35 Degrees 24 Minutes North - 91 Degrees West: A Town Called Hickory Ridge

35o24' North-91o West:

A town called HICKORY RIDGE

By:

James O. Jeffers—Johnny H. Wilson

Isaac A. Bratcher—Don Evans

© Copyright 2006 James O. Jeffers, Johnny H. Wilson, Isaa c A. Bratcher, andDon Evans.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives

Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html

ISBN 1-4120-2298-3

The authors claim no copyright in… .

(1)   A History of the Hickory Ridge Church of Christ

a compiled work in two (2) parts

by John E. Stinnett and Leonard R. Wilson

(2)   The History of the Hickory Ridge United Methodist Church

compiled by Donna Vaught

(3)   A History of the Hickory Ridge Assembly of God Church

compiled by Virginia Nesler Russell

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Prelude

Early Expansion South and West

Watauga to French Lick

The Cross County Area’s First White Settler

Westward Ho!

Routes into the Arkansas District

The Takeover

Townships and Ranges-Arkansas County

From District to Territory

Land, Politics, and Greed

Territorial Politicians and Violence

Land Divisions and Continued Growth

Area Post Offices

From Territory to Statehood

Gerstacker in Arkansas… 1838-1842

The Early, Middle Eighteen Hundreds

Mid-Century Growth

Massacre at Mountain Meadows

Secession

The Civil War Period

Reconstruction

After the Aftermath

Developing Communities

Cemeteries of Area

Civil War Veterans of the area

The Cotton Belt Railroad

Old man Time is passing on; 19th century almost gone . . .

Schools of the Area

Growth of the Townships, 1900-1910

Churches of the Townships

"Part One, 1909-1969, Establishment and Early History

"Part Two, 1970-2001, History of the Hickory Ridge Church of Christ

Growth of the Townships, 1910-1920

The Nineteen Twenties

The Killing of Jim and Oby Barnett

The Nineteen Twenties, cont’d

The Nineteen Thirties

The World Wars

Area Businesses and Events

Hickory Ridge Volunteer Fire Department

A New Bank and A New Industry

More Businesses and the Rural Water System

Epilogue

Dedication

This work is dedicated to all past, present, and future settlers and residents of that region between the L’Anguille River and Bayou DeView and between the Poinsett County line south to U. S. Highway 64, but especially to those bold, brave and audacious comers who began to arrive in that region during the second quarter of the 19th century and decided to stay. They fought the swamp-water and swamp-water fevers and they fought the floods and the mud and the insects and the snakes and all manner of wildlife, even nature itself, for the right to build cabins and farms and to put down roots in that area that must have looked like no person in his right mind would ever want to live there. They must have been people devoted to their families and totally committed to building a new life in a new land and they must have had such great vision to be able to see beyond what then looked to be only a vast swamp. They undoubtedly had great faith. We can never thank those earliest settlers and the ones who followed, the ones who worked and sacrificed to begin the settlement and development of the area that today makes up the Brushy Lake and Hickory Ridge townships of Cross County, Arkansas. They have long been gone to reap their rewards. We can, however, hold them in the highest regard. We dedicate this work to them and to those who followed and continued their work, and also to those who continue today to make that area an even better place to live and work.

Acknowledgment

First, we would thank our spouses. For their understanding and support, and for their putting up with our being away from home from time to time, and for our piling into each others homes for food and lodging, sometimes unannounced, during our travels for research and work on this project, and for our long hours spent locked away in the office hunched over a computer keyboard, we especially thank Louise Bratcher, Eleanor Evans, Vivian Wilson and Glenda Jeffers.

Second, we must acknowledge the impossibility of gathering and compiling all of the records and personal glimpses of the history of Brushy Lake and Hickory Ridge Townships and the town of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, contained within the following pages without the help and assistance of many contributors, all friends and neighbors. An attempt on our part to name here each and every one would surely fail, therefore, to each and everyone we simply say a heartfelt thank you. You know who you are and so do we. We appreciate your support and your enthusiasm for wanting to see this work done. In lieu of that, it could never have been completed.

