History: The History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana
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Date:  May 2000



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The History of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana
by D. W. Harris and B. M. Hulse
W. H. Stansbury & Company
24 Natchez Street
New Orleans, La.
1886

PREFACE

     A very few words will suffice to introduce this little book. It was written
to keep alive the memories of the Fathers; to present to the youth of our land,
of this and future generations, a picture of life as it was in North Louisiana
sixty years ago, showing how people in that day made love, celebrated marriage,
administered (sic) justice, went to church, etc.; to perpetuate the memory and
preserve a record of the heroic deeds and sublime suffering of those who fought
under a flag that is forever furled; to give to those who shall come after us, a
correct history of the stormy Reconstruction days an ordeal more trying than the
war itself and  to protect the acts of that exciting period from
misrepresentation; to encourage and stimulate to greater exertion those laboring
in the cause of education and religion, by reciting the highly gratifying
progress of the past; and to correct as far as possible the many false
impressions that have been made upon those living in other sections about our
State by partial and superficial tourists, and to set our rich and varied
resources in their proper light before the world, with the view of turning
emigration in the direction of our highly favored, and heretofore misrepresented
and inaccessible section.
     How well the task has been executed, we leave for others to say. That the
work is in some respects incomplete, and contains many errors, we are painfully
aware. Some of the muster and death rolls are incomplete, and quite a number of
soldiers from Claiborne joined companies in adjoining parishes, whose names we
have been unable to procure.
     A number of enterprising citizens have aided us in the preparation of the
work, in the way of furnishing data; to these we now return our thanks.
     We return special thanks to Capt. J. H. Walker, Prof. H. C. Brownfield, J.
E. Hulse, Esq., and Mr. B. R. Coleman, for valuable assistance in compiling
the work.
B. M. H.


INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

     THE art of navigation nearly to the close of the fifteenth century was
confined to the inland seas and the coasts of the European or Eastern world. The
compass not then being known, the seaman, in his voyages, was guided on his
course by capes, head­lands, the sun and stars; consequently, his voyages were
of no great extent. Tradition had filled the wider seas with dangers and
monsters dire; storms guarded all unknown regions and forbade all venture into
the unknown. An obscuration by clouds of the sun and stars filled the seaman's
soul with a sense of dread for fear he might lose his course and miss the port
he sought. Furthermore, there was a danger line in the wide western sea and in
the equatorial regions that he dared not approach. The decending (sic) waters of
the one would surely prevent his return home the heat of the other would
dissolve his ship.

     But towards the close of the fifteenth century, new though vague ideas as
to the shape of the surrounding seas began to be entertained; the geographer and
the philosopher assumed to teach that the earth, instead of being a flat or vast
plain, was round; they denied that the sea extended to an immeasurable distance
in all directions from and around the earth and flowed over at some unknown
limit and was wasted in the void below; or that the equatorial sea was a hot,
seething  cauldron in which life was impossible. Men now began to reason, that
should this earth of ours be round or globular, the sea must reach from shore to
shore of its different coasts. Should this be true, at once was dissolved the
many doubts, and the absurd theories that then perplexed the geographer as well
as the philosopher. In a great measure it would make plain many facts belonging
to sea and land that appeared inscrutable: such as the flow of rivers, the
rising and falling of the tides and the dip of the horizon.

     Columbus had believed for years that the earth was round or globular, and
that the waters of the ocean extended from the eastern shore of Europe to the
western shore of India. If so, guided by that wonderful instrument, the compass
which had then come into use he could sail across any sea to any land which it
reached. Abjuring all traditional dangers he resolved to prove that nature's
works were consistent, and an aimless creation impossible. His eagerness to
prove his faith by his works became more fully aroused just at this time by the
wonderful stories brought from the far east by the Venician traveler, Marco
Polo. These convinced him that the earth was round, and that by sailing to the
west he could reach India then the land of wonders and fabulous wealth, by a
much shorter and safer route than by the long and dangerous overland route Marco
Polo had traveled. He determined to prove the correctness of his theory.
     With this theory well defined in his own mind, and with maps and charts in
hand, he went forth in search of help, being poor, to enable him to undertake
his great venture. Patiently, for years, he explained his theory of the
conformation of the earth and urged the feasibility of the enterprise all  in
vain. The ignorance of that period, as it was in ours when Morse begged a
pittance to prove his telegraphic theory, closed the ears of bankers and thrones
to his appeals. Genoa, his native state, Portugal and other powers rejected him
as the wildest of adventurers.
     "What," exclaimed the learned schools and the great statesmen, "the earth
round and like a globe swinging in space! and people on the other side with
their feet towards ours! Impossible absurd; they would fall from the earth into
the void below; the ocean would be emptied of its waters; the rivers would run
dry, and the earth become a desert. More, should the earth be globular and a
ship sail down to the other side, it could never return, for a ship cannot sail
up hill."
     As a last chance, Columbus approached the throne of Castile, or Spain. The
King and Queen became interested in his theory, listened to his explanations
until such rich visions of empire and wealth and the extension of the Holy
Church arose in their minds, that they determined to equip a fleet and send him
forth on his great venture.

     In due time a fleet of three small vessels, so small that few at this day
would venture on a hundred miles from shore, were made ready. With much
difficulty a crew was enlisted, and in August, 1492, Columbus sailed from the
port of Palos on that voyage which has built up and revolutionized governments,
religion, philosophy and knowledge. Touching at the Azore Islands, said to have
been discovered by, a ship driven by adverse winds out of her course, he thence
turned the prows of his little fleet directly west into the wide waters of the
deep and unknown Atlantic. After sailing many days to the west, without any sign
of land appearing, the fears and superstitions of his crew began to make them
uneasy. They murmured, and then demanded that the ships should be turned towards
home. But Columbus, selfpossessed, by pursuasions (sic) and promises influenced
his men to trust him and go yet further into the unknown sea. At last signs
appeared which nerved the hearts of his trembling crew birds began to fly over
and around the ships, driftwood was seen in the water, then a green bush floated
by. These signs of land not far off were too plain to be unheeded; sail was
shortened, and while moving slowly forward a close watch, by eager eyes, was
kept for land. About midnight a light was seen moving as if carried by a person
walking. Immediately the ships were stopped in their forward movement for fear
of going ashore and all waited impatiently and wonderingly the marvelous
revelation the morning was to bring forth. And when that memorable morning of
October the 12th, 1492 came, a new world in all its pristine beauty lay before
Columbus and his anxious crew. The fact that the earth was as a globe, that the
waters of the sea reached from shore to shore was proved, and Columbus had
triumphed.
     Columbus, believing he was on the western coast of India, named the
inhabitants Indians hence the name of the original people of the American
continent. In a subsequent voyage, he sailed for miles along the shore of the
main land south of the Carribean (sic) sea, and yet died not knowing he had
discovered a new world.
     This discovery of Columbus aroused a wild spirit of adventure among all the
maritime people of Europe, and adventure after adventure was sent out to the new
world, mainly in quest of gold and glory. Many sought, in the interest of
commerce, a shorter route to India by way of the northern sea, but this vast
continent, its extent then unknown, lay directly in the way. In search of this
route, Cartier, a French navigator, in 1535, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and ascended the river of that name to an Indian village where now stands the
town of Montreal.
     In 1605 De Monts founded the town of Port Royal in Nova Scotia which claims
to be the first European settlement in America. Champlain in 1608, established a
trading post on the St. Lawrence river, which post in the course of years has
become the historic city of Quebec. Sixty years after the establishment of this
post, during which time the French had secured strong position on the St.
Lawrence, Father Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary learned from the
Indians of a great river further west, by them designated The Father of Waters,
because of its immense volume, and resolved to see it. In the light canoe or
boat used by the Indians, he made his way down the Illinois River to the
Mississippi, which he entered, in 1674 and continued down it as far as the mouth
of the Arkansas. Returning to Quebec, he told of this immense river; and in 1683
La Salle and others, about twenty in number, made their way to it, descending it
to the Gulf of Mexico and in honor of Louis the XIV, then King of France, La
Salle named the country through which the Mississippi flowed, Louisiana. Deeply
impressed with the future possibilities of this great waterway and the adjacent
country through which it carried him, he returned to Canada and immediately
sailed for France. Convincing the King of the magnificence of such an
acquisition to his domain, by order of the King a fleet was fitted out and La
Salle; with a number of emigrants, set sail for the mouth of the Mississippi to
establish a colony in Louisiana. But not having correctly ascertained the
bearing of the outlet of the river, he failed to find it and landed at some
point west on the coast of Texas. His brother soon departed with the fleet to
France, leaving La Salle and the colonists ashore in the new world. Discontent
arising among the colonists, La Salle in search of succor, started by land to
Canada, but was assassinated by his followers, who disappeared in the wilds of
Texas, and the colonists who remained at the place of landing were shortly
afterwards made prisoners by a squad of Spanish soldiers from Mexico. This
terminated for a number of years, all efforts of the French to colonize
Louisiana.
     The year 1698 is memorable in the history of Louisiana, for early in that
year the brothers, Bienville and Iberville, entered the Gulf of Mexico with men
and arms in search of the Mississippi, duly empowered by the King of France to
take lawful pos­session thereof. Anchoring near Dauphine Island, they erected a
small fort on Biloxi Bay, and for the first time, after so many years of delay
and disappointment, the flag of France floated out in the breeze of the
Mississippi valley, proclaiming to the world that France claimed legal ownership
of the same. Early next year Bienville sailed up the river and es­tablished a
garrison where now stands Fort St. Phillip, since so famous in the history of
this country. Possession thus being secured, in 1712 the first civil gov­ernment
in all this wide expanse of unexplored coun­try was authoritatively proclaimed.
     The officer commissioned to administer this civil government after several
years of perplexity and failure resigned his commission and the civil authority
was turned over to Bienville. With that energy and judgment which characterized
the man, he pushed further up the river, and in 1718 erected a fort and laid out
the city of New Orleans. Forty-five years thereafter, the inhabitants of
Louisiana having heroically endured many perils and privations, battling with
the natives, disease and famine, the French government, exhausted by her long
wars and missrule, and deriving no income from this far western colony; ceded
New Orleans and all the territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain. A
Spanish emigration followed the cession, but it failed to bring peace and
prosperity to the colony, or rev­enue to the Spanish Coffers. The French and
Span­iards could not assimilate. Spain, in a short while, found the territory of
Louisiana so costly a burthen that, in 1781, she gladly receded it to France.
But France was now in the clutches of Napoleon I, and delirious with revolution,
was contending in battle with all the powers of Europe. The movement of her
armies required money, and in 1803 she sold Louisiana to the United States for
the sum of $15,000,000. Slowly moves the march of empire. From the year 1535,
when Cartier entered the St. Lawrence River, to the cession of Louisiana to the
United States, 1803 elapsed a period of 268 years, filled with wildest romance,
adventure and heroic endurance.

CHAPTER II

LOUISIANA AS A TERRITORY
FIRST TERRITORIAL GOVERNOR-
ADMITTED INTO THE
UNION AS A STATE

The United States having assumed possession of this lately purchased territory.
Congress, in 1804, in order to insure the people a stable government and as soon
as possible reconcile the different races to the new order of affairs divided
the country into two divisions; designating the southern division as the
Territory of Orleans and the northern and western as the District of Orleans.
Mr Jefferson, then President of the United States and during whose
administration and by whose advice the purchase was made, appointed W. C. C.
Claiborne, Governor of the Territory of Orleans-which position he held until
1812, administering the government so firmly and wisely that, in a great
measure, the conflicting interests and prejudices of the several nationalities
became reconciled and quieted.
     The result of this wise administration of public affairs by Gov. Claiborne
was to so rapidly induce emigration to the territory that in 1812 admission into
the union  was claimed, and in that year, by formal act of Congress, the
territory of Orleans was admitted as the State of Louisiana, and W. C. C.
Claiborne was duly elected her first governor.
     It soon became apparent that the welfare of the people at the distant post
of Natchitoches, on Red River, and of the scattering settlements that were
gradually forming further up the river and in the adjoining country, required
attention; consequently, the territorial legislature, by act in 1804,
incorporated the Parish of Natchitoches( embracing all that part of north
Louisiana west of the parish of Ouachita to the Sabine river, then the dividing
line between the United States and Mexico.
     North Louisiana at this time was covered with a dense mass of brushwood and
interlacing vines the home of the wolf, the bear, and the panther. Numbers of
horses and cattle, the progenitors of which had wandered from the inhabited
sections of the territory to this wilderness, ran free and wild.  Several tribes
of Indians were living here and there, now and then visited by tradesmen in
search of peltry, and the country by hunters in search of game. The few earlier
settlers that ventured into these wild regions had to fairly hew their way, for
only a few devious trails and paths were to be found. Roads, there were none,
save the read that connected Monroe and Natchitoches. Subsequently the United
States having established a garrison several hundred miles above, on Red River,
at Fort Towson, opened what was known as the Military Road, connecting this post
with Natchitoches and Alexandria, for the purpose of transporting supplies to
that faroff post. The settlements in those early days being so wide apart, and
hunting and traffic with the Indians being the chief occupations, direct roads
were impossible. But gradually, settlement followed settlement, clearings
increased, and from these clearings and the camps of the hunters, fires broke
out sweeping over all the land, killing the tangled undergrowth or brushwood,
even destroying the foliage of lofty trees.
     In the following years fires again raged, consuming all the dead and fallen
rubbish that then encumbered the ground. Being thus relieved of its heavy
undergrowth or brushwood, in its place forest grass and switchcane sprang up,
and in one season a mantle of green covered the nakedness of the earth. Then all
north Louisiana appeared as an immense park, diversified with vast openings and
vistas most enchanting. Game of every kind, peculiar to this region, increased
rapidly, particularly the deer and the turkey. The buffalo came up from the wide
prairies of the Attakapas, and in a few years North Louisiana became known as
the Hunters' Paradise. The surveyor's chain was stretch­ed across the land, and
both surveyor and hunter carried back to the older settlements, and to the
States east of the Mississippi River, such glowing descriptions of the beauty of
the country, the fertility of its soil, its health, its abundance of game, the
streams abounding in fish, and in winter every pond and lake crowded with all
manner of water fowl, that a regularly increasing tide of emigration set in to
this promised land. So rapid was this emigration that it became necessary to
divide this immense parish of Natchitoches, for the seat of justice was too far
to be reached by distant settlements, consequently, in 1828, the Legislature
passed the following act incorporating the parish of Claiborne, naming it for
Louisiana's first governor.
No. 42.

