Another article in the forthcoming AROUND The COUNTY: Histories of Washington County, Arkansas
Long forgotten villages dot the maps of Washington County, places like Floss, Sugar Hill, Clyde, and Arnett. Odell is another, no longer existing as more than a place name. For a time in the 19th century, this village was a tiny but important commercial center in that vicinity the southwest county. School No. 69, Shady Grove, was located there as well as a blacksmith shop, general store, and post office, all along a long established roadway mostly following the ridge tops in this western edge of the Boston Mountains.
Both Confederate and Union troops used this road, now County Road 295, as an alternative to the more heavily traveled routes like the Old Wire Road up the middle of the county, or the route later to become Highway 59 along the state’s boundary with Indian Territory, or the newly marked-out Cove Creek Road which rose from the depths of Crawford County and led directly to Prairie Grove.
Noah West, the owner of the Odell general store circa 1900, stands proudly at its entry with his extended family, a moment and place captured for all time.
Another chapter in the upcoming AROUND The COUNTY – “The County’s Four Riverside Parks”
One of the greatest attractions of Washington County is water, fresh flowing creeks and streams with fishing, swimming, and poking around in the shallows for fossils and arrowheads. Since the late 19th century, ‘Riverside Park’ has attracted all sorts of people to the banks of the West Fork of White River in Washington County, Arkansas. Picnics, restful scenic outings, and swimming were (and are) in the offing at Riverside Park, and even in winter visitors may be found there.
But which Riverside Park?
The first Riverside Park was established by 1882 with the construction of the Pacific & Great Eastern Railroad from Fayetteville east. Fun-seeking citizens rode the train to the park where they could enjoy picnics and events as well as the simple pleasures of the river. “Excursions were run every day out to Wyman during the hot seasons, where there was provision for boating and swimming. … a July 4th program in 1882 featured an all-day picnic. Trains were to run every two hours to accommodate the public, and a printed program announced the speakers of the day would be the Honorable William Walker Bishop on “The Tariff and Financial Questions of the Day” and “Arkansas As It Was and Is” by Uncle Ann Fitzgerald. An onion-eating contest offered prizes while order would be enforced by Sheriff Ike Combs.”
Coming SOON! “Around the County,” new collection of articles about the history of Washington County.
From the first chapter:
Among the earliest settlers of Washington County were two men named William Shore. Distantly related in the Shorr lineage which arrived in the British American colonies by 1750, these two men seem not to have known of each other’s presence in this county. They each set about making a place for themselves. The first, William Dahl Shore, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1833 and served in Co. H, U. S. Regiment of Dragoons (subsequently 1st U. S. Cavalry Regiment) as they occupied Fort Gibson “employed in scouting among the Indians, especially along the Missouri frontier, a portion of the regiment going to Nacogdoches, Texas, for the purpose of keeping off white trespassers from the Indian country, and preserving peace between whites and Indians and among the Indians themselves; also in building wagon roads and bridges.” Once he’d served his three year term, W.D. Shore bought land at Taney (later Brentwood) and served as the first postmaster.
The other William Shore stayed only ten years on his land along the western boundary of Washington County before leaving with the Lewis Evans Company for the California gold fields. In the process, he quickly saw that providing meat and other supplies for the miners produced greater wealth than mining and adjusted his enterprise accordingly. Some of his siblings remained in the county.
These two William Shores, both entrepreneurs and adventurers, illustrate the type of men who helped create this county.
(Pictured: In the right foreground stands a subaltern of the First Regiment of Dragoons; in the left foreground is an ordnance sergeant-of which there was one on every Army post. By H. Charles McBarron, Jr.)
While five of the articles in this collection are entirely new, the other four have been previously published in Flashback, the quarterly journal of the Washington County Historical Society, Fayetteville, Arkansas, or in one of my books, as follows:
Chapter 1 – New! Daguerreotype was the first form of photography, and Washington County had several daguerreotype professionals in the years before the Civil War. The story follows Anderson Frieze and documents others in this image-making profession circa 1850-1880.
