NEW BOOK ACQUISITIONS IN THE LOCAL HISTORY & GENEALOGY DEPARTMENT

Beyond the River -- Stories of Life Near the Arkansas

     The Arkansas River enters the state near Fort Smith and leaves it near Arkansas City as it joins the Mississippi on its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. It brings life-giving water, transportation, recreation, and a kind of focal point for all the communities along its length. A large diversity of people and ideas are marked by life near this third-largest river in the United States.
Ward has brought together photographs and stories of many of the people and places near this stream—some from long ago.
     Ward published his first book, “Conway As it was ... As it is,” a photographic history of the city, in 2008.

     This new book brings to light a number of interesting people who have helped create the fabric of life in the Natural State, many of them in the Conway area. Ward noted that this new book “could almost be a ‘volume 2’ of the first one.”
     Witness an elephant sanctuary, one of only two in the nation, near Guy; read the full story of Dr. Jim Gray, the 1960s back-roads traveler who trekked through Conway and claimed to be an eye-witness to the Indian wars of the early 19th century; see a heart-warming photograph of the rescue of a 7-year-old girl who spent three weeks adrift on a raft in the South Atlantic during World War II (she now lives in Conway); learn of families and organizations who helped shape the city, including the Hambuchens and Simons; read about an Arkansas soldier who was held for a year in the infamous Stalag 17 German concentration camp during World War II—and kept a diary; learn the real story of how the Ozark Folk Center came to be; see a wall near Conway which is more than 800 feet long (and growing), built without mortar; thrill to the actions of a true war hero from Morrilton, Nathan Gordon; learn new and compelling information about the Arkansas Rockefellers—Winthrop and Winthrop Paul; hear about a preacher in the Ozark Mountains who grew up learning the art of whisky-making before turning in a different direction. These stories and so many more are found in this new book. 

Canada/Kennedy Cemetery

     This cemetery is located in Saline Township, Cleveland County, Arkansas.

     The tombstones in older cemeteries across our country are rapidly eroding and their inscriptions are fading.  This book records the burials and history of one of those cemeteries located where there was once a thriving pioneer community but now is only a forest.
     The people who once lived, worked, worshiped, and died in Saline Township are now remembered only by sometimes deteriorating tombstones.  Included in this book are photos, obituaries, and in some cases, research material about these families.  A careful study will reveal the kinships among the people buried in Canada/Kennedy Cemetery. 

Cotton Belt Engineer: The Life and Times of C. W. "Red" Standefer 1898-1981

 This is the story of a Texan.  A big story about a man from TEXAS. A story about a man who as a young boy saw what he wanted to do, set out to do it and accomplished his life's ambition. The man's name was Cecil Standefer. The events in this book primarily happened in Texas between 1898 and 1981. He struggled some; had some personal losses and he overcame them. He grew up in a time when the United States of America grew to be recognized as a world power. His part in all that was that of a railroad employee. And not just any employee as Cecil Standefer was in engine service. He was in engine service for the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company and he was in this service for 50 years. Cecil Standefer wanted to become a locomotive engineer from the very first time he ever saw a train. He achieved his life's ambition by becoming a Cotton Belt Engineer.

 About the Author

C. W. Standefer lived his entire life in TEXAS. He saw his first train when he was eight years old and then and there decided he wanted to become a locomotive engineer. He got his chance ten years later and began working for the St. Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt) Railway. C. W. Standefer was in engine service from 1917-1967. When he retired he was the #1 seniority engineer on the Cotton Belt's Southern Division. During his long career in engine service he saw everything from the antiquated saturated steam kettles of the 19th century to second generation diesels by the time he retired.

Index to Arkansas' World War I Soldiers from Jefferson County

     This series of indexes to Arkansas' World War I soldiers will help genealogists and historians identify specific soldiers so additional information in primary sources can be located. 
     The material in these books has been taken from a microfilmed care file at the Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock.  The records were filmed on 118 rolls of 35mm microfilm by Stanley V. Bond, and the filming was completed August 20, 1986.  The material is referred to as "Arkansas World War I Discharge Records."
    
http://www.arkansasresearch.com/Statewide/Military/MilitaryWorldWarISet.htm

A Pictorial History of Marvell and Surrounding Communities 

Compiled by Tri-County Genealogy Society in Marvell, Arkansas




     Oversized pictorial history of the town of Marvell in Phillips County, Arkansas, plus surrounding communities of Botleneck, Connells Point, County Line, Cypert, Hicks, Kingtown, Midway, Postelle, Poplar Grove, Turkey Scratch, Turner, Trenton and Watkins Corners.  Index. 206 pp.

