THE BACKTRACKERã VOLUME I October 1972 NUMBER IV

                            THE BACKTRACKERã

 

VOLUME I                                             October 1972                                         NUMBER IV

Contents..................................................................................................................................1

New Members and Policies.....................................................................................................2

President’s Notes and Advertisement.....................................................................................3

Index to Carroll Co. Biographies..............................................................................................4

The biographies are from Goodspeed’s History of Northwest Arkansas.

 

In Memory of Beaver Families by Donna Cooper....................................................................5

William “Bill” Beaver was born 1781 in North Carolina and migrated via

Tennessee to Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri prior to 1850. (A

portion of the information in the article is from Goodspeed’s History of

Northwest Arkansas.)

 

Franklin Co., Ark. News Clippings...........................................................................................6

These clippings are from the diary of Mrs. T. H. Moore and were originally

published under the column “Long, Long Ago” in the newspaper, The

Spectator. The entries are dated from 12 September 1893, to 4 June 1896.

They include the names of visitors to Ozark, Arkansas, deaths, and the

weather.

 

Carroll and Madison Co. Census...............................................................................7, 8, 9, 10

This concludes the 1840 Census, continued from Volume 1 Issue III.

 

Straw Ancestry, By Mrs. Wardlaw.......................................................................11, 12, 13, 14

“My Straw Ancestry by Muriel E. Wardlaw” is a family history beginning with

Richard, the immigrant from probably Scotland, prior to the Revolutionary

War.

 

Obituaries from Springdale, Ark. News........................................................................... 15, 16

These are copied from the Springdale Daily News from September 1971, to

February 1972. It only includes individuals born prior to 1910. There is an

alphabetized list of surnames, B through D.

 

“As I Remember It”, By Mrs. Jane Jennings.................................................................17, 18

“As I Remember It by Jane Kaylor Jennings” recaptures an interview with her

grandfather, Walter Kaylor, age 96, of Sebastian County, Arkansas. Other

surnames mentioned are: Rose, Crouch, Spencer, Carson, Bates, and Keith.

 

Queries..........................................................................................................19, 20, 21, 22, 23

Index.....................................................................................................................................24

This Surname Index is the original index from the Backtracker.

 

 

 

 

 

                      INDEX

NAME

          PAGE

 

 

 

ADAMS

6

 

AKRIGHT

16

 

ARMSTRONG

6

 

ARRINGTON

6

 

BACON

13

 

BAILEY

15

 

BAKER

15

 

BATES

18

 

BEARD

15

 

BEAVER

5

 

BECK

15

 

BERRY

6

 

BOATWRIGHT

15

 

BOX

15

 

BOYD

6

 

BRACE

15

 

BRITT

6

 

BURNETT

15

 

CALLIER

16

 

CAMPBELL

15

 

CARLSON

15

 

CARSON

17

 

CARTER

6,15

 

CASEY

15

 

CHEATBONE

15

 

CLANTON

16

 

CLARK

15

 

CLAYPOOL

15

 

CLAYTON

15

 

CLINE

15

 

CLOTHIER

16

 

CLOWER

16

 

COLBURN

6

 

COMBS

16

 

CONATZER

6

 

COOK

16

 

CORNWALLIS

11

 

COTTON

6

 

COVINGTON

12

 

COWAN

16

 

COX

16

 

CRANDELL

14

 

CRATES

15

 

CROUCH

17

 

CUNDIFF

16

 

CURTIS

 

 

DAHLSTROM

16

 

DANIEL

16

 

DART

16

 

DAVIDSON

6,16

 

DAVIS

16

 

DAYTON

16

 

DEATHERAGE

15

 

DeCALB

11

 

DEMMELMAIER

15

 

ELSEY

6

 

EVANS

5

 

FINE

16

 

FISBEY

12,14

 

FORD

15

 

GARNER

6

 

GASKINS

5

 

GATES

11

 

GEROLD

16

 

GOOD

16

 

GREENE

16

 

GREER

6

 

HALL

6

 

HAMBRIGHT

6

 

HARDCASTLE

5

 

HARTMAN

16

 

HESLER

16

 

HOBART

6

 

HOLDEN

6

 

HOWELL

12,13

 

JENNINGS

6,17

 

KAYLOR

17,18

 

KEEGER

16

 

KEITH

18

 

LANGLEY

15

 

LEVINE

14

 

MACKIE

16

 

MAJOR

16

 

MANSFIELD

6

 

MARTIN

15,16

 

MATHES

6

 

McKINLEY

6

 

MOLLISON

15

 

MONTAGUE

6

 

MOORE

6

 

MULLINS

14

 

MYERS

16

 

NAILOR

6

 

NEWTON

16

 

NICHOLS

6

 

OLIVER

15

 

OXFORD

15

 

PARKER

18

 

PARMAN

16

 

PENDERGARSS

5

 

POLLOCK

15

 

PORTER

16

 

POTTER

15

 

RANDOLPH

16

 

REYNOLDS

6

 

RICE

15

 

