ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 17 (Spring 1958), p. 56
REMINISCENCES OF AN ARKANSAS
PIONEER AS RECORDED IN 1890
BY H. M. MCIVER
Texarkana, Arkansas
- My name is Clark Ward. I live in Little River County, Arkansas. I was born about 1808 or 1810. I am not sure of my age. My daddy and mother married in Mississippi and moved across the river to what was then known as Louisiana Territory, later known as Arkansas Territory. My father was a house carpenter by trade. I had one brother John, who was 6 years older than me. He died when I was a baby. I had another brother, Henry who was 4 years older than me, then I had twin sisters 2 years older than me. My twin sisters died with swamp fever when I was five years old. The next summer Henry died with swamp fever. These children were all buried out in front of our house.
When daddy and mother moved across the river they cleared 25 or 30 acres and built a good double log house. Daddy and mother had to cut the timber for the house and had to make rails to fence the land. Their nearest neighbor lived 15 miles from us. My daddy was good house carpenter, so he and mother could build a good house for that day and time.
When my brother Henry died daddy and mother decided to leave their home and move west to Willow Springs (now Rocky Comfort) for their health. We had a wagon, a yoke of oxen, two cows and a bull. Daddy loaded every thing he could haul in the wagon and left the crib full of corn and many other things and also left a good field of green corn. He never went back for any thing and we never knew what became of our place and the stuff we left.
Oh yes, I forgot to say; I had a baby brother several months old at that time. They fixed him up in a bed and a crib in the wagon so he could ride.