Chapter 2 – This article has been expanded with additional information about the Yoes family from the time of their immigration from Germany through three generations. Previously published in various parts in The West Fork Valley: The West Fork of White River, Arkansas, Its Environs & Settlement before 1900.
Chapter 3 – This award-winning article about Jesse Gilstrap tracks his travel to the gold fields of 1850 California, his inventions and millwright operations in south Washington County, and his efforts on behalf of the Union during the Civil War. Published in 2018, Flashback.
Chapter 4 – Mostly new! An earlier brief version of this story examining the murder of a man on a downtown sidewalk in Fayetteville appeared in Murder in the County: 50 True Stories of the Old West.
Chapter 5 – New! “The Final Abuse of Ann Jarvis” recounts the horrific murder of a wife and mother in a case of extreme domestic violence and mental illness.
Chapter 6 – New! “Fayetteville’s Immoral Houses” uncovers the previously hidden world of prostitution in Fayetteville.
Chapter 7 – This exposé of an auto theft ring operating in Fayetteville in the 1930s previously appeared in Flashback.
Chapter 8 – New! Circuses drew enormous crowds through the 19th and early 20th centuries, even to locations like Fayetteville whose population at the time of the first circus was less than 1,000 people.
Chapter 9 – The story of the Brumfields and their fated dream to build Fayetteville’s Downtown Motor Lodge appeared previously in Flashback. This article tracks the rise and fall of that dream to the vacant lot that scars Fayetteville’s downtown today.
These are the stories of the innkeepers, stagecoach lines, and stablemen who served Fayetteville, Arkansas—and the region—for the first one hundred years. Travelers and new arrivals, salesmen and politicians, and shipments of food and goods all depended on horses, mules, oxen, stagecoaches, wagons, and buggies to carry out their plans. The animals required shelter, experienced care, feed, and hay. An array of craftsmen—wagon makers, blacksmiths, farmers, saddle makers, and farriers—supported the transportation industry, ensuring that the various needs of this expansive industry were met.
Who were the men who established inns, built stables, and bought sturdy stagecoaches? Where did they come from and how did they end up here? What experiences taught them the skills needed to fulfill their ambitions?
These fascinating biographical sketches along with vintage photographs re-create a time long gone, but not forgotten.
A Survey of English Ancestral Origins, Colonial Connections, and Proven Descendants
This genealogical study of one particular lineage of the many Pitts in America surveys the ancient origins of the Pitts name, the Pitt notables of English history, and the arrival of Pitt/Pitts in the American colonies. Discussion of ancestral Pitt/Pitts in England and American colonies leads to identified ancestors.
At the time of the first U.S. census in 1790, the Pitts ancestors of our interest live in Newberry County, South Carolina. Among the households of Pitts, we find Thomas Pitts and his son Elijah and follow Elijah into Overton County, Tennessee by the early 19th century.
By 1850, the federal census records Elijah’s sons Hiram and Levi in Johnson and Pope counties, Arkansas, working as farmers in the fertile bottomlands of the Arkansas River valley.
Details of Pitts participation in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War are included as well as information about the wives of Elijah’s sons. Subsequent generations are shown up to 1950 as this history narrows down to the life and offspring of Levi’s youngest son, Charles McDonald Pitts.
Full of descriptive details garnered from multiple sources, this family history relies on Ancestry.com, online genealogical resources, census records, wills, deeds, and military records, family histories recorded in family Bibles, letters, and notes, as well as research at cemeteries, churches, and courthouses. Vintage photographs of some family members are also included.
Other families include Matthews, Crabtree, Bilbrey, Davis, Bynum, Parker, Rose, and West.
Christmas Day horse races 1872, Middle Fork Valley. Bud Gilliland waits, eager for another chance at Newton Jones. Only this time, after two years of sparring, Newton gallops up in a cloud of dust, lifts his Spencer rifle to his shoulder to find Bud in his sights, and pulls the trigger, sending Bud to a well-earned grave.
