Phillips County Historical Quarterly 

September, 1968

Published by
The Phillips County Historical Society

The Phillips County Historical Society supplies the Quarterly to its members. Membership is open to anyone interested in Phillips County history. Annual membership dues are $3.50 for a regular membership and $5.00 for a sustaining membership. Single copies of the Quarterly are $1.00. Quarterlies are mailed to members.

Neither the Editors nor the Phillips County Historical Society assume any responsibility for statements made by contributors.

Dues are payable to Miss Bessie McRee, Membership Chairman, P. O. Box 629, Helena, Arkansas 72342.

Meetings are held in September, January, and May, on the fourth Sunday in the month, at 3:00 P.M., at the Phillips County Museum.

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PHILLIPS COUNTY
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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A MAN TO REMEMBER

by

Carolyn R. Cunningham

An old yellowed newspaper clipping can lead down many avenues into the past. And the trip can turn out to be quite fascinating.

While looking through an old family trunk last fall in Clarksdale, Mississippi, I came across an obituary published in a Helena newspaper seventy-one years ago. It was that of Dr. John Hodge Vineyard. Having heard much of this man throughout my lifetime, I was at once interested. I know many of the descendants of the families that he knew, and I was also aware that at least one person in every family in the community of Vineyard can give you an account of the time Dr. Vineyard saved the life of one of their loved ones. He gave not only his name to this community, but his love, his knowledge, and his constant care; and they repaid him tenfold in love, respect, esteem, and gratitude, if not in money.

In my quest for knowledge of this man’s life, I came across a picture in the possession of Betty Faust, who had close family ties to Dr. Vineyard. It was an excellent picture taken in 1897, showing the thirteen doctors who were at that time members of the Phillips County Medical Society, which had been organized in 1871. (See picture following this article.) I thought how rewarding it would be for out Quarterly to carry a biographical sketch of each of those men who were so important in the history of Phillips County. And thereby hangs the story of much correspondence to get the sketches started.

I wrote to Dr. A. A. Hornor in Boston, Massachusetts, and Mr. A. P. Hornor in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and asked them to help out on their kinsmen, and thus you have the two completely different stories they were kind enough to contribute. I wrote to Dr. Richardson’s daughter, Ann, who is Mrs. Lewis Cherry of Little Rock, about her father, who I have heard owned the first electric car in Helena. This may be a point of debate, but he did certainly own one at an early date. Mrs. Cherry responded at once, and I went to Little Rock for a visit with her. Out of this grew the article she wrote about her father.

These three are all we have completed, but Dr. Hornor has graciously offered to help further, and if any of you have contributions you would like to see included in the articles on the different men, we would like to include them. Especially would we be happy if an

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ancestor of yours is among the group and you would do the article for us on him for publication in the next Quarterly.

There are two communities named Vineyard, and I cannot find out why. The Vineyard where the family of Dr. Vineyard lived was in Phillips County and later called Tyner Post Office. It was about fifteen miles northwest of Helena near Rehoboth Church. The other one, called Vineyard, was three or four miles north in Lee County. Dr. Vineyard went to the other communities but close to home were, among other families, the McGrews, the Holtzclaws, the Langstons, the Martins, the Robards.

Dr. Vineyard was the doctor for my father, Joe Robards, when Papa broke his hip at the age of six, in 1893, as mentioned in the March, 1965, Quarterly. In the December, 1965, Quarterly, page 26, Mrs. Zora Langston Atkinson has this to say in her article about Rehoboth Church.

The Vineyard home was the finest home in the community, a large white frame story and a half house, sitting up high off the ground on brick supports. A long gallery ran across the front. Long before picture windows came into fashion, this proud home featured many windows that were as large as some of our picture windows today. The ceilings were high, and every room had a fireplace except the kitchen-- from the parlor right down to the little back bedroom. The house burned about 1947.

The pride this family felt in their home was inborn, because when they crossed the Mississippi River they carried a match box filled with tiny cedar saplings from their old home place. These later became a double row of cedar trees across the front of the house which shaded the family’s croquet ground. At the side of

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the house was a beautiful rose garden and a large magnolia tree.

Although Dr. Vineyard has been dead seventy-one years, among the old-timers you still hear his name frequently --‘‘As old Dr. Vineyard used to say.....’’ Of course, maybe they are quoting what their parents before them said. But his cures were a household by-word, not to be doubted. If Dr. Vineyard said it, it became the word to live by.

Never have I heard of a man so revered by his friends, and if he ever had enemies, I never heard of it. What better tribute to a man than to be remembered with respect and admiration by so many for so long?

In the September, 1963, Quarterly on Page 32 is a list of some Confederate soldiers from Phillips County. These were the men in Cavalry Companies of Captain William Weatherly and Captain John Swan. The article is as follows. ‘‘In the latter part of the War two cavalry companies were organized. The entire roll cannot be found, but many are living who will attest to the fact they were in the last and hardest part of it.’ Some of the names which follow are Jesse P. Clopton, J. Carr Turner, Dr. J. H. Vineyard, LaFayett McGinnis, W. T. McGinnis, H. H. Bellamy.

From Mrs. Jennie Cook(Vineyard) Thomson of San Mateo, California, who is Dr. Vineyard’s granddaughter and a member of the Phillips County Historical Society, comes this Civil War incident.

And from the Family Bible, ‘‘John Hodge Vineyard was born 40 minutes after 7 0’clock on Sunday morning, September 13, 1829 --Foggy and Cloudy morning and then clear pretty day.’’

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I asked Mrs. Frank McGinnis, who grew up in the old Vineyard home (her sister married Dr. Vineyard’s son, Erastus), about the rose garden. She remembered the Marshal Neal --a very fragrant climbing yellow rose at the east end of the front porch; Bride and Bridesmaid, white or creamy yellow when open wide; General Jacquinat, deep red roses with long stems and very fragrant; and Mrs. Kant, a pink rose so prolific she said they called it ‘‘Mrs. Can.” She said there were many others but these were her favorites, and therefore all she remembers. She mentioned a big lilac bush in a corner of the front yard and when it bloomed they knew it was time for spring housecleaning.

