- 1-7. Mr. Henry Estes of Greenwood, Arkansas, Route 4. Mr. Estes is
retired now. Has farmed all of his life and lived on the same place
since August 1866, in Franklin County, Kansas, in or near Topeka. Mr.
Estes married Miss Arelena - Arra (Arra Lena) at Greenwood, Arkansas on January 14,
1897.
8-11. Mr. Estes’ father settled here before the Civil War. When the
war broke out, he went to Kansas, and worked in some kind of a shop
till after the war then came back to Arkansas in August after Henry
Estes was born in June. Mr. Henry Estes has heard his father tell of
coming to Arkansas in a wagon driving a yoke of oxen.
12. The earliest home Mr. Estes can remember was a one room log cabin
with a stone fireplace. All of the earlier homes in that community
were log houses, some had a stone fire place and chimney, while some
had fireplaces and chimneys made with sticks and clay. These were
called stick chimneys. There were plenty of stones in this community.
Started building boxed houses a few years later.
13. The first lights Mr. Estes can remember were candles. They poured
these candles at home, of tallow. Some of the people used grease
lights. These lights were made by using a tin bucket lid or a saucer
filled with grease and tallow with a rag used for a wick. The rag is
laid in the grease and one end over the side of the saucer or lid.
This end is lit.
They next used oil lights called brass lamps. Theses lamps looked a
lot like the oiled cans now used around machinery. They had a spout
sticking up in the center. They used a wick in the spout.
They then started using oil lights with a burner and a glass chimney
in about 1845. Lights of this type are still used in places where they
don’t have electricity.
14. There has never been any electric lights in the community where
Mr. Estes Lives.
15. Mr. Estes has always used wood for fuel.
16. Mr. Estes remembers hearing his father talking about the year
after the close of the Civil War in 1866. The same year Mr. Henry
Estes was born. All they had to eat was corn bread and water. After
the first year when people had time to make their first crops, they
had plenty of food. They raised corn and wheat and had it ground for
bread. Raised Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes, gardens and fruit
such as peaches and apples. Killed their beef and hogs for meat and
lard. His mother dried peaches and apples till about 1866, when they
bought their first fruit jars. The first fruit jars were ½ gallon.
Later they bought quart jars. Back in the early days, sugar and coffee
was all they had to buy. There was plenty of game when Mr. Estes was a
young man - deer, turkey and small game. The people hunted this game
and used it as food, but did not depend on it for part of their
living.
17. In the early days, women spun and wove the cloth to make their
clothes. Mr. Estes wore home spun and home made clothes until he was
grown. About 1886 or 1887 he bought his first ready made clothes. Mr.
Estes remembers one time he cut wood for a Mrs. Rowland when he was a
young man. Mrs. Rowland paid him for his work with jean cloth. He got
one yard of cloth with each day's of work. Most of the jean was
colored brown with a green walnut stain.
18. If a family approved of the marriage, they would give a wedding
dinner (called infair dinner). People have always practiced shivarees
in this community.
- 19. (unanswered)
- 20. The only time Mr. Estes remembers sharing food with any one
was when he was a boy. There was a Widow Hanks who had three children
lived in this community. She was in bad health and in need. Mr. Estes'
father would send Henry over on a horse with corn meal, meat, lard and
any other food they could spare.
- 21. The early crops were corn, wheat, oats, cotton, tobacco,
potatoes, and vegetables.
- 22. In the early days they made their plow stocks. Made turning
plows, Georgy (Georgia) stocks, side harrows, and in about 1890, they
bought their first cultivator. Mr. Estes does not remember the prices
of the first plows he ever bought.
- 23. There are no industries in this community.
- 24. Some of the early wild plants and fruit that they used for
food were poke salad, dock, blackberries, wild grapes and sassafras
roots
- 25. In the early days they had house raisings, log rollings, hog
killings, dances and play parties. When a man would get ready to build
his house, he would tell his neighbors. They would all go. A man would
get on each corner of the building and notch the logs. 8 or 10 men
would hand the logs up. When the wall would get high enough that the
men could not reach from the ground, they would use log poles with a
fork and lift them up that way. In the early days, they make the roof
out of logs. Later they split board shingles to cover the houses.
