Some other early settlers in this community have been the families of Mrs. Hester Pearson Carter, who was born Feb. 11, 1866, in Coosa, Ala., a daughter of Nathan and Elizabeth Pearson who moved to this county in 1869. A brother, George J. Pearson, had been born July 3, 1861. In later years George Pearson related the presence of a blacksmith shop at Cadron Gap before the railroad and of a homestead on the present site of Hendrix College.
Jan. 10, 1870, Nathan Pearson purchased land in Section Thirty-six, T 7 N, R 14 W. He had moved to Arkansas from Alabama and settled one and half miles east of Wooster. After his death it passed on a partition sale from his widow to G.J. Pearson, a son, July 3, 1882. In 1941 this farm was in good condition in spite of being in cultivation for more than a hundred years. The acreage of this land was first taken up, by thos land was first taken up, by patent, Nov. 27, 1820, by Roberts Robertson as a military bounty. He was a veteran of the War of 1812.
Oct. 27, 1881, the N.E. Adams store was sold to J.P. Wooster for $25. Woodter did not own another parcel of land hereabouts, but when the spirit of town development was advanced his store was the nucleus and his name became the name of the new village.
The post office was opened March 20, 1883, with J.H. Smith as its first postmaster. Other postmasters have been James H. Patton, Hymon D. Jones, Joseph Richardson, John W. Cantrell, William H. Lindsey, John L. Pearson, Hensley Robinson, James L. Patton and Deanie I. Smith.
James S. Lane was born near Wooster Jan. 22, 1868, to Joe and Vina Dickens Lane who came to this area in 1848. James M. Clifton was born in Cherokee County, Ala., in 1841 and came to Arkansas to settle near Wooster.
He had been a Confederate soldier but was captured by the Union Army. He moved to this area in 1866 and married Sally Tyler, who had come here in 1823 from Kentucky. The Clifton and Tyler homesteads were adjoining tracts of land nortwest of the new Conway Station after its beginning in 1871.
Lewis W. Wofford of the Stone Point community was born near Greenbrier, Dec. 3, 1865, a son of Jimmy Lee and Lucinda Luster Wofford. They settled on Cadron Creek, in 1859, three miles west of present-day Wooster.
School District No. 10 was created at Wooster July 9, 1883. The first school in this area was on the brow of a hill, on the James Carter farm, one-half mile north of King's bridge over East Cadron Creek. Another school in this immediate area was at Walnut Grove.
In 1881 Burks school was opened and was the only school in this immediate area. A.K. Burks gave the land. The Burks school stood in a bend of the road and traffic could be seen in three directions. The teacher painted the lower panes of the glass windows to keep the pupils attention on their classwork. It was not long before most of the window glasss was broken out.
Other teachers at this school were James A. Lee, Socratus Hendrickson, John R. Huie, Mrs. Lydia Smith, J.A. Batson (who taught his 17th term in 1901), A. M. Ledbetter, J.R. Giddens, John H. Jones, Henry Lankford, J.A. Reynolds, Wiley Beene and Cicero Bennett.
John H. Jones, a teacher raised a community controversy when he insisted on reading the Bible and having a daily prayer in the Burks school. Other schools in the area were at Pleasant Valley, Horseshoe Mountain, Burkett and the Negro school.
The Burks School was destroyed by a windstorm in 1911. This school was rebuilt but in a new location. Luther Holloway led the drive to construct the new schoolhouse. This school was again destroyed by a wind and rain storm in 1924. The new school had been built a little north of the town and west of the new concrete highway to Martinville. The building had six rooms and an auditorium. A Smith-Hughes building was erected as was the home economics building.
The Wooster school system was one of the first in this county to use the Arkansas State Teachers College teacher training program. These young student teachers were transferred the seven miles from Conway to Wooster each day by bus. The school district hired one full-time adult teacher for supervision. In later years the school was consolidated with Greenbrier.
A Primitive Baptist church was established very early in Wooster. On certian Sindays, the foot-washing day, many wagons and buggies filled the grounds at the church site. Most were merely curious.
The Baptist Church was organized in 1917. It obatined its pews for their new building from the nearby disbanded West Shady Grove Methodist Church. This Baptist church was rebuilt in 1965.
The sawmill, grist mill and cotton gin were first erected at Wooster ubder the ownership of L.N. Lee. There also was a blacksmith shop here during the 1890's. A drugstore was opened much later. The village doctors have included a Dr. Wear, a dr. Cantrell, a Dr. McMahan, a Dr. Wood, Dr. Ervin Hutto, Dr. Joe Hutton and Dr. Cicero Burnett, the last to practice at Wooster. Other younf men of this community became doctors. they were Will Patton, Doyle Pattin, Albert Davenport and Robert Dawson.
In 1895, Hensley Robinson purchased the Jeff Pearson general store. In 1903, L.T. Patton opened another general store, causing Robinson to double the size of his premises in an attempt to keep his customers. The Robinson store burned Dec, 21, 1930 in the midst of the depression. Highway 65, one the county's first hard surface roads, cut northward across the Cadron bottoms to Wooster in 1923, and continued northward through Bono, Marrtinville, Damascus and Clinton. In 1942, however, this route was changed eastward to a more favorable route north through Pickles Gap, Spring Hill, Greenbrier and Damascus.
There still remains at Wooster the lodge hall, the post office, several stores, the Baptist church, the Church of Christ and many new brick homes.
