FOLKLORE OF THE OZARK MOUNTAINS
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I've always been interested in stories of the Ozark Mountain people. My paternal grandmother
came from Lincoln County, Tennessee by covered wagon where she met and married my paternal
grandfather whose family had come from the same area in Tennessee but much earlier, in the
1830s. I only wish I had paid more attention to stories she told. I am posting stories here that I
have gathered and the reader may take them with a "grain of salt" as they are not authenticated.
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Interviewer: Zillah Cross Peel
Information given by: "Gate-eye" Fisher
Residence: Washington County, Arkansas
This interview is said to have been given by a former slave of the
Moore Family of Cane Hill, Arkansas, following the Civil War.
"I was jes' a baby crawlin' 'round on the floor when War come" said "Gate-eye" Fisher, who lives
in a log house covered with scraps of old tin, on what is known as the old Bullington farm near
Lincoln. His one room log cabin is "down in the bresh" back of the barn and when new
renters come on the place, they just take it for granted that "Gate-eye" just belongs. He bothers
no one. No floors, no windows just a door, a bed, stove and a table. Yes and a lantern and a
chair.
"Yes mam, my mother, Caroline, belonged to the Mister Dave Moore family. His wife, Miss
Pleanie, was a Reagan. Yes mam, they was good folks. When the War come, my pa, Harrison
Fisher and my ma stayed on the place, Mister Moore had lots of land and stock--and he and his
folks went to Texas, nearly everybody did 'round here, and he took some of his fine
stock with him but he called my pa and ma in and told them he wanted them to stay on the place
and take care of all the things. Pa was boss over all the slaves. I guess mos' all my white folks is
dead. Mos' of them all buried down yan way to Ft. Smith. One of Mister Moore's
daughters, Miss Mary, married Dr. Davenport and Miss Sinth (Cynthia) went to live with her."
(The Moores came from Kentucky and Tennessee and settled at Cane Hill, Washington County,
about 1829. The Reagans came about the same time. The first schools in the county were at
Cane Hill).
"Yes mam, I guess all the colored folks that belonged to Mister Moore, but me, is dead. I guess.
My mother, Caroline, stayed in the house nearly all the time and took care of Missy's children,
and when they come home from school she'd hear them learn their ABC's. That's how come
I can read and write. My ma taught me, out of an old Blue Back Speller. Yes mam, I learned to
read and can't write much, jes my own name. Yes mam, I kinda believe in signs that's how come I
wear this leather strap 'round my wrist it keeps me from havin' rheumatism, neuralgia. Yes mam,
it helps. I used to believe in signs a lot and I used to believe in wishes. I used to wish a lot of bad
wishes on folks till one day I read a piece from New York and it said the bad wishes that you
made would come back to you wosser than you wished, so I don't wish no more. I got
scared and don't wish nothin' to no body."
"After the War Ole Mister and Ole Missey called in my ma and pa and asked them if they wanted
to still stay on the place or go somewhere. 'Bout ten of us stayed. Then a while after Mister
Moore asked my pa if he wanted to go up on the Tilley place--600 acres and farm it for what
he could make. We, my pa and my ma and my sister Mandy, stayed there a long time. Then
Mister Moore sold off a little here and a little there and we moved up on the mountain with my
sister and her husband, Peter Doss, where my ma died. Then I went down to Mister Oscar
Moore's place--he was my Missey' boy."
"Yes mam, I did have a wife. I had a mos' worrysome time. It is a worrysome time when a man
comes to takes your wife right away from you. No'm, I don't ever want her to come back."
"Yes'm, I do my own cooking, and I've put up some fruit. I have a little mite of meat, a little mite of
taters, a little mite of beans and peas. I get a little pension too."
"These darkies today nearly all get wild. You can't tell What they are going to do tomorrow.
They's jes like everybody--some awful good and some awful bad."
And in the tiny one room shack, of logs and tin, no window, a swing door held by a leather strap,
"Gate-eye" does his cooking on a small wood stove. A long bench holds a lantern with a shingly
clean globe, a lot of canned fruit, dried beans and peas. The bed is a series of old bed
springs. But "Gate-eye" just belongs to the neighborhood, and every one feels kindly toward him.
