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Early Settlers
Personal History
1. Mrs.
Ellen Logan Hoover (father John C. Logan, mother Miss Dorthea Crow)
2.
407 York Street, Mena, Ark.
3.
Retired
4. House wife
5. 4-18-1849
6. Clark County – Antone, Ark.
[sic Antoine is in Pike County]
7. James
C. Hoover 1871- Pike County - near
Mr. faus baro [Forester?] farm
9.
Native of Ark
10.
Borned in Ark.
11. --
12. --
13. Two room cabin with puncheon floors, built-in beds and scant
homemade furniture. One room was used for general living purpose, the
other kitchen and dining room, some times an attic was built for the
boys, and as the family increase "lean tos" were attached. The fireplace
served both to give heat and a place to cook and in many cases to give
light. Beds were covered with well filled mattress of hay, grass or
corn shucks. During the winter months a feather mattress was added,
home spun blankets, colored with vegetable dye, and quilts, some clever
designs, were made from old clothing. Chairs were few, long wide boards
laid on supports served as tables.
14. Pine knots set on rocks in the fire place gave added rays to
that of the burning fire. The more prosperous made candles from the
tallow and later used wicks in oil.
15. 1896
16. Wood.
17. Wild game was plentiful - deer, bear, opossum, fox, wildcat,
raccoons, squirrel -
The meat from these animals was especially needed during the
winter and spring before the former could make a crop – fish was
plentifully, however the pioneers depended on wild animals - turkey,
geese, ducks, quail - for their meat supply. From corn they made
hominy, cracklin bread, corn meal mush; from
wheat they made bread. Milk and milk products, beans, honey from wild
bees, juice from sorghum was boiled and made in to syrup. From lye, (in
the ash hopper), grease and bacon rinds they made their own soap.
Made their butter in wooden churns. They had fresh and dried fruit.
18. The pioneer women cut and made their clothing, knitted socks,
spun cotton and wool into thread and wove thread into material for
clothing - They also worked in the fields.
19. Charivaris were frequent. The bride always served
refreshments.
20. Eggs 3 cents a dozen. Meat 3 cents to 6 cents a pound sometimes no market for
it. They exchange farm products for household necessities - coffee, 60
cents per lb., salt $6.50 per barrel (300 lbs.), cotton cards $2.00 per
pair.
21. If they had unexpected company, no meat or other food would
go to the neighbors “smokehouse and help themselves - when they got
groceries of their own they returned it, If they never returned it
this was alright.
22. Corn, wheat, grain, pumpkins
23. Homemade ---
24. 1866 -Wade Hilton water mill on Board Camp Creek. First cotton gin
3 miles N. E. of Dallas built by a man called Kuykendall. The gin had no
press - cotton was not boled then as it was raised only for home use.
First water mill in Polk County was located on Two-mile Creek. It ceased
operation about 1854. 1867 the first steam (saw and grist) mill was owned
by a man named Ash Ford located on Day Creek.
25. Sassafras roots was used for a tea, sweet gum resin was chewed for
gum. Poke salad was used as greens - and was the first green vegetable in
the spring.
26. Life was hard few social contacts were available. Leisure
moments did come when Family groups gathered together, wrestling matches,
horse shoe pitching, foot racing, shooting matches were prominent forms of
recreation – women had their quilting bees. Weddings and Fourth of July
celebrations big events. When a new family arrived in a community and took
up a piece of land, neighbors for miles around would gather and help build
a house - called "house raising." They helped him clear the land he had
felled - again they rallied to "log rolling." His land was now ready to plant and
cultivate his land. Not long after the "house raising" they returned
to see them, ate
together, played together, and finally prayed together, humble as they
were, for
their health their homes and their neighbors – annual camp meetings to
which pioneers and their families for miles around gathered and formed
the heart of their religious activities, one of these was located at
Mountain Fork in the westerns part of the county 1847 (was in use 'til
1882). A large shed was built, surrounded by many crude camp puncheons
laid on logs. Scaffold covered with dirt were erected to hold pine knots
fires to give light. Early in the fall while crops were ripening, people
with they wagons piled high with children, food, bedding, dogs, and
cooking utensils started for the camping ground to stay two weeks, three
or four weeks depending upon the success of the preacher, whose eloquence
rose to great heights, bad with the sinners. The whole meeting was a feast
of prayer preaching, singing, shouting. The old mourners bench had a
conspicuous position at the front. These meetings held not only for
spiritual revival but for forming of friendships, were oasis in religious
and social life of these people.
Colorful and picturesque of extempore discourses by
illiterate ministers featuring “brim stone and damnation" brought
forth sympathetic responses such as shouting, groaning, jumping and
even swooning and falling. Many a child became meek and submissive as he
heard the mighty rumblings of the old philosophy spare the rod spoil the
child.
27. Many interesting stories are told about early fire fighter who
very often traveled afoot a distance of five or six miles up and down
mountains through pitch darkness, in order to reach a fire. Uncle Tom
Jones tells of fighting a fire which began at Eagleton and spread along
Fourche Mountain until it was stopped at Foran Gap, a distance of nine
miles.
28. The shrub, witch hazel blooms all winter among the rock. Red
bud fringes the water ways. To hill is gay with pink and white
azalea. The dogwood would whiten the forest on every land. Red and yellow
honey suckles - yellow mountain violets, with warm brown centers.
Coral
pink red anemones - mandrake and may apple along the streams one finds
the delicate sweet- scented blossom of the crested dwarf iris, yellow
wood - betony - blue forget-me-nots. Vines of the carrion flowers climbs
over
fallen log and dead stumps - Jack-in-the-pulpit - wild hydranges,
purple avens - even the waters do not lack floral decorations. The quiet
stretches of the river are often boarded with the floating pods and
the small yellow spatterdocks of the water lily family - ferns in
abundance.
29. --
30. --
31. --
32. --
33. Don't recall early teachers, father was a educated man and
taught his children in the home.
34. Blue Back spellers, McGuffey's readers - they had arithmetic
and geography but don’t recall their titles.
35. Earliest paper Arkansas Methodist, she couldn’t recall names
the papers, but could remember how her father nailed poles across the
room and laid the papers across them people for miles came to their
house to read there papers, some that could not read came too and her
father would read the whole paper to them. They had good lights too -
homemade candles, added bees wax so they hardened and would stand in
the candle holders.
36. 1896 - came with the railroad – Mena, Ark,
37.
38. 1900
39. --
40. --
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42. Opera house in Mena, don’t recall dates of name of play
43. --
44. no
45. none
46. none
47. --
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50. Prescott, Arkadelphia, Camden.
51. --
52. --
53. none
54. --
55. children
56. --
57. A.W., Cherryhill; Hiram,
Cherryhill; Chris, Mena, 407 8th St.
58. Mrs. Vera McKinsey, Pine Ridge, oldest grandchild
Raymond
Simpson, Mena, Rt. 2, oldest great grandchild.
Great great grandchild, Mary Jane Simpson
60. None.
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- Transcribed by Emily McCollom, Class of 2011
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