RICHARDSON

6

 

ROSE

17

 

ROWLAND

6

 

SADLER

6

 

SHOCKLEY

16

 

SITLESS

15

 

SNETHEN

15

 

SPENCER

17

 

STANLEY

6

 

STARR

18

 

STOCKBURGER

16

 

STRAUGHN,  STRAWN

11,12,13,14

 

TEAGUE

15

 

THOMPSON

16

 

TRAINOR

12,13,14

 

TURNER

6

 

VALENTINE

6

 

WAGNER

6

 

WAITS

5

 

WALKER

6

 

WALL

6

 

WALLACE

15

 

WALTING

6

 

WARNER

6

 

WILSON

15

 

WITT

15

 

WITHERS

6

 

WYNN

12,13

 

YATES

15

 

YORK

6

 

 


“AS I REMEMBER IT”

 

WALTER WILLIAM KAYLOR

 

By Jane Kaylor Jennings

 

My grandfather, Walter Kaylor, is an extraordinary man.  His mind is sharp, his memory phenomenal, and his physical stamina has allowed him to survive eight major operations.  Yet, in the matter of age, the United States has a mere one hundred years on him.  A few days ago, I visited him in the Greenhurst Nursing Home in Charleston, Arkansas, and we had a wonderful talk.

 

“Grandpa, you were born on March 11th, right?  And you’re 96 years old?”

 

“Yep, I was born in 1876.”

 

“Do you realize that you were born during the U.S. Centennial?”

           

“Well, I declare!  I guess I was!”

 

“Where exactly were you born?”

 

“I was born in Brownsville, Tennessee, and as fur as I know, I still got people over there.”

 

“When did you come to Arkansas?”

 

“When I was five years old.”

 

“Did you come in a wagon?’

 

“No.  We rode a train.  I still remember it.”

 

Grandpa Kaylor has lived, since moving west from Tennessee, in Sebastian County, in the towns of Bloomer, Lavaca, Ft. Smith, and Huntington, and near the Greenwood area.  The Greenwood area community in which he lived has since been incorporated by the government as part of Fort Chaffee.

 

“Tell me about your parents.”

 

“My dad’s name was Jim and my mother’s name was Martha Rose--Rose was her last name--and she died when I was real young.  My dad married again in about a year.  He married a nineteen year old womern.”  (No typing error--Grandpa sayswomern”!)  “She was a widder with a baby and her name was Bell Crouch Spencer.  They say she came to the house, I peeped through a hole in the door at her and said, ‘I see you, Maw!’“.  (Remembering this, he laughs.)

 

“What about your schooling?”

 

“I didn’t start to school until I was nine.  I went for eight years.  One of the schools I went to was called ‘Six-Bits’, Haw Haw!”

 

“And how about when you met Grandma?”  (My grandmother, Allie Mae Carson Kaylor, was born in 1883 (?), and died on July 4, 1970.)

 

“Oh, she was real purty and all the boys liked her.  Once she was ridin’ in a buggy with a feller and to tease me he says, ‘Hey, she says she wishes you were up here in the place of me’, and I says, ‘Well, so do I!’  Anyway, we got married when she was nineteen and I was twenty-six.  The first year we lived in Huntington and I worked in the mines.  It was good money, but the work was sometimes dangerous.  When it started to play out, I went back to Bloomer and started farming.”

 

“Grandma was always so delicate.  Did she help you farm?”

 

(He chuckles)  “One year we picked ten bales of cotton between us.  Me eight and her two!”

 

(Walter and Allie Kaylor had four children.  Raymond, who died in the flu epidemic in 1918, Mrs. Modena Bates of Barling, Arkansas, my father, Avery Kaylor, who lived in Lavaca and who died in 1966, and Mrs. Golda Keith of Inglewood, California.)

 

“Tell me what Fort Smith was like in the early years.”

 

“Well, the main street (Garrison Avenue) looked like a feller with half his teeth missin’.”

 

“What in the world do you mean by that?”

 

“I mean there wasn’t many buildings, and when they started Tulsa they had a bank in a tent.”

 

“Did you see many Indians in Ft. Smith?”

 

“Yes.  But they had on regular clothes.  Oh, I’ll tell you something.  My pappy served on Judge Parker’s jury lots of times.  I’d take him to Ft. Smith in the wagon so he could serve on the jury.”

 

“I never knew that!”

 

“Yep, and somethin’ else.  Once I was standing on the street in Fort Smith and a womern rode by on a horse, and someone said ‘Lookee there!  That’s Belle Starr!’ “

 

“Grandpa, that’s so exciting.  And before I go I want to ask you something.  Why do you think you’ve been permitted to live such a long life, and been allowed to keep so mentally alert?”

 

“Well sir, I think the secret is that I don’t never dwell on it.  I just go on the best I can.”

 

At that moment, a female attendant came in with some medication and a pat for his gray head.  Grandpa still has a way with a “womern”.

 

Note: Walter William Kaylor is of German descent.  The original spelling of his last name is “Koehler”.


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