Dr. Vineyard’s granddaughter, Mrs. Thomson, wrote of the se-

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cret hiding place around the double chimney between the second room on the west side and the dining room. There was space between the downstairs ceiling and the flooring of the attic. It was reached by crawling out on the rafters of the back porch, on which there was no flooring in the attic. Naturally this was an exciting place for a child to play, and Mrs. Thomson’s daughter, Virginia, played there as a child on her visits from California. Three years ago Virginia used this secret hiding place in her first novel, The Lion’s Desk, which had its setting in Barbados, far removed from the plantation home in Arkansas. It is still a mystery why the hiding place was there.

It is interesting in researching for historical articles to note the different family connections, and even so, it is likely to slip by unless you are working on other branches of the family at the same time. For instance, when I read that Dr. Vineyard married Mary Cassandra Black, I was thrilled to realize that she was a cousin of Fannie E. Black, wife of Norfleet Cotten, whose letters have been running in the Quarterly. Mary Cassandra’s brother was Erastus Lynch Black, grandfather of the late Mrs. D. G. Walker. Dr. Vineyard’s sister, Nancy, was the mother of the late Judge John I. Moore. Of course, there are many other connections of people living now, which makes history come alive for us.

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The picture on the preceding page is a picture of the Phillips County Medical Association, which was organized in 1871. The pictured group formed the membership of the Association in about 1897. They are identified as:

1. A. A. Hornor, President
2. J. W. Bean, Vice President
3. M. Fink, Secretary and Treasurer
4. F. N. Burke
5. D. A. Linthicum
6. J. H. Vineyard
7. M. E. Pearson
8. W. C. Russwurm
9. T. C. Linthicum
10. C. R. Shinault
11. H. M. Thompson
12. G. E. Penn
13. W. M. Richardson

Dr. A. A. Hornor

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DOCTOR ALBERT AURELIUS HORNOR

by

Dr. Albert A. Hornor
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

The writer has no written data for this sketch so would like to paraphrase the last paragraph of The History of The Arkansas Medical Society, published in 1943, as prepared by Dr. Frank Vinsonhaler and others. There may be instances in the work where the affection of the writer for the subject of this sketch has led him too far. There are doubtless places where more research should have been done, but with all these shortcomings the writer asks your indulgence.

Dr. Albert A. Hornor of Helena was elected President of the Arkansas Medical Society for the year 1878. He was the third president of the Arkansas Medical Society, and represented that organization at several annual meetings of the American Medical Association in the 1870s.

The following paragraph from Page 5 of this History of the Arkansas Medical Society should be of interest.

The Horner spelling used by Dr. Hornor was contrary to that of all his near kin. Why he liked at times to spell his name differently from his brothers and father is difficult to say. He himself used to say that some Horner must have done something wrong sometime and his kin thereafter wanted to be different. Search in the Hornor genealogy by A. P. Hornor and others does not confirm this idea or explain why the spelling was changed to Hornor, though it was done before 1600.

The subject of this sketch, Albert Aurelius Hornor, was the

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oldest child of John Sidney and Elizabeth Johnson Hornor. He was born March 6, 1831, in Fauquier County of Virginia, and died February 20, 1912, in Helena, Arkansas.

In 1836 he came by boat down the Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with his parents, a brother and a sister, from Morgantown, Virginia (now West Virginia) where his father had taught school. The father resumed teaching school on arrival in Helena.

Probably all of our subject’s early schooling was under the tutelage of his father, who was responsible for his thorough grounding in English, Latin, Greek, Mathematics and History. He attended Jackson College at Columbia, Tennessee, before going to medical school.

The first medical school that he attended was the Medical Department of the University of Louisville, in the years 1852 and 1853. From there he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he attended two schools of medicine. He graduated from the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1854. How much time he spent at Jefferson Medical College is uncertain, but he often spoke of going there for lectures and so forth.

He told few stories about life in Louisville though many about Philadelphia. The ones which interested him most were those about Stephen Girard (1750-1831) who endowed Girard College, so much in the limelight in 1968, especially about Girard’s unselfish work in caring for the sick during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 and 1797-1798.

After leaving Philadelphia he returned to Helena, Arkansas, and devoted himself to the practice of medicine. This required much travel about Arkansas and a little in Mississippi on horseback or by boat. Of course he knew everybody in Phillips County and probably spent a night in almost every home at some time or other.

Shortly after the onset of the Civil War he volunteered and was a surgeon in the Confederate Army (Hindman’s Legion) throughout the conflict, sometimes with troops in Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee as well as in Arkansas. How much of his time was spent serving in hospitals is not known. One story may be of interest. He was unexpectedly put in charge of a Confederate Hospital in New Orleans which was filled with patients suffering from smallpox. On his first ward round he found all windows and doors closed tightly by order of his predecessor, to keep bad air out. He promptly began kicking every window open to give them fresh air

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and to the great relief of the patients, - a radical procedure in 1864, but in complete accord with the best medical practice since 1900.

The experience as a surgeon in the Confederate Army was devoted as much to the problems of treating malaria, homesickness, hunger and the like as to the treatment of casualties. One of the big problems in treating malaria was getting the patient to take the bitter Quinine Powder.

The value of clean instruments was recognized but they were often unobtainable, - bandages were sometimes pieces of clean linen obtained from the women in a farm house, but more often something torn from the soldier’s own garb.

The question whether to leave the bullet in the wounded man or try to remove it was often difficult to decide and a frequent cause for a difference of opinion between surgeons. Many of these victims lived years with undisturbed bullets or other foreign material.

Probably he was instrumental in the organization of the Phillips County Medical Society in 1871, but there is little recalled about his activities between the end of the Civil War and 1878, the year of Helena’s only epidemic of yellow fever.

The outbreak in Helena was of considerable magnitude, but less than in Little Rock or Memphis. He continued this work throughout 1879 when Helena had no yellow fever, though Memphis was again severely attacked for the last time. Stories recalled about this work centered in travelling about eastern Arkansas on a locomotive.

