensive bottom land on the north side of White River and the west side of Black River. The stage route from Batesville (Independence County) to Jacksonport (Jackson County) ran through Big Bottom/Akron. The Akron Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 4, 2002. The oldest recorded grave in the cemetery is from 1829, making this perhaps the oldest cemetery …

Allen Chapel (Independence County)

Allen Chapel is a small community in Independence County on Highway 14 between Ramsey Mountain and Salado (Independence County). Once located upon a spur called the Allen Chapel Road, it is now on the main road from the county seat of Batesville (Independence County) to Oil Trough (Independence County). Today, the Allen Chapel Free Will Baptist Church (and the associated cemetery) is the only landmark for the community. At one time, a country general store, the Dewey Lusk Grocery, was located near the church. In the early twenty-first century, the only remaining business is the Time Bandit, which sells electric cargo-strap winders. Several businesses, including  two banks and a motel, are located nearby on Ramsey Mountain. In 1827, at age …

Arkansas Normal College

Arkansas Normal College, located in Jamestown (Independence County), was founded in 1895 as a two-year coeducational college with a curriculum designed to prepare students to pass county teacher certification requirements. At one time, the college boasted a greater enrollment than Arkansas College (now Lyon College) in Batesville (Independence County). In 1890, through the efforts of Dr. M. C. Weaver, A. J. Craig, W. B. Pate, and G. C. Rutledge, a high school was founded in Jamestown. Approximately five years later, after the state approved the creation of county normal (teachers’ training) schools, the two-year Arkansas Normal College was founded. While the school was chiefly designed for teacher preparation, students could also pursue traditional degrees in medicine, law, and general education. …

Arkansas Scottish Festival

The Arkansas Scottish Festival is held every April on the campus of Lyon College in Batesville (Independence County). It began as the Ozark Scottish Festival in 1981 at what was then known as Arkansas College. The festival has grown significantly and evolved over the years but remains emblematic of the college and its Presbyterian roots. The Arkansas Scottish Festival is now known as one of the premier Scottish festivals in the southern United States. Established by Dr. Ralph Graham during his tenure as vice president of institutional advancement, the festival was initially held on the athletic field in conjunction with homecoming but was later moved to April. Over time, it attracted more and more participants from all over the country. …

Austin v. The State

Slaves in the United States had no legal rights and only limited access to legal protection, so few legal cases in antebellum Arkansas involved African Americans. Even fewer of those cases were ever reviewed by the Arkansas Supreme Court. However, a case in 1854 established a new principle for Arkansas courts that allowed slave owners to testify in criminal cases involving their own slaves. The murder trial of Austin, a slave in Independence County, was appealed to the state’s high court on several procedural issues, one of which was the denial of his owner’s testimony. The court found that such testimony must be permitted, thus throwing out the circuit court’s decision and ordering a new trial. The event that led …

Aydelott (Independence County)

Aydelott is a historic community in Independence County located on Highway 14 between Oil Trough (Independence County) and Macks (Jackson County) in Oil Trough Township. The name derives from the Aydelott family from Cleveland County, North Carolina. The White River bottoms in what became known as Pleasant Island, and later Oil Trough, first became a popular area for bear hunting by the French before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The rich alluvial soil beckoned farmers who grew cotton and corn in the early days of settlement, tolerating the frequent floods. The corn was also used to make moonshine, which proved almost as profitable as trading bear oil down the river. Alfred Paisley Aydelott first journeyed to Little Rock (Pulaski County) …

Barker, Catherine Sweazey

Catherine Sweazey Barker was a social worker and author who lived in Batesville (Independence County) in the 1920s and early 1930s. During the height of the Great Depression and shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the New Deal in 1933, Barker took a position as a social services employee with the Batesville office of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) to help impoverished Ozarkers in Independence County and neighboring counties secure government aid and assistance. Drawing on observations from and experiences with rural families during her time as a FERA employee, she wrote a nonfiction book titled Yesterday Today: Life in the Ozarks, which was first published in 1941 and reprinted with a new introduction in 2020. Catherine Sweazey …