AN ACT TO CREATE A NEW PARISH IN THE PARISH
OF NATCHITOCHES TO BE CALLED THE PARISH
0F CLAIBORNE.

Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State
of Louisiana, in General Assembly convened: That all that portion of territory
within the following boundaries, towit: Beginning on the eastern bank of Red
River, about fifty miles north­west of the town of Natchitoches, at the northern
boundary line of Township thirteen; thence east, in the direction of said line,
to the dividing line between Ranges three and four west; thence along said line,
which shall form the western boundary of the parish of Ouachita, north to the
Arkansas Territory, thence west to the main branch of Red River, and descending
the same to the beginning, be and the same is erected into a new parish, to be
called the parish of Claiborne.
OCT. LABRANCHE, Speaker of the House of Representatives
AD.  BEAUVAIS, President of the Senate,
Approved March 13, 1828:
H. JOHNSON, (Governor of the State of Louisiana

CHAPTER III.

CLAIBORNE PARISH

The parish having been thus incorporated, the paraphernalia of law and justice
was put in motion by the election and appointment of all necessary officers. The
first District Court, in all its majesty, embodied in the person of Judge
Wilson, of Monroe, supported by Isaac McMahan as Sheriff, and Robert Cockran as
Clerk, was convened in the house of John Murrell, whose house for years was the
center of all public business for the new parish, where law and justice were
dispensed until the police jury, in its wisdom, selected a seat of justice. Tile
place selected was on the premises of Samuel Russell, and was named Russelville,
in honor of Mr. Russell who had offered liberal inducements to the jury for the
benefit of the parish, and because this locality had become more central to the
widely diffused population. When the District Court convened at this new
domicile Judge Overton was the presiding officer, Wm. McMahan was Clerk, and
Isaac McMahan was yet Sheriff.
     Russellville remained the parish site until 1836 when the Population having
tended westward, the seat of justice was removed to Overton on Bayou Dorcheat,
near the place now known as Minden Lower Landing. This place being at the head
of navigation, it was believed that the location would be permanent and a
thriving commercial town would build up. But Overton proving to be unhealthy and
subject to overflows, and the population having become preponderant in the
eastern portion of the parish, in 1846 the seat of justice was removed to
Athens, where it remained until the courthouse, with all the records of the
parish was destroyed by fire believed to have been the work of an incendiary.
Then the police jury for by this time the rapidly increasing population had
disseminated itself about equally all over the parish determined to locate the
courthouse centrally and permanently. After due investigation and proper
consideration of all claims as to locality as well as the main interests
involved, the site where Homer now stands was selected. These lands had been
entered and were owned by Allen Harris and Tillinghast Vaughn, both of whom made
liberal concessions to the parish for the public buildings, and to the people
for schools and churches. Frank Vaughn, son of Tillinghast Vaughn, had the honor
of naming the new parish town. The first District Court was held here in
September, 1849, in a cheap board shanty erected for the purpose. Litigants and
visitors encamped around in the woods, and, when  court was in session would
stand at the windows and peep through the cracks to watch the proceedings of the
august tribunal within, until fatigue or hunger or thirst would drive them to
their camps for rest, or to the grocery for refreshments. Roland Jones was then
district Judge, Allen Harris, Sheriff and W. C. Copes, Clerk.
      But Claiborne Parish being prosperous and her people increasing rapidly in
numbers every year determined to erect a suitable building in which justice
should preside, and to execute this laudable intent, the necessary tax was
levied, and in due time a commodious (sic) brick building, with all the proper
offices, was erected. Judge Jones, supported by Sheriff Allen Harris and Clerk
W. C. Copes, in 1850, held the first District term in this new courthouse, then
the finest structure in all North Louisiana.
     Following the incorporation of Claiborne Parish was a marked increase of
emigration particularly about 1835when steamboats, navigating Ouachita and Red
Rivers, made access to the country less difficult. But, from 1840 to 1860,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee sent in their sons and daughters and slaves by hundreds and by
thousands. In a few years roads, farms, villages, churches and schoolhouses were
to be found all over the parish. Every trade and industry was represented;
bountiful crops rewarded the farmer's toil without stint, and peace and
prosperity blessed all the people.
     This remarkable influx of populaion (sic) almost yearly demanded the
formation of new parishes; consequently, out of the immense original Claiborne
was formed, in their order of dates, the following parishes, Bossier, in 1843;
Jackson, in 1845; Bienville, in 1848, Webster in 1871, and Lincoln, in 1873-thus
this once great parish to its present limits bounds towit: Union Parish on the
east, Arkansas on the north, Webster Parish on the west and Lincoln on the
south, leaving her a total area of 778 square miles, embraced in five townships
and subdivided into eight wards; Ward 1 has an area of 120 square miles; ward 2,
110; ward 4, 72; ward 5, 72; ward 6, 83; ward 7, 104, and ward 8, 107. And yet
old Claiborne although so reduced from the granduer (sic) of her original area,
has not been shorn of all her glory; she yet proudly maintains her Position as
the banner parish of North Louisiana, and so she will remain, for her foundation
is of iron, and she can and will conquer all adversity.

CHAPTER IV.

CLlMATE, HEALTH, PHYSICAL RESOURCES, ETC., OF
CLAIBORNE PARISH.

