NOTABLE ARKANSANS
He was born in 1810 at Monticello — the home of his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, near Charlottesville, Va. His mother was Jefferson’s daughter; his father would serve as governor of Virginia. He was named for a man who had once been Jefferson’s private secretary, but was better known as the commander of an expedition to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, which had concluded in 1806.
He studied law at the University of Virginia. In 1833, he became a floor manager for President Andrew Jackson’s inaugural ball, and Jackson became his mentor. He met and married Elizabeth (Betty) Martin of Tennessee, the niece of Jackson’s wife. In 1835, when he was just 25, Jackson appointed him the last territorial secretary of the Arkansas Territory; he continued in that position after Arkansas’ statehood in 1836.
After he’d resided in Arkansas only one year, his name was suggested for one of its new counties. Feeling his age and his brief association with the new state didn’t merit such recognition, he insisted the county instead be named for a respected former senator from Virginia who bore the same last name.
The finances of the extended Jefferson family had begun to dwindle, so he devised a plan to use his influence and position in a way he hoped would recoup the family’s failing fortune. As his term of office was coming to an end in 1836, he used letters of introduction from President Jackson, became an agent for various Eastern investors and bought more than 10,000 acres in present day Clark, Ouachita, Dallas, Nevada and Conway counties. Retaining a large parcel in southeastern Clark County for himself, he planned to build a “great house,” patterned after Jefferson’s Monticello. He named his new plantation Terre Noir. He started a crop of cotton and built a temporary house where he, Betty and their young son lived while planning their permanent home.
In September 1837, he boarded a cypress dugout and traveled downriver to Ecore Fabre (present day Camden) for winter supplies. It rained continuously during the two-week trip. He became ill and died of “bilious congestive fever” (now known as malaria) on Sept. 24 at the age of 27. His wife and son returned to Tennessee … and his dream of an Arkansas Monticello evaporated.
Who was this mostly forgotten Arkansan — whose secluded grave in Clark County, marked only by a stone monument and iron fence erected in 1960 by the National Society Daughters of the American Colonists — is the sole physical reminder of the part he played in Arkansas history?
Who was this mostly forgotten Arkansan — whose secluded grave in Clark County, marked only by a stone monument and iron fence erected in 1960 by the National Society Daughters of the American Colonists — is the sole physical reminder of the part he played in Arkansas history?