Ouachita is a French modification of a word of Indian origin and is thought to have been the name of an extinct Indian tribe which once occupied the highlands of western Arkansas. A fanciful legend says that the name was applied to an Indian chief and means Speeding Deer. Here is the colorful story that tradition has given us:
For years the land of the Ouachitas in Arkansas has been one of dreams and visions. In this region a long time ago, nature dropped a link from a mountain chain. This link runs east and west for fifty miles and is called the Cross Mountains. Nature was in a kind mood and created a passageway for wagons which were later to wend their way to and fro upon the earth in their unceasing quest for that better place.
Centuries before the white man visited the new world, there dwelt a mighty nation whose chief was Ouachita, the Speeding Deer. This nation was blest of Manitou; the rivers teemed with fish and the forests were full of game and honey. The people but willed it and it rained.
The Great Spirit vowed to Chief Ouachita that he should live and reign forever if he broke no moral law, and that each faithful redman should for many, many years abide in the Valley of Vapors and no blessing would be denied him. The secret of the waters, where the old were said to regain their youth, was imparted to the chieftain. A truce was formed by all the tribes for use of the healing waters, which the Great Spirit had warmed, and peace was in this neutral land of the redman.
The tribe of the Ouachitas prospered and grew like magic until one day there came a White God, fair of form and pale of face, making friendly offers. The chief of the tribe thought he saw in the stranger a successor to himself so he slew his pale-faced brother, breaking the tribal vow to Manitou and bringing vengeance upon his people. Mountains spewed forth molten lava until the valleys and plains were a seething sea of brimstone; rocks were crushed and covered and twisted, with precious stones in their pockets. The famous tribe of the Ouachitas was destroyed, but it was decreed that the spirits of these tribesmen sigh, ever sigh, for a plunge into the fountain of healing waters.
A far more probable explanation of the origin of Ouachita is found in the lore of the Choctaw Indians. In the language of this tribe owa chita means “big hunt.” According to the records of certain French explorers, these Indian hunters sometimes crossed the Mississippi River and penetrated westward as far as the Ouachita River in their quest for the buffalo. This region was “the land of the big hunt.” It is reasonable to believe that both the river and the region secured the name, Ouachita, from these famous owa chitas.3
To Henry Schoolcraft, historian and explorer, should go a great deal of credit for popularizing the name Ozarks. He preceded the large bulk of sturdy pioneers who came early in the nineteenth century to make their homes here. Schoolcraft began his Ozark observations in 1818. He recorded information about hills and valleys, springs and streams, soils and minerals, cliffs and caves, ways of life of the early settlers, and the lore of the native Indians and of the wildlife that sustained them. He gathered this valuable information into books which were published both in England and America. The person who possesses one of those treasured volumes is fortunate indeed.4
Pioneer Ingenuity
Stories of pioneer methods in meeting the issues of life in the wilderness read like fiction, but investigation reveals hard lines of fact written in the lives of the stalwart men and women who pioneered. The Ozarkian book of experience is no fairy tale. Frontiersmen had to have food, clothing, and shelter, and it was the business of the men to provide these essentials in the face of adverse circumstances. Women went alongside their men, sharing privations, bearing children, and managing the household. Crude situations in the early days inspired creative genius and instilled crafty business acumen. Life had to be taken at face value and frequently had to be reduced to its lowest terms in order that men could survive.
The first settlers in the Ozarks were pioneers of the first water, baptized in hardship and depending largely upon the bounties of nature for sustenance. Wild game flourished in the woods and the streams were full of fish but, to secure these bounties, hunting weapons had to be manufactured and ammunition supplied. Give a man a flintlock musket or Hawkins rifle, a horn of powder, a pouch of bullets, and a hunting knife, and he was master of the wilderness situation. Many of the early Ozarkians were expert gunsmiths. Others made knives of high quality. The famous Bowie knives made by a blacksmith at Washington, Arkansas, have never been excelled in quality or workmanship. Gunpowder was manufactured in crude mills operated by water power. Lead was provided for bullets from various diggings in the hill country. Even in the days of earliest settlement, when each little neighborhood had its parcel of families, there was a division of labor. Some men were expert in boring rifles, others in shoeing horses. Gristmills were built and operated by men who knew the milling trade. Liquors were made by men who understood the intricacies of distilling. Women carded wool and cotton, operated spinning wheels, and manufactured clothing on homemade looms. Crude cotton gins and saw rigs were set up to help provide the necessities and occasional luxuries of pioneer life.
One of the first powder mills west of the Mississippi was established by John B. Williams in Stone County, Missouri, soon after his arrival from Kentucky in 1835. Williams settled on Flat Creek about a mile above its conjunction with the James River, and set about building a village that became a trading center for a radius of fifty miles. A powder mill was considered to be of vital importance to this section; the outposts of civilization were hundreds of miles away and the difficulties of transportation made the cost of importation excessive. Springfield had been established in 1830, but as a town it was still in its swaddling clothes.