Claiborne is one of the old parishes of the State, having been organized as a
parish in 1828. Previous to that time it formed a part of Natchitoches parish.
When organized, Claiborne contained, in addition to its present area, all of
what is now known as Bienville and Webster Parishes, and a part of what is now
Lincoln. It now extends from Union Parish on the east, along the southern
boundary of the State of Arkansas, to Webster Parish on the west, and is bounded
on the south by Bienville and Webster Parishes, and on the southeast by Lincoln
Parish. It will thus be seen that Claiborne occupies abut a central position in
the northern tier of parishes, and is beyond 'question the highest as well as
the healthiest portion of the State of Louisiana.
     The average altitude of Louisiana, as set forth in Toner's Dictionary of
Elevations of the United States, is 75 feet above the level of the sea. This is
a somewhat lower average level than that of any of the other States, except
Florida, which is put down at 60 feet above the sea in its average. Claiborne
Parish has the highest average elevation of any parish in the State, being about
200 feet above sea level. Still this is a rather low average as compared with
the country north and west. There is an impression with some that high places
are the most healthy, but this does not always follow, and is not the testimony
of experience here in Louisiana. Sometimes the lowest places in the same
neighborhood have had quite the advantage in point of health.
     In the Old World some healthful and fertile localities are below the level
of the ocean as the valley of the Jordan, more than 1000 feet below the surface
of the Mediterranean Sea, the shores of the Caspian Sea, and portions of
Holland, reclaimed from the ocean by its dykes. Settlers here from Alabama,
Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and other States, say they find Claiborne
Parish as healthy as the countries from which they came.
     It is never visited by the severe epidemics of yellow fever and smallpox
which are so fatal in the parishes bordering on the rivers especially in the
cities and towns on their banks; nor is it subject to those dangerous malarial
diseases, such as swamp fever, typhoid fever, etc, which are such a scourge to
the lower country; in fact, it is singularly free from epidemics and malarial
disorders of all kinds, and will compare favorably with any portion of the
United States in point of health. The only epidemics ever known in the parish is
measles, and that of a very mild type, very rarely causing death.
     Area in square miles 778; in acres, 4477920; amount of land vacant, 537660
acres; population in 1880, 18,857whites and blacks equally divided; amount of
taxable property, as per assessment roll for last year, $1,479,060; rate of
taxation, 11 mills on the dollar; area in cultivation, 126,000 acres; valuation
of land subject to taxation, $743,317; value of stock, $293,835.  The conditions
of the atmosphere in its degrees of temperature and moisture are items which
affect organized life, animal and vegetable. Since the temperature of the
atmosphere falls, as distance from the equator increases, one degree of
depression for every added degree of latitude; and since, moreover, the
thermometer falls one degree for every 300 feet of altitude, Louisiana being
comparatively near the equator and so little above the sea level, might be
thought, by residents of Northern States, to be very warm; but there are other
influences which disturb this natural order of things which must be taken into
account before the truth is reached. There are dozens of rivers and hundreds of
smaller streams coursing over the surface there, too, lakes and other bodies of
water are numerous.
     The evaporations from these streams and lakes, and from the Gulf of Mexico
on the south, rapidly consume or absorb the heat of the sun, just as water
sprinkled on the floor absorbs the heat of a room, and this process is more
rapid because, as the vapor rises, taking with it all the heat it can render
insensible, breezes from the Gulf, as from the plains of the northwest, take it
away and supply other air to be filled with other vapor performing the same
office in the cooling process, so that, as a matter of fact, the thermometer
rises higher in summer in New York, Boston and Philadelphia than in any portion
of Louisiana. Sunstroke, so frequent and fatal in the cities, and, indeed in the
country, north, is never known in Louisiana. There is, also, another item not to
be overlooked in seeking the causes of a higher temperature in summer in
countries north of Louisiana it is, that the days are longer in summer as we
proceed northward, and the nights shorter. There is, therefore, less time for
throwing off or radiating the heat received from the sun, until his return with
other supplies.
     I regret that there are no tables of mean relative humidity and temperature
from which I can quote, for the information of the possible northern reader, on
this important subject. But an experience of thirty years in this part of
Louisiana enables the writer to say that the thermometer very rarely rises as
high as 100 degrees in summer, and as rarely falls am low as 25 degrees in
winter.
     As already noticed, the thermometer does not rise quite so high in
Louisiana as in countries further north, but this is not the whole advantage.
The temperature of the animal system is ordinarily above that of the atmosphere.
The breezes are constantly removing from contact with the body the partially
heated paticles (sic) of air and supplying cooler particles, which absorb the
heat, and the cooling sensation is in proportion to the rapidity of the process.
Such breezes are a constant and enduring feature of Louisiana's summer climate,
occurring with almost daily unvarying regularity. It is this feature that
enables a man or beast to exist during a long summer day under our semitropical
sun, without distress or danger; and it is this too, perhaps, which accounts for
the total absence of sun strokes among men, and hydrophobia among dogs. It
would, perhaps, not be well to omit mention in this connection, of the fact that
we have some cold weather in Louisiana. This country is subject to occasional
cold waves brought down upon it by the northwest winds, but they are of short
duration; lasting not generally longer than three or four days, as the wind
quickly veers round, our Gulf breezes come, and our normal winter weather
resumes sway, which is never cold enough to require shelter for stock, or to
make fuel for heating purposes a matter of consideration.
     The surface of the country is undulating, hills and valleys running in
every direction; or, perhaps, it might more properly be described as rolling, as
the hills are only gentle elevations, never precipitous and high as in the
States north and east. This rolling or undulating surface gives rise to numerous
water courses, creeks, bayous, etc., which drain the country in every direction,
and whose currents are generally sufficiently swift to carry off the greatest,
rainfall, so that we have very little of what is known as swamp and overflowed
land, with their ponds and lagoons stagnant water, breeding miasma, malaria,
mosquitos(sic), buffalo gnats and other ills and pests to man and beast. In this
respect, Claiborne Parish is blessed above almost any other part of the State,
the greater part of which, as is well known, is not sufficiently rolling to
drain well, and in consequence the slow, tortuous water courses failing to carry
off the water fast enough, it spreads out over the adjacent lowlying country,
where a great part of it is left in ponds, lake, and lagoons, which, under the
influence of our warm summer sun, doubtless gives rise to the various malarial
diseases and insect pests for which Louisiana has acquired quite a reputation.
     The writer has often been surprised at the opinion held by residents of
other States, particularly the Northern States, in regard to Louisiana. They
seem, in many cases, to regard the whole of Louisiana as one vast frogpond,
interspersed with occasional dry patches or spots of land on which the
inhabitants eke out a miserable, chillshaken existence; indeed, they would be
surprised to find a resident of the South, outside the cities and larger towns
where, as they think, man has improved natural conditions, who was at all robust
or in ways like a man. They seem to think he should conform very nearly, both in
his physical development and habits of life, to his most intimate friend, the
frog. In fact, nothing could be more erroneous, or further from the truth, than
the idea entertained of Louisiana generally by residents of other States, and
this idea has originated and been fostered by the inaccurate descriptions of
geographers and by the written accounts of travelers along our water courses,
which, until late years, have been our only highways of trade, and these
travelers, added to their lack of means of observation, have been, to say the
least, very casual observers, and seem in most eases to have taken a jaundiced
view of everything.
     It is true, and very proper to be noted here, that we have what is called
malaria in Louisiana, but we have very little of it in the rolling woodlands of
Claiborne. Through about the center of this parish runs the ridge, or water
divide, which separates the waters of the Red and Ouachita Rivers the water
courses on the right, or west, emptying into Red River, and those on the left,
or east, into Ouachita. We have no streams which are navigable within the
boundaries of the parish, though there are several having their rise here which
are navigable in their lower courses. Our natural scenery, though not perhaps as
picturesque as that of mountainous Countries, is sufficiently varied and
interesting to impart a sense of pleasure to any one not entirely blind to
nature's beauties. We have winding streams, babbling brooks, gushing springs,
manyhued forest scenes, birds with brilliant plumage, and merry songsters; we
have rocks here, too, and minerals; strange as it may seem to those who only
know Louisiana from hearsay. No poets fancy has ever delineated in measured song
the beauties of our fields and forests; no artists pencil or brush has
transferred to canvass the beauties, of our landscapes; but they are here, and
will abide their time. In this respect, as in many others, this part of the
State is verily a terra incognito.
     As to the soil of Claiborne, it would be impossible within the limits of
this book, or within the limits prescribed to this part of it, to do full
justice to this important feature--important because the soil is as yet our
country's only stock in trade, its only resource. We are emphatically an
agricultural people. Everything is dependent directly and exclusively upon the
productions of the soil when  this fails everything else fails when the
cultivation of the soil becomes unprofitable, everything else becomes
unprofitable, Hence, the importance which attaches in a work of this kind to the
nature and quality of the soil, Leibig, the celebrated German Agricultural
Chemist, says that the poorest soils, even the Limeburg heath of his country,
contains enough of mineral plantfood for centuries of profitable tillage, but
that it is locked in such chemical combination as to render it inaccessible to
plants, except in a very slight degree. If this be so, and it doubtless is so,
for Leibig knew whereof he spoke in matters of this kind, it would seem that the
quality of the soil is not a matter of such very great importance had we but the
key to this chest, the means of unlocking this chemical combination, and
surrendering this inexhaustible supply accessible to plants, but here is the
rub, we have it not, nor are we likely to have it soon, if ever. The farmer in
North Louisiana is obliged in the main to take his soil just as he finds it to
accept the return it makes for his patient toil, of its own free will, without
the aid which scientific discoveries have rendered possible in more favored
cases; for he is, in most cases, ignorant of the elements with which his soil is
supplied or in which it is deficient he knows nothing of the chemical
combinations necessary to the growth of the plants he wishes to cultivate; and
even if he possessed this scientific knowledge, he has not the means at hand to
render it practicably useful. So the best he can do, is to make use of such
fertilizers as he may have at hand which observation and experience tell him
will be beneficial to his plants. He is an experimenter, groping in the dark
even the little way which his circumstances will admit of his going in this
direction. The supply of fertilizers on an average farm in Claiborne parish,
known to be of value, is so limited that a large part of the area in cultivation
must necessarily go from year to year without fertilization; so that the quality
of the soil is an item of the first importance.
     When I tell the practical geologist that the soil of Claiborne Parish is
not alluvial in its character, he says at once, then it belongs to the tertiary
formation, or to the tertiary geological epoch, and is formed in the main from
the disintegration of sandstone. Your soil, says he, must be largely composed of
sand. Quite true, sand seems to be a predominant constituent of our soil, but I
say to him, we have "red lands in Claiborne--lands in which sand is not at all
conspicuous, as an element. They are, says he, somewhat sandy in their
character, and are formed from the disintegration of red sandstone to which iron
has given the coloring matter; such soils ought to be rich in the phosphates of
iron and profitable to cultivate, as these elements are valuable as a plantfood.
Right again; our red lands are profitably cultivated on them crops do well, to
which the phosphates of lime and iron are a vital necessity.  The practical
farmer, or plant grower, knowing little of chemistry or geology judges of land
by the natural growth upon it the trees which nature has planted there, and
which have flourished and taken possession of the soil in its wild state. He
sees the oak, the ash, the hickory, the walnut, the blackjack he knows that from
their ashes good soap is made; he may not know that these ashes are rich in the
phosphates of lime, so valuable as plantfood, but he does know that where these
trees grow, corn, cotton and potatoes will grow, and may be profitably grown. He
knows, too, when he sees the character of the soil, that it is porous, loose and
mellow, that it will readily yield up what elements of plantfood it possesses,
that it is generous in its nature and easy of cultivation. The practical farmer
of Claiborne knows these things and makes practical and profitable use of such
knowledge, but he does not know often, how, by several successive years of
profitable tillage, he has robbed his generous soil of the greater part of its
available plantfood, and that he has to replace what he has recklessly, taken
away to reinvigorate his exhausted soil.
     In fact, he does not seem to be aware that these years of constant
cultivation are making fearful in­roads upon his bank account his stock in trade
the available plant food in his soil; does not seem to know, or acts as though
he did not know, that these elements of plantfood are his only resource, the
sole reason why his lands are worth anything whatever to himself or others. If
he thinks about these things at all, he thinks that lands are cheap, and so goes
ahead, year after year, without counting the cost, even to himself in the end,
leaving out of consideration altogether the heritage of his children, the needs
of the generation which is to come after him. In this case, the "sins of the
fathers are indeed visited upon the children to the third and fourth
generations." The rule generally followed is, as fast as one field is exhausted
it is turned out, the forest cut away and another enclosed to go through the
same process of treatment; so that our domain will soon be largely composed of
old fields turned out to grow up in pines, for it is a peculiarity of our soil
that the natural growth does not return to it after it has been treated in this
way, that natural growth which eventually enriches it and brings it back to its
original state of available fertility, but young pines take possession of it,
and they, as is well known, add little to the fertility of soil by the decay of
their foliage, as is the case with numerous other plants. It might be well to
enter a little more into detail as to the average farmers' methods and the
success which attend them.
     When he decides upon the precise plot of eminent domain which he will next
lay waste, his first step is to seek out all the timber growing upon it which
can be converted into rails, such trees are felled and converted into rails,
next he cuts off the undergrowth, which is
made into brushheaps to be burned when dry; then cuts down the saplings and
smaller trees, whose bodies are cut into convenient lengths for hauling home and
whose laps go to the brushheaps; he next chops around all trees left standing,
thus "deadening them' as it is called. as this circular chopping through the sap
part of the tree prevents the free circulation of the sap, thus killing the tree
which is left standing to take its chances against decay and the prevailing
winds, its falling is only a question of time. He hauls out everything available
for fuel, thus frequently getting enough fuel for a year or two from a small
plot of ground next he puts all logs left on the ground into convenient lengths
which, with the help of his neighbors, he makes into heaps on the ground, and
into these heaps go all refuse from the fuel selected. The brush with log heaps
often cover almost the entire surface of the ground. His clearing is now done
and is ready for the grand burning as soon as the brush and logs are
sufficiently dry. If the clearing is done in the summer or fall, the burning may
be done in winter, but if the clearing is done in winter the burning is not
generally done until in the spring, just before planting time. After this new
field is burned off, he proceeds to surround it with a "crossfence" of rails,
when it is ready for the plow.
     The farmer frequently realizes enough corn or cotton from this new field
the first year to pay for its clearing, though it generally happens that very
little is obtained for the first year's cultivation, but the second year's
cultivation generally yields excellent crops bale of cotton or thirty bushels of
corn per acre being frequently realized on uplands the second year, but its
maximum is not generally reached till the third year. This field is then kept in
constant cultivation in crops which take all from the soil and return very
little, or nothing, to it until by a constantly diminishing yield, it is found
no longer profitable for cultivation; then it too, is laid aside, and another
inroad made upon the forest.
     Nowhere in the United States, perhaps, can more generous soil be found than
the rolling woodlands of Claiborne Parish nowhere a soil which more readily
yields up its elements of plantfood, or is easier of cultivation. There are
richer and more durable lands elsewhere, but taking into consideration certainty
of yield and ease of cultivation, there are none, I venture to say, which will
better repay careful tillage and proper management than they, or more worthy of
the attention of the intelligent agriculturist. These lands are almost all
adapted to the highest fertilizing; they can, by proper management and very
little cost, be kept at their maximum yield indeed, they can be made better
every year instead of being made poorer, as is now too often the case. I have
heretofore spoken of the better class of uplands in Claiborne, these, as I said
before, often yield, with careful tillage and with­out fertilizers, as much as a
bale of cotton or 30 or 40 bushels of corn per acre. Corn and cotton being the
leading productions of the country the value of land is generally estimated by
its production of these two staples; but there are other lands not so
productive; others in cultivation on which half of the above yield is considered
a good one; others there are, too, which seem comparatively worthless, except
for the timber on them.
     But this last class of lands form but a small part of Claiborne's area.
There is very little land within the limits of the parish which may not be
profitably cultivated, and upon all of it fertilizers may be profitably used.
This fact has been demonstrated again and again, in numerous instances. The
surface soil, though unusually light and porous, has underlying it a firm and
compact subsoil which is within easy reach of plant roots, and which serves the
double purpose of giving the plant a firm hold on the earth, and of preventing
the leaking through of fertilizers applied to the surface soil. This subsoil is
not entirely of clay or aluminum, as the chemists call it, which is not food for
plants, but is found to contain, in many cases, a fair amount of plantfood.
     The staple commodities of this part of the country for markets outside the
State, it is expected, will soon enlarge in number, but at present they are
extremely few, and might perhaps be summed up in one word Cotton. Cotton is
almost our only crop for sale. It is, as we say here, "our only money crop." The
history of agriculture in the United States, and perhaps in other parts of the
civilized world, has always taught one important lesson which impoverished farms
and empty purses are slowly urging the present generation to heed. It is this
that no exclusively agricultural community can ever be prosperous while it
confines itself to the production of a single commodity. No matter how well the
soil may be adapted to its production, the climate and natural conditions suited
to its growth, that country or community which links its fortunes to that of a
single plant, that stakes its all upon its successful culture, will be and must
needs be always poor and often finds itself in sad straits. Experience proves
this lesson wherever such a course has been pursued. The most unobservant
traveler through a country where cotton is cultivated to the exclusion of other
crops suited to the soil and climate, or where tobacco, hemp, or any other
single plant reigns supreme, has had this truth forced upon him by the worn out
lands, the deserted homesteads, the dilapidated fences and farm houses, the
utter absence of progress and enterprise, and the scenes of thriftlessness and
want which meet his eyes on every side,
     While cotton is now almost the only thing produced for market, the soil of
Claiborne Parish is admirably adapted to the production of a variety of other
crops, which might profitably take the place of cotton in part. The sweet potato
is, for house use, a universal crop in this part of the State, and seems to be
in its natural home. It is easily propagated from the roots, sprouts or vines,
and with a little care in the preparation of the ground and subsequent
cultivation; returns an immense yield, often as much as 300 bushels per acre.
From its easy propagation and cultivation, its large yield and the variety and
excellence of the dishes prepared from it, it is one of the indispensable crops
for home use, but has not hitherto, been raised for markets outside the State.
This is due, doubtless, to lack of transportation, but now that we have a
railroad within easy reach and are likely to have another soon, this impediment
will be removed and we may expect to see the sweet potato take its place among
the products of the country and with great profit to the farmer.
     The Irish potato or "white potato," is accredited as a native of Chili and
Peru, and was introduced into North America by the Spaniards, from whence it
was, in 1586, carried by Sir Waiter Raleigh to England, and perhaps acquired its
name of "Irish potato" from the extent to which it was grown in Ireland. This
tuber ought soon to take a prominent place among the very profitable crops of
North Louisiana. There is probably nothing that the soil produces which can be
more profitably grown than the Irish potato.
     Field peas of many varieties grow to perfection here and are often a
valuable adjunct to the farmers' corn crop, as they furnish excellent food for
all kinds of domestic animals, including man himself. Their cultivation is
receiving a large share of attention now, which is a sign of better times, as
besides its valuable qualities as a food, its culture is very beneficial to the
land on which it is grown. The pea is largely an air feeder and hence may be
grown on very poor land and be made to return much more to the soil than it
takes from it, and thus increase fertility. It is found very advantageous to
land to sow it in peas and plow under while the vines are green.
     Wheat does not seem to do well anywhere in Louisiana, though it has been
tried at various times on the uplands of Claiborne; its culture has never been
attended with marked success. Sometimes its yield has been satisfactory, more
frequently however it fails.
     Oats are a staple production of the country. If sown in the fall they
rarely fail to amply repay the farmer for all the care and attention bestowed
upon them. Barley and rye also do well here but are not at present largely
planted, not as much as formerly.
     Sorghum has been at various times experimentally grown, and is at present
grown in small quantities. It grows very luxuriantly, and is of certain yield if
properly cultivated, but has been regarded as of doubtful profit. Its tops or
seed are known to be excellent food for stock.
     Garden products are an essential feature of every household in the parish;
no home is complete without its vegetable garden, the products of which go far
toward furnishing the family with wholesome food throughout the entire year.
Every variety of garden vegetable found in this latitude does well here, beans,
English peas, cabbage, tomatoes, turnips, onions, beets, lettuce and numerous
others grow very luxuriantly, and nothing pays better or is more pleasing to the
eye than the well kept gardens in Claiborne Parish.
     The timber supply is sufficient to meet the demands of the population, as
it naturally increases, for many generations. Pine, several kinds of oak, sweet
and black gum, hickory, walnut, ash, maple, iron wood, persimmon and many other
varieties are found in easy reach of nine-tenths of the farms. There are
thousands of acres once in cultivation worn out and now left to grow up or wash
away, that are covered with young pines, etc. Here and on parts of farms too wet
to cultivate, grow delicious blackberries, bushels of which may be seen at a
glance; dewberries in luxuriant plenty are found in these old fields. These,
together with various other berries, such as the different kinds of haws,
huckleberries, paw paws, (the banana of the temperate zones) etc, may be had in
plenty for the mere trouble of gathering; chincapins, walnuts and hickorynuts
are equally as numerous. Fruits of all kinds peculiar to this latitude grow to
perfection, and a failure of the crop is rare. Flowers, native and exotic, are
reared with little trouble, grow luxuriantly, and frost, except with the most
tender varieties, seldom requires that they be housed or protected.
     Game of the smaller species, such as squirrels, birds, hare, etc. are
numerous, but deer and turkey, though once very numerous, are now rare, having
sought more thinly settled parts of the country.
     Melons of every variety, from the classic pumpkin to the primitive gourd,
abound in Claiborne and of the very finest quality, among which the watermelon
deserves special mention. It is probable that nowhere in the world can this
fruit be grown more successfully than here on the sandy lands of Claiborne. It
is extremely prolific, fully flavored and often grows to immense size. The
writer has often seen them weighing fifty pounds, sometimes sixty. They might be
very profitably grown here for northern markets.

CHAPTER V.

EARLY DAYS IN NORTH LOUISIANA, BY AN OLD SETTLER
WILD APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY FOREST FIRES SETTLEMENTS, ETC.

