Early History of Phillips County

The Land, the Legends and the Lore

by Patty Smith

Published 2020

A Land of Crime and Infamy

It was a land of adventure and promise, not only for the pioneers, but for the criminal element as well. It was much harder to track a man traveling by water than by land, and so many murderers, thieves and runaways found their way down the Mighty Mississippi to the land known early on as the Missouri Territory (later the Arkansas Territory). The land along the Low Road was no exception for this element. Crowley’s Ridge, with its dense forests, prolific wildlife and numerous streams was the perfect hiding locale in the early days of the frontier. G. W. Featherstonbaugh wrote in “Excursion through the Slave States” that he had heard of the early settlements, and described them as a “sink of crime and infamy.” Joshia Shinn wrote in “Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas” that the Mississippi River towns were ‘hell holes’, but the ‘lawless men were few in number’.

Murders were reported as early as 1808, when William Patterson, a Methodist preacher, husband of Phoebe Heirs Dunn Patterson, and father or step-father to twelve children, was murdered while resting in front of his fireplace at his home. While Patterson owned a crude warehouse close to Helena, his home site was along the banks of the St. Francis River. According to Courts and Lawyers of Arkansas, Moses Burnett was charged with the crime and sentenced to prison, only to be released some years later.

By 1830 the town of Helena had been formed and the men of the town had had enough. Under the direction and organization of W.B.R. Hornor, the Anti-Gambling Association was formed. Signed notices were sent that told all ‘gamblers, thieves and thugs’ to get out of town within twenty four hours. Ironically, the derelicts left, but still others came.

Another well documented murder occurred in 1836, when William Latimer, son Griswold Latimer, was murdered. The Latimer family, from Utica, was a well known and highly respected family, and son, William, who lived in Helena, was no exception. After the murder, according to Shinn, about a dozen men gathered that night, again under the direction of W.B.R. Hornor, along with William K Sebastian. They demanded immediate action to ‘cleanse the town of all undesirable characters’ and to find the murderer. George W Ferebee, a long time resident of the area “moved that three committees be named: (1) A vigilance Committee to hunt down the murderer; A Finance Committee to raise a reward of one thousand dollars; (3) a Secret Committee for advice.” The Vigilance Committee raided all the ‘dark corners’ of the area, and ‘all suspicious characters were arrested’, but the murderer was never found, and it was not until the late 1840’s and early 50’s that the area was cleaned of ‘riffraff’.

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Primary sources for these articles include the Phillips County Historical Quarterlies, Shinn's Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas; Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern Arkansas; Down the Great River by Glazier; Arkansas Historical Documents and Land Grants; The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture; Courts and Lawyers on the Arkansas Frontier; Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi; USGenWeb; Ancestry.com; FamilySearch.org; Phillips DNA Project.