We would acknowledge with remembrance the recorded interviews with Claude Gresham, Velma Diebold, Gene Goodart, Ray Ballard, Estel Norviel, Doc Slocum, and Cleveland Phillips. Also for interviews and shared information we thank Willie Goodart, Renee Slocum, J. B. Vanaman, Edsel Chapman, and Grover Cooper; Jim Cole for sharing collected historical data; Beverly Kennedy German and Naomi Sullins Rolland for sharing memories handed down from parents; Julia Jeffers Slocum for memories and anecdotes from school days at the old Center School; Leonard Wilson, Lena Mae West, Kathryn Slocum Peak, Nina Slocum, Katheryn McFadden Roark, Mrs. Jimmie James, Todd Wilson, Vernon Horton, Alice Kibler Harris, and all of the others who contributed even a name, a date, or some other seemingly trivial bit of history. We also say ‘thanks’ to all those who shared personal photographs and other memorabilia. Our hats are off to Patricia Ballard for her assistance in processing some of those photographs and to Tanya Jeffers Shumaker for her proofing assistance.

Introduction

The following pages contain our humble attempt to present a chronicle of the settlement and development of an area on planet Earth identifiably located at 35o 24' North Latitude, 91o West Longitude, but which includes a small rural town and the two surrounding townships of Brushy Lake and Hickory Ridge, an area more commonly known as… .

Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, USA.

It should be noted that 91o West Longitude actually lies approximately 1,700 feet west of the center of the town of Hickory Ridge.

Prelude

At about the time Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, was convincing the Spanish Crown to sanction and finance his expedition to cross the great ocean-sea to the West, all was serene on that great continent that lay at his then unknown journey’s end. Of course, it was not his target continent, the back side of Asia which he hoped to find, but actually two new continents that were then totally unknown in civilized Europe. Unknowingly, Columbus was petitioning for a voyage that would eventually spell the beginning of the end for several unknown civilizations but it would also be the beginning of human advancement never before even dreamed.

Columbus got his voyage; the Spanish Queen lent her support and Columbus’ expedition set sail on August 5, 1492. He struck a southwesterly course from Spain until reaching the latitude 28⁰ north of the equator, then turned due west and, with a very crude sextant, he maintained that westerly course until land was sighted on about the sixty-ninth day at sea. The land turned out to be only an island in the group later to be known as the West Indies and he named the island San Salvador.

Columbus had not reached Asia and he had not even reached the vast continent which lay only about a week’s sailing time farther to the West. That discovery would be left to another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci ¹, but Christopher Columbus laid the path. He was the first to cross the great ocean-sea, the Atlantic Ocean. Or was he?

Still, after that long voyage of unknowing men across an unknown sea, sixty-nine days of wondering if they might suddenly sail off the edge, all was as it had always been on that great land mass which lay only a little farther west. Time would reveal that great unspoiled land to the bold explorers who followed Columbus and most of them would immediately begin their campaigns of conquest which would forever taint the land and the peoples who occupied it. The subject of this work, however, involves only a small part of that land.

In the midst of the Northernmost of the two continents, there was an area bounded on the East by a great river that split the Southern part of the continent, and on the far western edge by a massive rift of rocky mountains. The area was as it had been for centuries, indeed, as it had evolved since the beginning of time. In the Eastern part of this region there were only great forests which stretched for miles in all directions and, to the West, only partially ended where the great plains began. This great forested area was punctuated by a range of small beautiful mountains which was cleft by one of the great rivers of the region into two separate ranges. Those mountains to the North of that river would later be known as the Ozark Mountains and those to the South would be known as the Ouachita Mountains. The river itself, with its headwaters in the high rocky cliffs far, far to the West, would come to be named the Arkansas River. Parts of this area, however, and especially those parts which lay to the East of the small beautiful mountains, were relative lowlands and tended to flood with the coming of the equinoctial rains which occurred twice each year, in the Spring and again in the Autumn. And it is in this lowland region that 35o 24' North Latitude-91o West Longitude is so prominently located.

All of this, of course, was unknown to Christopher Columbus. It was a secret known only to the native inhabitants of this great land and even they, at the time, knew not what they possessed in the terms of white man’s wealth. This great continent that would be known as North America had not yet been discovered. Christopher Columbus was looking for something, something dear to his sponsors and, therefore, dear to himself. He was searching for a trade route to the far East and, although he failed in that endeavor, he was given credit for discovering a new world; America.

There is sufficient reason to believe that Old Chris might not have actually been the first European to sight the new world; that Leif Ericsson, a Viking explorer from Iceland and son of Eric the Red, may actually have landed on the North American continent some 500 years earlier. While the Viking voyages and even a landing many years earlier on North America may be, and probably are, true, the Vikings did not persist; they did not expand their presence in the new world and returned only a few times to the few places where they had originally landed. Therefore, history generally accords the honor of the discovery of the new world to Christopher Columbus.