     In the latter part of the winter of 1818 could have been seen in the Horse
Shoe bend Of Cumberland River, Tenn., about three miles from Carthage, a flat
boat tied by ropes to the shore. On this boat was a man and his wife, some
children, a few household goods, cooking utensils and a rifle. That man was John
Murrell, starting with his family in search of a home in the far west, somewhere
up in the Red River valley. Early in the morning the lines that held the flat
boat to the shore were cut looser and John Murrell, wife and children turned
their backs to their old Tennessee home. Floating down the river, they joined at
Nashville, according to a previous understanding, a company of emigrants that
were bound to the same unknown promised land. Disposing of his old flat boat,
Murrell and family got aboard one of two barges, or, as then called, keel boats.
There were about ten families, towit: that of Wallace: Clark, Ward, Manning,
Dyer, (big Joe), Hutson, Robinson, Duty, Dooly, Peterson and Murrell. Descending
the Cumberland, they entered the great Mississippi and floated down to the month
of Red River. After resting here a few days, they slowly ascended the wondrous
Red River, and after many days of toil and much loss of time in working their
way through the Great Raft (note from transcriber-this is a reference to the
immense log jam which hindered navigation on the Red River) and among monster
aligators (sic), safely landed at Long Prairie, in the Arkansas Territory. All
were charmed with the country--it was so fresh and new but it was a solitude.
The sound of an axe or rifle was not to be heard, nor the smoke of a cabin to be
seen. They were alone in a primeval world. One of the company, H. Robinson,
became so dissatisfied because of the wild and unbroken solitude of the country,
that he alone with his wife and child, made off through the wild woods for his
home in dear old Tennessee.
     The others, having more nerve, spent some time in hunting out localities to
suit them. Murrell and Wallace pitched their camp on the bank of the river, put
up rude board shelters, cut down a small patch of cane and planted corn and
vegetables. Murrell having about $100 in cash, determined to invest it in
cattle; so in June he took a trail that led down to Natchitoches Parish; for it
must be remembered that the only pass ways were the hunter or Indian trails, or
paths. On the trail Murrell traveled there were between Long Prairie and
Natchitoches, only two cabins, one of which was vacant, for the man (Bosel) who
built it, left in a few days after completing it for Texas, or the Spanish
country, as it was then called. The other was the home of Isaac Alden and Mrs.
Johnson, the place now known as the Bools place, eight miles east of Minden.
Alden and his wife entreated Murrell to bring his family and take possession of
this cabin. But Murrell wanted cattle, so he went ahead on his cow hunt south of
Natchitoches found and bought ten cows and calves. On his arrival home with his
cattle, he was horror struck to find a number of his family sick with fever.
This he could not stand, and at once determined to get his family away from the
river. The deserted cabin on the Natchitoches trail, the kindly suggestion of
the Aldens, promptly came to mind, and he resolved so soon as his family was
able to travel, to leave the poisonous Red River and find a shelter in this
lonely cabin.
     His wealth was not great, consisting of two ponies, ten cows and calves,
one dog, one rifle and an axe, but of far more value to him than all else, a
brave wife and six dependent children. August 6, 1818, he stopped in front of
that vacant cabin on the place now belonging to Wm. H. Maxey, and beneath its
humble shelter, thankfully placed his wearied wife and children. Letting Mrs.
Johnson know that his family was in the Bosel cabin she immediately attended to
his wants, letting him have meat, bread, corn, etc, and showing every delight at
knowing she had a neighbor within twelve miles, for up to this time her nearest
neighbors were at Campte (sic) miles below on Red River. As neighbors, we mean
such as a civilized, Christian woman could welcome. We could almost daily see
Indians, for there were many of them in the country. They lived in small
villages, and moved from place to place as their hunting expeditions required.
But these Indians were inoffensive, committing no depredations on stock or other
property.  One of these villages was on the land now owned by Col. John Kimbell,
and among these roving people was a halfbreed Cherokee, who had fled from his
people for killing one of the tribe.
     Away from the malarial Red River, Murrell's family soon regained good
health, save the babe, which in a few days left the lonely cabin a corpse.
     Murrell being possessed of a fair supply of native genius, as well as
plenty of pluck, at once went to work and in a day or two had rigged up and in
fine working order a first class Armstrong mill. This mill, though simple in
appearance, combined several of the mechanical powers, operating through a
spring pole to a pestle in a mortar box, or hole burnt into the end of a heavy
block of wood. The spring pole is worked up and down by hand hence the name
"Armstrong mill." The sifting apparatus of this mill was made of a dry deer skin
from which the hair had been shaved, stretched tightly over a broad wooden hoop,
and then burned full of holes with a hot spindle. It was a great success; far
surpassing the common hand pestle and mortar. However, two or three years
thereafter, he succeeded in getting an improved Armstrong, a steel mill, which
proved to be a great saving of labor, and made a better meal than the old
fashioned spring pole.
     The country then was almost entirely covered with a dense thicket of brush,
briars and vines. Cane was abundant on all the streams and abutting hill points,
but fire breaking out and spreading, all over the land, killed this mass of
brush, while a second fire cleaned off all the face of the land, leaving it an
open, beautiful country. You could see a cow or deer as far as the eye could
reach through the intervening living timber. New grasses sprang up, the wild pea
vine and switch cane, and a better range for farmer’s cattle, hogs, deer and
turkey was never seen.
     Murrell cultivated his first crop with the hoe, both his ponies having
died. The woods abounding with all manner of game, he got his main supply there
from. A turkey for dinner required only a few minutes hunt, venison steak was to
be had at any hour, and bear in the proper season was readily converted into the
best of bacon. Wolves, too, abounded. It was common to see them, of moonlight
nights, traveling around the house or cow pen. Mrs. Murrell left her churn at
the creek side one night and the wolves carried it off it to a tree top fifty
yards away and knawed (sic) it to pieces. They were fearful on young pigs and
calves.
     As previously stated, there were no roads, but in lieu thereof were two
trails leading through the country one from Mt. Prairie, Ark.,to Natchitoches,
the other from Long Prairie, Ark, to Monroe, or Ouachita Parish. Natchitoches
Parish, in which was then embraced Claiborne Parish, extended from Rapides north
to Arkansas Territory, and from Ouachita Parish on the east to the Spanish
country (Texas) on the west.
     In the fall of 1818 several families moved into the country. Mrs. Long
settled, where is now Haynesville. Her house, or cabin, stood about where now is
the residence of A. Brown. Her son, Davis Long, settled the place now known as
Long’s Springs, near Minden, and lived there a batchelor for years; but in 1836
he took unto himself a wife, and raised a clever family of children; among them
we recollect Miss Lucy Long. She is now dead.
     If I mistake not, about this time Martin Allen came into this same
neighborhood and settled on what is known as the J. W. Fuller property. He was
the first Justice of the Peace appointed in this part of the parish.  Mr.
Holcomb, about the same time came among us, and Mr. Brazil and Obediah Diskill,
and Mr. A. Crownover. Mr. Diskill settled the Cooper place, and Mr. Crownover on
the Dr. Harper Creek. Mr. Crownover was a hatter by trade, and to get me a hat I
hunted coons many nights to get fur enough to make it. Ten good skins were
required to make a boy's hat. Dr. Walker located on the same Harper Creek (both
settlements are now in the Joe Carter farm); and he was a doctor by nature and
not by education, and very successful in treating all the simple sickness of
that day, (1819); for the country was remarkably healthy. The population of this
settlement increased rapidly, it looked to us to be numberless, and may be
enumerated by calling the names of the families Mr. Jessie Williams and his good
wife, Aunt Minnie, two children and a black dog, and Thomas Gray, who settled
three miles south, of Murrell. He was a most zealous Methodist and seemed to
think, from the way, he talked, that Methodism was first and the Bible second.
But religion was at a mighty low ebb in those days. Meat, bread and shelter were
the main considerations.
     In 1820 news came that some German emigrants had been left near Loggy Bayou
in a destitute and helpless condition. Mr. A. J. Alden, Thomas Gray and Murrell
went to see if they could be of any assistance to them. Finding them in a truly
bad condition, each contracted with a family to live with him two years in
consideration of a support and being taught the use of our implements in making
a living in a new country. Mr. Alden brought home with him Jacob, a pedler; Mr.
Gray, Adam Miller (father of Jake and Cody), and Murrell, Frederick Miller and
his father, father and grandfather of Long John Miller. The old man Miller died
the second year after he was brought among us, and for his body was dug the
first grave, in Murrell's grave yard, and we believe he was the first man to die
in Claiborne Parish. That grave used to look lonely out there in the woods, but
it is in a little city of the dead now shaded by the cedar and forest growth.
These people worked out their contracts, then settled near by on homes of their
own and raised large and respectable families. There are many of these true
Millers in different parts of the parish.
     During this year William Gryder moved in and settled on Buck Creek, with
all his girls, boys and dogs many, though he had no more than the law allowed
him. He was our first blacksmith, and hammered more iron and with more
persistence than any man in ail the land. With him bell making was a specialty;
he could not be beat, and he learned all his boys to make bells his girls were
belles by nature, of the best kind, as was proven by the boys taking one as soon
as they could. Also came this year the McCaftys, the Edmonds and many others,
good men and women, whose names I cannot now recall.
     In 1821 Mr. Newt Drew settled on Black Bayou, near Driskill. Drew was a
gunsmith by trade, though he here turned his attention mainly to farming. He
sent his old servant, Jack, one morning to drive up his horses. That morning
Jack found a bear turning over a log in search of bugs, and thinking himself a
good bear hunter, picked up a pine knot and made for the bear. Slipping close up
he let drive at the bear, and to his astonishment the bear wheeled around to see
what was the trouble. Seeing Jack, the bear laid his ears back and made for him,
but Jack, trusting to his legs, fled like a scared wolf. He escaped from the
bear, but when he stopped in his wild flight, he was lost, and wandered around
for three or four days when he was found in Dorcheat Swamp, near Long's Springs,
as now known, about twenty miles from home. Jack quit the bear business. Mr.
Drew afterward moved down on the Dorcheat, established the lower landing and got
under way the town of Overton, which being at the head of navigation it was
thought would become a big inland city. He also built the first saw and grist
mill in the parish. It was on the Cooly and ran by water power. Much might be
said of this good old go-ahead pioneer. Himself and wife were true old Tennessee
Baptists. His oldest son, Thomas Drew, became Governor of Arkansas. Harmond
Drew, his youngest son, became District Judge in this State; and Richard Drew
died while Probate Judge of this Parish. Some of his daughters married well,
others, contrary to the old man's wishes, not so well. This makes me think of
the first marriage that took place in our parish though the ceremony of the
marriage was performed in Arkansas, if I mistake not. At least it soon became
the fashion for the bride and groom to go to Arkansas to get married. People
then were about the same as now, in this particular. When they determined to
marry, any officer or preacher, who was able to administer the ceremony, would
do. This was in 1821, and Mr. John Allen and Miss Mary Holcomb were the happy
pair. The next, in 1822, was Wm. Crowly and Miss Jenny Long. This pair, I think
went to Natchitoches. Then came the marriage of Raleigh Rogers and Miss Mary Ann
Long; then George Demos to Miss Nancy Gryder, and then, well, almost a host in
rapid order. All went to Arkansas for convenience. A certain pine log in
Arkansas became known as the stopping place, and which soon became famous for it
had frequent visitors from far and near. One couple came from beyond the Sabine
river. It was my friend Thomas Palmer and Miss Steel, They told a good joke on
her old father. He left home for Natchitoches on business, when seeing their
chance, they made ready and followed on just after him. When near Natchitoches
they turned to Grande Core (sic), crossed Red River, took the Claiborne trail
and made direct for that old pine log, where they were duly married. They dodged
the old man completely, because they feared, I reckon, he might say not and
therefore knew nothing about thereafter until be got back home some two or three
days afterwards. If that old log could talk it could tell some funny things.
Sometimes the justice of the peace would be absent on a bear hunt, sometimes
attending court at Champanolle or Echore Fabre, and sometimes exercising himself
as a good old "Arkansas gentleman." He would have to hunted up and brought in
sometimes via armis, and in the mean time the anxious Couple would camp out and
wait patiently.
     In 1822, Mr. Deck (a gunsmith), blessed with an interesting family, settled
near where Minden is now located, and Mr. Bias settled within three miles of him
on the now Leary place. Near here also settled Mr. Loyd, a devout Methodist
preacher, and John Gerren, a very quiet man, but a true born Methodist, and
beliked by everybody. James Crow one of our best citizen, and a full fledged
Baptist, but not a fussy man, lived on a place that is now embraced in the farm
of Mr. D. Murrell, now dead. Mr. W. Wright located on part of the same farm.
Aunt Jenny, as everybody called his wife and whom everybody liked, could tell as
good a joke and laugh as long and loud as any one. She was a kind hearted,
generous woman.
     We had no such thing as store clothes in those days. Every family had their
cotton cards, spinning wheel and loom. Our shirts and pants were all home­spun,
home woven and homemade. Buckskin pants and hunting shirts, and moccasins, the
regular old Indian moccasins, were very fashionable, and a pair of good heavy
homemade shoes made one feel almost proud enough, particularly if he was a young
man, to think and feel like courting every woman he could hear of in the
country.
     Our first school was taught by James Ashburner, in 1822, at a salary of $15
per month. John Murrell employed him.
     We got our salt at McCally's salt works, some­where in the vicinity of
Drake's old salt works, in Bienville Parish.
     It was about this time, too, that Mr. James Brinson of Ouachita parish,
commenced his monthly preaching at John Murrell’s house. Assisted by Mr. Arthur
McFarland, they soon established a church (Baptist of course) and kept up
regular services for many years. These were the first Baptist preachers in the
parish. To show how our section was improving, and what notoriety it was
gaining, sometime in this year, 1822, Harrison & Hopkins of Natchitoches, sent
up a small stock of goods in charge of a Frenchman by the name of Forshe, who
opened up in a small cabin close to Murrells. But he went off on whiskey, and in
a year or two lost his stock in trade and ran away.
     In 1823 a long step towards the civilized world was made, for in that year
a mail route was established from Natchitoches to Washington in Arkansas. Our
post office was called "Allen Settlement Post office," because Mr. Allen was our
first Justice of the Peace, and John Murrell was appointed postmaster. Trips
were made back and forth twice a month. Letters conveyed over 500 miles cost
twenty-five cents, and under 500 miles twelve and one half cents postage. Let us
here state that our old friend Peter Franks, was an early settler on Brushy
Creek, now in Bienville Parish; also John Leatherman, the Cragiles, and Robert
and Jas. Henderson were on the road near the place now known as Buckhorn, but
the date of their coming we have forgotten. The first cotton gin was erected by
Thomas Moore, in 1824, for Adam Reynolds, who sold it to Russell Jones in 1825,
then on the present Harper place. Reynolds was a man of great energy. He made
more improvements and sold out oftener than any man in the parish, except
perhaps, John D. Pair. About this time Josiah Wilson, believing competition to
be the life of trade, started up the Middle Landing, near Minden. These two
landings go to show that the boating business (keel boats I mean) amounted to
something. James Lee and R. L. Kilgore, in 1825, opened a fair stock of goods in
the little storehouse near Murrell that had been put up by Harrison & Hopkins.
And in this year we had our first camp meeting, held near Isaac Miller's place,
and conducted by Revs. Wlm. Stevenson, McMahon and Ross. The next, in 1826, were
held on the Maxey place, and in 1827 was assembled our first Baptist
Association, in a school house on the late Dr. Martin's farm, near Germantown.
     In 1825 Charley Hays settled on the place now known as Keener farm, near
Athens. He was reputed the greatest bear hunter of his day making bear hunting a
specialty in the winter when they were fat.
     In those early days the French Creoles in and about Natchitoches and Campte
would make raids through the country bear hunting, having with them from 25 to
30 ponies and as many dogs. They moved north­ward in December and returned
generally in February, with their ponies loaded down with bear meat and skins.
This year George Grounds located on Flat Lick. He was as kind and true a hearted
Dutchman as ever lived but would go off on whiskey sometimes. He had a large
family, some of whom were devoted Methodists. I think some of his descendants
are yet in this Parish. Our first singing school, in 1827, was taught by Mr.
George Ridley, near Mr. Ground's house. He used the patent notes. In this year
also, and I am sorry to tell it, the Baptists had a split in their church about
the fellowship of the members, whose conduct was not in keeping with the word.
Some condemned while others sustained them believing their conduct not to be
unscriptural. The parties sustaining the brothers, took the Bible for their
creed and guide, and went off, refusing to be governed by man’s (?) creed, and
there are a few of that faith in the parish yet calling themselves Christians,
for short. They came very near playing out though when the war of 1861 came on.
Some time during this year the road heretofore referred to as the military road,
was cut by United State troops, connecting Fort Jessup, on lower Red River, with
Fort Towson, away up on upper Red River. This road was opened to transport
supplies to that distant garrison. I well recollect that the soldiers and
recruits passing to and from that fort, stole everything of small value they
could lay their hands on such as bells, whetstones, chickens, geese, etc., and
among other things a pet deer from Murrell’s yard.
     In 1828 Claiborne Parish was created. It was bounded on the east by
Ouachita Parish, on the west by Red River, on the north by Arkansas Territory
and on the south by a line dividing townships 13 and 14, crossing the old
military road at or near what was then called Boggy Branch, and touching Red
River at or near East Point. Our first probate judge was Chichester Chaplin, a
young lawyer and widower of some promise. He was from Natchitoches and was
appointed judge. But he soon cast aside his weeds and married Mrs. Palmer, a
most estimable lady. Bo(?) was Clerk of the Court, Isaac McMahon Sheriff.  Mr.
Wilson of Monroe, District Judge. Murrell’s house was used for a courthouse for
a year or two, when, by the influence of Sam Russell and others at interest, a
place on His (Russell’s) property was selected as the parish site, which was
named for him, Russellville.  Then James Lee and R. C. Killgore moved their
stock of goods there, thereby being the first merchants in Russellville.
     As our people had now increased considerably in numbers, the convenience of
public roads began to be called for. So in 1829 our first public road was
opened. It was from Russellville to the Minden lower landing, the head of
navigation on Bayou Dorcheat. Hands were summoned for a distance of 25 to 30
miles to open it. This road was a big item in our history then. An election was
held this year, and Murrell’s house, which seems to have become the headquarters
on all public occasions, was the voting place. A difficulty sprang up while the
voting was going on between George Grounds, Jr, and James Madden. They exchanged
a few blows and were then separated. Wm. Robinson, Justice of the Peace, ordered
the Sheriff to arrest the two combatants and bring them before his august
presence, which order was promptly executed. On investigation the J.P. found
Grounds guilty of assault and battery, fined him $20 and to be held in custody
until paid. Grounds, poor fellow, had no money, but offered to sell two cows and
calves to pay the fine. A purchaser was soon found for the cattle, the fine
paid, and so was closed this breach of the peace without further trouble. Was
that not a better way to dispose of such troubles than now prevail?
     James Dyer, who moved to Texas after the war, was the first representative,
1829, that Claiborne Parish had the honor of sending to the State capital; and
his immediate successor, a full-blooded Democrat, was Berry A. Wilson. It was in
1830, I think, the legislature appropriated $1,500 for the improvement of
navigation in Loggy Bayou and Lake Bistenau. (sic) The contract was awarded to a
Mr. Leavright, which work he executed to the satisfaction of the committee
appointed to examine and pronounce upon the faithful fulfillment of the the
contract. And now as our honorable Court had got into good working order, it may
be well to refer to the first case of any importance that was spread upon the
court docket. This was Hempkin vs. Mabry Wafer. It hung fire for years. Mr.
Wafer lived on Sugar Creek, and was Justice of the Peace in that ward. He was a
shrewd man, knew what he was about, and in law was generally successful.
     By this time and up to 1837 a number of small trading houses were set up in
different parts of the parish. Mr. Savage, of Campte, had a shop at Overton, and
was succeeded by Joe Robinson, also of Campte. D. C. Pratt was his successor.
One McGrady opened up on Flat Lick. George A. Bell succeeded him and then Wm.
Harkins bought out Bell. They all carried on a splendid one horse business. Mr.
Harkins was justice of the peace for years, and was considered a good judge of
law at least he had considerable experience as defendant.
     As before stated, roads in these early days were not, and the pathways and
byways were winding, yet along these ways our people would bring from distant
trading points nearly all their supplies on horseback, even to bars of iron. Our
rude wagons would sometimes set out on a trip to Natchitoches or Monroe, with
wooden axles and no skeins, and the screeching of the wheels, which were long
and loud, could be heard of a morning three and four miles away, reminding one
of a pack of hounds at full cry in the distance. But the boys and drivers were
used to such a racket, and the game was so plentiful that by the time the wagons
would reach Natchitoches or Monroe they would be bearing an extra load of deer
skins and skins or peltry were then our main staple or exchange in trade. It
took twenty to forty days to make these wagon trips.
     Sometime in 1833 Mr. Alexander and Jake Masters determined to slaughter an
old bear that had got into the bad habit of making away with their hogs in
Dorcheat swamp. They soon got Mr. Bear up and then the chase began. The bear
passed several times through an open slough in the cane brake, and Alex­ander
discovering this, took a stand for him in the slough. Soon the bear entered the
slough, and spy­ing Alexander, made for him with a vengeance. Alexander's gun
failed to fire, the bear went for him, and had it not been for Alexander's
buckskin suit he would have been killed he was maimed for life. Masters said it
was the first fight he ever saw that he had rather not take choice of sides.
     I should have stated that the first killing in this section was by a Mr.
Sapp who killed his brother-in-law, Bryant, and then fled to the Indian Nation.
The cause of the killing was said to be heinous. Then came the next murder in
our parish. It occurred about eight miles east of Minden, on the military road.
It was the willful assassination of a Mr. Sloan, of Arkansas, by John
Halthouser, for his money. Halthouser believed Mr. Sloan had a good sum of money
on his person as he was a trader, but he had only $370 with him at that time, of
which sum $60 was found in possession of Halthouser. To make a good thing of it,
watch was kept on Sloan until report said he had some fifteen hundred dollars
that he was taking to Arkansas. Secreting himself in the brush, on the military
road, Halthouser waited his opportunity. The old man Sloan, apprehending no
danger, rode by where the murderer was concealed, and was shot through the head
from behind with a rifle ball. It had been raining a good deal and the ground
was wet and the grass luxuriant. The track of the dead man was left on the
ground, as his body was dragged to one side, about fifty yards from the road,
and thrown into a pool of water. The buzzards attracted the attention of some
passersby, a few days afterwards, when on examination the ghastly corpse was
found, and a too precipitate display of money led to the suspicion of the
Dutchman, which demoralized him. It was generally believed at the time that
Halthouser,s brother in law had a hand in the murder, but if such was the case
Halthouser was too plucky to tell on him. Halthouser was found guilty,
confessed, and was executed at Russellville in 1835, by Mr. Dyer, then our
sheriff.
     But after this followed one of the most horrible murders and shocking
crimes ever recorded. It was the desecration and murder of Miss Demos, a young
lady about eighteen years of age. She was on horseback, going by a pathway from
her father's house to a neighbors, to warp some thread. Failing to return in
time search was made, the signs of a desperate struggle found, and the signs
being followed, the dead body of the girl was found, with both arms broken and
the face pressed down in a pool of water. The footprints of the murderer were
plainly to be seen on her shoulders, where he stood pressing her down. The whole
community arose in its wrath and instituted search for the monster. A bloody
shirt belonging to one Lambright was found in his own cabin, and on failing to
satisfactorily to explain, he was arrested as the murderer, but escaping from
jail, how, no one knew, fled to Texas and was no more heard of.
     Here we close these reminiscences, because a number of the actors of that
day are yet living and the events of the later years are patent to many now with
us, and can be recalled by them, perhaps, with more relish than myself, for we
were all plain people then, with few wants and much love for our fellow man.
Sixty seven years, with all their promises and disappointments, their sunshine
and shadows, have come and gone since I came to North Louisiana. Many changes,
ups and downs, since then have occurred. Then I was young and jubilant, now I am
old and stricken in years; my sons and daughters, save one, fail to answer my
call. Ah, Yes---'' My head it is gray; Yet I sit in the sunshine to watch you."