Probably before the years of yellow fever, but surely afterwards, he visited his patients whenever he thought he could help without waiting for a summons. In the winter time when roads were bad or impassable he travelled by horseback. His horse was always a fine saddle horse but one that would remain hitched to a tree or hitching post indefinitely. Saddle bags he had, at least one pair from his army days, but he never carried them. Instead he carried many different medicines, mostly powders, and a few surgical instruments and sutures in the pockets of his overcoat. Yes, he wore an overcoat daily during the winter. These instruments were neatly packed in black morocco leather cases, - so too were the small vials of drugs. The drugs were accurately measured and dispensed in neatly folded pieces of white paper the size of a prescription blank, - a single dose in each paper. These were called ‘‘powders”’ and might be prescribed to be taken dry or in water. Quinine Sulphate was the most useful drug dispensed and though terribly bitter had to be taken

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dry, - ideally put so far back in the mouth that it could be swallowed without being tasted (at least that was the theory). Of course, the medicines given out at his office would probably be dispensed in capsules.

Except in the winter he travelled in a buggy drawn by a matched pair of horses which he had raised on his farm at Stamp Creek (Storm Creek in modern terminology). His horses were well trained and could trot quite fast as any of his hostlers or nephews could testify, though Dr. Hornor never hurried, and he did not allow any of his drivers to hurry when he was in the buggy. He gave away or rarely sold a pair of horses after he had used them for one or two years, and then would use a fresh pair of four year old geldings. He might use the same saddle horse for several winters.

He remained a bachelor throughout his life, and sometimes before 1880 he began to live in the home of his sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. P. O. Thweatt.

At 8:00 a. m. he walked, after a big breakfast, out the front door to get on to his horse or into his buggy with the driver who had brought the conveyance. During the next 1½ to 2 hours he called at the homes of any patients he thought needed him, and also at one or more of the homes of his kindred. Some of these homes he never failed to visit.

He climbed a long flight of stairs to his office on Cherry Street before 10:00 a. m. and stayed there till about 4:00 p. m. seeing anyone who sought his care. There were as many negro as white patients.

The office.consisted of three large connecting rooms, the middle serving as entry and waiting room. The front office was full of books and reserved for patients and others who wanted privacy. The rear room was where he did most of his work. He had in addition to desk, chairs and bookcases, a cabinet full of many drugs, vials, and capsules of various sizes. The capsules he would fill with the desired drug for patients and he never charged for the drugs so dispensed. Often a nephew would be given the job of filling a few dozen capsules.

The office was heated by coal-burning grates in fireplaces. Most of the time Dr. Hornor sat by the fireplace whether or not there was a fire in his office, smoking a pipe with a 30-inch long stem. He was convinced that smoking a pipe with a shorter stem, or cigars or cigarettes was dangerous to one’s health. (Probably the long stem served as well as any of the modern cigarette filters.)

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Incidentally, many households where he visited kept a pipe with a long stem for the doctor to use on his visit.

The side door to his office led to a back porch which was often the most comfortable place for a patient to sit while having a wound dressed. There splints were applied to a fracture or a clean dressing to an open wound which would be cleaned with ordinary soap and water to which had been added a very small amount of Bichloride of Mercury. He was afraid of injuring healthy tissue with strong chemicals.

During the day he went down the stairs to Cherry Street and talked with different friends whom he met, always managing to meet someone who wanted to talk with him about civic, farming, or commercial affairs.

About 4:00 p.m. he left his office for the day and reached the street a few moments after his driver had brought his buggy or saddle horse. Then he would visit one or more patients before going home to a 6:00 p. m. supper, really a dinner, with his sister and her family. After supper he smoked one pipeful through the long stemmed pipe and then went for a walk, visiting some relative for an hour or more.

He would eat and enjoy any food set before him no matter how simple. He rarely accepted an invitation to dine, - ‘‘never wanted a fuss made over him.’’ On the other hand he knew the dining hour of each and every one of his friends and relatives and would occasionally drop in and take ‘‘pot luck’’ to the great pleasure of all, though temporary embarrassment to his hostess.

The discovery of the role of the mosquito in the transmission of malaria and yellow fever caused great excitement among physicians all over the world and especially in places like Phillips County where there were many deaths every year from malaria and farms that often were neglected because of frequent outbreaks of malaria.

Dr. Hornor had no hesitancy in believing in the ‘‘Mosquito Theory,’’ and even wondered if his own freedom from malaria and yellow fever might not have been due to the fact that his legs were protected from mosquito bites by the knee high leather boots he had always worn.

He knew that Quinine Sulphate was the only drug available that would cure malaria. He followed the routine which experience had shown best and which as late as 1940 had to be known and writ-

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ten correctly by every applicant for a license to practice medicine in Louisiana.

Despite his conviction about Quinine, he never interfered with the use of home remedies such as wearing buckeye around the neck or belly that many thought would prevent ‘‘chills and fever” usually malaria. Nor did he laugh at the use of sassafras tea in the springtime as a preventative of summer illness or the belief that cantaloupes eaten without pepper would cause chills and fever. He was always conscious of the fact that there were many blind spots in his knowledge of medicine.

He did not believe in purgation, though he used mild laxatives frequently. He recalled that when anyone died prior to 1870, many in the medical profession thought the life could have been saved if the patient had had enough purgation soon enough. He recognized that much harm could be done by too much medicine, particularly new and untried medicines. Surely before 1900 he expressed fear of a very popular and new headache sedative drug that even in 1968 keeps coming up in slightly variant forms, only to be shown to have all of its inherent bad characteristics.

Like all southern physicians and surgeons of his time he preferred to use chloroform rather than ether. In the hands of the completely untrained anesthesiologist, perhaps the husband or grandmother of the patient, chloroform may have been the safer drug, though no one would dare to choose it today. He rarely used morphine, but when he did he was careful to use a big enough dose so that it would not need to be repeated soon. Cocaine was invented about the time he began to practice, and there was a great divergence of opinion as to whether it was a stimulant as well as a local anesthetic. He was afraid to use it, probably because he had seen addicts among the lower class, - people who lived and worked on the Mississippi River.