Bates, James Woodson

James Woodson Bates was an early Arkansas settler who was elected as the first Arkansas territorial representative to the U.S. Congress. After leaving that office, he went on to help develop Arkansas’s legal system as a judge and lawyer. Batesville (Independence County) was named after him in 1824. James Bates was born on August 25, 1788, in Belmont, Virginia, to Thomas F. Bates and Caroline Woodson Bates. Little is known of his early life, but he attended Yale College (now Yale University). He eventually graduated from Princeton College (now Princeton University) in 1807 and began practicing law in Virginia. In 1816, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where his brother Frederick Bates had been appointed territorial secretary. In 1819, he, …

Batesville (Independence County)

Geographically, Batesville was destined to exist. It stands at the point where waters of the White River exit from the sedimentary stone of the Ozarks. River traffic was forced to stop at the shoals to offload cargo, regardless of the direction of travel. Warehouses, supply stores, and buyers of furs and produce naturally congregated there. The town became one of the major cultural centers of the region. In the nineteenth century, its leaders, many of whom moved to Little Rock (Pulaski County), exercised influence on the political development of Arkansas far beyond what its modest size promised. Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood The first Euro-American settlers, French fur-traders who were in the valley possibly as early as the mid-eighteenth century, left …

Batesville Confederate Monument

The Batesville Confederate Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1907 by the Sidney Johnson Camp No. 863 of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) and Sidney Johnson Chapter No. 135 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to commemorate local men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War, as well as the women who supported them. Independence County fielded ten companies of cavalry and thirteen of infantry for the Confederate army during the Civil War. In 1906, the Sidney Johnson Camp No. 863 of the UCV and Sidney Johnson Chapter No. 135 of the UDC, based in Batesville (Independence County), decided to do what several other Arkansas organizations had done and erect a monument in their …

Batesville Daily Guard

The Batesville Daily Guard has been published continuously since 1877, the only Batesville (Independence County) newspaper that has survived from about two dozen that were started in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Originally a weekly publication, it later became an award-winning daily newspaper. The founder of the Guard, Confederate Civil War veteran Franklin Desha Denton, was born in Batesville in 1841. In 1868, Frank Denton married Martha Adelia “Mattie” Lewis. According to the Goodspeed history of the area, 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 Union army, and exchanged to fight again. After …

Batesville National Guard Armory

aka: Abraham Armory

The Batesville National Guard Armory at 380 South Ninth Street in Batesville (Independence County) is a single-story, Art Deco–style structure built in 1936–1937 with assistance from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era federal relief program. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 1998. Citizen-soldier militias have had a constant presence in the United States since the colonial era, but it was not until Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903—also known as the Dick Act for sponsor Senator Charles W. F. Dick, chairman of the Committee on the Militia—that the National Guard became an official partner in the nation’s armed services, receiving federal support for training, equipment, and wages. Arkansas’s state militia was …

Batesville Regional Airport

The Batesville Regional Airport is located on Highway 167 (Batesville Boulevard) in the town of Southside (Independence County), about four miles south of Batesville, the county seat of Independence County. The City of Batesville owns the airport, which is a public-use general aviation airport averaging ninety-five aircraft operations per day (approximately six percent of which are military). The airport and hangars accommodate light general aviation aircraft of all sizes, including small jets. In 2015, the airport had more than fifty based aircraft and employed seventy-two people. The economic impact of the airport on Batesville and Independence County—including on motels, restaurants, transportation businesses, and the poultry industry—has been estimated by the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics to be approximately $5,486,400 annually. The …

Batesville, Skirmish at (February 4, 1863)