In this writer’s humble opinion, neither Leif Ericsson nor Christopher Columbus really discovered the American continents. They had been here all along and were doing very well on their own. Long before Columbus wandered lost into the Caribbean and landed on one of the islands of the Bahamas, native Americans had achieved great civilizations with many millions of people. We know, of course, that there was some bickering between the various tribes but they were still civilized according to their own codes and, generally, they got along quite well as long as each tribe remained in its own respective territory and did nothing to antagonize its neighbor. The native Americans had a religion of their own and they had laws that were just. They lived by that religion and by those laws.

However, in the context of this work, it really does not matter who made the first sighting of and got credit for the discovery of this great continent, so we will honor the consideration of the discovery going to Christopher Columbus. It is just exciting to imagine a small band of explorers, at that time in the late 15th century, setting out on such a voyage when most of the people of Europe still thought the world was flat. Yes, Christopher Columbus failed to find and complete a route to the far East, and even when he reached the islands he called the West Indies, he still had no clue as to his nearness to riches beyond all of his dreams. His voyage pointed the way for European explorers following him for centuries to come.

And come they did. If, indeed, the Vikings did touch upon North America much earlier than Columbus, they apparently were not interested in establishing colonies in the new world and they apparently did not advertise their discovery other than to leave some inadvertent traces of their having been here. There is some evidence that their journeys did occur for they were recorded in some old Viking writings and there has also been some physical evidence found to support the theory of their landing and living for a time on the North American continent. Apparently they did not tell anyone about their expeditions to the West or what they found there, but after the first voyage here by Columbus, all of civilized Europe learned very soon of the existence of the new world. The discovery was talked about everywhere and by everyone. In the royal courts of Europe, plans of further exploration and exploitation was foremost on the minds of the regents and noblemen, ship captains and common sailors, and of almost everyone with a desire for adventure.

In the years following Columbus’ discovery of North America, several European nations seemed very interested in exploring and exploiting the new world. France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy all sent expeditions into South America, Central America, and back to North America about as quickly as they could build the necessary ships and outfit the parties. They were not as interested in the new world itself or in colonizing the new world as they were in plundering the gold and other riches that they found in the possession of the new world’s inhabitants, especially those of South America. There they found riches beyond anything they had ever imagined and they contrived to possess it all, regardless of the claims and desires of the rightful owners. Also, this was occurring at a time when the Spanish inquisition was at its zenith, so many may have thought it a good idea to ‘get out of town’ for awhile and joining an expedition into the new world gave them just that opportunity. It also afforded them a rare chance for fame and glory.

Those expeditions employed thousands of men and horses and mules, many ships and vast quantities of supplies. While most of the expeditions were financed by the king and/or queen of the sponsoring nation, some were financed independently by wealthy noblemen, usually a nobleman who had dreams of even greater wealth and fame and who would head the expedition and reap all the riches and glory for himself to that end. Sometimes these and other leaders got more than that for which they had bargained and, in the end, paid for their greed and brutality with their own lives and the lives of many in their company.

Even Great Britain got into the game of exploring the new world but maybe a little less aggressive than her Spanish and Portuguese counterparts. In fact, the next great expedition to North America after Columbus’ expedition of 1492 was led by the English explorer, John Cabot ¹. Cabot was sent to North America in 1497 to try and find a northwest passage to Asia. Cabot actually landed somewhere in the vicinity of Labrador or Newfoundland but the exact location is unknown. He was unsuccessful in locating a northwest passage to Asia although he thought he had landed on northeastern Asia. Cabot claimed the land for England and his expeditions were recorded as the first of Britain’s claims to Canada.

In the 250 years following Columbus’ discovery of the new world, explorers from Europe flocked to the Americas in numbers almost too great to count. Many of them, especially the Spanish, concentrated more on Mexico and on Central and South America, where there was thought to be much more gold and riches than had thus far been discovered in North America.

In 1500, the Portuguese explorer, Pedro Alvares Cabral ¹, discovered Brazil and, also in that year, the Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci ¹, while sailing for Spain, mapped the East coast of South America. Amerigo Vespucci was also the first to realize that the Americas were separate from the Asian continent. Then, honoring Vespucci for that discovery, the German map maker, Martin Waldseemuller ¹, in 1507, printed the first map which used the name ‘America’ for the new world.