The Flat Creek mill was a crude affair. Williams built a heavy log frame in the watercourse, with a huge sycamore log as a crossbeam. In the middle of the log a depression was hewn to the depth of two feet and was used as a mortar for mixing. Working in the mortar was a wooden pestle. To withstand the pressure of pounding and crushing, it was made of the hardest wood obtainable. An undershot waterwheel provided the power. Pins driven into the pestle worked against similar pins in the wheel shaft so that when the water, running under the wheel, turned the shaft it caused the pestle to be lifted and dropped into the mortar, mixing the saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal into gunpowder. The sulphur had to be imported from the outside world but the other two ingredients were Ozark products. The charcoal was made from soft wood such as linn and box elder and was prepared in a kiln near the mill. Large quantities of saltpeter were secured at Bear Den Cave across James River. The dirt bearing the chemical had to be given special treatment before it was ready for the mortar. It was handled in much the same manner as ashes are treated for making lye soap. The Williams mill made three grades of powder—a coarse musket powder, a medium grain for shotguns (after this bore was introduced into the Ozarks), and a very fine powder for squirrel rifles. To make the finer powder it was necessary to hammer it a little more with the pestle. Drying sheds were provided to allow moisture to evaporate from the mixture.
Most of the old-time Ozarkers manufactured their own bullets in molds made at home or by local blacksmiths. In communities where the earth did not provide an easily accessible store of lead, the bluish-white metal was secured from traders. The balls varied in size with the bore of the gun to be used. The caliber of the old smooth-bore flintlocks was comparatively large, but the popular Kentucky squirrel rifle took a ball weighing about one-half ounce, approximately .50 caliber. Many Ozark hunters had their rifles rebored annually if a capable gunsmith could be found to do the work. This caused a gradual enlargement of the bore, sometimes to .60 caliber. It is said that the muzzle-loading rifles of these early settlers varied in bore from .38 to .60 and were adequate weapons for both large and small game, and for protection against Indians.
Wadding material had to be provided to separate the powder from the bullet and to keep the ball in place until the discharge was made. Paper was scarce in the early days and hunters frequently turned t
o nature for this material. The paperlike substance used by hornets in making their nests was found suited to this purpose. But it was impossible to convince the pugnacious insects that they should cooperate in supplying this commodity.
The nest of the hornet is a cone-shaped affair made from the soft inner bark of trees and hung on a tree or bush sometimes within reach of human hands. The insect’s instinctive confidence in its protective powers provides adequate protection for the domicile. The inner side of the nest contains horizontal layers of comb hung together by columns. The single opening at the bottom of the nest is about one inch in diameter.
Various methods were used in capturing nests inhabited by the fierce insects. A venturesome woodsman might try to cover the cone-shaped habitation with a sack at nighttime, or build a smudge and smoke the hornets from their home. One old-timer told me that he once tried to plug the hole in the nest with a corncob. Early one morning he filled a pocket with cobs and went to the woods to risk combat. The nest he found hung low and was easily reached from the ground. Carefully, he inserted a cob to plug the nest but a sudden blow on the head told him that something was wrong. The cob was too small for the opening and a guard had made fight. Hasty retreat saved him.
Hornets desert their swinging nests in autumn and pass the winter in deep holes they have excavated in decayed trees. The coarse, gray paperlike material of their nests was then available for the hunter’s use.
“Cash money” was a scarce article in the early Ozarks and it was sometimes necessary to make substitution for the gold and silver that carried the government imprint. The pioneers had need of a medium of exchange in dealing with visiting traders and among themselves. One of the strangest stories of Ozarkian ingenuity is that of the “Yocum Dollar.”
The Yocums were pioneers in the backhill country, entering Missouri and Arkansas in the early part of the nineteenth century. It was a Yocum who fed Henry Schoolcraft and his companions roast beaver tail in the White River country in 1819. Other Yocums moved in from Illinois a few years later. A group of five or six families of them crossed the Mississippi and headed their linchpin wagons, pulled by sturdy oxen, toward the Springfield settlement. This was the last outpost on the frontier and consisted of a trading post and two or three houses. Leaving Springfield behind them, they headed southwest into the James–White River country, cutting their way through a virgin forest. They stopped for a year or two at a place now called Yocum Pond and then made permanent settlement near the mouth of Kings River.
The Yocums were almost completely isolated from civilization, and their social and industrial life was largely with friendly Indians and scattered hunters, trappers, and fur traders. Legend says they secured a silver mine from the Indians and worked it for a number of years. The legendary location of this mine is on White River somewhere between the Kings and James tributaries. According to the stories, silver taken from this mine was used in making a trade coin called the Yocum dollar. It is said to have been used for several years as a medium of exchange in that section. Descendants of the Yocum pioneers claim to have seen the molds in which the coins were made.
All went well with this emergency exchange until one of the settlers tried to pay the proof fee on his claim with Yocum dollars. He presented the trade coins at the Springfield office and, although they were refused, the government agent is said to have sent one of the coins to Washington for examination. It was found to contain more grains of pure silver than the United States dollar. It was uniform in size with the regulation government coin, but no attempt was made at imitation. It had just two words stamped on it, “Yocum Dollar.”