CHAPTER VI.

A GEORGIA EMIGRANT-HIS RECOLLECTIONS OF THE

EARLY DAYS IN CLAIBORNE PARISH.

     On the 28th of November, 1847, my father and step­mother, with eight boys,
left Troup County, Georgia, for a home somewhere west of the Mississippi River.
On the 8th day of January, (a historical day in Louisiana), 1848, we landed in
the little village of Athens, which was situated on a deep sandy ridge about ten
miles south of Homer, (Homer was then not in existence) and fourteen miles north
of Minden. Minden was then a small but active trading point at the head of
navigation on Lake Bistenau. This I hope will enable you to know where Athens
is. We found in Athens, when we stopped there, a beautiful flowing spring, a
court house, which was then considered a creditable building, and about a dozen
dwellings, here and there. The court house remained at Athens until 1849 when on
the night of Nov. 27th, it was fired and burned down with all the parish
records. How it took fire has never been found out. The post office was in
charge of Arthur McFarland, who was a Baptist preacher. There was a little
tavern also kept by one Saunders P. Day; also a small stock of goods in a little
log house, managed by a man named Kiser. Right here was concentrated the
business part of town.
     We had a good camping ground just above the spring I have referred to.
Shortly after we had got our camp pitched, who should ride up but Mr. John
Kimball, and to father's great surprise he at once recognized him. He and
father, when boys, were play mates. Well, you can imagine how pleasant was the
meeting between these two men in the wilds of Louisiana, who separated when boys
in old Georgia. Mr. Kimball at that time was living on the John Frazier place,
now known as the Keener place. Mr. Kimball was anxious for all new comers to do
well, so he told father of a good place about three and a half miles southeast
of Athens, known as the Nelson place, and which he thought could be bought cheap
and on good terms. Nelson had moved to Arkansas, leaving this place in charge of
Col. Lang Lewis, as agent. On agreement, early next morning, Col. Kimball was
back at our camp, and in a little while he and father went off together to look
at the Nelson place. On examination father was so well pleased that he and the
Colonel went direct to Col. Lewises, and, behold, here came together three old
Georgian boys, now men with families in the far West. Father did not hesitate to
make known his business to Col. Lewis; a trade was soon made, a good dinner
partaken of, and a long old Georgia talk indulged in all round. Then father and
Col. Kimball set out for our camp in Athens, to bring the good tidings that we
had a home now, and would next day be under our own shelter. I tell you that was
a happy camp that night. The next morning, January 10th, we rolled out of camp
for home where father lived until September 30, 1867, on which day he died, aged
seventy-four years.
     When we settled down in our Louisiana home, the country was new, open and
full of game, such as turkey, deer, ’coon , etc. We could have venison or a
turkey just any day. Often we would have as many as a dozen dried venison hams
at a time. Wolves were numerous and very troublesome. They were very fond of
pigs, and many a night have I heard a pig squeal as Mr. Wolf was flying off with
him to the thicket. They disappeared in 1852, and the last bear killed in our
neighborhood was in 1850 by Thomas Berry and A. J. Durant, near the old Windfall
race track. Lands were cheap, $2.50 per acre on an average up to 1848. It was
very productive often making as much as forty bushels of corn per acre.
     There were only a few common watermills in the country then, and when the
summer came the winter and spring supply of water in the ponds would become
exhausted, and of course the mills would stop grinding. Two were on the Murrell
creek and one just below old Russellville, on the Berry Creek. There were a few
horse mills and gins here and there. Densmore Cargile and Sam Leatherman had
mills attached to their gin machinery and made very good meal. The tole then was
only one fourth of the grist. Wonderful changes and improvements have taken the
place of those early day makeshifts. But we all thought nothing of it then,
satisfied in believing we had the best times could afford. Now I am in hearing
of eight steam mill whistles where lumber of all kind is made corn ground and
cotton ginned, and even pressed by  steam at some of them.
     As for churches and schools, very little interest was taken in them when we
first landed in this country. But in 1850, when the Georgians and Alabamians
began to crowd into the country, a great interest in both church and school was
soon manifested, and this interest has been making more or less progress up to
this date, as is proven by the numerous schools and churches throughout the
parish.
     Perhaps it may be well to name the families living in this part of the
parish when we came their descendants or many of them are here yet. We will name
the McFarlands, Brinsons, Nelsons, related families; Albert Ashbrook, Jessie
Long, Luther and Dave Pratt, Esquire Russell, the Butler’s, Browns, Isaac Alden,
Peter Franks, Berry Wilson, Jim Lee, R. L. Killgore, James Dial, Madden, Sr.,
Thompson, Tom Berry, Martin and Jimmy Crow, Bob Henderson, Wright, Sam Williams,
Leathermans, Pruits, Taylors, Cargile, John Wilson, Parker and Barfield, Mullens
and Charley Hays, father of C. L. Hays. Some of these families were in the
Russellville and others in the Athens neighborhood. Near Athens you will find
Thomas Leatherman, who has ever proved himself a worthy citizen, and C. L. Hays,
Who has as few enemies (if he has any) as any matt living, and Isaac Butler, who
yet loves the fun of beaver, rapping, and Tom Crow, who can makes dollar and has
sense enough to save it. Among the old ladies ye, among us, who were young and
in their prime when th6y came here, let me mention Aunt Charity Berry; she is
about eighty-five years old and is still living on the place where she first
settled, fifty years ago. My old step mother also, who came to this land of
promise with father thirty six years ago, is still living, and is seventy-eight
years old.
     Russellville being the parish cite (sic) of Claiborne Parish, perhaps a few
words as to its history may not be out of place here.  Its settlement began, if
I mistake not, about 1825. B.L. Killgore deposited the money in the Land Office
at Natchitoches to enter the land on which the Village was built. This deposit
of the purchase money was made at the request of many citizens in order to
secure that particular locality for the town as the land in that part of the
parish had not yet been surveyed. The courthouse and jail, both of wood, were
promptly erected, also several small business houses and grog shops. It was a
wild place inhabited in part and visited by a number of hard cases to be found
in all new countries, Russellville had the honor of the first man tried,
convicted and hung as the law directs. The miserable man, Halthouser, was hung
about half a mile east of the courthouse. R. L. Killgore, one of the early
merchants of Claiborne, first sold goods, etc., near the Murrell place and next
at Russellville. Lee and Berry Wilson were with him. Soon after commencing
business in Russellville he married Miss Maxia A. Miller, whose father was the
first white man buried in the Murrell graveyard. Killgore was a popular and
worthy citizen, and the people showed their appreciation of him by electing him
parish judge, which office he filled eight years. He was next elected by the
Democratic party to represent Claiborne Parish in the State legislature,
defeating his Whig opponent, James Dial, by a large majority. Killgore, after
serving his term in the legislature, retired to private life, esteemed by all.
He raised a large family of children five boys and six girls. He lost two
gallant sons in the late war, and his youngest son was the first person buried
at Salem church. Judge Killgore died in 1871 and his wife in 1883. Both were
buried by the side of their son.
     A parting word about Russellville. We have referred to her when she was in
all her pride and prosperity. When the courthouse was moved her glory departed.
The village ground is now an old worn out field, and the only house that was a
part of the village stands solitary and alone, just above the spring. This was
the house of Judge Killgore, and is the oldest house in this part of the parish.
Having referred to Athens as she was thirty-six years ago, let me refer to her
as she is now. Athens is situated in the midst of a good and religious people.
There are none better, taken all in all in the parish. She has two first rate
Baptist and Methodist, each blessed with a large membership. She has the
parsonage of the Tulip circuit-has a good school--a good doctor-two commodious
storehouses--a good steam gin and gristmill--a blacksmith and woodshop and a
post office with four mails a week. Four public roads lead to and from the
village, and on each are several beautiful residences. And now let me close this
little narrative by advising all men to obey the laws; keep God's commandments,
and then we will dwell in peace and harmony.