- The people cleared their land in the winter, used
what wood they needed for fuel and what logs they wanted. The others
they would leave lying where they cut them. In the spring they would
have a log rolling contest. The neighbors would come to help. They
would pile the logs in large piles and set them afire. The young
people would want to dance. Some would dance and some would not. When
they danced, they would always have a square dance.
- The people were neighborly in the early days. They
always visited with each other. Some times one family would go to
visit a neighbor, and they would take their whole family and stay for
the weekend. The next weekend the family that was visited would go to
visit the family that came to visit them..
- 26. In the early days when they had a fire, all of the men would
come to fight fire. They would set a fire and put it out behind them,
then let it burn to meet the other fire, let them burn together then
they would go out.
- 27. Mt. Harmony was named after the school house. The first school
house was named Estes school house. When they built the new house a
man by the name of W. R. Alexander was teaching there. He wanted to
name the new school the people let him name it. He named it Mount
Harmony.
- 28. Unanswered.
- 29. The earliest school that Mr. Estes attended was at Estes
school house. The building was made of logs. The benches and desk were
made out of split logs with holes bored for the legs.
- 30. The Estes school house was in Sec 29 T6N R30West. Mr. Estes
started to school in 1871. This school was moved about 100 yards N.E.
and the name changed to Mount Harmony in about 1890. Mt. Harmony is in
Sec 20 T6N R30W.
- 31. The first teacher that Mr. Estes went to was H. C. M. Braley
after that he went to Mr. Amos Braley, Jasper Seaman, Henry Carty,
Mrs. Peris, John H. Holland, Miss Della Davis, Charley Dunn, and the
last teacher that Mr. Estes went to school was. H. H. Waters.
- 32. The people voted a tax to keep the school up. They voted the
amount that they thought they would need. They paid the teachers from
$25.00 to $35.00 per month.
- Mr. Estes went to Burnsville
(Burnville) one summer to a school. This cost $1.00 per pupil.
Sometime during the time Mr. Estes was going to school, the State
appropriated a fund for the schools. The state paid a certain amount
per pupil.
- 33. Mr. Estes used McGuffey Readers and histories, Ray Arithmetic,
Blue Back Speller.
- 34. Mr. Estes had books and newspapers to read in the early days.
He does not remember the title of the early newspapers, but he has two
books that he got when a boy: Well Springs of the Truth. W. W.
Bruse, author. Published by Southwestern Publishing House, Nashville,
Tenn. Bible Companion, J. A. Allen, author. Published by
Central Publishing House, Atlanta, Georgia.
- 35. There has never been a telegraph station at Mt. Harmony.
- 36. Unanswered.
- 37. The first automobile Mr. Estes saw was at Greenwood, Arkansas
in 1910. The car was a two seated car with high wheels. Mr. Estes
thinks is was a Ford.
- 38. Mr. Estes saw a train in Greenwood, Arkansas, in about 1889.
- 39. Mr. Estes has never seen an airplane, only at a distance in
the air.
- 40-47. Unanswered.
- 48. Mr. Estes saw George Green, a Negro, hung at Greenwood,
Arkansas, in 1884. George Green was convicted of killing his wife.
They built a scaffold, put the rope around his neck, then the sheriff
James Burton struck the trigger with a sledge hammer. The Negro
dropped through the trap door and hung just above the ground.
- 49-51. Unanswered
- 52. Mr. Estes taught singing schools for over 2 years. He taught
his first school at Mount Harmony in 1891; the last school he taught
was in 1935 at Clarks Chaple.
- Mr. Estes joined the Methodist Episcopal
Church at Mount Harmony in the year of 1883. He has been an active
member since that time.
- 53. Mr. Estes has served on several panels as petit juror and 4
panels in the U. S. Court at Fort Smith, Ark.
- 54-55. Unanswered
- 56-58. Mr. Estes has two daughter and three grandchildren.
- Mrs. Delta James, Greenwood, Arkansas
- Mrs. Ella May McKelvie
- Billie Merl James
- Doris Irene Johnes
- Gerald Derine?? McKelvie
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- Interview transcribed by Chrystal Temple,
GHS Class of 2006
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