In 1513, Spanish conquistador, Vasco Nunez de Balboa ¹, crossed the isthmus of Panama and became the first white man to cast eyes upon the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Also in 1513, another Spaniard by the name of Juan Ponce de Leon ², became the first European to set foot in Florida which he thought to be another island. He named the area La Florida and claimed it for Spain. Earlier, Juan Ponce de Leon had distinguished himself in the Spanish wars against the Moors and he had been instrumental in the subjugation of Hispaniola as a military commander. Subsequently, he had been appointed by the king to the office of governor of Puerto Rico. Although he had been born of noble lineage, he was still seeking wealth and because he was already a man of age by that time, he was even more interested in discovering the fountain of youth. He was later awarded the governorship of La Florida with the proviso that he colonize the ‘island’ but he was never able to establish a colony there.

Six years after Ponce de Leon claimed La Florida, Hernando Cortez ¹, another conquistador from Spain, in 1519 claimed Mexico in the name of his king.

In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano ¹, an Italian explorer sailing for King Francois I of France, explored the East coast of North America searching for the elusive northwest passage.

In 1526, Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon ¹, another Spaniard, became the first European to actually try to start a colony in North America. His attempt was unsuccessful.

Two years later, in 1528, Panifilo de Narvaez ², another Spanish conquistador, led a bloody expedition into North America. After Juan Ponce de Leon had been unsuccessful in colonizing La Florida, Panifilo de Narvaez had, the previous year, been granted the land of Florida by Emperor Charles V. Narvaez had in his party a man who was probably the first black man to set foot in North America. He was the Moor, Estevanico, also known as Stephen the Black, a Muslim slave from Azamor, Morocco, and was owned by a Spaniard named Andres Dorantes de Carranza who was a member of the Narvaez expedition.

Narvaez was already a veteran of bloody expeditions into Mexico even before that country was claimed by Cortez and he had become expert in cruelty and brutality. Had he known how valuable kind treatment of the natives would have been in securing their friendship when he landed at Tampa Bay, he might have achieved more success. Instead, he relied upon force and cruelty in his attempted subjugation of the natives and the consequences were disastrous to him and to those explorers who followed. After his first hostile encounter with the natives, he mutilated a captive chief by cutting off his nose and he ordered the killing of the mother of a chief by letting his Cuban bloodhounds tear her to pieces before the eyes of her husband and children.

These, and other acts such as these, created such hatred of the Spaniards by the people of the Gulf region that vengeance followed the Spaniards closely and implacably with the tenacity of their own Indian dogs. Narvaez believed his spirited acts of cruelty and brutality would awe and subdue the natives but he found that he was dealing with a people more warlike than the soft Aztecs of Mexico. They would fly to arms to avenge a wrong; attack the Spaniards with great fury; burn their own houses that they might not give shelter to their enemies, then flee to their cornfields and forests with their families to await another chance to strike.

After a long march through the wilderness, Narvaez, with what was left of his party, reached the sea near the mouth of a river now known as the Appalachicola River. They built some small boats and tried to escape. Narvaez was never heard from again and apparently only his treasurer, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, survived this expedition by rafting to Texas then walking onward to Mexico City. At least one account has Cabeza walking all the way to a port occupied by his countrymen on the Gulf of California and eventually making his way back to Spain from there.

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro ¹, another blood thirsty and gold hungry Spanish conquistador, with Hernando DeSoto in his company on an expedition to Peru, butchered Atahualpa, the ruler of the Incas. Pizarro is credited with the conquest of Peru for the Spanish king.

The expedition of the Spaniard, Hernando DeSoto ¹,²,³, into North America is most interesting in the context of this work because, on his travels through the central part of the North American continent, he very nearly touched upon the location where the town of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, now stands at 35o 24' North-91o West. There are at least two accounts of DeSoto’s travels but he traverses the area now known as the State of Arkansas in both.

