John Stewart Latta

Pioneer Trails to Washington County: From the Early Days to the Eve of the Civil War

In the mid-1820s a caravan of 60 relatively well-to-do families with their black slaves left Charleston, South Carolina, in order to seek their fortunes in the newly opening American West. In the York District of South Carolina the caravan was joined by the family headed by John Latta. The travels were made primarily in ox wagons. When they reached rivers, they used rafts. These families reached the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, where they apparently remained several years. The family headed by Samuel Latta seems to have already been in Tennessee, ahead of the new immigrants. Several of these families eventually settled in Arkansas Territory.

During this period, members of the Latta family made several scouting trips further west, into what became Washington County. One of these trips may have been made as early as 1826. Whatever the actual year, during that first trip a small cabin was constructed. The land was part of the Lovely Purchase, claimed by the Cherokees and closed to white settlement. No Indians were living in the immediate area, however, and whites were squatting on the land in expectation that legal settlements would soon be possible. According to Latta family history, a plow was made from the crotch of an oak tree, and a few acres of grain were planted. It was perhaps in this manner that the Lattas established what, at the time, amounted to squatters’ rights to some gorgeous mountainous land that would be called Vineyard (site of Washington County's second post office, established February 21, 1829, with the name and location changed to Evansville in 1837).

Latta Settlement

In 1828 the Cherokees were forced west. Washington County was then created out of the Lovely Purchase lands, and white squatters were able to legally claim land. In 1831, several years after their initial scouting trip, John Latta, two black slaves named Dan and Ben, and several other family members collected wagons, teams, pine lumber that had been cut and milled in Tennessee, and tools. Two rafts of logs and lumber were floated and poled down the Tennessee River into the Ohio, then down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Arkansas River. The rafts were then towed up the Arkansas by a government steamboat to Phillips Landing (Van Buren), then freighted 45 rugged miles to Vineyard. Here a settlement had already begun under Captain Lewis Evans, the new county's first sheriff. According to the Goodspeed Publishing Company's History of Benton, Washington, Carroll, Madison, Crawford, Franklin and Sebastian Counties, Arkansas, "A horse-mill was built by Evans soon after he opened his store, and for a short time it supplied nearly the whole county with meal." A few miles to the north at Cane Hill, several related families had settled and built homes by 1827.At the Latta settlement, tents were put up and work started on houses. According to an account written by a Latta descendant, The Lord's Vineyard, "The colored mechanics, Ben and Dan, did the mechanical masonry work. They would work at one home at a time. Ben and Dan put in the stone foundations and chimneys, and moved to the next place. The rest of the workers hewed the logs and erected the frame of the building. Then Ben and Dan would come back and do the cabinet and inside finish work."

Most of the work on the main Latta house seems to have been finished in 1832.During the 1831 trip, the other members of the large Latta family had remained in Tennessee. The families seem to have completed the westward migration into Arkansas Territory by 1833. In this final move the might have been as many as 30 people, including the numerous Latta children and the families of the slaves. The site chosen for the main house was a gently sloping hillside above a tributary of Evansville Creek that is today called Possum Hollow Creek, two miles from the state line and an equal distance northeast of Evansville on Highway 59. A log house was constructed nearby for the slaves.

In mid-March of 1833, the new arrivals to Washington County could see mountains in all directions. There were no leaves on the trees, but the trees were covered with gorgeous white flowers, and spice bush and witch hazels were blooming in the creek bottoms. Springs flowed freely throughout the area. Vultures were soaring above, and the little spring peeper frogs announced a new land and a promising season.

According to descendant F. F. Latta, "An industrial establishment was planned, developing a general manufactory, including a blacksmith shop under the Negroes, Ben and Dan; cabinet, carpenter and wheelwright shops under grandfather (John Latta); cobbler, saddle and harness shops under Eli Kelly; weaving and tailor shop under Aunt Leah Hale; and a grist mill.'The Lord's Vineyard' was intended to be as near self-sufficient as necessary to insulate and isolate it from the outside world." The two-story log home and several outbuildings stood more than a century at Vineyard, long after almost every trace of Washington County's pioneer day structures had disappeared. In 1958 the Latta buildings were carefully dismantled, transported to Prairie Grove Battlefield Park, and there reassembled. Modern visitors to the park may now ponder the achievements of pioneering carpenters, white and black, in a young Washington County. The Latta home, constructed in the early 1830s, was one of the earliest substantia

l structures built in Washington County. Originally located near modern Evansville, the house was moved to Prairie Grove Battlefield Park, where it has been restored.