The Town That Disappeared
By Charles T. Davis
On the Pope county bank of the Arkansas, a little north of and
diagonally across the river from Dardanelle Rock on
the Yell county side, stands a little, weather-warped,
time-shaken log house but of a single room and a native stone
chimney out of all proportion to its size. This little
cabin is all that remains of Norristown, one time the
most
important town between Fort Smith and Little Rock on the
north side of the river, and a town which, if tradition
maybe believed, at one time lacked but two votes of
becoming the capital of the state of Arkansas. Now the
town is
gone; utterly abandoned, existing only in the memory of
the older residents of the vicinity. Part of its site
has
long since caved into the river, part has been
cultivated over for these many years, and of its system
of streets
and roads, nothing remains but a shadow of the old post
road along which the splendid relay teams once plunged
with
the mails from the East to the West - now but a little,
weed grown country lane maintained simply to give a few
farmers entrance to their fields. Old Norristown is
dead, a lost town, and it is perhaps fitting that the
log
cabin itself has a history of greatness. One time it was
a commodious two-story tavern known widely throughout
the state. It was there that the creaking stage coaches
drew up from the South and East, and the long wagon
trains
bringing in and taking out the merchandise of a
principality made their halts.
Norristown was never incorporated, and it is now impossible to fix
definitely its date of origin. Probably the
first settler was Samuel Norris, who came from New
Jersey in the early 30's, and whose name the town bears.
in
1834 it was the county seat of Pope county when the
county's domain included all of the present Yell county
and far
back toward the East. In 1842 Yell county was formed
across the river and the county seat of Pope moved to
Dover.
The wane of the town began with the removal of the
county administration site, and when the Little Rock and
Fort
Smith road came through Russellville in 1873, to the
great aggrandizement of Russellville, the present county
seat,
the future of Norristown ended and its past began.
Yet in its day it was a fine old town; never a large town by
present standards, but some 300 or 400 people lived in
the community in its heyday and this constituted no
inconsiderable population for the period. The old town's
great
strength was in its geographical location with reference
to trade. There was Lewisburg south and east of it on
the
Arkansas River in Conway county, Spadra north and west
in Johnson county, and Dardanelle across the river. The
river checked considerable traffic to the east, and
Dardanelle was the market place of the transriver
country.
But the whole, wide fan-shaped area between Spadra and
Lewisburg, clear back to the Boston range in Searcy
county
paid tribute to the merchants of Norristown. Now of the
four, Dardanelle alone remains as a town whose present
can
compare with its past.
The town seems to have been laid out in the form of a capital T.
Its streets were unnamed, but are rather loosely
referred to by the older residents of the community
round about as "River street", and "Main street." River
street, naturally, lay along the river. At about the
center of the town it was joined at right angles by Main
street, which was the thoroughfare to the whole back
country, and a part of the post road from Little Rock to
Fort
Smith. It is this street whose ghost still is unlaid on
the forgotten town site, now the little rutted country
lane which gives easement to the county road leading
into Russellville. There may have been other streets,
but
they have been forgotten long since. The Arkansas river
long ago claimed the street which bore its name, and any
others, which may have existed have been plowed over for
years. At the head of the pontoon bridge which crosses
the river at Dardanelle, and at the terminal of the
Dardanelle and Russellville short line railroad, until
only a
few years ago there existed several of the commodious
"saddle-bag" type of log dwelling houses - two rooms, or
maybe more counting the lean-tos, with an open hallway
or "gallery" between them. This group usually was
referred
to as "Old Noristown" by the younger generations, but as
a matter of fact it was about a mile southwest of the
real
town site. One of the buildings, however, the largest
one, which was destroyed by fire less than 10 years ago,
was
contemporary with the town and had been the home of one
John Truitt, who had a store in Norristown. Nothing now
remains of the older buildings, but the railroad sheds
and warehouse and the bridge building are now called
North
Dardanelle.
Who would search through the traditions and word-of-mouth history
of old Norristown for wild and adventurous
passages of the Southwest of the early day, would meet
with disappointment. Norristown was not wild nor
adventurous, nor were its inhabitants. As a rule they
were the best of the pioneers, stalwart and self-reliant
-
men who brought the law with them from the older
civilization of the East. The Rev. Cephas Washburn, who
was the
first station missionary at old Dwight Indian Mission on
the Illinois bayou near old Norristown, was a man of
great
intellectual attainment and his son, Edward Payson
Washburn, was not only an artist but a classic scholar.
Then
there were the Wilsons and the Howells and Fergusons and
Truitts; Dr. David Brearley, the Indian agent; Dr.
Thomas
Russell and the Perrys and Tobeys. Most of these family
names still exist among the leading citizens of the
vicinity. Dr. Russell did not live at Norristown proper.
