This is the first of a series of weekly articles written by Charles Gregory Johnston in 1924 and published in the Pocahontas Star Herald.

Oh, For The Good Old Days of The Long, Long Ago

Dear Star Herald, with your kind permission I will in my very incompetent and scattering way join in with the Old Timers and do my bit as best I can in a series of reminiscences of the gone by days of Randolph County. Next November it will be 74 years since my parents, in an ox wagon, crossed Black River at Pocahontas emigrating from the good old state of Tennessee, where I was born 18 months before. They stopped at my grandfathers, Gregory Johnston’s, on Flat Lick Creek, eight miles North of Pocahontas, where he had located a year before.

Father bought a squatter’s claim from J Fletcher two miles west of where Middlebrook now is. This claim had on it a log cabin and a few acres of cleared land. Here, under the most adverse circumstances, they started out in life for wealth or woe, mostly woe.

I mean only to relate my own personal experiences and observations as the years have gone by. I will divide this series into three episodes, first from the early fifties to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861; second from 61 to the close of the war; third from the war on down to the present time or at least for some years since.

I desire to mention a few of the old timers I knew personally, beginning with the Blacks, Hendersons, Waddles, Hamils, Oaks, Hunters, Tom Gains, Ratcliffs, Dr Paynes, Dr Douthitt, Dr Besure, Bryants, and the merchants, Prince, Hanovers, who came to this country as pack peddlers and in a few years amassed a great fortune and later moved to Memphis. Their store was the first I ever remember being in. Thomas Gaines was a merchant here later, many others I could name.

In the Cherokee Bay country were first the Reynolds, Uncle Dennis’ father and uncle, the Shavers, Sparkmans, Col J H Perkins, at Perkins Ferry on Current river. West of Current river and the Fourche country were the Manskers, Downeys, Ingrams, Hatleys, Cochrans, a host of the Johnstons, Brooks, Spencers, Raperts, Wilsons, Judge Martin, (Lanties grandfather) Fosters, Jarretts, Simingtons, Biggers, Amos Bollinger, who built a splendid mill where Brockett now is, Meeks, and Spikes with out end. Many others I knew personally.

In the Eleven Point country were the Wills, Stubblefields, Looneys, McIlroys, Bryants, Nettles, Langfords, and later the Daltons.

The only means of transportation we had in those days was by boat down Black River, White, and the Arkansas, to the Fathers of Waters. Boats were few and far between. I think I am safe in saying that in 1850 there was not a school house in this county. Of course there were some abandoned houses that were used as school houses. I think the first church house was the old Columbia church house on Foruche on the lower end of what was later the Eli Abbott Farm. It was abandoned as far back as I can remember. It was possibly built by the Fletchers, who were amount the first settlers in the county and later went to Little Rock. Of the Fletchers there was Col Thomas and Col John, one time candidate for Governor and reported to be the wealthiest man in Little Rock. Col Thomas Fletcher, it is said was born just above the Burt Mock homestead on Mud Creek.

Possibly the next two oldest churches were the old Antioch, near Pitman, and one at Uncle Jesse Spikes on Tennessee Creek. Then came old Siolam, the dearest place to me on this earth. Here are buried all my nearest and dearest, including my parents, grand parents, uncles, aunts, and innumerable other relatives, one dear companion and precious boy. Here is where I first remember attending church, here is where I was converted and joined the church in 1866 under the preaching of Rev Moses Morris. This church was erected before I can remember and was the result of the work of my sainted uncle, Jesse Robinson, and L F Johnston, W C Thompson, Daniel Rapert, and others and has since been one of the most noted places in the county as a community burial place for a wide scope of country. This historic old church was first built of round logs scalped down, an old fashioned fireplace, stick and clay chimney. Two doors, one for the entrance of the men and one for the ladies and the custom of separating the men and women was scarcely ever violated. The door shutters were pained of split timber and clapboards riven out by hand. Wooden hinges were provided to hang the doors. The furniture was boards and split timber made by hand for the pulpit. Logs to feet long were split open and legs put in the round side with the split side up for pews. They were pretty rough for thin muslins and lawns, but it was the best we could do. Many a humble home was similarly constructed and had only puncheon or mother earth for floor, clapboard doors, shutters and wooden hinges. My first cabin home was thus constructed except I secured a little scrap lumber and made the front section of the front floor from these scraps, but the back section was puncheon. I made my first bedstead my self, hewed out the post and framed it and then made a scaffold in one corner and covered it with four foot clapboard - - - for company of course. Many similar homes were thus constructed except many of them the clapboards were held in place by weight poles. The boards were continually getting out of place and in rainy weather they did not leak - - - it just poured through.