Calomel was a very popular remedy for every sickness both among the laity and the profession throughout the South, but he used it most sparingly, and never in big doses or for more than one day.

He did a great deal of obstetrics, and many children, male, female, white and black were named for him, though no one was given his full name except your humble author. Even for a childbirth he never hurried because he felt that to do his best work he must be relaxed.

His education was broad, even though he read little in later

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life except the editorials in the weekly Journal of the American Medical Association, of which he was a member from 1876 to 1912. These he read and digested and remembered. Questions of many and varied sorts were referred to him by almost everyone in Phillips County. At some time in his career, he was an inspector for the National Board of Health.

He was interested in everybody, and though he was never in politics no candidate for any office missed a chance to get his support.

Like most men of his generation in Helena he was interested in farming. In addition to the usual growing of cotton and corn and maintaining a cotton gin, he raised fine driving horses, mules, cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. He was proud of his fine Spanish Jack and kept his young horses and mules in fenced pastures, feeding them whenever the pasture was lean. He employed a skillful trainer of colts at all times. His horses and mules never needed to be “broken,” - they were trained.

The cattle were of two sorts, - one for milk and the other for beef. The milk cows were kept in small pastures and tended with great care. The beef cattle were pure bred Devon and ranged freely in the woods of the hills on his plantations. He also planted a large apple orchard. Because of his interest in farming and his contacts with other planters he was familiar with the better practices and was frequently consulted on farming questions.

He had a “Sunday School Class” that met about 10:00 a. m. every Sunday. All members of the medical profession of Phillips County were invited to attend. Every physician who was in Helena tried to get to The Sunday School. What they talked about was not recorded and probably not discussed after class was over. Partly as a result of these meetings the cordiality and respect for each other by Helena physicians was complete. Of course they all knew of one another’s failures but they knew each other so well that everyone thought that they too would have failed under the same circumstances.

Medical ethics was no problem for him. He believed that anyone who devoted his life to the care of patients always had the welfare of the patient and family uppermost in his heart and soul.

This sketch can best be closed with another quotation from the 1943 History of The Arkansas Medical Society:

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DR. ALBERT AURELIUS HORNOR

by

Aurelius P. Hornor
Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Dr. Albert Aurelius Hornor, son of John S. and Elizabeth Hornor, was born on March 6, 1831 in Fauquier County, Virginia and died February 20, 1912 in Helena, Arkansas. His father moved with his family to Helena in 1836. The family consisted of his wife and two sons, both toddlers, who were destined to spend the rest of their lives in Helena.

The two given names of Dr. Hornor were due to the admiration his father had for two widely separated men both in point of time and geography. The Albert came from Albert Gallatin, able secretary of Treasury during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency; the Aurelius from the philosophical Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

I know nothing of the early education of Dr. Hornor but am sure that his school-teacher father saw that he was prepared for college. After this preparation he and his younger brother went to Jackson College which I believe was located in Columbia, Tennessee. On arriving there, they met Miss Betty Tully and both brothers promptly fell in love with her. As the future proved, the younger brother, John J. Hornor, was the successful suitor and married Miss Tully in 1857. If there was any bitterness because of the romantic rivalry no hint of it was evident in their later conduct.

From Jackson College, Dr. Hornor proceeded to the University of Pennsylvania where in the course of time he earned the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Upon his graduation from the University, he completely disappeared so far as his family was concerned. The mystery of his disappearance was cleared up when he stepped from a river steamboat at Helena about two months later. He had leisurely sailed down the east coast from Philadelphia visiting friends, probably enjoying the freedom from the, disciplines required to earn a medical degree and postponing the assumption of the even more rigorous disciplines inherent in the practice of medicine.

In those days, the Doctor was somewhat of a dandy and as he stepped ashore from the boat on landing at Helena, he was clad fashionably in patent leather dancing boots, formal coat, and as a final touch, a maroon vest adorned with two peacocks in color. He didn’t realize that this costume was to be his working uniform for

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some weeks following.

No sooner had the doctor arrived than he was grabbed by his professional brothers and sent off to the country to aid in the fight against an epidemic of cholera which was raging. He was assigned the area around Lexa, I believe. There as death struck right and left, the disposal of bodies became a problem because of the reluctance of the residents to expose themselves to the disease. There was, though, an exception in the person of an Irishman who when given enough whiskey would dismiss his fear and help in the burial of the dead. Most of these interments were done at night in the hope of checking the panic among neighbors. In time the epidemic subsided and the doctor was relieved from his first duty. When he returned to Helena, the patent leather dancing boots were cut to ribbons to ease aching feet; the peacocks weren’t strutting and a bedraggled, exhausted young physician returned after receiving his introduction to the practice of medicine.

When the Civil War, or if you prefer, the War Between the States, broke, Dr. Hornor was commissioned as a surgeon with the rank of Major in the Confederate Army. His service was, I believe, wholly east of the Mississippi River where some of the bitterest fighting of the War took place. When the war ended, he returned to Helena and resumed the practice of medicine. His profession became his life, his religion and, as a bachelor, his love. He was active in both the Phillips County Medical Society and the Arkansas Medical Society of which he was the third president. He was a stickler for medical etiquette, which at times produced awkward situations for the patient’s family.

Youthful recollections of him were highlighted by certain peculiarities and qualities. He was a great raconteur and had a habit of illustrating a point by a story which usually began with ‘‘that reminds me of old John Smith, etc. etc.” By the time he had finished the story, I had always become so enthralled that I had completely forgotten the original point but I was always brought back to it by his usual closing remark of ‘‘now you see what I meant.’’

He was the only man I ever saw smoke a Narghile or Turkish water pipe. His other pipes were almost as interesting. Invariably they had long stems and were usually a small clay pipe costing about a nickel or less, mounted at the end of a thin branch of an elderberry bush. These stems were about 18 to 20 inches long and were selected by his driver with care as to straightness and size.

