From the WPA Federal Writers Project - answers to Questionnaire - Arkansas HRS Form J

Interview done in Montgomery Co. by James H. Richards, Norman, Arkansas, Dec. 23, 1940

more information on this settler ...

Early Settlers Personal History
 
1.       Miss Julia Ann Jones.
2.       Route 1 Norman Ark.
3.       Retired.
4.       Housewife.
5.       May 6, 1849.
6.       Montgomery County Arkansas in Township 3S. Range 24W.
7.       Married, Joseph Jones Aug. 28, 1868. Near Caddo Gap, Arkansas.
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9.       91 years, 7 months and 17 days. Arkansas has been her home from birth.
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12.   Log houses. Chimneys of clay and split wood. Few built of rock.
13.   Candles poured at home, and pine knots.
14.   Not used now.
15.   Wood.
16.   Bread, mostly cornbread. Plenty of pork, bacon, wild game, bear, deer, turkey, and fish. Fish and game principally depended on for meat supply. Same was plentiful. Bear, deer, turkey, and fish.
17.   Home made clothing, wool and cotton. Spun on spinning wheel and made on home owned looms. After the Civil War store bought clothes came into use.
18.   When Mrs. Jones married in 1868 there was no chivari – the practice came in vogue later.
19.   No food bought. After the Civil War men’s store clothes were about the same as now. But generally shoddy and not as good. Calico sold for 20 cents a yard.
20.   The sharing of supplies was generally practiced. Some would borrow and never repay. Mrs. Jones said her father, Dempsey Heathcock had loaned many bushels of corn and other produce which was never repaid. But he did not worry, as the people who had borrowed were very poor.
21.   Mostly corn. Some oats and wheat.  Cotton was only raised to be made into clothing at home. Cows, horses, and hogs were the common domestic animals. Some raised sheep for the wool. Mrs. Jones never saw any tomatoes until after the Civil War. Then she learned to enjoy them.
22.   Mostly turning shoves or “twisters” made by local blacksmiths. Mrs. Jones does not remember any being bought from dealers.
23.   None. Just farming.
24.   Poke salad. Pepper grass, dock, lamb’s quarter, wild lettuce.
25.   Dances were common, also play, parties, camp meetings in the summertime. Farm life was enjoyable. Now town life around here as Little Rock was the nearest town.
26.   There was some woods fires. They raked trails around the fields and whipped the fires out with pine boughs to keep the rail fences from getting burned.
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28.   Crystal mountain got its name from the crystal diggings 1 ½ miles away. Collier creek in front of the house named for Jefferson Collier one of the first settlers.
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30.   School about 3 months in the year. 3 month summer term.
31.   In the log building used for church and school Liberty church building. In the year 1857. At that time the building was the social center.
32.   Louis A. Geesling.
33.   What we called a subscription school the neighborhood paid the tuition. About $1.00 per month per person up to three in the family then the rest of the family attended free. If the family did not have the money they would take produce for pay.
34.   Webster’s “Blue Back” speller. McGuffey’s readers. Mrs. Jones does not know what books the older pupils used.
35.   Mostly the Bible. No newspapers or magazines.
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38.   1915. On the road in front of the house where I live.
39.   After the Civil War about 1865 saw first one in Waco Texas.
40.   1918. One flew over the house where I live.
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44.   My husband Joseph M. Jones talked to some of James gang right here on the place the day before they robbed the Hot Springs Stage Coach. He was pretty sure he talked to Jesse James.
45.   In Crystal Valley. 1 mile north, William Wilson and his son Allen Wilson fell out about some crystals they had dug. And Allen Wilson shot his father and killed him after his father had seriously wounded him with a shotgun.
46.   John Cox and Hugh P. Williams were lynched near where Norman now stands. Mrs. Jones was present and saw it. She says she fainted and kept her bed for a week afterward. John Cox murdered his sister-in-law. Hugh P. Williams was a confederate soldier and the bushwhackers executed him as also they did John Cox. This was in 1864. They were hanged on a tree. Matt Grant was shot to death by bushwhackers in 1863 or 1864. Was buried in the graveyard on this farm – Jones graveyard- Mrs. Jones helped dig the grave and helped bury him. She does not know exactly why.
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49.   When the northern soldiers came through, Mrs. Heathcock, Mrs. Jones’s stepmother claimed to be in favor of the Union side, and by doing so received protection from the Union officers who would not allow their men to molest her property in any respect whatever.
Mrs. Jones says that when the northern soldiers came through she was just in her teens and she would have to hide the stock in the woods. So the soldiers would not find them.
In 1861 there was a drought and we had no bread and we lived on potatoes and milk for two weeks.
Over on Mazarn Creek, three miles east and at Caddo Gap two miles west there were skirmishes sometime in the sixties and several men were killed in each skirmish.
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52.   Mrs. Jones says the Ku Klux Klan were here, but did not act much. They did some acting but she could not give me any details.
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55.   There are some mounds in Sec.31 Tp.3S. R.24W. Also on 26 Richard Knapp’s place Sec. 28. Same Tp., supposed to be Indian mounds.
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57.   About 30. They are scattered and no accurate account is available.
58.   James Alonzo Jones, Norman Ark Route 1; Joseph Dolplas Jones, Rt. 1 Norman Ark.; Robert Loach Jones, Box 3363, Lowell Ariz.
59.   (Grandchildren) Mrs. Lena Ardema Morici, 2843 20th Street, San Francisco, California.; Mrs. Margie Dalton, Waldron, Arkansas; Mr. William Russell Pate, Russellville, Arkansas. (Great Grandchildren) Billy Melvin Jones, Mirando City, Texas; Clyde Pate, Russellville, Arkansas; Bert Dalton, Waldron, Ark.
60.   There’s now no vestige of the original log house. Which was the social center. The seats were of split logs with pegs fitted into augur holes. It stood where the Dallas and Hot Spring road crosses Collier Creek in Sec.29 T.35 R.24 W.
 
Transcribed by Rachel Skerbitz, Class of 2011