Before Hernando DeSoto went to Peru with Francisco Pizarro, he had gone on an expedition to Nicaragua during the 1520s and lived there for a time, prospering in the trade of slaves. Then, after the Peruvian expedition, he returned to Spain in 1536 with great wealth and reputation. He longed to rival Cortez and Pizarro in the journals of history. He had appeared at the court of King Charles V as one of the wealthiest men in Spain and he had been favorably received. When he offered to undertake the conquest of Florida at his own expense, King Charles readily gave his permission and commissioned him governor of Cuba. The King also made him captain-general of the provinces which he might conquer in his travels over the continent. DeSoto let it be known that he believed there was more gold in Florida than in Mexico and Peru together and he soon had gathered together a band of some six hundred adventurers. His band of explorers left Spain in ten ships bound for Cuba accompanied by another twenty-six merchant vessels bound for Mexico.

After a year in Cuba arranging the affairs of government and preparing for the great enterprise, Hernando DeSoto arrived in Florida at Tampa Bay in 1539 with nine ships filled with about one thousand men and many horses, cattle, mules, and swine.

He fully expected to accomplish the conquest and plundering of Florida very quickly and to achieve a speedy return to Cuba but that was not to be. Had he been a wiser man than the earlier conquerors and had he conciliated the natives by friendly acts, things might have been different. But he was no wiser than they. He immediately sent armed men to capture natives so they might be interrogated for their knowledge of the country and thereby imitated his predecessors. The natives remembered their encounters with Narvaez more than a decade earlier and they had not forgotten the atrocities laid on them by him; they were in no way receptive to DeSoto upon his arrival.

DeSoto began his march northward within the month and he was met from the outset by the most vigorous opposition. In open skirmish the Spaniards were always the victors, but in ambush and skulking, the natives were expert and fearfully dangerous. When a Spaniard was captured, he was mercilessly slaughtered and any natives captured by the Spaniards were treated just as badly after first being forced to burden heavy loads as pack animals for as long as they were capable of doing so.

Cutting his way through the hostile tribes, DeSoto reached the fertile region of Tallahassee where he spent that first winter of 1539-1540. In the Spring, he moved further northward to Silver Bluff on the Savannah River where lived an Indian queen, a young and beautiful maiden, who ruled over a large extent of country. She was the first to welcome DeSoto with hospitality but when he departed, with treachery he took her prisoner and carried her away with him as a hostage. She eventually escaped and returned to her people a bitter enemy of the perfidious white people.

The Spaniards marched north to the headwaters of the river then turned westward and crossed northern Georgia through Cherokee country where they entered the large village of Chiaha, thought to be where Rome, Georgia, now stands. They were again greeted with hospitality by the tribe’s young chief.

After about a month at Chiaha, the band marched on westward entering northeastern Alabama. Again they were kindly received and bountifully fed by the natives. All of the kindness received by DeSoto after leaving the Florida country probably was due to the fact that earlier Spanish conquerors had not traveled so far north of Florida. But, here again, DeSoto made a captive of the tribal chief and held him hostage to force safety for his band and to extort provisions and to make slaves of the natives. The natives were enraged at this indignity and preparing for war, fled into the woods. The Spaniards captured many whom they carried away as slaves when they departed in midsummer. So, again, hospitality was repaid by injustice and cruelty.

DeSoto continued his march through the regions of Alabama then, pushing southward, he approached the temporary residence of Tuscaloosa, the renowned chief known as the Black Warrior who was the head of the Mobilian Indians. He was lord of many tribes and feared by his neighbors and subjects. The chief, Tuscaloosa, traveled southward with DeSoto, as his hostage, to the Mobilian Capitol, Manbila. Perhaps Tuscaloosa was not as gullible as the previous friendly chiefs because, all during the march southward, he was in continual consultation with his principal followers and was constantly sending runners to his Capitol with messages. To shield the fact that he was actually planning war, he told the Spaniards he was preparing for their honorable reception at Manbila. DeSoto, however, did not believe him and took some precautions against possible treachery.

Soon after reaching Manbila, a lower chief rushed out and denounced the Spaniards for what they were. It has been recorded that a soldier of the expeditionary company named Balthazar Gallegos, said to have been the greatest soldier of the expedition next to DeSoto himself, cleft the chief with his sword from his head to his loins. That act let loose the fury of the people and the battle was begun. The battle lasted nine hours and was disastrous to both sides. DeSoto lost eighty-two men slain and many more were wounded including himself. It was estimated and recorded that eleven thousand native Alabamians, including Tuscaloosa, fell in battle or were burned in the houses.