Determined to wreak vengeance on his little brother’s killer, William Jefferson “Jeff” Gilliland takes control of a posse meant to bring Newton Jones to justice. But Jeff’s plan for the posse to kill “every last son of a bitch” goes horribly wrong and brings indictments for murder against Jeff and the rest of his posse.
Before the curtains closed in 1890 on these descendants of West Fork pioneers J. C. and Rebecca Gilliland, two other sons and a grandson would die violent deaths while yet another grandson serves hard time for murder.
What was it about the Gillilands?
This recounting of the family tracks their ancestry, their pioneer years on untamed land, and the hard work that made them one of the wealthiest families in Washington County, Arkansas. A fascinating tale of brash ego, brave gallantry, and plain old bad luck.
Contrary to popular notion, Arkansas was part of the Old West along with Texas and the rest of those more familiar dusty southwestern places. Its western border joined up with the Indian Nations where many a weary marshal rode out with his bedroll and pistol carrying writs from the U. S. District Court at Fort Smith in a search for a steady stream of men rustling livestock, stealing horses, selling whiskey, or running from the law.
From its earliest days, Washington County, Arkansas, experienced some of the worst the Old West had to offer. At unexpected moments, county settlers faced their fellow man in acts of fatal violence. These murderous events not only ended hopeful lives but also forever changed those who survived them. Not to say that the murders in the county all stemmed from conflict along its western border—plenty of blood spilled within its communities and homesteads.
The fifty chapters of Murder in the County each focus on one violent incident. Through family histories, legal records, and newspaper accounts, the long-dead actors tell their shocking stories of rage, grief, retaliation, and despair.
Excerpt from Chapter 39 — The Death of Joe Rich
“A hint of fall had come into the air as September heralded the change of season. Blood stirred by cooler air and lubricated by alcohol rarely bodes well in a gathering of young men intent on proving themselves. On the evening of September 21, 1890, just such a scenario unfolded amid the busy streets of Prairie Grove.
“No doubt some wags later remarked they could have predicted violence between Mack Rollans and Joseph Rich. Both families had seen their share of trouble. Just a month earlier, on August 10, 1890, Joseph’s younger brother David Lee Rich was indicted for selling “ardent spirits” to a minor without a license. The previous year in June 1889, Mack Rollans had been indicted for wearing a pistol but later found not guilty…
“…That evening, Mack Rollans got in over his head. Some minor skirmish erupted within the gathered group, perhaps a question of the price, quality, or quantity of the liquor or a slurred insult about a woman, a family member, or some other trifling matter. In the ensuing fight, weapons entered the fray. Rollans pulled his knife. As such events have a tendency to develop, Rich soon fell dead.
My uncle Durward seemed to be older than his years, a result of his bashful traits which I now, belatedly, attribute to the overbearing nature of his mother Sylvia Clark Morrow. Always ready with the harsh critique, she sought perfection and never found it, either in herself, her spouse, or her nine children of which Durward was the oldest. He learned at an early age there was no pleasing her. As far as I could tell, she was never pleased about anything.
So he fretted and obsessed and squirmed through life, marrying a spinster neighbor when he was forty and producing one child. They adopted a second one. He devoted his energy to his job, working in a newspaper printing operation, and to his flourishing garden. He also kept chickens. Gardening and chickens were necessity for the family, dirt poor hill folk in the Arkansas Ozarks.
He was sixty or so when I married a wild man and set up housekeeping on a wooded hilltop in a half finished house. We—husband, baby, and I—pursued the hillfolk life with a passion. Among other things like firewood and a garden, we needed chickens. That was about the same time that Durward decided he no longer wanted to mess with chickens, and so a project was born, to dismantle his chicken house and bring the walls, roof, and other bits up to our place. We had a pickup, but it alone wasn’t enough to perform the task, and so Durward also gave us his cart.
