Mrs. Eubanks Came to State 73 Years Ago

The Southwest American, Fort Smith, Arkansas, 15 June 1929

Aged Citizen Made Trip To Arkansas From Tennessee By Steamboat and Ox Cart Before Civil War

Coal Hill, Ark., Jun 15 - By steamboat and ox cart 73 years ago, Mrs. Anna Eubanks of Greenwood, cam to Arkansas from Tennessee. The trip seemed a long and arduous one, the 81 year old woman said. Born Oct. 4, 1848, she lived eight years of her early childhood in Tennessee and did not see a train until the family began its trip west. Mrs. and Mrs. Neal Acord, her parents, and their family came down the Tennessee River to Chattanooga on a steamboat. It must have been with some trepidation that the small Anna boarded her first black, slow, dusty train in Chattanooga for Nashville.

The Acords traveled from Nashville to the Mississippi River where they boarded the steamboat Robert J. Ward and came to the mouth of the Arkansas River. The fourth boat was boarded at that point. It was named the Tucker and landed in Little Rock on April 7, 1857. Here the journey was retarded two weeks while the Acords waited because the Arkansas River was too low to be traveled. Many others had waited also and deck-fare was the only passage the family could get because of the boat's crowded condition.

Travel was very slow and it was until the next morning that the Tennessee folk landed at the place now called Spadra, where they spent the day and night. The next day a negro was hired to haul the family across Mulberry mountain where the Acords remained for seven years.

While living there, the family had to seek refuge from the irregular Federal troops known as Jayhawkers. The flight was made in an ox wagon on which the household goods were stacked while the family trudged behind during the six weeks' trip to a town nine miles east of Paris, Texas. Despite the length of time taken, the trip was a hurried one and the family stayed near Paris for three years.

Before the part fled to Texas, the 15 year old Anna helped care for three dead men who had been killed by Jayhawkers. She an two friends, one of whom was a 16 year old boy, left at 8 o'clock at night and hauled the men eight miles away to Joe Hill's home in Franklin County. The corpses were laid out on a large door shutter for the trip, and the three friends returned to their homes after 12 o'clock. This trip was also made in an ox wagon.

While in Texas an old man offered to give Anna Acord 40 acres of prairie land if whe would spin 40 yards of homespun hank(?): [unreadable]. The man came to Mr. Acord with the promise that he would deed the land to Anna, but the father refused to let Anna spin the thread,

The Acord family returned to Arkansas in 1867 and landed on Mulberry creek. Mrs. Eubanks remembers well that when she went to school the blue black speller was the only school book in use. She learned to read from the book of Josiah and the Bible. Her bible was given to her by her aunt, Mrs. Margaret Murray.

A year after the she returned to Arkansas, Anna married Joe Eubanks. She was then 20 years old.

Mrs. Eubanks makes her home with a daughter, Mrs. Harry Kehoe of Greenwood, for she has been a widow for 39 years. She spent the week recently with another daughter, Mrs. C. D. Logan of Coal Hill and the country recalled scenes of her youth. Mrs. Eubanks other two daughters are Mrs. R. M. Hunt, Russellville and Mrs. Sallie Robbins, Wilburton, Okla. Her son is Jim Eubanks of Bokoshe, Okla. She ha been a member of the Baptist church for 52 years.