Page 12 - Jefferson County AR 1889 History (Goodspeed)

JEFFERSON COUNTY.

I

white babes from a family near the river. Sarra- ! tored him, and, as they treated him with consider-

sin, whose generous impulses were inoved by the ation, he determined to make himself one of them;

1 frantic grief of the mother, promised her that at a he did so, and his, it is said, was the first white
given hour he would bring them back to her or hlood to mingle with that of the Quapaw nation.

never retnrn. He set out in his canoe across the He became very prominent among them, and in

river wbere he located the Chickasaw camp, and 1709, when the arms and ammunition of a party

lightly springing in the midst of the sleeping war- , of Spaniards, who died in the soutbeast part of the

;riors, he secured the babes, and tben iitt,ered the State, of an epidemic, while en ~ o u t eto the settle-

Qoapaw warhoop. The startled Chickasaws, believ ; ments in New Mexico, were found by the Quapaws,

ing the Quapaws were down upon t b e n ~in a body,

fled pel1 mell into the woods, while Sarrasin, alone

and with the two habes, entered his canoe and

made good his promises to the now overjoyed lessons in the tire-arms by which he was afterward

mother. When grown to be an old man of ninety i killed. The chief took the finest gun in the lot,

years and ready to die, he came back to the cnpi- and for 109 years it was handed down from chief

tal, and begged Gov. John Pope (182'.)-33) to let to ellief nntil in 1818, when. on the treaty with the

siunershim return to his old hunting grounds to die. He 1 United States, it was given to one of the commis-
was buried at Pine Bluff, the first interment, in its as an emhlem of friendship, peace and fidel-

cemetery. A few of the tribe still live in the Irr- ity, and now lies among the relics of the Smithson-

ritory, as peaceful and generous h e a r t ~ dnow as inn Institate.

they were in their old home in the wilds, where at Under the French governors, Sanville (1869),

this day blooms into activity a bright city of "the Bienville (1701), Cadillar (1713), de L'Epinay

New Sonth." (1710), Beinville (1718), Boishriunt, Perier (1725).

The white population, which gathered abont Bienville (1732), Vaudreuil (1742), Keleric (1753)

Arkansas Post with the beginning of French rnle and D'Abhadie (1763), there seems not to have

in 1089, iinder Gov. Sanville, jnst two centnries been so much settlement within the limits of Jef-

ago, soon began to overflow into territory up the ; ferson County, as during Spanish reign iinder

river. The soldiers of Henri De Tonti furnished Govs. Ulloa(1767), O'Reilly (1788),Unzaga (1770),
the first known instance of a white man locating Galvez (1777). Miro (1786), Carondelet (1789).
within the present boundaries of Jeeerson County, ' Lemos (1793), O'Farrell(1798) and Salcedo (1800).

the point here being chosnn hecalise it wan the Even after the United States secured it, and from

first shelf above highwater-mark. A mixture of 1804 to 1812, when subject to the power of the gov-

j real fact, and some tradition, shows that Leon Le i ernor of Indiana Territory, William H. Harrison,
Roy, one of De Tonti's men, deserted from "the it is not known at w h L date the squatters came in.

1 Post " on January 13,1690. He was captured by but they came, and during the seven years before
a hand of Osages, r b o . it is said, kept him for ,819, wben the Territory of A r k m a r was a part
I fourteen years a captive in the Oznrk Iv.Iountai~~s, of .Missouri Territory, some settled permanently
wbere be was treated as a messeuger (and sort of 00 the old hunting grounds of the Qua~aws,and
mascot) of the Great Spirit, who wished him ven- in 1819 the flrst permanent white settler located

erated as their guardian, and whose wrath would on the site of Pine Bluff. This was a French

fall upon them if he was allowed to escape. A trapper and hunter named Joseph Bonne. I t was

close watch was kept over him, but in the spring , in 1825 that he built a wigwam on the river hank,

of 1704 he escaped and reached the Arkansas between Chestnut and Walnut Streets, on ground

River, at the mouth of IvIulherry Creek. He now caved in the river, near where Sarrasin had

had only reached the site of Little Rook, on his his camp, and where a rifle, canoe and dog for a

way to Natchez, Miss., when the Qnapaws cap- long time constitilted all his earthly effects. I t was

T