The cart—and the chicken house—were handcrafted by Durward himself, pulled together from scraps and, in the case of the cart, an old rear axle of some early vehicle. Our load of dismantled walls and roof of the approximately 10’ x 10’ coop were laboriously positioned into the lovingly-framed bed and the modest sideboards of his trailer, and the long journey from his farm near Johnson to our farm near West Fork began.
The distance of about twenty miles progressed slowly, red flags whipping in the breeze as the conveyances edged toward forty miles per hour. In due time, the roof became a wall to our fledgling barn while Durward’s chicken house walls were reborn as our chicken house walls with a new metal roof. The trailer was parked in the expectation there might be future use.
There wasn’t. It sits today, forty-six years later, where we parked it in 1976. The bed has rotted away as has the chicken house and the barn. One of the trailer’s sidewalls lingers. The rear axle and attached tires also remain, I suspect because they are solid rubber and probably the original tires that came with the vehicle. A phantasm of welds connect the original drive shaft to various pieces of metal to accommodate hauling.
Durward died in 2005 at the age of 89, but his cart lives on. I see it and think of him, remember his anxious ways, wringing his hands at family gatherings when the daylight started to fade. He’d mutter, “Gotta get home, it’s late.” He’d pace and entertain a few exhortations from his attending siblings to relax, hang around, but he’d shake his head and repeat “Gotta go” under his breath until he escaped the chaos to find his way home.
Bawd, tart, hussy, jade, libertine, sport, soiled dove – familiar terms among many for women who sell the use of their bodies. Shockingly enough, Fayetteville had them. But no one talked about it, probably because the town fathers and university powers feared that parents across the state might not send their sons and daughters to school here if this particular element was known to exist. But it did exist, and finally in 1935 the news exploded onto the front pages of the newspaper.
“Fayetteville’s Immoral Houses” is just one of nine articles exploring local history collected in the new release, Second Glimpses of Fayetteville’s Past.
Chapter 1 – New! Daguerreotype was the first form of photography, and Washington County had several daguerreotype professionals in the years before the Civil War. The story follows Anderson Frieze and documents others in this image-making profession circa 1850-1880.
Chapter 2 – The Yoes family was one of the first to settle in Washington County. The story follows them from the time of their immigration from Germany through three generations. Some of this information was previously in various parts in The West Fork Valley: The West Fork of White River, Arkansas, Its Environs & Settlement before 1900.
Chapter 3 – This award-winning article about Jesse Gilstrap tracks his travel to the gold fields of 1850 California, his inventions and millwright operations in south Washington County, and his efforts on behalf of the Union during the Civil War. Published in 2018, Flashback.
Chapter 4 – This article delves into the murder of a prominent businessman on a downtown Fayetteville sidewalk. Why did these two men — brothers in law — come to such a crisis? A greatly abbreviated version of this story appeared in Murder in the County: 50 True Stories of the Old West.
Chapter 5 – New! “The Final Abuse of Ann Jarvis” recounts the horrific murder of a wife and mother in a case of extreme domestic violence and mental illness.
Chapter 6 – New! “Fayetteville’s Immoral Houses” uncovers the previously hidden world of prostitution in Fayetteville.
Chapter 7 – This exposé of an auto theft ring operating in Fayetteville in the 1930s portrays a man’s attempt to entangle the city attorney and the police chief in his foil. Previously appeared in Flashback.
Chapter 8 – New! Circuses drew enormous crowds through the 19th and early 20th centuries, even to locations like Fayetteville whose population at the time of the first circus was less than 1,000 people.
Chapter 9 – The story of the Brumfields and their fated dream to build Fayetteville’s Downtown Motor Lodge tracks the rise and fall of that dream to the vacant lot that scars Fayetteville’s downtown today. Appeared previously in Flashback.
Great reading for cold winter days ahead! Also makes a good gift for any of your history-lovin’ friends. Order now! Amazon
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