At that time, then late in the year 1540, DeSoto had been heading southward with intentions of reaching the sea for a rendezvous with his ships but he heard rumors of a planned mutiny attempt by some of his followers and, thereby, decided to turn his back on his ships and travel deeper into the wilderness. He enforced his decision to march again northward with a threat to execute the first man who should mention returning to the sea and the ships, so northward they marched.

When the Spaniards reached the Black Warrior River, they met a large force of natives in battle dress. These were Choctaws, friends of the slaughtered Manbilans. News of the slaughter had spread over a large region and had rekindled the fiercest hatred of the Spaniards. The band of opposing warriors swelled to the thousands and DeSoto had to fight his way inch by inch across the Choctaw land. He finally reached the upper reaches of the Yazoo River, in Chickasa country, and there he determined to camp for the second winter.

The chief of the Chickasaws feigned friendship for the Spaniards, probably to prevent a massacre of his own people, and the presence of the Spaniards was tolerated through the winter. When spring came and DeSoto thought of marching again, he demanded of the chief two hundred of his men to act as bearers. In reply to that demand, the Chickasaws furiously attacked the Spaniards at night. In the ensuing battle, the Spaniards lost many more of their already diminished number of men plus more than four dozen horses, many swine and personal supplies. Most of the men escaped with only the clothing they wore and whatever they could grab by hand, but the natives were eventually driven into the forest.

Until the warm sun of April arrived, DeSoto’s men passed the time in misery. They were tortured by the cold and hunger and grievous wounds suffered by many as the natives fell upon them night after night. When the weather warmed, the Spaniards marched on northward, still in search of the land of gold while the natives continued to assail them. Finally, in May of 1541, DeSoto stood on the banks of the ‘great water’, the Mississippi River, in what is now Tunica County, Mississippi, above the mouth of the St. Francis River on the opposite shore.

DeSoto had not found the gold which he sought but he is credited with being the first European to lay eyes on the mighty Mississippi River. Although he was never aware of it, he had achieved a conquest far more glorious than either, Cortez or Pizarro, and he had secured immortality for his name and deeds.

However, in another just as serious account of DeSoto’s expedition, it is stated that Cabeza de Vaca ³ had met DeSoto earlier in Spain and had told him of his experiences on an earlier expedition to the new world. In that accounting to DeSoto, Cabeza had told him wild tales of North American Indian legend including stories of a great northern sea and that he had seen the gigantic Mississippi River, which he believed to be a giant inland bay. If there was truth in the tale told to DeSoto by Cabeza, then perhaps DeSoto was not really the first European to discover the Mississippi River.

Still thirsting for gold and expecting to find the Pacific Ocean not far off, one account has DeSoto crossing the Mississippi River and continuing his search to the West. He traversed the lagoons of Arkansas, climbed over the range of mountains that would later be known as the Ozark Mountains, and continued westward almost to the eastern slopes of the great rift of rocky mountains in the West which mark the location of the continental divide.

He wandered for a year and wintered far up the river now known as the Arkansas River before returning to the Mississippi River at a point a little north of the mouth of the Arkansas River. He finally gave up the search for gold and on the eastern bank of the river, selected a site for a colony. This site was located among a tribe of natives who were intensely hostile to the Spaniards. DeSoto addressed them and demanded their submission and they ridiculed him. He was utterly discouraged and was soon taken by a fever and died. His men placed his body into a coffin made of a hollowed out live-oak log and, in the dark of night to prevent the desecration of his body by the natives, sunk the coffin to the bottom of the river. This was May or June, 1542.

Another account of the travels of Hernando DeSoto has him continuing northward from Florida all the way to the lower end of Lake Michigan, then turning southward and entering the region now known as Arkansas in October 1541. In this account, DeSoto is called the governor due to the fact that, before leaving Spain, he had been made governor of Cuba by the King of Spain.

The governor entered Arkansas from the North in the area just north of the present day city of Harrison with a scouting party to Tula, the name of the hostile Wichita (Caddoan) Tribe which lived in northwest Arkansas. Upon reaching Tula, they found the people away from the village but many supplies were found. On the following morning, the Indians returned and instigated a surprise attack. It was said that these were the best warriors the Christians had encountered in North America. Some of DeSoto’s men and horses were wounded; many Indians were killed and some were captured. The governor sent six of the captured Indians back to their chief with their right hands and their noses cut off, and with instructions to the chief to submit to the conquerors or suffer the same fate.