      The history of Marvell shows a town that has evolved due to progressive leaders, stable businesses and community minded citizens.  These people have shown throughout time that they are committed to make Marvell a town which people are proud to call there own. 

Arkansas State Donation and Swamp Lands:  Jefferson County 1855 - 2001

Compiled by Desmond Walls Allen

     Just when you thought you'd looked at all the sources available, here's one you missed: state land sales records. Why did you miss it? Because very few people knew this source existed, and, until now, no one had transcribed the material.  

      Think about this: you work on your genealogy, going great guns for a while, then you begin to hit road blocks in your research because you need more details about your ancestors' lives. You dabble in genealogical education and learn to use land records. When you run out of county-level deed records, you turn (in Arkansas and 29 other public domain land states), to federal-level records.
All the land in Arkansas once belonged to the federal government and it gradually passed from federal ownership into the hands of landowners who began to pay taxes on it at their local county courthouses. Arkansas' federal land patents are available from many sources, most notably this very website. (See the series of 57 volumes we offer on federal land patents.)
      But the source researchers have missed so far is the state-level land records. About one-fourth of the land in Arkansas was given by the federal government directly to the state as swamp and overflowed lands. And before you dismiss swamp lands because your people were hill folks, remember that swamp lands were found in all but three Arkansas counties. Swamp lands were sold by the state government for fifty to seventy-five cents per acre. Many tracts of swamp lands went to land speculators, but many more went to ordinary folks like our ancestors who wanted cheap land.
      Donation lands were tracts of land that were previously in taxpayers' hands, but had been abandoned and were earning no tax revenues for the counties or state. The first donation acts were passed by the Arkansas General Assembly in the 1840s, but we don't have those records. Extant donation land records start in 1871. The War was over, government was just beginning to pass out of federal occupation and back into Arkansas' control. Many tracts of land had been abandoned by families of men who failed to come back from the War. Lots of people had left the state for less-chaotic places. To rebuild Arkansas' economy, abandoned land needed to be returned to the people. A series of donation acts did that.  

      There are records of donation land transactions in large ledgers in the Commissioner of State Lands' office in the capitol building in Little Rock. The swamp land purchase ledgers are there as well. Both sets of records are arranged in chronological order. We've compiled detailed indexes to these records, arranging them in ledger order (see donation and swamp land books in another area on this website) and now, in response to researchers' requests, we've arranged the records in geographic order. We've grouped counties together, pooled donation and swamp lands into regional indexes, and have the books ready for your library shelves.
      The books themselves present a great many details about each transaction and the introduction to the books contain more than you'll ever want to know about donation and swamp land sales. In order to let you look at who's in the books before you order, we've taken just the names from the books and posted them in files with links beside each of our book titles. You can click on the [View the names...] links, wait for the file to load into your Internet browser, then choose "save as" from the file menu of your browser to save the file to your hard drive, and look at it off-line in your word processor.
Don't just search these books for your direct ancestors' names. Often, you'll find more information if you'll search for those collateral relatives (those to whom you're related but not descended from). Your branch of the family may have lit out for Bakersfield, California, but the folks left here in Arkansas created records that will help you find your ancestors who lived and loved in this glorious state.

http://www.arkansasresearch.com/Statewide/Land/DonationSwampCounty.htm

Index to Arkansas' World War I Soldiers from Jefferson County

Compiled by Desmond Walls Allen


This series of indexes to Arkansas' World War I soldiers will help genealogists and historians identify specific soldiers so additional information in primary sources can be located.  


The material in these books has been taken from a microfilmed card file at the Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock.  The records were filmed on 118 rolls of 35mm microfilm by Stanley V. Bond, and the filming was completed August 20, 1986.  The material is referred to as "Arkansas World War I Discharge Records." 

Lonely Country Cementery in Jefferson County is Resting Place of Mississippi's Civil War Governor Who Found Sanctuary in Arkansas During Turbulent Reconstruction Days.

John J. Pettus, Civil War Governor of Mississippi and a relative of Jefferson Davis.