In 1848, news of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California reached the Ozarks. The Yocums who owned the secret mine were adventurers and decided to try their fortunes in the West. The story goes that they plugged up the mine and refused to disclose its location even to relatives. They expected to return and work it later, but these Yocums never came back to the White River country. Some of the molds used in manufacturing the coins were left with a relative who operated a gristmill in the Kimberling settlement on White River. But this equipment is now lost and the silver mine has become an Ozark legend.5
Years later, another experiment with trade money was made in this same section of the Ozarks when B. F. Carney of Crane, Missouri, issued his own currency and circulated it in several states. This happened during the Bank Holiday, soon after Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933. Carney issued a quantity of one-dollar emergency exchange notes. The paper had this statement printed on it:
B. F. Carney will pay the bearer one dollar when this note is presented to him with proper endorsement therein, proving its commercial negotiation at least fifty times, with payment by the bearer to B. F. Carney the sum of two per cent of the face value hereof at each such negotiation. Payable at my office in Crane, Missouri.
(Signed) B. F. CARNEY.
Seven hundred of the emergency notes were given out and about four hundred of them were properly endorsed by fifty or more signatures and redeemed at face value. Some of them were cleared in banks as far away as St. Louis and Kansas City. Three hundred of the notes never returned for redemption. The Chase National Bank of New York City has six of them in its permanent collection of monies of the world.
Tales of Ozark ingenuity are legion, and they testify to the foresight and business acumen of the hillsman. Pioneer ways were sometimes strange ways and not always tempered with justice, but they gave assurance of economic survival without outside assistance. Sometimes the people rebelled against crafty methods that usurped their rights or disturbed their frontier freedom. Stock laws have always been a nemesis to hillsmen, and even today tourists must drive with caution in the backhills to avoid striking livestock on the highways. The making of illegal liquor is still a bone of contention between Ozark natives and federal authorities. Many law-abiding citizens wink at the idea of liquor enforcement in the backhills, and “revenuers” are as unpopular with hillsmen as ticks with tourists. Methods of gain are not always approved by Ozark communities, and many a man has carried on a legalized business against the wishes of his neighbors. Take the case of M. M. Chandler and his famous “toll bridge” on Caddo River.
In the Ouachita highlands of Montgomery County, Arkansas, a mile below the village of Caddo Gap, the Caddo River tumbles over stones in a rock-lined passage called the Narrows. Solid walls hedge the crystal waters into a churning channel where perch and bass play hide-and-seek among boulders that have fallen from the cliffs in ages past. It is a scenic spot and many tourists go there to loiter in sun and shade and listen to the music of the waters. Fly fishermen pause to tempt the cunning bass with their lure. It is a good place to stretch one’s sentiments, to weave colored threads in the tapestry of one’s dreams. But the Narrows has not always been an arcadian paradise with a contented twinkle in its eyes. Time was when silver clinked within its walls and tragedy stalked in the offing. Old-timers tell of the sojourn of Cole Younger, the famous outlaw, at the Gap and how he posed as an eye doctor under the name of Dr. Shrewsberry. Many a native, never suspecting the man’s true identity, called on the “Doc” for relief from eye afflictions. The James gang sometimes used this pass as a shortcut into the hills.
About the fourth decade of the nineteenth century a wagon trail was built through the Caddo River Narrows. It became an important trailway for wagons and horsemen between Fort Smith on the north and Hot Springs and Arkadelphia to the south. In the early days this mountain gap was a tight squeeze for traffic. There was barely room for a wagon to pass between the overhanging cliff and the tumbling river. High water was a big problem and the road was sometimes closed for days at a time. In 1870, M. M. Chandler took charge of the gristmill and cotton gin which were operated by water power a short distance below the pass. It was a popular milling and ginning center for natives within a radius of twenty or thirty miles. Chandler saw the need for a better passageway through the Narrows and applied for a charter from the State o
f Arkansas to build a toll bridge “lengthwise with the river” for a distance of 345 feet through the pass. The charter was granted for a period of thirty years and the county in which the bridge was built set the price of toll. The rates were scheduled at one dollar for a wagon and team, fifty cents for a man on horseback, and twenty cents for a footman. But Chandler charged only half these prices and citizens of Montgomery County were permitted free passage.
Chandler had difficulty keeping the bridge in place. Floods came and the structure was washed away. The 345-foot wooden bridge was then replaced with one 225 feet in length, and the ends were filled in with rock and dirt. But this second bridge was also washed out. The third one was only 160 feet in length; when it was carried away, the old pioneer decided to construct a pike through the entire passage. But the county officials objected to this, pointing out that it could not be classed as a bridge and that the collection of toll would be prohibited. To get around this objection, Chandler built a dirt pike, ribbed with rock, leaving a 12-foot gap in the center. In this space, he constructed a log pen, ten by twelve feet, filled with rocks and covered with boards. This met the requirements of the contract and he continued collecting toll.
Ozark Country Page 4