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They were put aside to dry when the pith could be pushed out with a stiff hot wire. Dr. Hornor had short arms and he was just able to reach the pipe bowl to tap the tobacco down as it burned. We always had a special longstem pipe for his use when he called on us. My job was to have his pipe filled and a match handy when he sat down to talk. He called on us rather frequently because of my mother’s recurring illness for a number of years.

Dr. Hornor’s needs were few. He lived with his sister, wife of Judge P. O. Thweatt. So far as I know his one extravagance was the wearing of hand-made leather boots which he wore all of his life. I think he bought one pair of shoes and immediately reverted to boots. He wore his trousers outside of the boots which rendered them inconspicuous. I remember Dr. Willie King once telling me that when he began the practice of medicine in Helena, Dr. Hornor advised him to use boots because he would be called out at night and the boots would protect him from the night air which caused “chills and fever” (malaria). Dr. King then remarked that the advice was not foolish because to make night calls horseback was the mode of travel and boots prevented mosquitoes from biting the ankles where they could not be dislodged thereby eliminating a source of malarial infection.

For many years before his death, Dr. Hornor sent no bills to his patients. When the contents of his office were removed, some of it was stored in boxes in part of the building which forms a part of the Bobbie Brooks plant. I happened one day to go into this building and saw the boxes had been rifled and papers strewn over the floor. I picked one up and saw it was a bill never sent out by the doctor which was dated years ago and read ‘‘for delivery of a fine nine-pound boy --$1.75.”

Dr. Hornor owned several farms but in spite of that he died insolvent, that is, financially; but after a long life spent in relieving pain and suffering of persons in every stratum of human society, without thought of recompense but in the true spirit of his Hippocratic oath, he amassed riches of human worth which made him eminently solvent as a human being.

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REMINISCENCES OF HELENA

by

Q. K. Underwood

From a 1926 issue of the Helena World

St. Louis, Mo., undated

As I begin the short and simple annals of a youthful librarian, I have a fairly accurate idea of how Rip Van Winkle felt when he came back from that twenty-year sleep he had in the mountains. But it goes double for me. I left Helena some 40 years ago.

A lot of things can happen in 40 years. Some day I am coming back to Helena, and I hope to look at the new library and the place on Ohio Street where the old one stood. It was in a little two-room cottage a short distance north from Perry Street, which we used to call ‘‘the Corduroy Road.’’

To the north there was the Armory, where we drilled and danced and roller-skated, and listened to Fay Templeton and her father, John Templeton, and her mother, Alice Vane, and some other oldtimers sing ‘‘Pinafore,’’ and heard Paul Boynton tell how he paddled down the Mississippi River in his rubber suit, and witnessed “Marble Heart,’’ and other thrilling plays.

I think I was wished on the Library because I knew how to get in through a back window. The librarian was Charley Babcock, who held a Federal office, and looked after the Library for his office rent. He gave me a lot of good advice about reading, but he did not approve of my use of that back window. He said it might lead other less scrupulous persons to enter and loot. We compromised on his permitting me to get Tom Fitzpatrick to make me a duplicate key to the back room where the books were.

I was an incubus of the law office of Tappan and Hornor, the leading attorneys of the town. I ran errands and read Blackstone and the Newgate Calendar, and made myself generally useful. General Tappan told me to go get books from the public library on either his or Major Hornor’s account, I have forgotten which, but probably it was both. I ravaged that library from A to Izzard. I read everything in it from Darwin to Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth and Mary Jane Holmes. I reveled in Lever, and Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins, and Holland, and Black, and Dumas, and Miss Muloch and Muhlbach, and Edward Eggleston, and took a few shots at the poets.

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In the course of time, Charley Babcock was transferred to some other place, and the Library had no librarian. There was a meeting, and it was decided that as they couldn’t keep me out, they would make me work my passage. I was made an Honorary Member or something like that, with the understanding that I should keep the place open from 6 to 9 p. m.

I don’t know how long the plan lasted, but eventually it developed that the Night Librarian was not dependable. Some evenings the place was open, and some it was not. So after a time it was decided that Professcr William S. White, who conducted a private school just across the street in the old Henry P. Coolidge mansion, should be the Night Librarian. And he was a good one. He was there on time, and he stayed overtime, reading and smoking, and teaching a volunteer class of us more things in and out of books than we ever learned in school. The Professor --God rest his soul! - came of a Virginia family of warriors, preachers and teachers. His sister, Miss Hattie -- afterwards Mrs. Graham, -- taught me, and she surely did have a way with her. She wore a large number of rings, and when she smacked a boy with her dainty little hands he carried scars.

The Professor was a great fisherman. As soon as school was out, in fishing time, he would dart out of the backyard, carrying a bucket of minnows and a jointed fishing pole, and stride up to the Otter Pond. Also he caught fish. He caught them when no one else could. I fancied myself in that line, but I always gave the honors to the Professor.

Among some of the lovable characters who occasionally visited in the Library were Professor Bagwell and Dr. F.N. Burke. The doctor had an office on the corner of Perry and Ohio, and was a man of parts. As I think of him now, he reminds me of characters in Lever’s and Lover’s works -- brilliant, irascible, sympathetic, and always gallant to the ladies.

Professor Bagwell was not what you would call an indolent person. His principal business was a photograph gallery in a little house just south of Perry Street, but he was also Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, City Recorder, and an expert in ornithology. The last time I saw the professor, he had moved into larger quarters and had quite a collection of birds, some of which he allowed to run at large. I asked him how he put in his time, and he said: “In addition to the bird store and the photograph gallery and the Chamber of Commerce and keeping the records of the city, and a little astrological work, I am thinking of starting

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a blacksmith shop. I always did despise a lazy man.”

Professor Bagwell took his astrology seriously, and had a sincere belief in the occult. Whenever there was a baby born, he would ask for the hour and minute of the birth and cast a horoscope. If it was favorable he would give it to the parents. If unfavorable, he would file it away and never show it. He was supposed to have a familiar spirit, and several persons have assured me that they saw the misty form of a woman in his reception room for an instant. At any rate he was a kindly gentleman.