On December 31, 1862, General John S. Marmaduke and 8,000 cavalry launched a raid into Missouri from near Lewisburg (Conway County) in the Arkansas River Valley, only to meet defeat at Hartsville, Missouri. The Confederate retreat back into Arkansas took them to Independence County, retracing the steps of Brigadier General Samuel Curtis’s army eight months earlier. Gen. Marmaduke established his troops at Oil Trough (Independence County), and Colonel Joseph O. Shelby set up camp at the farm of Franklin Desha. Both bivouacs were south of the White River, but Marmaduke’s headquarters were at the Cox house in Batesville (Independence County). Union forces in Missouri gathered at West Plains, Missouri, on January 29, 1863. The next day, Brigadier General John Davidson …

Batesville, Skirmish at (May 3, 1862)

On March 6–8, 1862, one of the most important Civil War battles west of the Mississippi River was fought at Pea Ridge (Benton County) in northwest Arkansas. The Army of the Southwest under Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis defeated the Confederate army of Major General Earl Van Dorn, with the result that Missouri remained in the Union and the path into Arkansas was open to the Union army, hampered only by Confederate units who were trying to block the paths south and east of Pea Ridge. Gen. Curtis was following his orders to take his large army of more than 20,000 and seize Little Rock (Pulaski County), thus securing Arkansas for the Union. His Army of the Southwest contained regiments from …

Baxter, Elisha

Elisha Baxter, a Unionist leader during the Civil War and a jurist, is best remembered as Arkansas’s last Republican governor during Reconstruction. The attempt to overthrow him became known as the Brooks-Baxter War. Baxter’s victory resulted in the end of Reconstruction and the adoption of the Constitution of 1874. Elisha Baxter was born on September 1, 1827, in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to William Baxter and his second wife, Catherine Lee. She was the mother to five sons and three daughters out of William Baxter’s twenty children. His father had emigrated from Ireland in 1789 and prospered in Rutherford County in western North Carolina, acquiring land and slaves. Baxter received a limited education and sought to better himself by obtaining …

Bean’s Rangers

Captain Jesse Bean’s Ranger Company was one of six companies of mounted militia authorized by Congress in 1832. Led by a member of a prominent Arkansas family, the company formed a part of the first mounted battalion in the U.S. Army for seventeen years. Its actions are representative of the militarization of Arkansas’s western border and the area beyond during the territorial period. Influenced in 1815 by a need for economy and a deep-rooted fear of standing armies, Congress had eliminated cavalry, considered by some to be a uniformed elite, from the army. However, the Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin reminded legislators of the utility of cavalry, and, on June 15, 1832, Congress authorized President Andrew Jackson to raise …

Bethesda (Independence County)

Although there were settlers in what became Bethesda (it was originally called Washington) in the early days of statehood, the community was officially established with the opening of a post office in 1888. The name of the community is believed to have been derived from the biblical Bethesda healing pool in Jerusalem, the word meaning “house of grace” or “house of mercy.” Bethesda is located along Highway 106, about three miles south-southeast of Cushman (Independence County) and about eight miles west-northwest of the county seat of Batesville (Independence County). The White River is about four miles to the south, where Lock and Dam No. 2 is located. The Union Pacific Railroad follows the White River bank south of Bethesda. The …

Brooks, John Doyle

John Doyle Brooks was a stuntman and actor whose career included appearances in some of the most renowned television shows of the 1950s and 1960s, including The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin and Naked City, as well as several movies and commercials. Doyle Brooks was born on December 10, 1923, in Bethesda (Independence County) to John Henry Brooks and Deliah Ann Queary Brooks. Brooks developed an interest in show business at an early age, especially in the cowboy/western genre. On his parents’ farm in Bethesda, he learned to ride, rope, break horses, and shoot, becoming an expert marksman and sharpshooter. In 1942, he married Bernice Sheffield of Batesville (Independence County), who shared his interest in the entertainment industry. Together, they …

Brown, J. L.

