Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

2. Up Trip of the Concord

18  Red River Reminiscences 2  Up Trip of the Concord • A number of steamboats had positioned themselves to go to the Upper Red River in the wake of Shreve’s raft removal efforts. The Concord was the first to go through (on March 7, 1838, according to Shreve’s official report in the 1838 Report of the Secretary of War) and arrived at Conway, Arkansas, on the ninth (according to the Arkansas Gazette of the 21st). This letter is concerned with the trip of the Concord from the raft area to John Nunnely’s landing in what is now Little River County, Arkansas (with Figure 2 showing the features mentioned beginning at the Arkansas line, which was 20 miles above the raft area). Withenbury was not on this trip. Information on the trip was obtained from Erasmus Philley, the Concord’s pilot. The Reminiscences  19 Figure 2: Route of the Concord  20  Red River Reminiscences I find that by “digging up the reminiscences” of “Coat’s Bluff,” the Red River Raft and the steamboat “Concord,” I have brought to life, as it were, the very man who piloted (if feeling one’s way in unexplored waters can be called piloting ) the “Concord” on her first trip above the Raft. This man is Erasmus Philley, brother of Mr. Henry Philley, a well known citizen moving daily among the real estate and money sharpers of Third street.1 Mr. Philley’s head is so full of confused recollections of those early days that he insists upon relating anecdote after anecdote, and incident upon incident, that I can hardly decide which to select from his inexhaustible store, as bearing most directly upon my subject or which would prove of most interest to those who now clamor so loudly against “Westerners” coming to Red River, and who, at the same time, know so little of the men who took the initial steps towards opening to the whole people this great channel of commerce. Mr. Philley tells me that the Concord was pushed and pulled through the little opening made by the snagboat in the raft, until she found herself free and above all obstructions. Then she cut loose, and away up the broad, smooth river she ran with uncommon speed, without coming in sight of a single clearing or human abode, until near the mouth of Sulphur, some sixty miles above the head of the raft, then and now known as Hurricane Bluffs.2 At the mouth of Sulphur they found a high bluff, called in those days Factory Bluff. Here lived the pioneers—the Kelleys, the Blantons, and the Scotts3 —who planted the first cotton in that region . In the Sulphur River, or as it was then called Sulphur Fork, they supplied themselves with clear water for drinking and culinary purposes, exchanged civilities with the few settlers, and went on their way without stopping again until the neighborhood of Conway,4 a little village at the head of Long Prairie.5 At this point The Reminiscences  21 they found quite a settlement of planters, among whom were the Lowes, the Crabtrees (Lotta descended from them), the Warners, the Cryers, the Conways and the Perkins.6 Thenextsettlementreachedbytheadventurerswas“Chicaninna Cut-off,”7 and here at the head of a beautiful prairie was located the county site8 of Lafayette County, Arkansas, with quite a gathering of wealthy planters in the vicinity, who, in addition to their cotton crops, had “made more corn than would do them,” for which they had no market. After leaving Chicaninna, they found the country better settled , and at Little Prairie,9 Fisher’s Prairie,10 and Lost Prairie,11 they met with the Hamiltons, the Garlands, the Wynns and the Finns,12 all families who hailed the advent of the little steamboat with joy, nor did they stop to inquire whether the Captain and crew were “Westerners,” “birds of passage,” or “outsiders,” for they were content to know that their coming was an earnest of a glorious future for their country,13 and the writer of this well knows that they were not mistaken, for many of those old settlers lived to see in their own day the hundred fold fruits of the venturesome spirit which prompted these early explorers, and of the “far seeing faith” which, pointing upward and onward, led them still further on their untried and doubtful way. And I am well assured that there are...