 

(Article taken from scrap book in Library's Rare Book Room -- Date of article not provided)

     In the lonely Flat Bayou cemetery near Wabbaseka, Arkansas, is an unmarked grave which for nearly two generations has been the cause of much agitation.  Every decade or so an indignant journalist, having discovered the identity of the man whose bones rest under the weedy mound, publishes an eloquent account of this famous Mississippi hero whose grave has been "lost" in Arkansas since 1867.  For 50 years newspapers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi have been publishing the stories.  And always the horrified journalistic question is asked: 
      Why does John J. Pettus, Mississippi's celebrated Civil War Governor, rest in a neglected country graveyard in Arkansas?  Why does not Mississippi claim him bones and rebury them in a place of honor, especially since his marble bust is one of the most cherished relics of the Mississippi Department of Public Archives and History, and the story of his turbulent, courageous life forms a colorful chapter in Mississippi's history? 
     The question was asked first 50 years ago, when the grave of Gov. John J. Pettus of Mississippi was not in Flat Bayou cemetery, but in the corner of a cornfield near Toltec, in Lonoke County. 
     In June, 1888, Col. R. A. Little, who recently has purchased a plantation in Lonoke County, was riding over his land when on the edge of a field he discovered a grave marked only with a post.  Investigating, he learned that Gov. John Jones Pettus of Mississippi was buried here.  At first he did not believe the story, until substantiated evidence proved it true.  At one time the plantation, which Colonel Little had purchased from Thomas H. Allen of Memphis, was owned by a relative of Governor Pettus.  An old Negro who had been on the plantation since antebellum days had been present at the burial of the noted Mississippian. 
     The newspapers of the day bristled with the story of the "lost" grave of Governor Pettus of Mississippi.  Colonel Little declared, in a press interview, that if Mississippi officials did not care to have the body removed to Mississippi, he would have it disinterred and reburied in a cemetery in Arkansas. 
     And now the Granddaughter of Governor Pettus tells why the bones of her famous Mississippi ancestor still lie in Arkansas soil, in spite of the many movements commenced to have them removed to Mississippi. 
     She is Mrs. John J. Pettus of Pettus, Arkansas.  Born Caroline Weedon, the daughter of the daughter of Gov. John J. Pettus of Mississippi,  she married Kie Oldham, State Senator.  When Senator Oldham died she married her distant cousin, John Pettus. 
     "The grave of Gov. John J. Pettus was never lost," she declared.  "His family and his descendants have always known where it was.  He is buried in the state that gave him sanctuary at a time when, broken in health and fortune, he had to flee for his very life from Grant's invading army.  Arkansas owes nothing to him nor to his descendants, but the Pettus family owes Arkansas much.  That is why we have never permitted the body of Governor Pettus to be removed from Arkansas. 
     "The grave was disturbed once, when it was moved from Colonel Little's plantation to Flat Bayou cemetery near Wabbaseka, in Jefferson County.  There is no mystery attached to the burial of my Grandfather in the cornfield near Toltec.  When he died, the plantation was owned by the Jones family, cousins of Governor Pettus, who also owned land in Lonoke County.  The two families visited each other frequently.  Governor Pettus was at the Jones home when, in 1867, he was stricken with pneumonia and died.  He was buried on the Jones plantation.  The land sold later, and eventually it came into the hands of Col. R. A. Little.  When he wanted the body of Governor Pettus moved, our family had it disinterred and reburied in the Flat Bayou cemetery.  Mississippi would claim the remains now if the family consented, but we all feel that the State which gave Grandfather some measure of peace during the last few years of his stormy life should be the place of his burial." 
     Looking into the unhappy, restless eyed face of Governor Pettus as depicted in an old daguerreotype taken after he had fled to Arkansas to hide and, later, to die, it is not difficult to trace that same expression of suffering as is seen in the faces of Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and other men who had been hag-ridden by the horrors of the Civil War. 

     John J. Pettus was a patriot, such a patriot as in produced only by a war of rebellion.  He was descended from Revolutionary stock and from a fine old English family.  The genealogy of the Pettus family is traced back to 1450 to Sir John Pettus, Mayor Norwich, England.  The family coat-of-arms is still treasured. 