aka: James Lafayette Brown

James Lafayette (J. L.) Brown, one of the most influential early leaders of the Landmark Baptist movement in Arkansas, was a minister, editor, poet, legislator, and published writer. J. L. Brown was born at Elm Store, a rural community on the Eleven Point River in northwestern Randolph County, on December 7, 1853. He was the youngest of the eight children of the farming family of Elijah Brown and Mozilla Brown. His father died in 1859, and Brown and his family relocated to eastern Independence County after the Civil War. He later recalled that he “was raised in poverty and received the most rudimentary of educations.” Most of his classroom education was obtained after he was an adult. He was ordained …

Burton-Aikin Feud

The Burton-Aikin (also spelled “Aiken”) feud between Dr. Phillip Patrick (known as P. P.) Burton and Dr. Trent C. Aikin—who both practiced medicine in Batesville (Independence County )—began on October 21, 1841, with the death of Nicholas E. Burton (son of P. P. Burton) and ended on September 15, 1849, when an Independence County jury found P. P. Burton’s son Phil Burton “not guilty” in the murder of Dr. Aikin. The feud grew out of a medical disagreement between the two doctors. Dr. Aikin was called to treat a “Negro woman” (presumably a slave) belonging to a Mr. Byers of Batesville. Aikin diagnosed the woman with liver disease and began treatment of it. When the woman failed to improve, Byers asked Dr. …

Byrd, Henry

Henry Byrd was one of Arkansas’s most prolific antebellum portrait painters. His portraits present Arkansas’s merchants, planters, and professional gentlemen, along with their wives and children, as they wished posterity to see them. Henry Byrd was born in Ireland in 1805, one of seven children born to William Byrd and Anne Garrett of Belmount Hall, County Tiperary. He immigrated to America and was naturalized through the port of New York City in November 1835. He established himself as a painter and resided at 164 Delancy Street in New York City. During his years in New York, Byrd married Sarah J. Updike, and they had two children while still in New York. Sometime during the late 1830s, the family migrated south, …

Caney (Independence County)

Caney Creek begins as a spring in the hills of the Ed Taylor Holler at McHue (Independence County), moves east through Southside (Independence County), and empties into Salado Creek near the Old Rock Bridge between Salado (Independence County) and Rosie (Independence County). Caney, a pioneer community, emerged along its banks in the early 1800s on what is today Kyler Road, where it intersects with Highway 167 South (Batesville Boulevard). Pioneer farmers found the alluvial land along the banks of Caney Creek to be ideal for the growing of grain crops, including corn (which could be used in the profitable moonshine business). One of the first to make his home in Caney was John Kyler from Tennessee, who appeared on the …

Causby, Robert Albert (Execution of)

Robert Albert Causby, though senseless at the time of his execution, was hanged at Batesville (Independence County) on November 25, 1904, for murdering the county sheriff. Robert Causby was born in Independence County on October 14, 1883, the son of Hepsey Catherine Causby, and grew up in Union Township near the Izard County line. His criminal career began when he was a teenager and stole an axe from the township’s constable, who fled the area after reporting that Causby had shot at him. He was jailed in Fulton County for the December 1900 robbery of a post office but escaped in February 1901 after striking a jailer with a log. Causby ran off to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and …

Cedar Creek Bridge

aka: Goodie Creek Bridge

The Cedar Creek Bridge, located on Independence County Road 235 where it crosses Cedar Creek about one and a half miles south of its intersection with Arkansas Highway 14 near Rosie (Independence County), is a stone, closed-spandrel deck arch bridge. It was constructed in 1941 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era public relief agency. The road to the site of the Cedar Creek Bridge did not appear on Arkansas maps until 1936, five years before the structure was erected, indicating it was likely the location of a ford. Independence County leaders turned to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal for funding to improve this and other roads throughout the county during the Great Depression. On January 29, 1940, …

Cedar Grove (Independence County) [Northeast]

