ARKANSAS. 



25 



Bayou Departed. No river bears a Spanish 

 name. But the enterprise of the subsequent 

 French settlers is manifest in the names of 

 streams and localities. 



" Louis XV., in 1720, made a grant of twelve 

 square miles to the celebrated John Law, on 

 the Arkansas River, on condition that he should 

 settle on it fifteen hundred German immigrants, 

 and maintain at his own expense a sufficient 

 military force to protect them against the In- 

 dians. Two hundred Alsatians arrived, and 

 five hundred negroes were imported from 

 Africa by the Mississippi Company, of which 

 John Law was the founder, and which has 

 given his name a notorious immortality. The 

 scheme, as is well known, failed, and the 

 colony, after a few struggling years, was aban- 

 doned. It moved to a place about thirty miles 

 from New Orleans, which has since been called 

 * C6te d'Or,' or the * Golden Coast,' from the 

 wealth and prosperity of the descendants of 

 the original colony, among whom the French 

 language eventually took the place of the Ger- 

 man. 



"Except by enterprising French explorers, in 

 search of gold, no visit was made to the State 

 for along time afterward. It is probable that 

 the next permanent settlement was made near 

 the close of the last century, but it cannot be 

 definitely ascertained. The site then selected 

 was one hundred miles below Little Eock, on 

 the Arkansas River. No splendid patronage of 

 a world-renowned financier gave prestige to the 

 undertaking, which was, this time, the result 

 of the gradual increase of the prosperity of 

 Arkansas. This colony had great difficulties 

 to encounter. Their village was on the low, 

 alluvial soil of the river-bank, and disease made 

 extensive ravages. The surrounding forest 

 was unbroken, and formed an obstacle to the 

 clearing and settlement of the country. The 

 colony would probably have perished in ob- 

 livion, were it not for the cession of the 

 Louisiana Territory to the United States, 

 which threw the country open to the enter- 

 prise of a new race of people. The Territory 

 of Arkansas was established by an act of Con- 

 gress, March 2, 1819, the whole population 

 not exceeding one thousand, exclusive of In- 

 dians. The point at 'Le Petit Rocher,' or 

 ' The Little Rock,' had been a regular place for 

 crossing the river with the Indians from time 

 immemorial. Though it has never been ford- 

 able there, yet a break in the hills rendered it 

 a favorable place for transition. The great In- 

 dian trail passed over the present site of the 

 city. A few families settled there, and Little 

 Rock became the extreme outpost on the west- 

 ern frontier of the United States. Practically 

 it was as far from the national capital as Alas- 

 ka is at present. A mail-carrier on horseback 

 once a month supplied the people of the 

 place with news from Washington City, at least 

 three months old. Governor Miller was the 

 first executive of the Territory. Mr. William 

 E. Woodruff, who survives as' a citizen of Lit- 



tle Rock, on November 20 r 1819, issued the 

 first newspaper ever published in the Territory, 

 called the Arkansas Gazette, which still flour- 

 ishes, under the supervision of his son. The 

 settlement was named Arkapolis, by some 

 aspiring student, but it soon resumed the 

 descriptive title it now bears. After the 

 Territory was admitted into the Union, in 1836, 

 the growth of the State became more rapid, 

 though still retarded by lawsuits concerning 

 conflicting titles to the land on which the town 

 is situated. A final disposition of these cases 

 was not made till the December term of the 

 United States Supreme Court for 1867. The 

 war, which desolated so many fair cities, 

 seems here to have stayed its insatiate hand, 

 and rather to have developed than injured its 

 prosperity. Large property-holders had been 

 compelled, by pecuniary need, to relinquish 

 town lots to more energetic and enterprising 

 men, who erected fine houses and stores. 

 The capital of Arkansas has its elegant man- 

 sions, its business blocks, its temples of worship, 

 its courts of justice, its public buildings, and 

 every necessary characteristic of a thriving 

 city, except its hotels." 



With regard to the Spanish and French ex- 

 plorers, or settlers, alluded to in the foregoing 

 narrative, it may be observed here that about 

 the middle of the last century a Spanish fort 

 was built on the high land bordering the Ar- 

 kansas River, some sixty miles above its mouth, 

 with a view to establishing and protecting the 

 fur-trading post from the Indians, and more 

 effectually to secure that Government's claim to 

 the territory against the encroachments of the 

 French from the Upper Mississippi and the Il- 

 linois country. The fort exists no longer, but 

 its site and adjoining grounds are occupied at 

 present by a village called the " Fort," desig- 

 nating by its name the place once guarded by a 

 military force. The grandchildren of Don 

 Carlos de Villemont, Governor of the fort 

 125 years ago, and those of De Valliere (his 

 immediate successor in that capacity under the 

 short French rule), are still living in the vicinity. 

 Upon Arkansas having been made a Territory 

 by act of Congress in 1819, the seat of its 

 government was located in the above-named 

 village, where it remained for about two 

 years, when the inhabitants transferred it to 

 Little Rock, where the Legislature held its first 

 session after such removal, on the 1st day of 

 October, 1821. Little Rock has continued to 

 be the capital of Arkansas both during its Ter- 

 ritorial condition and since it has been admitted 

 into the Union as a State in 1836. The place 

 in which the city of Little Rock now stands, 

 and which the French settlers, or explorers, 

 had originally called "Le Petit Rocher," in 

 order to distinguish it from "Le Grand Rocher," 

 or " Big Rock" (now a town of this name), two 

 miles above, began to be permanently settled 

 about the year 1818 ; but at the end of 1822, 

 nearly two years after it had become the cap- 

 ital of the Territory, there were not more than 



