WPA Interview

Interview done by: Harrell Martin, Greenwood, Arkansas 11/29/40

Early Settlers Personal History


 1. Mrs. Margaret Foster (Power) Sherlock

2. 211 Lexington Avenue, Fort Smith, Arkansas

3. Retired: semi-invalid

4. Housewife and mother

5. December 3, 1844

6. Salem, Missouri

7. Married in 1866 to Samuel H. Sherlock a promising young lawyer who shortly after marriage was elected to the Missouri legislative

8. Was an immigrant

9. Since 1884

10. In 1882 they moved from Salem, Missouri to Raleigh, Missouri. After two years there, they came to Arkansas, making the trip down the Mississippi river on a flat boat, landing near Memphis Tenn. Thence across the state on train to Van Buren where they left the train and ferried the Arkansas River to Fort Smith, locating at North 3rd and B Street.

11. Mr. Sherlock decided that there was a greater field of work for a lawyer in Arkansas so he moved his family, which consisted of his wife, on daughter and two sons, to Arkansas

12. Most of them were frame with brick chimneys and (or) foundation. Homes owned by the wealthier class of people were very pretentious. Mrs. Sherlock’s home on North 3rd and B Streets was built of stone and brick. This house is still in very beautiful condition both outside and inside.

13. They used dripping candles at first but after a very few years began using oil lamps and lanterns.

14. In the early 1890’s. She has forgotten the exact date when electricity was first used here.

15. Coal was used in the majority of homes and Mrs. Sherlock used it entirely. She said coal was plentiful even in 1884.

16. Fish was plentiful as were deer and great coveys of quail. Mrs. Sherlock says her husband was very extravagant about cows. It seems that in the early days of Fort Smith there was no law concerning stock running loose, an everybody turned their cows out every morning and trusted them to come home in the evening. The Sherlock’s always put a bell on their cow so she was easy to find in case she strayed too far from home. In case the cow failed to show up at night and could not be found, Mr. Sherlock would go out and buy another cow before he went to bed.

17. Mrs. Sherlock remembers that, as a child, she always had to help in the cotton patch which her father planted each year. Her mother carded the cotton and spun thread to make all their clothing and all useful articles, in housework. Her father, also, always kept a great number of sheep on the place. When shearing time came, he drove the sheep down to the river so they would get clean. Then when they were dry, they were sheared and her mother then carded and spun the wool to weave into winter clothing and knit into socks, stockings and warm caps and mittens for her children.

18. All courtships were interesting as the lady related but young love followed practically the same course as it does at present except that people generally did not jump into marriage so precipitately as they do now and divorce was practically unheard of in those days.

19. Staple foods were much higher directly following the war than at the present time; silks for dresses were also much higher but shoes and other wearing apparel were not as expensive as now.

20. They shared a common cause, therefore a common need and one divided with another without thinking of cost or inconvenience.

21. Potatoes, corn, cotton, wheat. Mrs. Sherlock does not remember just what year tomatoes were regarded as edible; she thinks it may have been around 1880.

22. Most farm implements were purchased from other states and shipped here by boat up the Arkansas River.

23. Shipping, mining, farming and building.

24. Sassafras roots, sunflower seeds, poke salad were often used as well as sweet gum and maple sugar. Mrs. Sherlock says she was almost grown before she ever saw white sugar. They always tapped the maple trees and made their own syrups and sugar. Rye and wheat and fruits were also grown at the time.

25. She said she always had an average social life of any young person of her age. Her father owned a wheat mill and she stayed around the mill and everyone for many miles around knew her and made much of her. As she and her husband landed on Arkansas soil after coming by flat-boat from Raleigh, Missouri, down the Mississippi River; she decided immediately decided she wanted to go back home to Missouri.
To her surprise and fear there were as many Indians on the banks of the river as there were white people. Somehow, she says, they had no trouble with the Indians in crossing the state. Once after settling on North 3rd Street, she looked out toward North 2nd Street and saw an Indian woman and baby sitting on a corner, waiting for her husband to come out of a saloon. It was almost sundown when the Indian left the saloon. But the woman merely strapped the papoose to her back and stolidly started following her husband home. Old Judge I. C. Parker who was federal judge of the old Indian Territory was hanging all Indians who were caught in town and misbehaving. Judge Parker was called to Washington D. C. and reprimanded for hanging so many Indians, and he replied that he would either hang or run out every Indian until this was a fit place for white people to live.

26-28. Van Buren was once known as Phillip’s Landing.

29. Belle Point School located on South 9th Street was grade and high school combined. This building was erected before Civil War. The Belle Grove School in 600 block on North 6th Street. Present building was erected in 1886. Another building of frame stood there previously. The present Belle Point school was moved and built in 1908 on Dodson Avenue.