There are two communities named Cedar Grove in Independence County, one south of the White River between Floral and Pleasant Plains, and the other north of the White River near Charlotte and Cave City (Sharp and Independence counties); the two communities are often confused. Both are historical communities dating back to before the Civil War. Both are said to take their names from clusters of cedar trees found in the areas where log homes were built by the first settlers. Each one has a Cedar Grove Cemetery. Cedar Grove in the northeastern part of the county is located in Dota Township on Curia Creek seven miles southeast of Cave City and about fourteen miles east-northeast of Batesville (Independence County). It …

Cedar Grove (Independence County) [Southwest]

There are two communities named Cedar Grove in Independence County—one south of the White River near Floral (Independence County) and Pleasant Plains (Independence County), and the other north of the White River near Charlotte (Independence County) and Cave City (Sharp and Independence counties). This has led to much confusion, as each one has a Cedar Grove Cemetery. The two locations are often confused on the Internet as well. Both are historical communities dating back to before the Civil War, and both are said to take their names from clusters of cedar trees found in the areas where log homes were built by early settlers. Cedar Grove in the southwestern part of the county lies on Highway 87 (Floral Road) between …

Charlotte (Independence County)

Charlotte is located just off Highway 25 (a.k.a. White Drive) on Old School Road near the banks of Dota Creek, twelve miles east-northeast of the county seat of Batesville (Independence County) and about five miles west of Cord (Independence County). Rich farmland lies to the south of Charlotte in the Big Bottom alluvial lands along the Black and White rivers. There is also high-quality grazing land for cattle in the Charlotte region. Charlotte is in the township of Dota, which includes three churches—Cedar Grove Church, Center Grove Church, and Pleasant Hill Church. In 1852, seventeen-year-old James Northcroft Churchill crossed the Mississippi River from Tennessee with his family, which settled in Walnut Grove (Independence County). A few years later, he opened …

Chinn Spring (Independence County)

A popular place for church and social picnics in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinn Spring is located on Cave Creek in Ashley Township on Chinn Spring Lane just east of Polk (or Poke) Bayou. The community of Chinn Spring emerged near the spring. The Will Chinn Cave is located in this vicinity. Batesville (Independence County), the county seat, is located about five miles south of Chinn Spring. Today, the spring is located on private property owned by a Batesville businessman. John French Chinn was born in 1810 in Fauquier County, Virginia, where, in 1832, he married Lydia Elizabeth Byrne. Following the death of Chinn’s parents, the two moved to Ruddell (Independence County) around 1847. On the 1860 census, …

Chinquapin (Independence County)

Chinquapin is an unincorporated community in Washington Township of Independence County on Chinquapin Loop near its intersection with Earnheart Road. It is about two and a half miles south-southeast of Bethesda (Independence County) and about two miles from White River and Lock and Dam No. 2. It is approximately eight miles from Batesville (Independence County), the county seat. Chinquapin receives its name from the abundant Ozark chinquapin trees, sometimes called Ozark chinkapin and Ozark chestnut, that grew there. People ate the nuts, fed them to livestock, and sold them. The rot-resistant wood made excellent railroad ties and fence posts. Local folk artists even made musical instruments from the wood. Logging practices and a chestnut blight that struck the Ozarks in …

Convenience (Independence County)

Convenience is a historical community located on Dota Creek on Cedar Grove Road just off Highway 25 about four miles north-northwest of Charlotte (Independence County) and about seven miles southeast of Cave City (Sharp and Independence counties). It is about three and a half miles southwest of Cedar Grove (Independence County). Batesville, the county seat, is located approximately fourteen miles south-southwest. Those who live in the area in the twenty-first century have a Sulphur Rock (Independence County) address. Native Americans made the Black and White rivers area their home in pre-Columbian times. At the beginning of the twentieth century, archaeologist Clarence Bloomfield Moore excavated several sites, including Little Turkey Hill, near what is today Dowdy (Independence County), about eight and …