     John Jones Pettus was born in Williamson County, Tennessee, on October 9, 1813.  The Pettus plantation was close to the Hermitage, the home of Andrew Jackson, who was a lifelong friend of the father of John J. Pettus. 
     In early manhood John Pettus moved to Kemper County, Mississippi, where he became prominent as a planter and a leader in civic and state affairs.  His public career began in 1846, when he represented his County in the legislature. 
     In those days Jefferson Davis led Mississippi politics.  Well-educated, cultured, brilliant, Jeff Davis had come to Mississippi after he had married the beautiful young daughter of Zachary Taylor.  The Taylor family and the Pettus family were closely related.  Jefferson Davis and John J. Pettus were friends as well as kinsmen. 
     Three months after the marriage, the young bride died.  Jeff Davis found release from his grief by developing a system of self-government among his slaves that turned his vast plantation into one of the happiest and most successful slave communities in the South.  Seeing no evil in slavery because his own Negroes were supremely content, Jefferson Davis, as early as 1850, hotly defended the question of states' rights.  Soon Mississippi began to rival South Carolina as a leader of the Southern Constitutionalists in the defense of states' rights. 
     No patriot in the South was a more ardent supporter of states' rights than John J. Pettus.  In 1854, he was president of the Mississippi Senate, which automatically made him Govornor for five days when Gov. Henry S. Foote resigned.  Four years later he was nominated on the Democratic ticket.  The paramount issue, of course, was states' rights.  Pettus defeated his opponent, a Whig, Harvey W. Walter, by a large majority, three to one. 
     When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in November, 1860, Governor Pettus, knowing that the party which opposed slavery was in power, recommended the convening of a constitutional convention.  Courage was required for so bold a stand, but Governor Pettus possessed all the courage needed, as well as a will of iron.  Assembling the legislature, he named December 31, 1860, as a day of fasting and prayer.  On January 7, 1861, the constitutional convention assembled.  Two days later, on January 9, Mississippi seceded from the Union, the first Southern state that followed the example of South Carolina.  Governor Pettus achieved national renown by his act. 
     When Grant came to Vicksburg he did not forget that John Jones Pettus was still Governor of Mississippi. 
     "Get that rebel!" was the order passed to the invading army. 
     Jackson, the Capital, fell, and the Federals were eager to capture the Governor.  But Governor Pettus quickly gathered his staff about him, and with sufficient State records to keep the government intact, he fled to Macon, in Nuxobee County, which he made the Capital of Mississippi.  The Federals continued in hot pursuit of the fleeing Governor.  Soon they reached Macon, when Governor Pettus again eluded them, and, with his staff, went to Columbus, in Lowndes County, where he assembled the legislature.  Five times he had to move his Capital to escape the wrath of the Federals. 
     He contrived to keep out of the reach of the enemy until his second term of office expired on November 16, 1863, when he surrendered the records of the State to Governor Clark. 
     Sick and broken in fortune, he went of Jefferson County, Arkansas, where he owned a large tract of land which he had kept mostly as a hunting preserve.  A few slaves had been retained here to raise cotton in the rich bottom clearings.  Here he felt comparatively safe from his enemies. 
     He was not completely without friends in Arkansas.  His cousins, the Jones family, owned the plantation near Toltec.  His brother-in-law, Gov. J. A. Winston of Alabama, had large holdings in Arkansas. 
     Until the fall of the Confederacy, he had some peace in Arkansas.  But shortly after Lee's surrender and Lincoln's assassination, a runner from the Jones plantation came to tell him that the Federals were at his heels again. 
     "There's been a warrant issued for you and for Jeff Davis," he was told. 
     Jeff Davis was caught immediately, and for months he remained in prison with his hands constantly manacled together.  To escape the fate of his kinsman, John J. Pettus became a refugee in Arkansas.  At times he lived in disguise at the Jones plantation.  Assuming the name of John Jones, he grew a matted beard and wore the clothes of a tramp.  One day he went unrecognized when a searching party of Federals came to the Jones plantation.  The Federals even engaged a squad of Indians to search the swamps for him. Some loyal Arkansan, to mislead the searches, had told them that Governor Pettus was hiding close to Bayou Meto. 
     In 1865, Arkansas had over 7,000,000 acres of swamps.  There were few roads.  Eventually the Federals wearied of their search for Governor Pettus. 
     And John Pettus grew to love the State that had offered him sanctuary, as he called the rough protection he enjoyed here.  When he could do so he bought more land and enlarged his plantation.  He was only 54 when, in 1867, he made his last visit to the Jones plantation at Toltec.  Weakened from years of privation, he could not survive the pneumonia that attacked him.  He was buried on the plantation, with only a hand-hewn cedar post to mark the spot. 
     After his death the family remained in Arkansas--the family which, in one generation, had supplied five Governors to the South.  One of the women of the family was called "The Mother of Governors." 
     Mrs. John Pettus, the Granddaughter of Governor Pettus, still owns some of the land left by her noted ancestor.  The little town of Pettus was named in honor of the Pettus family. 
     Besides Mrs. John Pettus, there is another grandchild of Governor Pettus living in Arkansas--John P. Weedon of 621 Cumberland Street, Little Rock.  Houston Pettus of Little Rock, a son of the late Dr. Cowley C. Pettus, also is a relative. 
     Mrs. John Pettus said, "The family is now discussing the matter of a monument for the grave.  Some day we shall decide on one.  And then, perhaps, never again will some writer blossom out with another tale concerning the "lost grave of John J. Pettus, the harassed Civil War Governor of Mississippi."