After learning of the presence of large towns in an area ten-days to the Southeast of Tula called Utianque, in what is now the Batesville-Newport area, DeSoto decided to travel into that area and to winter there, then to reach the sea and communicate with Cuba the following year. The explorers traveled five days southeastward to a province called Quipana and camped in the flats currently occupied by the airport of today’s Clinton, Arkansas.

From Quipana they traveled more easterly through the mountains then descended to some plains where a village large enough to support the troop was located. The village nearby had much food and supplies and it lay on the banks of the great Cayas (White) river which was crossed in canoes. This was an indian village located where the town of Jacksonport lies today at the junction of the White and Black Rivers. DeSoto arrived at Utiangue by the light of a full moon for the light it afforded for a dawn raid on horseback against the large village. He decided to spend the winter there and so had a wooden stockade built from which his men could defend themselves. Some 320 years later, the Confederate Army of Arkansas would also winter in precisely the same location and Jacksonport would become winter headquarters of both of those armies, 320 years apart.

During that winter of 1541-42, the band’s third, snow fell deep and there were long periods when the men could not venture outside the village. It is recorded, however, that they were well provisioned with food, firewood, and women and, reportedly, they spent the best winter of all they had spent since first arriving in La Florida.

During the winter, DeSoto learned that the Mississippi River Delta was only a gigantic lake and not a bay of the Gulf of Mexico as he had earlier been told by Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.

DeSoto led his army southward out of Utiangue down the high ground of the river’s east bank well before melted snow could flood the area. As they traveled downstream they found other well populated regions with much needed supplies. He traded for the needed supplies the only trinkets he had left from Spain, the bells on his horses which had otherwise been used to terrify natives during dawn raids along his way.

Upon leaving Utiangue, DeSoto traveled almost due south as his next objective was the region called Nilco which was said to be near today’s Arkansas Post on the Arkansas River. The natives told him that Nilco was near the great river (Mississippi River). It was his intention to make his way as quickly as possible to the sea and to communicate with Cuba for his party was not nearly so large and strong as when he had started. By this time, DeSoto had only 300 men and 40 horses remaining, and some of both were lame.

After leaving Utiangue in a southerly direction, DeSoto gradually pulled away from the river Cayas (White River), which was the provincial boundary of Cayas, Tula and Utiangue. It is thought that DeSoto’s band passed due west of, and approximately twelve miles distant from, today’s Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, at a spot where the town of Tupelo would later be built.

His direction of travel then changed to south-southwest and he rejoined the river Cayas at today’s Augusta for a short time before marching on southward. He crossed the Cache River (called the Chief’s River) about eight days after leaving Utianque and a few miles above its mouth on the river Cayas. By the speed he was making, it is obvious that DeSoto did not care to linger in that wilderness between the rivers Cayas and Chief’s for it was a wilderness the likes of which he had not seen before. It was filled with lowland marshes and swamps interspersed with gentle hillocks and creeks. Great stands of hardwood trees grew on the higher ground while the lower ground nearer to the water was filled with huge cypress and tupelo trees and everywhere grew vines of the wild grape and muscadine. Trekking through this kind of terrain was difficult at best but DeSoto was in a hurry; he was anxious to reach the great river where he planned to build two brigantines with which to communicate with Mexico and his own base in Cuba.

Ten days after leaving Utianque, DeSoto reached the provincial boundary and entered the province of the Ayays people. This was near today’s Brinkley, Arkansas, and the Chief’s river was the boundary line. These provinces were well populated and with abundant supplies easily acquired. When he reached the river Cayas near today’s town of St. Charles, he ordered rafts constructed for ferrying his party across the river into the Nilco province. The weather grew worse. It started snowing and, with the hardship of the weather and crossing the river without native assistance, four days passed before he could resume his southward march.

As soon as the snow stopped, he marched south for three days through a region unpeopled, across a land so low and with so many swamps and such hard going that some whole days were spent traversing a swamp where the water sometimes reached the knees and sometimes to the stirrups and some areas were so deep to require swimming across. Eventually he came to a deserted indian village called Tutelpinco at the location which was destined to become Arkansas Post some 140 years later. Near to the village, they found a lake with a strong current which emptied into the river Cayas. This ‘lake’ was actually Dismal Swamp which connects the three major rivers (White, Arkansas, and Mississippi) at that point.

DeSoto remained in this area for some time, moving from one village to another, all the while trying to determine how far his present location was from the