He came to the West with an immigration train of
restless young adventurers, all well found in equipment
and supplies, and settled and established a community
which
grew into what is now Russellville, the county seat of
Pope county. That was in 1835, and Norristown was then
an
established settlement, according to an old report.
Capt. "Jimmie" Russell, a veteran of the Confederacy and
a son
of the founder of the town where he now lives, says that
the school master in the vicinity - there seems to have
been only one school master and he served Norristown as
well - was a cultured young English-man who left a
classic
imprint on the minds of the youth of the period.
There was drinking in the old town - much of it, since not only
tavern but store, or any other trading place, as a
general rule, had a keg or so on tap - but there was
little violence or bloodletting. The early settlers were
not
explorers but home-builders. They brought their families
with them, and guarded as jealously as they might their
environment. But there is some historic case, perhaps, in
every town, and any of the older ones who can remember
that far back will tell of the death of
Nixon Curry,
alias John Hill, in 1841. This Curry, according to W.F.
Pope
in his "Early Days in Arkansas," was a notorious and
notable character. He was a refugee from justice from
North
Carolina, where a price of $5,000 had been put on his
head. Pope says that he was charged with the crime of
negro
stealing and sentenced to a term in the penitentiary. He
escaped before he could be jailed, however, and the
pursuit resulted in the death of some of the sheriff's
posse. He reached Arkansas in 1822 or 1823, and was
married
in Pope county. Some time afterward he moved to St.
Francis county, and in the sessions of 1833 and 1835 he
represented that county in the lower house of the
legislature. Some time in 1836 he was recognized by a
party of
movers emigrating from North Carolina, which resulted in
an issue of a warrant for his arrest by Governor Fulton,
and Curry was taken into custody by the sheriff of St.
Francis county to be held for North Carolina officials.
His
popularity was such, however, that his friends staged a
jail-delivery, and he escaped, although while fleeing
through the Cache river bottoms before the officers, he
was severely wounded in the shoulder. He made his way
back
to Pope county, was again arrested and was again taken
from the officers by his friends and freed. His good
behavior and the long time that had elapsed since the
commission of his crimes in North Carolina resulted in
the
indifference on the part of authority in both states,
and he was never subsequently molested, living in peace
in
Pope county until the day of his death. Of this death
Pope gives a very meager account.
"He now became a very hard drinker and quarrelsome," says Pope:
page 210, "Early Days in Arkansas." In 1841, in
the spring I think, he was killed with his own knife, at
Norristown, by Vincent L. Hutton, with whom he became
involved in a quarrel."
Tradition handed down from the old residents of the community
colors this tragedy with a high degree of romantic
interest. Dr. Russell's version of it, which has been
told and retold through the country, is especially
interesting.
It seems that after Curry's second arrest and second delivery by
his friends he established a residence somewhere
north and west of Dardanelle, which then was in Pope
county. Despite Pope's statement to the effect, that he
was
not thereafter molested, he seemed to consider himself
an outlaw. The price on his head held good. Back of the
genial, vigorous personality which twice placed him in
office and twice freed him from the clutches of law, was
suspicion and watchfulness. He went armed, and he
extended no hospitalities to strangers. Young Hutton was
in his
employ about the farm, himself a young, stalwart,
upstanding young man. He was to marry a daughter of
Curry's - or
of Hill's, for the fugitive maintained his alias to the
last. One day, that spring day in 1841, the two left for
Norristown to purchase a stock of farm supplies.
Mrs. Curry, always uneasy for the welfare of her husband, gave
young Hutton a final charge.
"Don't let anybody hurt him," she said.
"If anybody gets him," Hutton replied, "It will be me. You can be
perfectly easy about him."
There was a crowd in the tavern when they reached Norristown, and
the customary good-natured banter was in
progress. The two joined in. Curry to demonstrate the
weight of his fist and his partner's resisting power,
began
to pound the young man over the lungs. Hutton swelled
out his massive chest and bore the sledge hammer blows
right
manfully until the sport began to pall on him and he
called a halt. Curry responded with a blow which felled
Hutton. From the floor Hutton reached out, grasped Curry
by the ankles and overturned him. The two grappled on
the floor with Hutton on top. Perhaps Curry had been
fired by the raw liquor of the day. Perhaps they both
had,
for as Hutton held his adversary down he saw him
reaching for his bowie knife. Curry wore the knife in a
leather
sheath on his belt, and the knife had slipped down into
the sheath so far that it could not be grasped by the
handle. He was trying to work it up from the end of the
sheath when Hutton first noticed it. Maintaining his
grip
on Curry, Hutton watched the knife until the hilt
appeared above the sheath and then he grasped it and
stabbed
Curry to the heart. And so ended Nixon Curry, alias John
Hill.