Cook-Morrow House

When the Cook-Morrow house in Batesville (Independence County) was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 29, 1977, it was described as “a handsome example of American Eclectic architecture, blending various styles.” Completed in 1909, the house was cited for its historical and architectural significance. That historical significance is tied to its builder, Colonel Virgil Y. Cook, and to the three generations of his family who occupied the house for almost 100 years. Born in Boydsville, Kentucky, in 1848, Cook moved to Grand Glaise (Jackson County) in 1866, where he entered the mercantile business. He married Mildred Ophelia Lamb in 1871; they had six children. A veteran of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, Cook was …

Cook, Virgil Young (V. Y.)

Virgil Young (V. Y.) Cook was a veteran of two wars—the Civil War and the Spanish-American War—who founded the town of Olyphant (Jackson County) and eventually accumulated thousands of acres of land, running a vast plantation enterprise in northeastern Arkansas. His home in Batesville (Independence County), today known as the Cook-Morrow House, is on the National Register of Historic Places. V. Y. Cook was born on November 14, 1848, in Boydsville, Kentucky, to William Detterline (Bill) Cook and Pernecia Dodds Cook. Cook attended subscription schools in Boydsville, obtaining the equivalent of an elementary education. Kentucky was a divided state in the Civil War, and even though it stayed with the Union, there were many Confederate sympathizers living there. One was …

Cord (Independence County)

Cord is located at the junction of Cord Road (Highway 122) and West Hopewell Road (Highway 37, a.k.a. Elgin Road) near Charlotte (Independence County) and Dota (Independence County). Cord grew out of the Hopewell community, and the name Hopewell is used for the main cemetery for Cord and for one of the main roads running through Cord. The Hopewell area was good for growing crops and grazing animals, becoming noted for its prosperous farmers. The early settlers of Hopewell were attracted by the nearby farmland of Big Bottom on the banks of the White and Black rivers approximately ten miles to the southwest. Eventually, a ferry across the Black River at Elgin (Jackson County), four miles to the southeast, made …

Cross-Roads, Skirmish at

During the 1864 Federal occupation of Batesville (Independence County), many detachments were sent out through the surrounding counties for information, forage, and seizure of bushwhackers. In an accidental encounter, one such detachment caught some brigands for the second time. Captain Albert B. Kauffman of the Eleventh Missouri Cavalry Volunteers left Batesville on March 24, 1864, with a detachment of 200 men and six officers to scout to the southwest and west. They traveled up the White River to the mouths of Wolf Bayou and Briar Creek, then turned southwest until they reached Coon Creek. They camped at McCarles’s farm, where they found a mule harness that had been taken by Captain George Rutherford during a previous skirmish at Waugh’s Farm. …

Curia (Independence County)

The historic community of Curia (pronounced Curie) was located near Curia Creek, a tributary of the Black River, east of Highway 25 between Saffell (Lawrence County) and Cord (Independence County). The remains of this community, like Hazel Grove (Independence County), are on private land with restricted public access. It was located in Barren Township. Curia Lake is a popular fishing spot noted for its perch and crappie. The place name of Curia (a.k.a. Bayou Cura, Bayou Cure, and Cura Creek) is mentioned in a written description of the boundaries of the new Independence County on October 23, 1820, which included, “All that portion of the county of Lawrence bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at a point in Big Black …

Cushman (Independence County)

Cushman, established in 1886 as the result of an accident, was an important shipping and trade center for the next seventy-two years. The center of the tremendously valuable manganese mining industry, Cushman also served as a shipping point for businesses and farmers in northern Independence County and most of Izard County. William Einstein of St. Louis established a mining operation on what is now known as Polk Southard Mine, near what is now Sandtown Road, in about 1866. At the time, this was just a wild wooded area. In 1885, the Keystone Mining Company, an Andrew Carnegie company, began operations on Southard Hill. Shortly thereafter, the St. Louis Mining Company came to the area and began operations near Polk Southard. …