General Tappan and Major Hornor rarely came to the Library, but their purses were always open when funds were needed. The General was the most courteous man I ever knew, was immaculate in his dress, and punctilious in his manner. At the same time he was a warrior. When events reached such a stage that it was proper for a wellborn gentleman to come out and assert what he considered to be the right, the General was always in the forefront of the battle.

Major Hornor was a different type of man, somewhat brusque in manner, but with a heart of gold and the courage of a lion. He loved horses, and could ride or drive them, but he put in most of his time with his professional duties and his home.

Dr. Aurelius Augustus (sic) Hornor had offices adjoining those of Tappan and Hornor, and he visited the Library at intervals, usually with the purpose of telling me that I was frittering my time away; that I should begin with Josephus, then master the Bible, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Bunyan, and Plutarch’s lives, and Blackstone, and then maybe I would have sense enough to digest lighter literature. He was the first man I ever knew to criticise Mark Twain. That was about the time the “Gilded Age” was published. The Doctor said it was “trash,” and since then I have come to believe he was almost right. It is heresy to throw bricks at Mark Twain, but when he died in 1907 I was forced to read and review everything he had produced, and I got a dose that lasted me till the present.

Among the active members of the old association was Mrs. M. L. Stephenson, a dear sweet woman always working for the public good and never asserting herself.

Mrs. Jaquess and Mrs. Luther Wilkes and other ladies helped the Library. The Moores -- all three families -- the John P. Moores, the John Ikes, and the W. E. & C. L. Moore & Brothers, were sub-

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scribers and patrons. The Nelsons and the Thompsons, and the Polks, and the Hargraves, and all their divers and sundry connections were interested to some extent. Dan McKenzie, of McKenzie and Hornor, lived just up the street, and his daughter, Miss Sallie, and his wife who was Miss Belle Rankin, dropped down frequently. It was a quiet little oasis, where northern people and southerners met and discussed books, and the turmoil of political factions and things like that were forgotten.

The young ladies of the town were particularly fond of rustling me out from my laborious duties in the law office to let them have books. One young lady applied to me privately and asked me could I slip out “Camille” to her and not let anybody know. And now some of the best colleges for young women have Elinor Glyn’s works and Mrs. Asherton’s ‘Black Oxen’’ in their lists of books to be discussed! Times have changed but human nature has not. There are just as many nice girls now as there were forty-five years ago. One thing I regret is that the young men of the present day do not show the reverence to womenkind that they did when the old Library was an infant.

I cannot close without touching on the character of one man who was closely associated with the literary life of Helena. I refer to General William R. Burke. He was really a general – made one in the Brooks and Baxter War some fifty years ago. The General was owner, publisher and sometimes editor of the Helena World. He was a man of tempestuous habit, and it was a rare week when he did not engage in personal battle, sometimes with lethal weapons and sometimes with his fists.

He was a member of the legislature several times, and was a power in politics, but he was personally unpopular. One of his best friends, and a relative by marriage, was Captain Greenfield Quarles. To him the General said, as he was going away from Helena: “I am leaving this town, and there is not a soul in it who is sorry!”

He went to Los Angeles, and became active in politics and business. He was a delegate to several National Conventions, and like the Little Jackdaw of Reims, ‘‘finally in the odor of sanctity died.” The General was embittered and wrong. There were several of us who liked him better than he did himself. He and I corres-

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ponded intermittently for several years.

Here I go, remembering old times and old friends in Helena. The first thing I know, I will be recalling Major Thweatt, and the late Captain Barlow, and maybe John Krickel, and Charley Powell, and Judge Nicholls, and Eaton Govan, and his wife, who was Miss Lucy Gist, and Hinchey Rice, and Charley Moore, and the Coolidges, Pillows, Mitchells, and a host of others. I haven’t forgotten any of them, and I haven’t forgotten a lot of things about Helena.

With best wishes for the prosperity of the Helena Public Library and its supporters, I will close with the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless you one and all.”

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YOUTHFUL PICTURES OF DR. AND MRS. W. M. RICHARDSON

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DOCTOR WILLIS MOSS RICHARDSON

by

Ann Richardson Cherry
Little Rock, Arkansas

Willis Moss Richardson, M. D. was born July 21, 1853, in Monroe County, Mississippi, the son of Bardine Richardson and Sarah Ann Liddell Richardson. Dr. Richardson was a graduate of the University of Mississippi, the University of Louisville School of Medicine of Louisville, Kentucky, and he served his internship at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City.

He came to Phillips County, Arkansas in 1882, and lived at Latour, where he practiced medicine as well as farmed. He represented Phillips County in the state of Arkansas Legislature for two terms, and was a member of Governor Fishback’s Staff to the Worlds Fair in Chicago. He was a member of the Phillips County Medical Society.

On February 11, 1894, Dr. Richardson married Miss Annie Sue Keesee, daughter of Captain John William Keesee and his second wife, Susan Reynolds Johnson Keesee. The wedding service was performed by Dr. Charles H. Lockwood of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Helena, at the home of the bride’s parents, known as “Beechland.’? The marriage certificate was signed by Dr. C. R. Shinault and Miss Josephine Pillow as witnesses.

The following is copied from a clipping from the Appeal-Avalanche, Memphis, February 12, 1894.

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Soon after their return a party was given in their honor by Mr. and Mrs. Stirling at their home, ‘‘Montrose Farm,’’ near Barton. The following is from a newspaper clipping.

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Dr. Richardson gave up the practice of medicine for health reasons and devoted full time to farming, which led him to take his family to Helena in 1905, where he bought a home on the northwest corner of Pecan and McDonough Streets. Later he built a permanent home at 928 Columbia Street. Polk Agee was the architect and Lyle Bros. the contractors. It is now the home of Mrs. John Sheffield.

He engaged in the planting business at Lake View with T. W. Keesee, and at Elaine with J. W. Keesee. He also had large farming interests at State Levee and Tunica County, Mississippi. He was one of the directors of the Helena Compress and was for many years a director of the First National Bank of Helena and served as city councilman for a number of years. Dr. Richardson died March 10, 1930, and this is an excerpt from his obituary in the Helena World.