There is a sequel, however. Hutton fled to Texas. Curry left a son,
a slender, silent stripling who apparently
when his ways unchanged until the day he was 16 years
old. Then he took down his father's long rifle and
kissed
his mother good-bye. The mother knew her son, and knew
that the blood of his father had been calling for
vengeance.
She made no remonstrance, knowing its futility.
A year later the boy came back, gaunt, hard and silent. The mother
asked with her eyes the unspoken question. The
boy nodded his head and hung the rifle again on the old
accustomed pegs. There was a fresh notch on the stock.
One of the most notable of the early residents of Norristown was
Judge Andrew Scott, in 1820 a judge of the
Superior Court, and later a judge of the circuit
embracing Pope county. Judge Scott's establishment was
at old
Scotia, a plantation settlement near Dover, but he held
court at Norristown. Judge Scott was, according to Pope,
"the most chivalrous and the purest-minded man I ever
knew." During his tenure as judge of the Superior Court
of
the territory he challenged, shot and killed on the
field of honor, a fellow member of the bench because his
opponent questioned the accuracy of a lady's statement
in a game of whist. This was at Arkansas Post, then the
territorial seat of government, and occurred soon after
Judge Scott went on the bench. With Judge Joseph Selden,
a
former army officer of Virginia, and also a member of
the Superior Court bench, and two ladies, Judge Scott
one
night engaged in a social game of cards. According to
Pope, in the course of the game Judge Scott's partner
said,
"Judge Selden, we have the tricks and honors on you."
"Madam, that is not so," Judge Selden responded brusquely.
Judge Scott demanded an instant apology, and upon Judge Selden's
declination, Judge Scott seized a candle stick
from the table and hurled it at him. Although Judge
Selden was the injured person, Judge Scott was the
challenger.
Judge Selden, Pope says, sent an apology a few days
later, but the intermeddling of friends prevented the
closing
of the breach. The meeting was on Mississippi soil,
opposite Montgomery's Poine, at the mouth of White
river.
Judge Selden's second was Robert C. Oden, and Judge
Scott's Dr. Nimrod Menifee, who acted also as surgeon.
Pistols
were used at 10 paces and Judge Selden died at the first
fire.
Old Mrs. Norris, widow of the founder of Norristown, died only
about 25 years ago. She lived in the vicinity of
the old town long after its glory had departed, and,
until almost the day of her death, after rounding out
more
than a century, she was a strong, forceful character,
both mentally and physically. The
Dardanelle-Russellville
short line was built during the latter years of her
life, and was operated with all the primitive adjuncts
of the
trains of the day. The first locomotives were wood
burners, and although the train had no scheduled stops
between
Russellville and North Dardanelle, some four miles
distant, actually it operated only from wood-pile to
wood-pile
with several leisurely stops for "coaling."
Pete Rice, who later became one of the best known locomotive
engineers of the Missouri Pacific, was the first
engineer of the old "dinky" line. One day as Pete was
puffing out of the North Dardanelle station with much
pomp
and circumstance he saw Mrs. Norris, then past 70 years,
a little distance down the right of way. Railroads were
run on a neighborly plan in those days before schedules
and such, and Pete drew up and brought his train to a
stop.
"Get aboard, Mrs. Norris," he called, "and we'll ride you home."
Mrs. Norris cast a reflective eye upon the little engine and
replied:
"No, thank you, Pete. It's just two or three miles and I'm in a
kind of a hurry."
While Norristown was one of the most important points on the post
road between Little Rock and Fort Smith,
Dardanelle, just across the river, was the "change"
station. The mail or the "post" was carried overland in
stage
coaches, drawn by four horses, and as near as can now be
gathered there were four relays. Out of Little Rock
teams
were changed at what is now Gleason in Faulkner county,
at Lewisburg in Conway county, at Dardanelle in what is
now
Yell county, at what is now Paris, or thereabout, in
Logan county, and so into Fort Smith. At Norristown the
staged crossed the river on Tate's ferry. The stage
coach was a cumbersome affair slung without springs on
leather
straps from arches up-ending from the axles. The bump of
the road was relieved only by the forward and back
swaying of the body suspended from the straps, and the
mail and baggage were carried in the "boot," a small
platform swung at the rear. The horses were magnificent
animals, the best obtainable and the drivers were widely
known over their "runs." Although there was adequate
ferriage across the river at Norristown for lighter
traffic,
such as the stage coaches and private conveyances, the
overland freight traffic, the long ox-teams bringing in
their "barter" of cotton and hides and taking out
merchandise, usually stopped at the river.
