Starting Point

Everything has a starting point.

This is the starting point of Stone County Web Site.
The first thing we shall accomplish is designing an article. Articles are anything one might consider as an exhibit. Exhibits are displayed on a page like this one. Content shall vary from photos to manuscripts to tall tales to historical information about individual people, communties, government and really just about anything one might think on.

This Article Page will be utilized throughout the site and is instumental in taking us back to days of yesteryear. So let's take a quick look at  HTML and CSS Style Sheet Basics. This very basic and straightforward approach can be attached to any basic text document such as an email or notepad and can include photo images. This link will display the HTML Code for this page design.

Stone County Arkansas

The starting point of Stone County Arkansas begins with people like John Halpain & Samuel Brown, any number of the Lancaster Boys, the Martins, Risners, and Webb, and some thousand other folks. The year is 1873. War and Reconstruction is slowly fading into the annuls of history. Advances in transportation are changing the face of the continent. Communications has entered a new era of information awareness. The Postal Service quickens the gap of distance and far away relatives keep in touch more often as well as Politcal and Governmental agencies taking care of their business. The Cherokee Territory, once a no man's land is now filling up with the people we are about to meet.

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Events leading up to the formation of Stone County in 1873 are taking place in Izard County, Independence County, Van Buren County, and Searcy County. Fulton County, Sharp County and Lawrence County to the north and east plays an integral part in the migrations of settlers into Stone County as well as Crowley's Ridge, Madrid, Missouri and Memphis Tennessee. Searcy, Conway, and Russelville are towns to the south with Little Rock just beyond on the Arkansas River.

The White River, known as the 'Gateway to Paradise', was the main artery of access to the region with Bull Shoals upstream, Calico Rock, Batesville, and Jackson Port downstream at the confluence of the Black River and its tributaries the Strawberry, Spring, and Current Rivers. Des Arc to the southeast is at the confluence of the Bayou Des Arc which parallels the Little Red River that drains the southern portion of Stone County. The Cache and Bayou De View drain the area of Crowley's Ridge and confluences with the White River at Clarendon.

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East of there is Helena at the Mississippi River which afforded a crossing. To the north Memphis crossed and further north Cairo. These are the avenues our people traversed from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolina's. Our people from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama found their way up the Mississippi and White Rivers.

The Arkansas River delivered many migrants into southern Arkansas and west to Fort Smith. The northwest area was populated mostly by the people who followed this route while others came south out of Missouri from Springfield. The early history of Arkansas and in particular the lands that make up Stone County prior to 1873 is covered in the Early Inhabitants section along with the Cherokee, Choctaw and Shawnee People. Some discussion of early exploration and domination of the Spanish and French are also included. The Louisiana Purchase put millions of acres of land in the grasp of our fathers and from 1803 to the 1830's our Stone County consisted of Indian Lands.

The 1870's

Our focus here points primarily to Izard County with Searcy, Van Buren and Independence Counties lending their fringe borders along with Izard's land south of the White River to the formation of Stone County. The Acts of Congress 1820 and 1862 that 'set aside public lands for sale' and 'The Homestead Act' put our fathers on the map. At the same time high falootin' politicians anni up for their vies of the land. There's a certain percentage of folks that during their life span they owned property somewhere. If perchance they were granted lands under the terms of said acts, then they also owned a piece of paper with the President's Autherization amd Autograph.

But Wait! There's more, there's Way More. Unfortunately my ink well has all evaporated and I won't be making it over to Crowley's where its distilled till later. In the meantime, be sure to keep track with the survey plats.