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Mrs. Richardson attended Columbia Institute at Columbia, Tennessee, a school operated by the Episcopal Church. Her classmates from Helena were the Misses Josephine Pillow, Jessie Thompson, Nina Polk, and Fannie Leslie Moore.

A clipping from the April 4, 1932, Memphis Commercial Appeal shows pictures of Mrs. Richardson and Mrs. W. H. Howe, stating “they were among the most interested in the Helena Hospital affairs. Each has served on the board in the capacity of Secretary, Vice President and President for several years. Other women on the board are Mrs. C. M. Young and Mrs. Edwin Brill.”

Mrs. Richardson was born December 25, 1875, in Phillips County, Arkansas, and is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery beside her husband, Dr. W. M. Richardson.

Dr. and Mrs. Richardson are survived by a son, John W. Richardson I, and by a daughter, Mrs. Lewis W. Cherry II of Little Rock, and two grandsons, John W. Richardson II and Thomas Lee Richardson of Dallas, Texas, and several great grandchildren.

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THE COTTEN CORRESPONDENCE: PART III

Norfleet Hill Cotten was in Arkansas, near Indian Bay, trying to get the family plantation re-established so he could bring his family back to their home. He found things to be in a very difficult situation, his former slave, Clayton, living in the family home and ready to give orders to his old master. During his brief stay, he wrote many lengthy letters to his wife at LaGrange, Tennessee, and she to him. Mr. and Mrs. Cotten were the grandparents of Mrs. Gordon Cunningham of West Helena, and she owns these letters.

My Dear Husband

Yours of the 18th received today. You say you are affraid I will tire reading your poor letters as they contain so much bad news. No danger of that, I am glad to have a letter from you at all times and let the news be good or bad I had rather know it that I may sympathize with you. It is true things look rather gloomy for us at present but you know it is a long lane that never turns. I hope there is some good fortune in store for us. We will go back to our home when you get some cabins built, live cheap, and be industrious, energetic and persevering with the help of the good Lord and things will take a change for the better.

We can live on much less on a farm than we can here. We must not think of staying here longer than fall after the sickly season is over. I am so glad you made no purchase here, we will not be obliged to stay. I am glad you have hired a man to make rails. I have been trying to hire hands for the past week but cant find one, that wants to go to Arkansas. I havent bought any meat yet Cousin Clarence advised me to wait patiently thinks when the river opens meat will be very cheap, and I will be better to get it ready cured. I havent eaten any of our tomatoes I am saveing them for you, and the ham too. I would like to have some nice Sausages for you, and nice souce too. I have not seen Mr Moreton lately. I dont know what he thinks about buying meat now. He said he would call and see me before he ordered any.

We are all well, and getting on very well, considering you are away. Mrs Swift was to see me this evening likes the little home much better than the Houston place thinks I am so comfortably fixed, plenty of room. Eanos comes to see me every day, or two, is as kind, and obligeing, as ever. Mrs Landrum was to see me Sunday evening, says our cow will not have a calf before March. Mrs.

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Tucker sends me butter milk every day or two. Sue has measles, I was to see her yesterday, the Col was full of dram and very talkative. Said he was the poorest man in town had nothing to eat but meat and bread, and no money.

My dear dont be overcome with our misfortunes keep a brave heart and look forward for better times. We are both young, and should be hopeful, not distrusting the goodness and mercy of God. So we have food and raiment we ought to be content. We will pay what we owe when we can with ease to our selves. I am living plain and prudent not making any debts. I will take what sewing to do I can get, and try and help you in every way possible.

I have bought no wood since you left, and will have plenty to last a month yet. There are so many crossties that I can get cut up which make good stove wood. It is dry and burns finely. I will try and get something for you to do when you come home to help pay expenses. Every body seems to be employed. From the quantity of lumber I see about the depot there will be a good new building soon. Scott and Webb have their dining room up. There is considerable stir about the new county and courthouse. Some want the old Male Colledge, some Mrs Stephenson’s. Mr Maxey will give four acres of his land to have it on the railroad.

Dr Wilkerson is still here quite as unsettled as ever. Ma and Sister Mollie are well. Ma told me to give her best love to you, Says you are ever in her thoughts. It is her nightly prayer you may keep well and some good fortune may turn up for you yet. My dear I shall write to you every week. I hope my poor letters are some comfort to you, one ray of sunshine in your troubles. The children send love and kisses to Papa they all wish very often they were in Arkansas with you. They all are anxious for your return never want you to go to your farm again with out carrying the whole family. Give my love to relations and friends. Tell Bet I have not received her letter yet shall continue to look and hope for one until it comes. Goodbye my dearest and best of husbands. May the good (Lord) bless, and keep you safe, is the nightly prayer of your wife and children.

Dont think I will tire of your letters, but write as often as you can. My greatest pleasure when you are away is to have a letter from and know you are well. I am so glad you have had no rheumatism, take as good care of your self as you can. I shall write to Brother Sam soon. From your loving Fanny

My hens are laying now I have plenty of eggs.

*******

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I opened this to tell you, that I was home yesterday, & the hand had the impudence to ask me two hundred dollars to give up my houses now. A letter from you to him, through me, insisting as every thing costs us so high in Ten. & our land lying out unfenced, it is important we should have the house.

My Dear Wife

Your darling letter of 19th just recd. & is lying before me, as I write from Sams desk. I have spent most of my time here, & the dear family have been so kind in every way to me. I hope to return it in some way in time to come. My Dear: It gave me great pleasure, to hear that you were willing to come here again, tis our home, we have spent much to get it in its present condition, & I see more plainly every day, if left entirely in the hands of hands it, or the improvements, will be almost worthless, in a few years. The better plan I think, is to sell the two high post bed steads & chairs, get Clarence to have ours packed so that it will not be defaced. That is when I write for you to meet me in Memphis, after I get two rooms up. Bring all of our crockery, churns, tins, buckets, stove, & table if you can, hoe, rake, & plows. Bring the clock pack in big trunk, take off wire & pendulum. If you have any thing in the eating line, bring it too. Had you not better fatten the cow, & send her, & the heifer before you leave. I traded Willie the old fifteen dollar account I have had so long for a young cow.