CHAPTER VII.

OVERLAND, FROM WEST POINT, GEORGIA, THROUGH NORTH LOUISIANA TO
ARKANSAS AND BACK TO CLAIBORNE

     On the 8th of December, 18,3, with wife and four children, I left my old
Georgia home for the State of Arkansas. There had been a continued and unusual
amount of rain, the streams were much swollen and the roads were almost
impassible. On this account, when we reached Eutaw, in Green County, Ala., we
stopped four months. This place had lately been made the county site,
consequently it was fall of life  and activity in the way of improvements. The
surrounding lands were rich, and mostly owned by wealthy planters. We utilized
our time and skill while in this place. The first of May, 1844, I was en route
to the West. B.P. Robinson, who left Georgia with us, had stopped over at
Greensborough, the late county site of Green. He left Greensborough the day
before we left Eutaw, it having been agreed that we should meet at a certain
place , but in this we failed, and I moved on. But Robinson overtook me at Pearl
River, in Mississippi. At Jackson we took the road to Rodney, having learned we
could not get through the Mississippi bottom opposite Vicksburg.
     Crossing the river we traveled down the west bank to Waterproof. Then we
left the river, turning northwest to Green's bayou. And this was our first day
west of the great river. In Alabama and in Mississippi we had seen large bodies
of rich land and magnificent farms stretched out as far as the eye could reach,
around splendid mansions. My thoughts would go back to Morgan County, Ga, where
I was born and partly raised, and to Troup County which I had so lately left,
and the contrast was wonderful.
     We found a great deal of poor land though, both in Alabama and Mississippi;
but when we beheld the land west of the Mississippi we found the soil far beyond
anything we had ever imagined. We could but think of that granary of the world,
the land of the Nile, in Egypt. We had some trouble in crossing Green's Bayou,
for it was full. Getting side by side two dry cypress logs, we made a raft, and
fortunately, being in the days when corded bedsteads were in vogue, we tied our
bed cords to the trees on either bank and thereby drew our raft across. We
carried a wagon at each trip, then carried over the women and children and last
swam our stock over. We were of course delayed here some time, in the midst of
immense canebrakes, cypress and other swamp growth. The noises of this howling
wilderness at night were peculiar and to us horrible. Believing we had crossed
the most difficult stream on our way to Sicily Island, we resumed our journey in
good spirits, but were soon and sadly disappointed. We came to the Tensas River,
where the Choctaw enters it, at Kirke's Ferry, and was told and saw that there
was no chance of pursuing our way to Sicily Island by land, for from the ferry
to the island nearly everything was under water. We pitched our camp on the edge
of a canebrake near the banks of the river, and fed our stock on cane. There
were but few settlers near our camp, which made it rather lonely, and as the
river was rising very fast, we also felt a little uncomfortable, for retreat was
impossible. (sic) Apprehensive that our camping place might be entirely
submerged, we determined to build a proper raft, and try to make our way down
the Tensas. Robinson had three sons nearly grown, a lad of a boy, a negro man
and woman. I had one negro woman. We determined to utilize all our force in
building our raft, had determined on plan and size, and were about to commence
work, when as fortune would have it, up came a little stern wheel boat,
propelled by horse­power, Hailing this boat she came to land, and it was not
long before we made a trade with the proprietor to take us around to
Harrisonburg, on the Ouachita River , but as the boat was on her up trip, we had
to remain in our disagreeable camp two or three days, and daring this time we
took to pieces our hack and wagons. On the return of the boat we got our
families aboard, then our teams, and so placed our wagons as to prevent our
stock from falling overboard. Our horse steamboat moved down stream slowly, and
on reaching Waterproof, greatly to our annoyance, remained there some time.
     We could only be patient, however, and abide our boat’s time. At last up
the Ouachita, we went creeping along, taking three days to make a trip of
seventy miles. We landed at Harrisonburg in the night, but desiring to leave
that boat, we went to work and got everything ashore and had our wagons together
ready for an early move the next day. Harrisonburg was a small place and looked
rather ancient boasted of two or three business houses with small stocks of
goods. Turning our way north we found the country very poor, but having plenty
of fine pine timber; occasionally would be passed a body of good land, and now
and then a settlement on the road we traveled. We began to feel discouraged, to
think we had left behind the Eden of America.
     When we reached Jackson Parish, we found a little more promising country,
more settlements, and the people had plenty of all the substantials.
Water­melons were abundant and free. Pushing on through, we reached and crossed
D'Arbonne near the junction of Corni Bayou. On reaching Farmerville, then a new
place and improving rapidly, we rested a while. Leaving Farmerville with a good
impression of its people, we pursued our journey through Union Parish to Union
County, Arkansas, and stopped at a place which afterwards became known as
Lisbon. After crossing the D'Arbonne, we found the lands generally to be of a
deep sandy soil, well watered, with an abundance of pine timber. A peculiarity
of this region I noticed, was a swamp growth all over the hills, and this was a
new chapter to me. Emigration was pouring into this hill country from all the
Southern States. A few of the old settlers, "Hoosiers," some called them, who
had been here for years and who had made hunting their main business, still
remained on their old homes. They were generous and kind, though rude in their
way, but felt grieved at seeing the forest, in which they had spent so many
happy days, so ruthlessly cut down. Most of the emigrants of that day were men
of some means, with growing families. Union County tilled rapidly with a class
of men, take them all in all, that could not be surpassed in those sentiments
that go to make up a reliable and trusty people. About the time Eldorado was
laid off into lots, 1845, I settled down about two miles from it, but remained
only one year. The improvement of town and country that year was wonderful, and
for years the agricultural yield was great. But in a few years the lands washed
badly and began to fail when they should have been in their prime. We left Union
County the last of December, 1845, and went to Deshee County.
     We got to our new home in the early part of January, 1846. Deshse is a
river county, and Napoleon, situated at or near the mouth of the Arkansas River,
was and yet may be the county site. I spent the year in that part of the country
lying between the Barthalomew and Saline Rivers. In 1847 I had to move, but it
was only to another place in the same region. Being in the saddle most of the
time, I traveled over large portions of the country, but mostly in the Arkansas
River sections. From Pine Bluff to the Arkansas Post the lands were very rich,
and a number of large farms were being worked there. A few farms only were back
from the river. At the close of the year, I moved to Drew County, settling down
in the parsonage, where I remained during 1848 and '49.
     Having to change my location, I moved to a small town not far from
Monticello, known as Rough and Ready. At the close of 1850, I was broken down in
health, and with a dependent and expensive family of seven children to raise and
educate. Having visited Claiborne Parish, I decided to make that my home.
Leaving Pine Bluff in the latter part of December, I arrived in Claiborne in
April, 1857, having been delayed by business on the way. There was then a heavy
tide of emigration pouring in. I have never seen more energy displayed than was
displayed by these newcomers. Thousands of acres were yearly cut down and
brought into cultivation. As to intelligence and morality, this community was
comparable with any. There were many men of sterling and superior worth here.
The soil of the parish, her prodigality of forests, were unsurpassed by any
upland parish in the state or county in south Arkansas. From 1850 to 1861, the
accumulation of property in the parish was immense, churches were established
everywhere; schools in every neighborhood; prosperity blessed the land and the
people were just and happy. But the war cloud came down in 1861, and the present
and promising future vanished in the turmoil and devastation of
marching and contending armies.

CHAPTER VIII.

OTHER SETTLEMENTS AND NEIGHBORHOODS ANTIBELLUM (sic)
VILLAGES PERSONAL MENTION INCIDENTS, ETC.,

     Although the tide of emigration had been steadily increasing in volume, it
was not till 1850 that it reached its flood; then the rush, by land and by
water, was continuous and immense, particularly to the eastern portion of the
parish. Up to about that year, this part of Claiborne was rather thinly
populated but those that had come in were of the best material. It was composed
of such families as that of O'Banon, Hargis, Dr. Bush, Thomson, Nolan, Williams,
Smith Barber, Wasson, Bruce, Kennedy, Hall, Nelson, Wafer, Bullock, Aitken,
Stephenson, Dyer, Gee, Butler, Henderson and Henry, James Dyer, Sam'l Smith, Dr.
Bush and Richard Hargis, who once, represented the parish in the State
Legislature. These pioneers came to North Louisiana when it was one of the most
charming countries in the west. The axe had never resounded in these forest
isles, save the chipping of the early surveyor. The forest was grand in its
primeval state; the cloth of green spread interminably, presenting a vast range
for all manner of stock in summer, and in winter was the switchcane on the
hill­sides and dense masses of large growth in the bottoms. The huge oaks never
failed to furnish a bountiful supply of mast, or acorns. Game, consisting of
bear, deer, turkey, wolf, fox, cat, ducks, numerous birds, fish in such
quantities that the supply really appeared inexhaustible. It was certainly the
happiest community to be found. Unpretending, possessed with a bountiful supply
of the real comforts of life, with elementary schools in log cabins, the
pathetic story of the Cross told under some umbrageous arbor, or in a rude log
house with puncheon floor and seats , with wants few, and ways just, these
people were happy.
     But about 1849-50, this primeval land was found by the working Georgian and
Alabamian, and from 1850 to 1861 lands changed ownership rapidly, the large area
of public lands, then vacant, were soon entered. Then indeed the busy hum of
agricultural industry commenced in earnest.

     "Loud sounds the axe, redoubling stroke on stroke, On all sides round, the
forest, hurls the oak. Headlong, deep echoing, groan the thickets brown, Then
cracking, crashing, rushing, thunder down."