DaBoll, Raymond Franklin

Raymond Franklin DaBoll, one of the most talented calligraphers in America, moved to Newark (Independence County) in 1952, where he continued producing masterpieces of calligraphy. Raymond DaBoll was born on June 19, 1892, in Clyde, New York. Several generations of his family published the well-known Daboll Almanacks from 1773 until 1969, when it merged with the Old Farmer’s Almanac. When DaBoll was a youngster, because of constant mispronunciation of the family name by others, his father and uncles changed the spelling of the name from “Daboll” to “DaBoll.” While in his third year of high school, DaBoll won first place in an art contest sponsored by the Rochester Training School for Teachers. Encouraged by this accomplishment, he dropped out of …

Denieville (Independence County)

The historic community of Denieville was located on Spring Creek less than a mile from Limedale (Independence County) on Limedale Road. It was about five miles west-northwest of the county seat, Batesville (Independence County). The White River and the Missouri Pacific railroad tracks run about two miles south of Denieville. Following the Civil War, mining interests in the eastern United States attempted to develop the white lime deposits of Independence County for commercial use, establishing kilns near Batesville. (Quick lime is used for a number of purposes, including mortar, plaster, and the manufacture of paper.) The production of lime in Independence County began in earnest in 1887, emerging on a small scale at Denieville on the Cushman (Independence County) branch …

Dennison Heights (Independence County)

Dennison Heights of Independence County began as a housing development in the 1950s and 1960s on the bluffs overlooking the White River. It was named for the Dennison/Denison family (different branches of the family spelled the name differently) who had a large farm south of the White River and across the river from Eagle Mountain. Dennison Heights is located three miles south of Batesville (Independence County), the county seat. It sits atop Ramsey Mountain (a.k.a. Ramsey Hill), just off Highway 167, also called Batesville Boulevard. At the time of Dennison Heights’ formation, three roads made a triangle at the “top of the hill,” as the Dennison Heights area is commonly called: Highways 14 and 25 led to Desha (Independence County) …

Departee (Independence County)

The historic community of Departee in Christian Township of Independence County is located on Blackland Road (Highway 157) near Departee Creek, about three and a half miles southwest of Oil Trough (Independence County) and two miles northwest of Thida (Independence County). Departee is close to Major Harris Mountain in the Oil Trough Bottoms near the Blackland community. The White River bottomland is a fertile area for farming, although cotton has been largely replaced by other crops such as soybeans and rice. Flooding, often disastrous, frequently occurs in the bottoms. The community was named for Departee Creek, a small bottomland creek that most likely received its name from the French who were in the area by the beginning of the nineteenth …

Desha (Independence County)

Desha is located on State Highways 14 and 25 (a.k.a. Heber Springs Road) in Independence County about six miles southwest of Batesville, the county seat. Desha is closely associated with nearby Locust Grove (Independence County), Jamestown (Independence County), McHue (Independence County), and Southside (Independence County). The White River is about one mile to the north, and Ramsey Mountain (a.k.a. Ramsey Hill) lies about two miles to the east. There is evidence that Hernando de Soto and his men journeyed through the Greenbrier Bottoms (named for Greenbrier Creek—originally spelled Greenbriar) in October and November 1541. Dr. Julie Morrow of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro (Craighead County) began the process of archaeological study and research into the Native American city of Coliqua …

Dickinson, Townsend

Townsend Dickinson was elected to the territorial legislature and served as prosecuting attorney for his territorial district. He was appointed U.S. Land Office Registrar of Batesville (Independence County) in 1833. He served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1836. Following the convention, he was elected to the first Arkansas General Assembly, which soon made him one of three original members of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Little is known about Dickinson’s childhood, but it appears he was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1795. He was said to be a very polished and well-spoken scholar. In 1821, he moved from New York to Lawrence County, Arkansas. He then moved to Batesville, practicing law and dabbling in real estate. …

Dota (Independence County)