31. Miss Mollie Williams is present principal of Belle Point and formerly

32. Free schools, no tuition ---- (was a teacher in previous school).

33. School was taught in Mrs. Sherlock’s home when she was a child. The teacher went to a home where there were children and taught them one whole day and spent the night. Then the next morning went on to a neighbor’s home and stayed the same length of time until all homes in neighborhood had been visited and then started routine over again.

34. The Bible, almanacs.

35. Western Union but does not remember date.

36. The early “horse cars” were run on small tracks with horses walking between rails. These were taken from use in 1898 when trolley cars were substituted.

37. In early 1900’s. Here in Fort Smith. Boxed in over the wheels.

38. She saw a train once before riding one across Arkansas to Van Buren. They were very inconvenient. and uncomfortable.

39. Here in Fort Smith in May 1912 at old Electric Park, North 11th St.

40. In November 1932. Cost of operation and decrease of passengers who bought their own cars, caused the Fort Smith Light and Traction Company to quit trolley. Twin City Coach and Bus Co. began.

41. The old Grand Opera House stood on the corner of South 5th Street and Garrison Avenue. There were numerous local performances, but mostly traveling stock companies showed there, not cheap burlesque but really refined elegant, dressy shows were put on. The people who attended these performances dressed in their finest silks and sported their expensive jewelry.

42. None

43. No

44. She never saw any duels or heard of but one during her life-time and that one did not closely concern her. A girlhood friend of hers owned a pair of pistols one of which had been used by a member of her family. The duel was over a debt of honor but Mrs. Sherlock never learned the exact nature of the debt.

45.

46.

47. Indian lynchings have already been explained but occasionally a Negro or white man deserved the rope too. A Negro was lynched here in early 1900’s.

48. Her Grandfather was a Revolutionary Soldier. Her father was in the Northern Army as, also, was her husband who was a Captain. Even now she dislikes to think back over the dark days of the war. They had to hide their food from marauding companies of the Southern Army and many times had to hide themselves for days at a time in fear of Indians as well as soldiers. Food was not plentiful as the men-folk were away fighting and the women and children were unable to raise the crops which would provide food. Although Mr. Sherlock has been dead many years, his widow still receives a pension check each month. She thinks that is unusual to receive a pension more than seventy-five years.

49. She was too young to remember enough about battles to describe them now.

50. She says that during the Reconstruction period and even for years afterward everyone still felt the effects of the war; what it had done to the minds and hearts of the oppressed; the morale of the people generally. You could sell anything on earth nearly and you could buy anything you could pay for. No credit in those days. Their first home in Fort Smith was at North 3rd. St. and cost $4,000 which was “dirt-cheap” then. Her husband went into partnership with a man named Lyman. The law firm of Lyman and Sherlock employed other young lawyers who worked day and night trying to straighten out snarled affairs for people, tried to recover lost or stolen property.

51. She knew nothing definite, just hear-say, concerning the Ku Klux Klan. The very mention of them was made with fear and trembling.

52. Mr. and Mrs. Sherlock were members of a Presbyterian Church in Missouri and when they were preparing to remove to Arkansas, they were warned that they would not be welcome in Arkansas a “Southern” state and more especially they would not be welcome in any church. Nevertheless, on arrival in Fort Smith, they located the First Presbyterian Church and presented themselves together with a church letter, asking for memberships in that congregation. They were heartily and wholesomely received. Six months later Mr. Sherlock was made superintendent of the Sunday School, which office he held many years.

53. Answered in question 48.

54. None.

55. None.

56. Mrs. Sherlock, herself, was a niece and namesake of Margaret Foster, the first white child born west of the Allegheny Mountains. She has eight descendants.

57. Mrs. J. D. Southard who lives in the old family home at 214 North 6th Street, Fort Smith, Arkansas; William Sherlock who lives in (La) Puento, California. Another son died in young manhood.

58. Miss Ruth Southard who lives with her mother at 214 North 6th Street, Fort Smith; Mrs. Wilbur Hall Hutsell (the former Corrinne Southard) who lives in Auburn, Alabama; Dr. J. S. Southard who lives at 312 Belle Avenue, Fort Smith. One grandson and two granddaughters whose homes are in California. There are no great grandchildren.

59. None.

Mrs. Sherlock says that after living on North 3rd Street for a few years, they purchased a home on North 6th Street at 214 North 6th St. from which house, the year preceding, a little four year old girl was stolen by Indians and never was heard from again. This house is now the property of her daughter Mrs. J. D. Southard.