Roaming around the Ozarks
This year marks the bicentennial of Henry R. Schoolcraft’s exploration of the Ozark highlands. For three months, beginning on Nov. 6, 1818, Schoolcraft and a companion trekked in a giant circle, resulting in the first published account of both the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was born near Albany, N.Y., on March 28, 1793, to Lawrence and Margaret-Anne Rowe Schoolcraft. His father, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, was a glassmaker. At the age of 15, Schoolcraft entered Union College and later studied at Middlebury College, developing an expertise in geology and mineralogy.
After working in several glass factories, Schoolcraft at age 25 set out for Missouri to investigate the lead mining industry situated around the settlement later named Potosi. Lead mining had been undertaken in that area perhaps as early as 1760 by Frenchman Francis Azor. Moses Austin, the father of famed Texas revolutionary leader Stephen F. Austin, gained a large grant of land from the Spanish and bestowed the name Potosi to the village after the Bolivian silver mining area by that name.
The exact reason for Schoolcraft’s foray is murky. Possibly his goal was to acquire his own claim to lead-bearing lands, but more likely it was to secure a federal job overseeing the mining districts. It was his exploration and resulting book which earned Schoolcraft a place in the history of Arkansas and Missouri.
Schoolcraft took along a companion, Levi Pettibone, also a native of New York. Neither of them had wilderness experience, and they faced many challenges as they tromped through the Ozarks. For example, they began their journey in November, with cold winter weather approaching.
Schoolcraft described the party as “being both armed with guns, and clothed and equipped in the manner of the hunter, and leading a pack-horse, who carried our baggage, consisting of skins to cover at night, some provisions, an axe, a few cooking utensils, etc.”
Schoolcraft and Pettibone soon realized how poorly prepared they were, especially since settlers along the way told them so. One frontier woman warned them “that our guns were not well adapted to our journey; that we should have rifles; and pointed out some other errors in our dress, equipments, and mode of travelling …” Another local frankly remarked, “I reckon, stranger, you have not been used much to travelling in the woods.”
Schoolcraft and Pettibone had planned on feeding themselves by hunting, but they had little luck. Schoolcraft wrote in his diary: “Our bread gave out more than a week ago, and we have not Indian meal [cornmeal] enough to last more than one day more. Our dried meat and our shot are also nearly expended, so that there appears a certainty of running out of provisions very soon …” On one occasion supper consisted of acorns. Much of the time the two explorers were lost.
It was settlers who rescued Schoolcraft and Pettibone more than once. These were quite early settlers, people historian Brooks Blevins has described as “pickets of the army of humanity marching across the continent … a sort of fugitive species whose ecological skills and adaptability fitted them to this early stage of colonization.”
Schoolcraft was of mixed mind about the settlers. He acknowledged their hospitality, noting that “we have been uniformly received at their cabins with a blunt welcome, and experienced the most hospitable and generous treatment.” When offered payment for food and lodging, the hosts “uniformly refused.”
Regardless of the hospitality, the college-educated explorer was shocked by the primitive lifestyles of the far-flung settlers. The lack of religious sensitivity came in for severe criticism in Schoolcraft’s diary. One settler commented that he “thought there was no great use in religion; that a man might be as good without going to church as with it …”
Schoolcraft was equally appalled by the child-rearing practices of the settlers. “Children are wholly ignorant of the knowledge of books,” he confided to his diary. Until the age of 12, children wore “one greasy buckskin frock.” One woman had lived for years in cabins with dirt floors.
Schoolcraft thought the food offered him by settlers was monotonous: “We have homony [sic], that is, corn boiled until it is soft, and bear’s bacon for dinner, without any vegetables. The same for breakfast, with the addition of sassafras tea.”
Occasionally, Schoolcraft had to admit that frontier food could be tasty. Buffalo still roamed the Ozarks in 181819, and the explorers were treated to marrow from the leg bones: “It is eaten while hot, with salt, and with the appetites we now possess, and which are voracious, we have eaten it with a high relish.”
Much of the explorers’ travel in the “Arkansaw” portion of the trip was by canoe on the White River. Their destination was Poke Bayou, the original name for the city of Batesville, described as “a village of a dozen houses, situated on the north bank of the river …”
Just before arriving at Poke Bayou, Schoolcraft spent the night “at widow Lafferty’s.” Mrs. Lafferty and her late husband, John, are believed to be the first known settlers in Izard County, although the site is today in Stone County. Mrs. Lafferty could have entertained Schoolcraft and Pettibone with tales of her quite remarkable husband. A native of Ireland, John Lafferty was a volunteer during the Revolutionary War. A prosperous trader, he also fought with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812, receiving a severe wound.
Following a brief stay in Batesville, Schoolcraft returned to Potosi. His book was published in 1821 under the title Journal of a Tour into the Interior of Missouri and Arkansaw. This is the first book on the Ozark region, and it provided an interesting peek at Arkansas just as it was aborning.
Schoolcraft’s book was reprinted in 1996 by the University of Arkansas Press under the title Rude Pursuits and Rugged Peaks: Schoolcraft’s Ozark Journal, 1818-1819, Milton D. Rafferty, editor.