Dota (pronounced Doe-dee or Doe-tee) is a historic community near Dota Creek, which runs into the Black River. Dota is located just off the WPA Road between Cord (Independence County), which is two and half miles to the north-northeast, and Charlotte (Independence County), which is about four miles to the north-northwest. Dota Old River is a lake near where Dota Creek empties into the Black River. Dota is a corruption of the French word d’eau, meaning water. D’eau became Doty and then Dota. The old military road ran through D’eau Bayou (which later became known as Dota Creek). The Jackson Military Road was laid out in 1831 from St. Louis, Missouri. It roughly parallels the old Southwest Trail as it …

Dowdy (Independence County)

Dowdy is located on Highway 25 near the intersection with Upper Lockhart Road about three miles northeast of Cord (Independence County) and about five miles south of Saffell (Lawrence County). Dowdy is about three miles west of where the Lockhart Ferry crossed the Black River and about a mile south of Curia Creek. The Black River bottoms area has rich alluvial soil, and Native Americans made it their home in pre-Columbian times. Prehistoric sites are numerous. At the beginning of the twentieth century, archaeologist Clarence Bloomfield Moore excavated several sites, including Little Turkey Hill, near what is today Dowdy. By 1818, John Milligan II had settled along Reeds Creek in Lawrence County. He became a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian …

Dunnington (Independence County)

The historic community of Dunnington of Independence County was located on Highway 14, about two miles east-southeast of Oil Trough (Independence County). It was about five miles south across the White River bridge from Newark (Independence County) and approximately eight and a half miles from Newport (Jackson County). Being close to the White River, floods were common, at times even devastating. Dunnington was in a two-mile radius of Hulsey Bend (Independence County), Elmo (Independence County), Macks (Jackson County), Meadow Lake (Independence County), and Oil Trough. As early as 1800, French frontiersmen were in the White River bottoms hunting bears and smaller game animals, including deer. Traffic in bear oil was lucrative and proved to be an incentive for settlement, and …

Earnheart (Independence County)

Earnheart is a community on the north bank of the White River about three miles southeast of Bethesda (Independence County) and about four miles southwest of Limedale (Independence County). Across the White River from Earnheart is Earnheart Island near Lock and Dam No. 2. Created by the River and Harbors Act of March 1899, Lock and Dam No. 2 is presently own by Independence County; the old lock is being converted into a hydro-electric generating station. The Missouri Pacific Railroad runs through Earnheart. The Mitchell family from Alabama was among the first to settle in the Earnheart area of Washington Township. Shortly after the Civil War, Charles Pierce Mitchell homesteaded 140 acres along Rock Branch (a.k.a. Rocky Branch), a stream …

Elmo (Independence County)

Elmo is a historic community located in a wooded area, with plowed fields on each side, between Highway 14 (Newport Road) and the White River, which is about a half mile away. Elmo is about four miles east of Oil Trough (Independence County) and about six miles west of Newport (Jackson County). Nearby are Dunnington (Independence County), Aydelott (Independence County), and Macks (Jackson County). The White River bottoms in what became known as Pleasant Island and later Oil Trough first became a popular area for bear hunting by the French before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The rich alluvial soil beckoned farmers, who began growing cotton and corn in the early days of American settlement, even though the area was …

Fairchild, Hulbert Fellows

Hulbert F. Fairchild was a New York–born lawyer who moved to northeastern Arkansas to open a practice in the 1840s and found himself playing a precarious role as a trial judge and justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court during the calamitous days before and during the Civil War. Although Fairchild was put on the court by the secessionist governor, Elias N. Conway, and the court’s three justices had to flee Little Rock (Pulaski County) to the Confederate capital of Washington (Hempstead County) when Union forces controlled much of the state, Fairchild was privately uncomfortable with secession. While he capitulated to the secessionists and foes of emancipation on slavery matters before the court, his decisions resisted the curtailment of some civil …