     And the busy thud of the massive mawl, swung by black sinewy arms, kept
time to the old plantation song of the simple happy negro, which for its
plaintive melody can never be recalled on stage or in song. Roads were opened,
the bayous bridged, academies were built and churches reared, in which such men
as Randal, Wafer, Pennington, Fancher, Fuller, Simmons and others of equal
ability and earnestness worked to develop the religious spirit of the people.
Up sprang the village of Lisbon, surrounded and built by many well known
families. I recall those of Killgore, McClendon, Cook, Duke, Patton, Tate,
Bullard, White, Simmons, Heard, Coleman, Tippet, Aycock, McCasland, Dawson,
Williams, Pennington and many others, with Dr. Seth Tatum, making it a live
village.
     A few miles west of Lisbon was the thriving business stand of Forest Grove,
the leading spirit of which was that truly good and upright man, Frank Taylor.
He now sleeps in the bosom of Texas, and the place he once made noted throughout
Claiborne, is now pointed out by the cold marble shaft in its silent forest
grave yard. Here rests the remains of that eloquent and active Christian, Tatum
Wafer; and Dr. Scaife, a physician of note and a man of business; of Milton
Barnett, and many others whose memory is yet green in the hearts of surviving
friends and relatives. The Methodist Church at this place was the most noted in
the parish in its day, for here the ablest men preached and the most effective
work was accomplished in the name of the Master. North from this place on the
banks of the Corni flourished for years the active village of Scottsville at the
supposed head of navigation on that stream. But navigation never came. Yet such
men as Major Browning, Dr Bush, Thomas Hart, the Stanleys and others like these,
gave it life and vigor for years. But the village is now dead and no longer
known.
      West of this place was situated the little inland village of Colquitt,
surrounded by such men as John Wilson, Elbert Gray, the Tignors, and others,
whose names we cannot now recall. Blessed with a good church and a thrifty
community, it flourished as did Claiborne, but is now nearly silent. A few miles
west of this place, we come to Gordon, named for Dr. Gordon, who started it, and
is now, if living, a citizen of Texas. It too, was surrounded by an active, go-
ahead community, and flourished to the outbreak of the war.
     We next come to Haynesville. The original name of  the place was Taylor's
Store, for J. C. Taylor, who opened a small retail business there in 1848.
Previous to that date, in 1843, Hiram Brown had located close by, also J. C.
Wagon and L. S. Fuller, in 1844. In 1846 Miles Buford and Samuel Boyd cast their
fortunes in this settlement, and in 1849 Henry Taylor came among them. Yearly
the settlement increased in numbers, and farms, large and small, were opened. In
consequence of this increase in population and agriculture, Wm. W. and J. L.
Brown began a mercantile business, next door to Taylor. Sam Kirkpatrick and Dr.
Wroten opened a drug business. Up to 1848 very little of the public lands had
been entered in this neighborhood, and farming was on rather a small scale. The
country was full of game, and deer skins and hams were staple articles of trade.
But with THC rush of emigration that began in 1850 and which continued up to
1860, new ideas came, new wants and new industries. Agriculture began in
earnest, and in a few years large farms were in every direction, the public
lands were all entered, roads opened and a mighty prosperity was exhibited all
through the region.
      Summerfield, situated in the northeastern portion of the parish, is a
thriving village of about one hundred and twenty inhabitants. It was settled by
W. R. Kennedy in l868, by the erection of a wood and black­smith shop, and a
business house. It now has four stores dealing in general merchandise and
plantation supplies, several drug stores, a saw and gristmill, and several mills
in the vicinity , all run by steam. It has four churches, M. E. Church South,
Methodist Protestant, Missionary Baptist, and Primitive Baptist, all with live
and progressive congregations. The town has a good school building, with a good
and regular attendance of pupils. The four stores do an aggregate business of
about fifty thousand dollars annually. The town has two mails a week. The
country around is in a prosperous condition, and with good water, pure air, good
health, and a fertile soil. Summerfield and its neighborhood offer strong
inducements to those hunting homes. The land is well timbered, and can be
bought, at from one to five dollars per acre. The agricultural future of this
section of our parish is bright for him who puts his heart in his farm work and
will use progressive methods of tillage.
     About six miles east of Homer is located the beautiful village of Arizona.
Soon after the war a magnificent cotton factory was erected at this place,
capable of employing a large number of hands. Its inconvenience to easy and
rapid transportation, with other trouble, caused it to cease operating after a
few years. It is now owned by John Chaffe of New Orleans, and is motionless.
Arizona for a number of years, was the seat of Arizona Seminary, a very popular
and flourishing school under the principalship of J. W. Nicholson, now the
eminent Professor of Mathematics in the State University at Baton Rouge.
Notwithstanding the discontinuance of the factory, and the decadence of its
school, Arizona has held many of its best citizens, the Willises, Wafers,
Nicholsons, Drs. Calhoun and Baker, Dutcher, Corrys, etc., and is happily
blessed with, surrounding community of thrift, morality, and intelligence. In
addition to the school and factory buildings, Arizona has one or more stores in
operation, and a large and excellent meetinghouse, the property of the M. E.
Church South, in which large and intelligent congregations meet regularly for
religious worship.
     Tulip, another small village, situated about nine miles southeast of Homer,
was, until quite recently, a fine trading point. Here for many years, P.
Marsalis & Sons have carried on a heavy general merchandise and supply business;
but lately much of their custom has, been drawn to Arcadia, a rising town on the
V. S. & P. Railroad, twelve miles south; and to meet the exigencies brought
about by this change, they have moved the greater portion of their business to
that place. Besides its store and post office, Tulip owns a steam saw and grist
mill, a steam cotton gin, a school­house, and a commodious and very good
Methodist meeting house. There are a number of other steam cotton gins and saw
mills in the immediate neighborhood, no less than five or six steam whistles
being in easy hearing of the place. Tulip is noted for the steady and
churchgoing habits of its people, and for the permanence and excellence of its
school. The neighboring lands are among the most productive in the parish, and
are occupied by a class of industrious and thrifty citizens. Among the old
settlers, we may mention the Watsons, Marsalises, Whites, Gandys, Fomby, Leslie,
Hays and others.
     The water shed of Claiborne is quite simple; Dorcheat carrying the water
from the western slopes to Red River and D’Arbonne and Corni to the Ouachita
River from the eastern slope. From D'Arbonne east the country is gently rolling,
but from D'Arbonne to Sugar Creek south, the ridges are more sharply defined,
particularly near the bayou, as well as the valleys and plains. This portion of
the parish was very thrifty in the antibellum (sic) days, and claimed the
largest farms and heaviest taxpayers, of whom I recall the names of W. A. Obier,
S. P. Gee, J. W. Andrews and B. C. Frazier. The Sugar Creek and adjoining lands
were fine, and here were to be found the Hood family from Alabama, Buck Edmunds,
Perritt, Howard, Snider, Landers, Robinson and many others; here their numerous
industrious descendents are yet to be found.

     We cannot close these notes of the early days in Claiborne without
referring to two or three characters among the living and the dead.
     James Dyer, who represented this parish in the State Legislature when the
country was in its primeval state left just after the war, an old gray headed
man, with his young wife and several children, for Texas. He has been dead for
some years.
     Josephus Barrow, a leading man in the Primitive   Baptist Church, and who
died six or eight years ago,   was a worthy man and well qualified. He was a
good
neighbor and an active citizen, possessed of strong natural ability, considerate
in the discharge of all his duties in obedience to the law of his God, as he
understood it. He was steadfast in his friendship, his word was his law,
provided for his family, left them a competency and has many children to revere
his memory and follow in his path of truth and honor.
     Joshua Willis, yet with us, a native of Virginia, but from Troup County,
Georgia, to this parish, now in his 90th year, belongs to that modest but true
type of Virginia, gentlemen, that secures the regard and esteem of all good
people. He has a numerous family of sons and daughters, grand and great grand
children around him. Courteous in manner, even in his temper, just in his ways,
he can truly say he is ready to leave without an enemy. His good wife, Aunt
Barbara, who had stood by his side aiding and encouraging in all the
vicissitudes of his long life, has gone to her happy home. And now, as this
upright old man, veteran of the War of 1812, a pensioner of the United States,
nears the apex of that mount which stands before all the human family, he no
doubt feels in his heart that when his eyes look out upon the pleasant, restful
plains of the true promised land, that wife who was the soul and the pride of
his young days, and his prop and stay in the hard toils of this life, will be
the first to greet, as of yore, and welcome him home.
     But here comes another character before us, with head gray but not bowed,
and eye flashing as ever--Capt. W. G. Coleman. Genial in manner, with a good
word for all, he was and is yet a son of Carolina. An ardent subscriber to the
Calhoun school of polities, in his early manhood he was an outspoken nullifier,
and in older years a bold and defiant secessionist. His first taste of war was
as a volunteer, under Captain Jarnigham, in THC Creek War of 1837. Returning to
Carolina he married, and in his native State remained till the death of his
wife. The charms of old Carolina now became dimmed to his eyes, and with his
four children he emigrated in 1844 to Perry County, Alabama. Here he contracted
a second marriage, and this wife, who has borne him eight children, is yet with
him. In 1846, when Mexico declared war against the United States, he was one of
THC first to respond to his country's call, at the head of one hundred gallant
men, known as the Perry Rangers. He joined Col. Coffee's regiment of Alabama
volunteers, and with that regiment: for twelve months, was engaged in all it,
marches, hardships and battles. And here let us not fail to recall the name of
his faithful body servant, Sep.  Although in a free country and other servants
fleeing to the Mexican lines, Sep stood fast by his master, nursed him in
sickness, faithfully administered to his wants when worn down with fatigue and
exposure, and not only to him but to others of the company when he possibly
could. He had the good will and confidence of all the men, became the custodian
of their little treasures and never betrayed a trust. Returning home with his
master, he died in his arms, and as his glazing eyes looked up into that kind
master's face for the last time, that master's stricken heart blessed the
faithful Afric son. In 1850, Capt. Coleman moved to Claiborne Parish, and being
fond of the chase greatly enjoyed the rare sports of the day. In 1854, he with
Col. J. W. McDonald, in a hotly contested campaign, as the Democratic
candidates, gained a signal victory over the then rampant Know Nothing party. He
has refused all political preferment since. When the war of secession was about
to commence he, being to (sic) old to serve, drilled several volunteer companies
previous to their march to the front.
     Capt. Coleman joined the Missionary Baptist Church at Lisbon in 1854, and
was elected clerk of the church. For twenty three years he has as promptly taken
his seat at the desk as he did at the head of his company when the long roll
called it to arms on the arid plains of Mexico. Always fond of company, always ,
good neighbor, his friends are many. Having ever been temperate in his habits,
he now, although in his 80th year, writes a clear and even hand, and can yet
bring down his bird on the wing as often as the best shots among our young men.
Without enemies, with hosts of friends, he now serene and happy, awaits the
bidding of the Master, summoning him to the great church above.
     Another character who appeared in this parish between 1830 and 1840, and is
yet with us, is Col. John Kimball. A Georgian by birth, in his young man­hood he
sought this part of the western world, and by strict attention to duty and
business, secured to himself a competency and hosts of friends. He represented
this parish in the State Legislature in 1855-56 with credit to himself and
satisfaction to his people. He is now an old man, feeble in strength but with a
heart strong as ever; yet a tiller of the soil and with honor untarnished, he is
beloved by many and respected by all.
     Nathan Brown, with his wife and four children, left Tennessee in 1833,
crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis, from which point he made his way
slowly through the wilds of Arkansas, camped a day or two where now stands the
flourishing town of Prescott in amazement gazed at the magnificent meteoric
display in November of that year, and in the timbered lands on their route had
frequently to cut their way and as often dig down the banks of streams or bridge
them before crossing, finally landing at or near Crystal Springs, in Claiborne
Parish. Here he remained about five years, when he settled down at his home,
near Haynesville, where he has resided since. Prospering in this world's goods
he reared a large family of sons and daughters--sixteen only--thus enlargening
(sic) the
little family that left Tennessee toward a regiment in number. Mr. Brown, after
an absence of fifty two years, returned to Tennessee on a visit to a sister whom
he left a young married woman.  She is now a grandmother. Old and stricken in
years, but with honest hearts and dear consciences, this brother and sister
meeting will they recognize each other can they recall ,he young manly and sweet
womanly faces that separated so many years ago in Tennessee, when life's young
morning was bright, and so full of promise?
     Almost weekly can be seen on the. streets of Homer, the tall, erect form of
Isaac Gleason. He came from the swamps of the Mississippi and Ouachita to this
Parish in 1835. Born on the frontier and there raised, he is one of nature's
unsophisticated children, warm­hearted, liberal, just, doing evil to none. All
around Homer, in the D'Arbonne bottom was his hunting grounds, and many are the
bear, panther, turkey and deer that have fallen at the crack of his long flint
and steel Kentucky rifle. He claims to have killed the last bear that was killed
on the grounds of Homer. Nature was his school, and he has culled much profound
knowledge there from, knowledge by experience, which others only obtain by
reasoning. Uncle Isaac has raised a good family of sons and daughters, has given
his daughters every advantage the schools of Homer could offer, and now he can
safely point to all his children with pride, for they have taken their places
among the just and the good.
     As another of our old and honored citizens, we may mention Col. J.W. Berry,
who came to Claiborne in 1834, when a mere youth. In 1836 and 1837 he resided at
Overton. In 1838 he moved to Minden and engaged in merchandising, which he
continued till near the commencement of the war. He has been honored by his
fellow citizens with many positions of trust. In 1847 he was elected 1st
Lieutenant of a company of militia, and commissioned by Governor Isaac Johnson
In 1849 he was appointed on the staff of General Gilbert, of Shreveport; was
elected to the Legislature in 1851; elected Colonel of Claiborne Regiment in
1855; reelected to the Legislature in 1860; appointed Colonel in the Confederate
service, and assigned to duty as enrolling officer of Claiborne Parish; and was
again returned to the Legislature in 1864. Since the formation of Webster in
1871, Col. Berry has resided in that parish, and has been constantly honored
with public trusts.
     Among the early settlers of Claiborne Parish, who yet live, is W. F.
Moreland. Engaged in agriculture, he has never sought political preferment, but
at the request of his people has served them m both Houses of the Legislature.
In these positions he discharged the duties with marked judgment and ability,
and to the satisfaction of his constituency. In 1879, with Rev. J. T. Davidson,
he represented the Parish in the Constitutional Convention, and his course was
heartily endorsed by the people. Pure and irreproachable, he has passed through
the trying ordeals of public life with honor unsullied; and honored of a11 who
know him, he is now spending the evening of his life in the quiet of his country
home.

CHAPTER IX.

GERMANTOWN--ITS ORIGIN,   GROWTH AND    FINAL
DECAY.