Bob Cotten promised me yesterday that he would haul all my lumber for me, so if nothing prevents, I will begin my houses next week, & have them up in a month, the double house in ten or twelve days. Clayton is not the boy we thought him. He is working for his own interest, not ours, & does not take much care of any thing of mine. What must I tell them, or him, for you. I can meet you in Memphis. You must make a list of what you need, & we will get it there. Tis better I should not leave here until I settle with the hands, & cant do so until the cotton is gathered, gined, & sold. I see they will not do right, left to themselves.

I have not been home for several days, on account of rain. It has poured for the past two days. Today, it is quite cold & cloudy. Yesterday C M Tates personal property sold & the place was rented out, Sam renting it for four dollars & ½ an acre, very cheap, considering other land no better rented for ten. Labor is high here, & if you can get any hands to come with you, bring them along, we cant get along without them. In a year or two more: all things will be well again with us I trust, but it will require my attention & pre-

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sence in my present fix. I cant hire a white man & put him on my own place to live, having none other than Darkies there, & am forced to board him out, at greater expense than were we at home. Then our place is fast going down, & nothing goes on, nor does so well.

Bring your carpet, and My Dear, I intend to fix you up as comfortably as when we were first married. If Nanny will come bring her to wash, & wait on you, cook, & c. I will hire a man to get & cut wood. You must get over trying to please others & (illegible) yourself everything in so doing. If she comes & dont like, tis easy to return. I will work harder than ever now for you & the dear Children & try to have you with me before April, if you do not object to it. You must know the separation is as hard for me to bear, as for you, as I leave no man to do your bidding & provide you with things needed. You never said whether there was any one staying with you any. Have you been all alone, this long while.

When you return here, you must wear thick soled shoes in winter. We will carpet our rooms, & I trust all of us will have fine health. Dont fail to pack the clock, so that it will not get broken, nor the lamp. Take wire & pendulum off. All well at Mrs Beasleys, are very kind to me, & Rosa sends much love to Sister Fanny. I gave her your letter to read. They are dear good people, I love them very much.

I am in hopes you all are well. How does Ma stand it, has she been able to get to see you. It grieves me no little to know that I cannot do something for her, tell her so, & go to see her as often as you can for my sake. I want you to get a Photograph Album, & have all of our pictures & Mas put in it. Get Sister Molly to give you a likeness of Ma. We will come to the city a day before the boat leaves & have all of ours taken. I have written Bro (illegible), have not heard from him yet.

When I get new cabins, I dont think there will be any difficulty in having all our land worked, though as tis so late now, it may not be until another year that we can do so. I intend to have comfortable ones. Give my love to Ma & Sister. For yourself & children, in whom my very life itself is wraped up, my best love, & many wishes that we will not be separated much longer. Regards to Enos & Clarence.

*******

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My own dear darling husband

I spent an almost sleep-less night thinking of you, of the dangers of the river, so many accidents hapening to boats, and the cars. I felt frantic, all I needed was wings, and I would have been with you in body, as I was in thought, to share your misfortunes, and hardships. I hope my dear, that you are getting your business all straight, and if you will have the two rooms put up first; next to your brothers I would rather a thousand times be there with you, than have to endure this separation. Dont think from this I am not getting on well. I am comfortable in every respect, but home without you is cheerless to me. I think of you in your loneliness so far away, and every one so perfectly selfish not disposed to help you in any way, and Clayton so contrary.

I just wish we had not rented this place but kept on with our move, but however it may prove best in the end. If I had the assurance that we will be spared to meet again I would be perfectly contented to wait, but I feel so anxious about you, afraid you will expose yourself, so much you will be taken with rheumatism, then you cannot attend to your business, nor get home near so soon as you otherwise would. My darling when we are spared to meet again dont let us be discouraged nor cast down but be thankful for the many mercies, and blessings, we enjoy; it will be happiness enough for me to fold you in my arms again, and know we will never be separated again while we both live for I am certain you will never go to Arkansas nor any where else without me. As Ruth said to Naiomi Whither thou goest I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge & c., that is one happiness I expect to enjoy the rest of my life, (that of being with my husband) while we both live.

I wrote Brother Sam last week, hope he has received my letter. The children are all well, are very industrious about collecting wood. They find so much rubbish on the rail-road. Eddie says tell you he gets a quantity of wood everyday. I think I got the worst end of the bargain in exchanging coal with Mr. Morton. I will tell you about when you come home. I will see if I can get a situation where your mind will be employed, and be making something to help pay expenses. I dont think our expenses will be half what they were last year. I dont intend making any debts but save all. I can pay for our washing by taking in sewing. I have the promise of plenty of work hope I shall get it.

Ma is very well, is out at Capt Jones’. Lee is here engaged

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in the same business, and doing well, has just returned from a trip North looks fine and fat, weighs 155 Ibs. I will ask him to get you a Situation if possible. Times are dull, I stay at home, have been out but few times since you left which will soon be four weeks; will it be four weeks longer before I see my dear husband? I will be just as patient, as possible for me to be.

I want you to arrange everything so that I can have you at home for good. Dont leave anything undone that will require your attention, there is too much risk, and expense, to go backwards, and forwards, so often. So while you are there, dont get tired, or impatient, but attend at everything, it seems that no one will do you the least favor, and while you are well, and can do for yourself; I would not ask help of any one.

I made a mistake in the first of my letter and have kept it up through out. I would not send it but know you will excuse all mistakes, as well as bad writing. You must burn all of my letters, dont forget it. I shall write to you every week, hope my letters will cheer you up to know we are all well. Plenty of every thing to live on is calculated to make you better satisfied. All we need to make us satisfied is to have you at home and we are willing to wait your own good time for comeing, for I am confident you will come as soon as you can. The last letter I had from you was written at your brothers. Write soon, the children send love to you. From your wife who prays for your safe return, and who loves you more, if possible than ever before, I remain

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MEMBERSHIP ROSTER 1968-1969

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* The starred names are Sustaining Members.

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