However, Norristown's great artery of traffic, like that of all
other river towns of the period, was the river
itself. There are still men who can remember in this day
when steamboating has vanished from the Arkansas, the
great argosies which made landing at Norristown -
sometimes as many as four of them in sight at the same
time -
upbound from New Orleans to Fort Smith and intervening
points with sugar, salt, hardware and dry goods, and
downbound with cotton. These older steamboats were
floating palaces, many of them, and of tremendous cargo
capacity. The old Importer, out of Fort Smith to New
Orleans, loaded, one time, the last bale of cotton of a
cargo
of 5,000 bales at Dardanelle. She was "loaded to the
guards" before the last bale was heaved aboard by the
"roustabouts," and the only place they could find to
place it was squarely atop the pilot house.
Norristown was no outpost of river traffic. Well before its
founding the steam boats were plying the river beyond
its site. The Arkansas Gazette of March 22, 1822, in
commenting on the old Eagle, out of New Orleans for
Dwight
Mission, mentions that "this is the first steamboat that
ever ascended to this place." The Eagle on this trip
turned back within 12 miles of the Mission on account of
low water.
Capt. Bob Wilson of Russellville is now the only living man who was
in business in Norristown, and although the
town was then past its prime, the "merchandising"
policies were little changed. Like all pioneer
settlements of
the Southwest, those from which Norristown drew its
trade were self sustaining. In a pinch they could both
cloth
and feed themselves with the elemental necessities. They
could have existed without recourse to the stores, but
they needed the market for their surplus products, and
they required such refinements and luxuries as they
could
procure in exchange. So the stores took their cotton and
in turn sold them prints and cloths of finer fabrics,
sugar and spices, manufactured articles, and above all,
salt. Sale was the one essential with no substitute, and
salt frequently played a part in the country stores
which other foodstuffs have played in the bourses and
exchanges
of the world's metropolises. Salt came up the river from
New Orleans or Memphis. It was used, of course, as a
seasoning for food, and also to cure valuable hides and
the winter's supply of meat. It was essentially a matter
for steamboat transportation because of its weight and
bulk. So when the river fell, and transportation by
water
stopped because of a lack of water, its importation
generally was cut off. It was then that the merchants in
the
isolated places began "merchandizing," which in the
interpretation of the Southwest means being a merchant
from all
possible angles. Captain Wilson says that when
Norristown merchants received advance notice that the
river was
falling, they immediately began sending out salt buyers.
Sometimes an unwary merchant who had not gotten the
latest river intelligence sold out his entire stock of
salt with no chance of getting more until the river
rose.
Salt trains even went to the White river towns, De Valls
Bluff and Des Arc, among them, and famine and high
prices
reigned until transportation resumed on rising water.
The commercial significance of the old town which now lives but in
the history was unquestioned. But for the
railroads, which brought ruin so utter and so rapid to
many of the river towns, it might be a flourishing city.
Its
political significance, however, is in doubt. There is
no resident of Pope or Yell county who has not been
brought
up in the faith that at one time Norristown lacked but
two votes of becoming the capital of the state.
Unfortunately, however, the details were not recorded.
The proceedings of the territorial legislature published
in
the Arkansas Gazette, which served in those days as a
legislative journal, contain no account of Norristown's
claim.
If the town was ever proposed before the formal
law-making body, or the proposal ever came to a formal
vote, no
record of the fact was made. The size of the town cannot
be argued against it as a contender for the state
capital. If Norristown's population was only some 300 or
400 people, that of Little Rock itself, according to an
official census of 1833, was only 537. The matter may
have been proposed and tabled, or actually voted upon.
This, however, is speculation. No written history of the
matter seems to exist with the single exception of
Shinn's History of the state. Josiah Shinn in a brief
reference to the tow states that at one time it came
within
two votes of being chosen for the capita, but, although
a careful and exhaustive historian, he does not quote
authority for his statement or give any further details.
He, himself, was a longtime resident of Pope county, and
it may be that he has published the widespread belief of
the community, which although universal in its
acceptance,
brings no written proof to its establishment as a fact.
W.B. Lemoyne of Dardanelle, who has lived many years in
Pope and Yell counties and who knew Mrs. Norris well
during the later years of her life, says that she is his
authority for the matter; that she told him as positive
fact many years ago that Little Rock had won the honor
from
Norristown by only two vote.
And such is old Norristown, the most utterly lost of Arkansas' lost
towns; its sons and daughters lying in widely
scattered graves; is prominence long ago forgotten; the
very river whose name one time it glorified eating
slowly
year by year further into its dead heart. And to its
memory two things stand - this paper written for the
centennial edition of the Arkansas Gazette, and a little
battered log-cabin, one time a famous tavern.
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