     This is a town or settlement, the history of which is full of interest,
embracing much that is romantic; and could all the details be had, the events
would be thrilling. In 1830, and for some years previous, Germany had become
infected with revolutionary ideas that were then declared wild and dangerous,
and many of which, when attempted to be carried out, proved altogether
visionary. Among others who became involved in these schemes was the Count Von
Leon. His liberal movements or ideas were declared treason. He was arrested,
tried, and condemned to die, but a powerful influence which then pervaded
Germany came to his rescue, and his life was spared.  This mighty influence
emanated from the Masonic order. Count Leon had taken the highest degrees, and
in his own state Or principality, was the head of the order. Through this
influence his sentence was commuted to perpetual banishment. Bowing to this
cruel, though merciful sentence, as to the matter of life and death, in 1831
Count Von Leon of the principality of Hapsburg, and Madam the Countess Von Leon,
daughter of one of the merchant princes of Frankfort on the Rhine looking for
the last time on their native land, turned their faces to the west, giving up
all the comforts and luxuries of wealth and religion, an untried and unknown
home in far off America. Perhaps there are a few of our old people, from the
states east of the Mississippi River who raised in wealth and all its comforts,
but were suddenly reduced there from can realize and sympathize with the
miserable change that thus suddenly occurred in the life of this family,
aggravated too by knowing that a return to their old home was forever forbidden.
     Embarking at the nearest seaport, Count and Madam Leon, accompanied with
about 300 persons, who came with them as colonists to build up a new home in
untrammeled America, without accident or mishap on the sea, safely landed in the
City of New York. Resting here a while and the better to determine whither to go
the company moved down into Pennsylvania, the neighborhood of Pittsburg, where
?????? two years. Becoming dissatisfied on accounthn??? of the harshness of the
climate and the indifference or cold welcome meted out to them, some of the
company removed to Ohio and other northern states. But the main body, following
the fortunes of the Count and Countess, determined to seek a milder climate than
was to be found in the northern portion of United States. Having determined to
make Louisiana their home, they gathered up their stores, and after a long and
arduous journey, in which they endured many hardships and much suffering, they
landed safe near Natchitoches, on Red River. Here they located and commenced
business; but soon the colony fell victims to swamp fever of the most malignant
type. Count Leon and the most of his followers died and were buried here on the
banks of the Red River not under their native linden trees, but under the
stately cotton wood, and the solemn cypress. The Count and the most of his
faithful followers now sleep that long, dreamless sleep, in unknown graves
somewhere on the banks of the Red River. No friendly hand can ever decorate
their graves, but with each returning spring the wild flowers will bloom over
them and the tall cypress will keep ward over them till the morning of the
resurrection.
     How lonely and sad the Countess now weeping in a strange and far off
wilderness, over the grave of her husband! One of Louisiana’s noble
representatives in Congress introduced and had passed a bill, donating the
colony a good body of land in Claiborne. The colony was very wealthy when it
left Germany, but they had spent a large sum for implements and equipments which
were all lost, together with much of their jewelry and, fine furniture. A large
part of this wealth was sunk in barge boats on which they traveled. The last
articles of value which the Count owned was a beautiful set of Masonic regalia,
set with precious stones, and valued at $6,000. This was sold to the Catholic
Church at Natchitoches, and is, we believe, still in its possession.
The Countess now, after a stay of about two years on Red River moved with the
remnant of the colony to Claiborne Parish, and settled on the land donated
by Congress, which lies about twelve miles southwest of Homer. When they reached
their destination, there was not the sign of a habitation to receive them, nor
to be seen in that vicinity. The only road near was the military road from
Natchitoches to Fort Smith in Arkansas. Brought up in towns, these people knew
nothing of country life, but they went to work with 'willing hands and brave
hearts, and soon built themselves rude log houses to protect ,themselves from
the storms of winter and the heat of summer.
     The colony still had its own minister, physician, mechanics, etc., and of
course held everything in common. Here the colony engaged in agriculture and
merchandizing, and succeeded well. Their mercantile business was small at first,
but gradually increased till in 1870, they did a business which aggregated
$100,000. Their business was conducted on the credit system and a large number
of their customers failing to settle, in 1871 they failed. Had they enforced
collections, they might have continued to prosper financially , but recalling to
mind their own distresses years before, and the aid and sympathy extended to
them at that time, they deeply sympathized with their customers, who had lost
their all in the great civil war, and they could not find in their hearts to
oppress them. Noble Countess! that old ledger is her grandest monument.
Countess Leon left Germantown in 1871, went to Bastrop, La, and resided a while
there with her daughter. From Bastrop, she moved with her daughter to Hot
Springs Arkansas, where in 1881, she died at an advanced age.
     The Count Leon had but one son--a noble young man--greatly admired by all
who knew him. He died while yet young, in 1870, we believe of yellow fever, near
Vernon in Jackson Parish.
     A few months ago the writer of this sketch visited the scene of this old
settlement. The store and shops in which the former inhabitants did business,
are all gone. In a small house near, we found an aged gentleman--Wm.
Stakouskya--native of Germany, and one of those who came over with the Count
Leon. The old gentleman is a fine scholar and well read in both German and
English literature. At our request he recited the history of the colony, and
gave it an interest we have wholly failed to transfer to these pages.

CHAPTER X

Minden-Its Origin, Growth and Present Status

     Prior to February, 1871, at which time the Parish of Webster was created,
the town of Minden was embraced within the limits of Claiborne; its mention may
therefore be properly included in this work.
     This beautiful and thriving little city was founded in the year 1837, by
Charles H. Veeder.  Veeder was a man of great energy and enterprise.  At that
time Claiborne included the greater portion of the territory of North Louisiana
lying between the Ouachita and Red Rivers, and a movement being on foot to
divide the parish, which would necessitate the removal of the parish seat, Mr.
Veeder worked hard to have the new Courthouse located at Minden; and it was
principally through his efforts that an appropriation was secured from the state
to build “Minden Academy.”  Thus may be claimed for him the honor of having been
one the originators and the chief promoter of this institution, which was
subsequently change to Minden Female Seminary, and that later to Minden Female
College.  Defeated in his efforts to get the Courthouse, and failing
financially, Mr. Veeder soon after left the country.  He died at Bakersfield,
California, September 6, 1875 at the age of 79 years.  The following extracts
from an obituary notice published in the Weekly Courier of that place will be
interesting to those .who knew him: "Col. Veeder was born in Schenectady, N. Y.,
Oct. 1st, 1796. He was educated at Union College, Schenectady, and adopted the
profession of the law. At an early age he sought service in the War of 1812,
served with distinction, and was a pensioner of the government to the time of
his death for services rendered in that struggle. He was of a restless
disposition, and constantly sought excitement in new and stirring scenes. He
traveled the West and South pretty thoroughly, figuring at various
times in Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana and Texas, and finally finding his way to
California in 1849. Here he lived in Vallejo, Sonoma, Mendocino, and eventually
came to this place. Col. Veeder was a man of large intelligence, warm sympathies
and kindly instincts, and his loss will be generally deplored."
     Adam L. Stewart, who sold to Veeder, was probably the first white man to
occupy the ground on which Minden stands. The first merchants to follow Veeder
we re Wilson & Wells; Lee & Co.; Morrow, Berry & Co.; W. A. Drake, Sr.; and
Myers Fisher. Soon after these came John Chaffe, Foster Robinson, Berry &
Thompson, Harry Drake, Wm. Oliver, D. & J. H. Murrell, and others. Minden's
first lawyers were E. Olcott, Tillinghast Vaughn, D. L. Evans, G. W. Peets and
Andrew Lawson; and her first physicians were Wills, Pennell, Williams, and D. M.
Farland. Dick Thompson was the first hotelkeeper. His hotel stood where T. B.
Neal’s old brick store now stands. The first business house erected in Minden
was on the site of the handsome brick store now occupied by Leary & Crichton.
The site of the 01d Minden Academy is now occupied by Minden Female College.
Minden’s first newspaper was conducted by a Mr. Craig, and was Democratic. The
first church was built by the Methodists in 1839; the next by the Baptists in
1841. The Catholic church was established in 1867 and the Protestant Episcopal
in 1870. Of the pioneer citizens of Minden, Col. J. W. Berry, Dr. Dan M.
Farland, Wm. Hardy, E. Etter, and David Canfield are about all that remain in
the place. A few linger yet in other homes; the rest have gone to the silent
shore.
     In 1871, Minden became the parish seat of Webster, a new parish organized
that year from portions of Claiborne, Bossier and Bienville. The present
Courthouse was built immediately after the incorporation of the parish at a cost
of $25,000 and is one of the finest structures of the kind in this portion of
the State. In addition to its handsome Courthouse, Minden has many bountiful
residences, and numerous large and substantial brick stores, all of which
indicate the cultivated taste and solid prosperity of its people.
     The excellent location of Minden as a trading point, added to the liberal
and progressive policy of its merchants, assured it a prosperous business career
from the beginning. We have no figures to show the extent of its trade prior to
1882 but in that year there were shipped from the town 22,000 bales of cotton,
of which 15,000 bales were handled by its own merchants.
     In 1883, the shipment was 15,000 bales, of which its merchants bought
lO,O00. In 1884 the receipts were 10,000, and the purchase 9000. During the last
ten years the annual receipts have averaged fully 15,000 bales, of which its
merchants have handled about 10,000. Minden's average annual sales of
merchandise during this period, have aggregated fully half a million.
     The decline in business in l883 and 1884 was owing to the changes wrought,
first, by the extension of a branch of the Paramore Railroad to Magnolia, Ark.,
which town, in consequence has controlled about 5,000 bales of cotton that had
formerly gone to Minden; and secondly, by the completion of the V. S. & P road
running five miles south and cutting down its receipts another 5,000 bales.
     Such heavy inroads upon their business would have discouraged and paralyzed
many, but not so with these people. They were equal to the emergency. Nobly, and
with their accustomed zeal and activity, did ,they go to work and build a tap
connecting them with the V. S. & P. R. R.  which they have now completed at a
cost to themselves of nearly $50,000 and which connects them with every train on
the main line. They have also succeeded in impressing the V. S. & P. R. R.
authorities that Minden can control a large amount of business for their road,
which, until the completion of the tap, had gone to Magnolia. This together with
the fact that it is more to the V. S. & P. R. R.  to have business concentrated
at Minden than to meet the strong competition at Shreveport, has induced it to
give a through rate of freights to and from Minden for less than that of any
other town along its line. To compensate the V. S. & P. for this concession, the
Minden men have agreed to do all their shipping by rail, not patronizing the
boats at all, believing that the rates they have obtained from the road are
about as low as they formerly were by boat.
     The merchants of Minden repudiate the idea of the railroads having done
anything for them as a favor but claim that its geographical position has made
Minden a competitive point; not, however, to the extent of Shreveport, but
sufficiently so to entitle it to the comparative freight rates given,
These advantages Minden now enjoys, and the high financial  standing of its
business men, and the energy and pluck displayed by them in laying out $50,000
in cash on their branch road, and this just after the loss of $40,000 by the
burning of some 1200 bales of their cotton two years age and the financial
embarrassment occasioned by the failure of some of their friends in New Orleans
last spring, are a sufficient guarantee that Minden is to be herself again. She
will ship fifteen to eighteen thousand bales of cotton this season,(1885-1886),
and with a good crop next year, 25,000 bales are the figures set by her
merchants. Minden claims that she should handle all the cotton in Webster
Parish, and in the west half of Claiborne; and will contend for the trade of
Bienville Parish lying around Ringgold, an d believes that hereafter, in time of
low water a considerable amount of cotton will come to her from Red River below
Loggy Bayou. Minden is amply able to pay cash for all the cotton brought to
her, and with her reduced freights, she is certainly a formidable competitor of
the towns along the line of the road; and when the known liberality and
progressiveness of her merchants are taken into the account, there is very
strong additional inducement for farmers to patronize her market.
     For her educational advantages, Minden is not surpased (sic) by any town in
the State, nor, as for that matter hardly any where else. Her Female College is
one of the oldest institutions west of the Mississippi River, giving superior
education to young women. Its alumni, widely scattered over the State, have
always maintained the high position the College holds in the public estimation.
They are among the most honored wives and daughters of her citizens. Many of
them have achieved distinction as writers of prose and poetry, and some of them
are among the best female teachers in the State. A brief history of the school,
we are sure, will be interesting to the reader.
     In 1838, Minden Academy was organized and was successively conducted by
Rev. R. T. Baggs, Henry M..Spofford, Prof. Burke, Rev. Wm. Brooks and Rev. W. H.
Scales. In 1850, the name was changed to Minden Female Seminary by organizing it
under the first Board of Trustees.
     The first Principal of the Seminary was John S. Garvin, who took charge in
September, 1850.  He did not finish a scholastic year, but resigned and left it
in charge of some of his associates, who were assisted by J. D. Watkins, then
one of the principals of the Minden Male Academy his associate being A. B.
George. Of these teachers, Mr. Spofford subsequently became one of the eminent
Supreme Judges of La, and Mr. Watkins a Judge of the District Court now one of
the most distinguished jurists of the State. Mr. George is now one of the
eminent Judges of the Court of Appeals.
     In 1853, a new Board of Trustees was formed, who elected Mr. S. L. Slack as
principal. Under his administration the name was changed by Act of Incorporation
to Minden Female College. President Slack began his administration by securing
funds and erecting the main buildings of the College and no man ever brought to
it more zeal, energy and ability. THC buildings erected under his supervision
show the wisdom of his plans.
     President Slack resigned and was followed by J. Franklin Ford. This
gentleman succeeded in having two additional buildings added to the College one
the large Concert Hall, the other a large building for boarders. Under the
administration of President Ford, which lasted six years the college was in a
most prosperous condition. In February, 1862, he resigned, and was succeeded by
J. E. Bright, D. D. Dr. Bright was a scholar of rare attainments, and a minister
of great celebrity. A large number of pupils from every part of the State
attended while he was in charge. He served as President eight years, resigning
in January, 1871.
     The next President was Rev. T. B. Russell, who served only one year,
resigning on account of ill health. After the departure of Mr. Russell, the
Board employed Miss Mildred Boyle, as Principal. Miss Boyle had been one of Mr.
Russell's associate teachers, was a graduate of the College, and had taken the
first honors of her class. She managed the institution very successfully until
failing health compelled her resignation.
     In 1876, Col. Thos. O. Benton, formerly of the law firm of Garrett, Benton
& Slack of Monroe, La., was elected President. Col Benton, a profound lawyer and
elegant scholar, held the position three and a half years. Resigning, he was
succeeded by Col. George D. Alexander, who was elected President for five and a
half years. Col Alexander entered upon the discharge of his duties in February,
1879, and the term of his office will expire with the scholastic year 1885-86.
He is a gentleman of erudite scholarship, and the reputation of the college has
increased greatly under his administration.
     The old Minden Academy, erected mainly through the agency of Charles H.
Veeder, was, as we understand, a school for both boys and girls.. When it was,
changed to Minden Female Seminary, in 1850. provision was made for the separate
education of boys. The present Male Academy was built about that time mainly
through the liberality of W. A. Drake, Sr. who donated the sum of $1500 for that
purpose, thus putting himself on record as one of the benefactors of Minden,
and of his race. This school has been in charge of many able teachers, and has a
high reputation.
     Its pure water, good health, pleasant location, fine residences and
beautiful shade trees, together with the literary air of its citizens, render
Minden a most desirable place for a home, where both daughters and sons may
receive a finished education.

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