He says he is seventy-one years, past.
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While the following stories may, or may not, be true, they certainly make
for interesting reading .
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THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE BUILT AT PRAIRIE GROVE ARK.
By S. C. Turnbo
There is but few survivors of the old time people of Northwest Arkansas, their ranks have
become so thin by grim death that there is only one of them living here and there. Among the
early residents of that part of Arkansas is Joshua Baker who at the present writing (December
10, 1906) lives on White River in Cedar Creek Township in Marion County, Ark. Mr. Baker is a
son of Joseph and Rhoda Baker and was born in Clairborne County Tennessee October the 6th
1836. His mother was a daughter of Solomon Neal a prominent citizen of the county just
mentioned. When Joshua Baker was 11 months old his parents moved from their native state
into Northwest Arkansas and settled on Illinoise Creek in Washington County. The land on which
they made their future home was one mile above Prairie Grove. They arrived there in the early
part of 1838. Mr. Baker said that the early residents of Washington County found that the soil
was well adapted to the raising of fruit and it was customary for those who moved into that
locality to make it their home to set out an orchard the first thing they done toward opening up
their land for cultivation. He said there were plenty of big game there too. "I well recollect" said
he, "when I was quite small boy of hearing bear start stones rolling down the face of the bluff
near where we lived. They did this of nights as they walked along missplacing the stones with
their feet. And the dear hours of night were made hideous by the screams of the panther. In
refering to the town of Prairie Grove and the battle that was fought there on Sunday the 7th of
December 1862, he mentions the names of early settlers whose homes were near there when
the battle was fought. Two of them were John Billings and John Newman. Mr. Billings land
reached to where part of the battle occurred. Mr. Newman lived just below on the creek. Among
other settlers who lived in close proximity of the battle field was one whose name was William
Rutherford who lived one mile southwest of my fathers house where part of the battle was fought
on his farm. William (Bill) Sneed lived in 3 quarters of a mile of the center of the battle ground."
In referring to the first settlement at Prairie Grove Mr. Baker said that the first church house built
there was in 1841 the walls of which was composed of round logs. A few people of the
Presbyterian faith built this house and Andy Buckhanon who was a Presbyterian preacher did
the first preaching in this same house and the first school taught at Prairie Grove was taught by
John Strickler in this same house. Though we lived near this house yet I never attended a
school a day in my life. All the education I ever received was at home. My father intended to start
me to school in a small hut built of poles that was in another neighborhood but early in the
morning of the day I was to start to school my father sent me out to cut a few sapling to split
open to make picketing out of and the first sapling I began cutting on I split my foot almost open
with the ax accidently which was months before the wound healed over. Tom Mathis taught the
school and a man of the name of Hart Benton who was one of Mathises students boarded at my
fathers house during this term of school and he taught me all the education I have, and I
studdied hard while I was too lame to do anything else." Mr. Baker is a strict Missionary Baptist
and has been preaching since the year 1867. Mr. Baker says that his parents passed over the
great beyond many years ago and their remains rest in the cemetery at Shady Grove church
house 2 miles west of Cross Hollows in Benton County, Ark.
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The trouble grew out of a gambling transaction. Maj. Fisher won a horse from M. K. Shannon, but
the latter's father claimed $30 of the value of the horse, and Fisher paid it. About a week later he
met M. K. Shannon in a saloon in Evansville, and asked him to make good the amount he had paid
his father. While they were parleying F. M. Shannon, a brother of M. K. Shannon, entered the
saloon and shot Fisher through the head, killing him instantly. Shannon was tried before a justice
of the peace, and released.
Soon after John Fisher, a brother of the murdered man, and Calvin Carter' returned from southern
Arkansas, where they had been attending races, and had Shannon re-arrested, taken to
Fayetteville, and again tried, with the same result as before. They returned to Evansville, resolved
to kill Shannon, but he remained away. Dr. J. C. McKinney, the father-in-law of Shannon, took an
active part in his defense, and attempted to raise a mob to drive Fisher and Carter from the
country.