Many out buildings were thus constructed. Barnyard gates were often made by splitting out timbers and making the frames, then penning the pickets on with wooden pins, an auger and hand saw were valuable aspects in those days. Many did not have gates at all, climbed the fence, made slip-gaps or better still had draw harrows. Many will wonder why we didn’t use nails. Now the answer is simple. This in the good old days of the long, long ago, money was hardly known and we often failed to procure for skins and deer pelts enough to exchange for things that we so much needed.

Many of those old pioneers were well-to-do. Many of them owned slaves but did not have money as they do now and did not know how to spend it even as the poor classes do now. They had no occasion to spend it. Some of the well-to-do settlers would order from New Orleans or Memphis their molasses and sugar by the barrel, their coffee by the sack to supply them for the year. But only the wee-to-do could do that. The poor classes could no more do that than I could buy a battle-ship. Those who owned slaves were considered rich and their greatest ambition was not so much for money as to own slaves. A slave Negro man was worth from 1000 to 1200 dollars, women from 700 to 1000 dollars, children from 400 to 700 dollars. Yes these were the good-old-days.

The roads in those days were the Pocahontas and Doniphan road, the old Military road from St Louis to Little Rock that passes through the county West of Pocahontas, and the Pocahontas to Alton road. The country roads were blazed trails from one settlement to the other, not traveled enough to kill out the underbrush. There would be a path on each side for the oxen and streak of brush in the center so that it was difficult to ride on the running gear of the wagon. And if one tried to walk behind a wagon he had to keep a good distance back to keep the brush from whipping back and wearing fillings out of a fellows shirt. On several occasions when I was 5 ort 6 years old and my father wanted to go from one settlement to another, and there was no wagon trail, he would put me in the wagon to keep the oxen up near him and he with his axe would lead the way and wind through the most open places cutting a sapling here and there and blazing a tree now and then, so when we returned to our little home we had a wagon road to our neighbors. The forest was open then, there being no underbrush it being kept down by the forest fires in the spring time. There were bridle trails all over the country for horseman and stock, but the wagon roads were opened up as I have described.

Stock raising was the only industry for the market and the cattle were driven to St Lewis, Memphis and other points. Hogs were driven to Pocahontas, slaughtered, packed and shipped out by boat.

Now if you come to think of it, few of the poor class had these surplus stocks to market, but a great number of the settlers would be dependent upon the stock raisers to borrow cows to furnish milk and butter, almost the staff of life for their families, and the stock men very generously supplied them all the cows they needed (just for their victuals and clothes), and the men would split rails, clear and fence land or work by the day for fifty cents from sun to sun to get meat, corn and other necessities of life. No tin cans or paper sacks in it either.

Many times the poor women would wash heavy washings of the heaviest home-made materials for large families and take hog jowls for pay. The price for a washing was fifty cents. But, says one, I thought everyone had plenty of meat, bread and vegetables. Kind readers, you don’t know what poverty is compared to those days especially among the poor classes. It was not uncommon to see strong men with empty sacks walking from house to house seeking work to pay for a piece of meat or a bushel of corn for bread.

So many came here because of the cheep and vacant land, thinking they could take up, or squat on, the land and make homes, but had no money to live on or improve the land or but teams or cows and hogs and it was a hard struggle to make a start and keep body and soul together.

Possibly Tom Mock, our friend Layfette Mocks grandfather, was the largest stock raiser in the county. When he died it was said that he owned 1500 head of cattle scattered over the county. I was 4 or 5 years old when he died. I well remember going to his sale with my father and mother and that father said that Uncle Larkin Johnston was going to cry the sale. I wondered in my mind what he was going to cry for.

So, we live to learn and die and forget all. But, oh, for the good old days of the long, long ago.

Signed: C G Johnston
Published in the Pocahontas Star Herald, 9 May 1924