III. THE SITE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

A. A Visit to the Post in 1900.
1. The Correspondent Meets Madame Forreste
In December 1900 a correspondent for the Arkansas Gazette wrote of his visit to Arkansas Post. Stopping to chat with Madame Madeline Forreste, he was introduced to Mrs. Thomas Farrelly, a widow. Her late husband had been a nephew of Terence Farrelly. The correspondent listened attentively as the two ladies discussed long-dead residents of the area--the Notrebes, father, wife, sons, and daughter; the Desruisseau, one of whose daughters married James H. Lucus; the Bogys; the Barraques; the Bonnes; the Imbeaus; the Vaugines; and the Stillwells.

When the reporter asked what had happened to these families, members of whom were residing at Arkansas Post before the organization of the Territory, Madame Forreste exclaimed, they are all gone, like the town "gone in the river." Madame Forreste explained that she and the Widow Farrelly were probably the only inhabitants of Arkansas County alive who had been living in the region in 1819.[1]

2. The Correspondent Reconnoiters the Post
a. Erosion
On November 20 the correspondent explored the site of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Post. He found much of the presumed site of the village had eroded into the Arkansas. "There was not a single house standing, and no ruins of any proportions. Not a vestige of the French or Spanish town as seen by Notrebe, Phillips, and Harold and Joe Stillwell of the older days.” Nor were there any structures dating to the territorial period.[2]

In the 81 years that had passed since 1819 when William Woodruff established the Arkansas Gazette at the Post, he wrote, "the caving river bank ...has carried the river over and past the original town site for a distance of more than a mile."[3]

It is apparent from this statement that the correspondent was not familiar with the location of the village in the last years of the eighteenth and the early years of the nineteenth century. An examination of the Arkansas County Deed Books demonstrates that the Arkansas River, as its channel moved northward, claimed much of the ground on which the Towns of Rome and Arkansas were platted, but very little of the acreage on which the village of Arkansas Post was located. The Towns of Rome and Arkansas were platted in the period when Arkansas Post was the territorial capital. As the capital was moved to Little Rock in 1821, these towns never developed and were speculative in nature. Most of the lots had no improvements, and after the territorial government was moved, they were bought and sold for taxes.

Not being acquainted with information found in the Arkansas County Deed Books, the correspondent informed his readers, about 20 acres, more or less, of the village site

When he searched for the Civil War earthworks, he found the northwest corner of the bastioned work defended by the Confederates in January 1863. This was located about one-fourth mile northeast of the site of the village. The rest of the fort had caved into the river. In the woods and fields west of the fort, he was able to trace the line of rifle-pits held by the Confederates on January 11, 1863.[4]

The village cemetery, he was told by Madame Forreste, had "long since gone into the river, and the remains of the old French and Spanish settlers have been washed down by the current of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers." He was told that the bodies of United States soldiers killed in the battle of Post of Arkansas had been removed to the National
Cemetery at Little Rock in the late 1860s. He visited the Confederate graves and found them "almost obliterated by time.”[5]

b. Ruins
Southeast of the eroded area on the point, the correspondent saw the ruins of the Arkansas State Bank, which had "stood as late as 1863, several blocks north of the steamboat landing." Here he found a few wheelbarrow loads of brickbats. Local inhabitants told the newspaperman that in January 1863 Union gunboats had shelled the village. As the bank was the most conspicuous landmark, the bluejackets had concentrated on it and knocked it "hither and yon!" In the period between January 11 when the Confederates surrendered and the 16th when Union forces evacuated the area, the Yankees, he was told, had "destroyed by fire, wantonly, many homes of respectable appearance in the town and country adjacent for a distance of several miles."[6]

c. The 1900 Village
In 1900 the village, which had a population of more than 100, was north of the historic site. There were two stores, with Henry Jones' giving a prosperous appearance and -having well-stocked shelves. The adjacent country side on the Grand Prairie was fertile and good crops were grown. If the caving bank of the Arkansas could be stabilized and a good landing constructed, the correspondent believed, Arkansas Post could be revived.[7]

B. Fletcher Chenault's 1926 Visit
1. He Explores the Area
a. The Site of the Arkansas State Bank
Twenty-six years later, in the autumn of 1926, Fletcher Chenault motored down from Little Rock to Arkansas Post. Impressed with the significance of the area and distressed by what he saw, Chenault authored a feature story which appeared in the November 11 edition of the Arkansas Gazette. He informed his readers that while Arkansas Post sti11 existed, the Post of "today is a modern settlement near the old fort and in no wise related to it." As he strolled about the area, he found, among the briers and old fields "mounds of broken and scattered brick." These, his guide informed him, marked the sites of the first territorial capitol and the Arkansas State Bank. These were the only sites that could be identified, and they, too, Chenault wrote, “will disappear unless the ruins are marked.”[8]

b. Notrebe's Cistern and Well
Nearby Chenault found a cistern walled with brick, while not far off was a deep well also lined with brick.

Efforts to memorialize the site were limited to the erection of a stone tablet by the Pine Bluff Chamber of Commerce, near the site of the first territorial capitol.[9]

c. The Confederate Rifle-Pits
When he called on L. S. Jones, the Indiana native and Republican who had been postmaster at the Post for 29 years, Chenault was disappointed to learn that Jones had arranged to level part of the Rebel rifle-pits to enlarge his garden. To accomplish this task, Jones had hired an old black, who prior to emancipation had been a slave on Col. James H. Moore's plantation. As the black attacked the breastworks with a spade, he exclaimed, "I neveah figgered when I holp put up ‘ese breasworks I'd tear 'em down again to mek a gard'n for a Yankee”[10]