One morning in February, 1869, he entered G. W. McClure's store to make some purchases, and
was followed by John Fisher, who without many words shot him through the heart. He then went to
Mrs. Alberty's, where he re-enforced himself with Calvin Carter and Charles Bush. All mounted
horses, and armed with guns and pistols passed several times up and down the streets of
Evansville. Some half hour later they rode out of town into the Nation. In a short time F. M.
Shannon, with John Finley, W. M. Finley, J. W. Bell, M. K. Shannon and John Brotherton, arrived in
Evansville and started in pursuit. After going some eight or ten miles the party separated, and
taking a circuitous route returned to Evansville.
Bell, Brotherton, W. M. Finley and M. K. Shannon arrived first, and dismounted at the store where
McKinney had been killed. Fisher and his party, who in the meantime had returned and were at
Gillett's grocery, fired upon them, wounding Sam Alberty, an old citizen, in the hip, and breaking
the leg of a horse.
F. M. Shannon and John Finley arrived at this juncture, and a large number of shots were fired by
both parties, but no serious damage was done. Matters then quieted down for several weeks, but
each party watched the other, hoping to take them at a disadvantage. Meantime the Fisher party
was re-enforced by Scott Reed, and one who was thought to have been Frank James. Not long
after this party gave a dance in Evansville, and the Shannons, together with the sheriff, Benjamin
Little, and a posse, in all about thirty men, attempted to capture John Fisher, for whom Gov.
Clayton had offered a reward. They made the attack, and killed Scott Reed at the first fire, but
Fisher rallied his men, and drove the Shannons into an old stable near by. He then took refuge in
the house where his sisters lived. The two parties maintained their respective positions, firing
occasional shots back and forth all day. When night came on Fisher and his men escaped into the
Territory, and the sheriff took Fisher's horses and left.
The sheriff then took a posse, and went to Texas in search of the outlaws, and upon his return
reported that Fisher had been killed. Fisher's sisters brought suit for the horses taken by the
sheriff, and gained the suit, but it is said, that the Shannons, as soon as the judgment was
rendered, went to the stable and shot one of the horses, a fine race mare. Soon after this
occurrence the Fisher sisters removed into the Cherokee Nation, where they joined their brother
and his party.
On June 2, 1869, John Fisher, Cal Carter, Charles Bush, James Reed and John Coleman entered
Evansville, and waylaid and killed two of the Shannon faction, Noah Fitzwaters and Newton C.
Stout. They then returned to the Nation, and the Governor offered a reward for their arrest. Capt.
Anderson, of Crawford County, with a posse, went in pursuit, and succeeded in killing two of the
party, Edmondson and Coleman, in Benton County.
By this time the law-abiding citizens had become weary at these continued outrages, and A. G.
Lewis, William Littlejohn, Capt. Adair and several others organized themselves into a company,
and forced both parties to leave the country.
Two or three years after the above occurrences two young men from Kansas passed through
Evansville, with a drove of some twenty-five horses, on their way South. They had been gone but
a short time when a printed circular was received at the Evansville post-office, offering half of the
horses to any one arresting the men, who, it was stated, had stolen them. John and Jack
Richmond, Lafayette Shultz and Bud Morris, residents of the vicinity of Evansville, started in
pursuit. A. G. Lewis, deputy sheriff of Washington County, wished to accompany them, but they
refused him.
They overtook the horsemen below Van Buren, and started back with them, but when they
reached Lee's Creek Mountain they took them into a ravine near the road, shot them, and went on
to Evansville with the horses. A man by the name of Dodge came from Ellsworth, Kas., rewarded
the captors with half of the horses, and returned.
Subsequent investigation showed that the circular referred to was the only one sent out, and that
the Richmonds called for it as soon as it reached the office. John Richmond was arrested by
Deputy Sheriff Lewis, and was tried. The jury failed to agree, and pending another trial he made
his escape. The others of his party had fled, as soon as suspicion fell upon them, but about seven
years later Bud Morris was arrested and brought back, and while out on bond again made his
escape.
DEADLY FEUD
Washington County, Arkansas
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