Early History of Phillips County

The Land, the Legends and the Lore

by Patty Smith

Published 2020

Phillips Bayou

Nestled between the St. Francis River and Crowley’s Ridge, with the Mississippi River just a step or so east, and ten miles north of Helena, is the long forgotten village of Phillips Bayou. Little is written, and few are left to inform us of this quaint little hamlet as it was in its heyday.

In the early 1800’s, Sylvanus Phillips built his sawmill at Section 35 in Phillips Bayou, and it is said that the bayou got its name from Sylvanus. While not as heavily settled as Helena, Utica, and Sterling were in the earliest years, Phillips Bayou had it share of settlers, and as the years passed the population expanded and it soon became the most populated locale along the Low Road in the St. Francis National Forest.

Some of the earliest settlers included Asa Bell, Albertis Wilkins, the Myrick family, and Silas Bailey. The 1850 census shows 74 families living in L’Anguille Township, a large township which extended from the mouth of the St. Francis area north and included the Phillips Bayou, LaGrange and Bear Creek areas. In 1873, Lee County was formed and Phillips Bayou became a part of Lee County in Hardy Township, placing LaGrange and Bear Creek in other townships.

By 1870 the number of families had increased to 237 in Hardy Township alone. Among the businesses were three stores, a warehouse, two sawmills, three saloons, at least two churches (Christian Church and Oberchain Missionary Baptist Church), two schools, one of which was held in the Oberchain Baptist Church, and had an enrollment of thirty-five for the term of 1869 – 70, three doctors, a school, a ferry, at least one cemetery, a post office, and a blacksmith shop. Mary Lou Hannon, in Phillips County Historical Quarterly, Volume 13, # 2 stated that when Joe Gray entered the mercantile business at Phillips Bayou, he boasted a stock of $5,000.00 and annual sales of $40,000.00, an excellent gain for 1872. The main occupation of the area was, of course, farming. In 1898, Mr. P Kneeland of Phillips Bayou brought to the Helena Weekly World a cabbage weighing ten pounds, agreeing with the newspaper that “Phillips County soil would produce anything equal, in every way, grown in the United States.”

The Oberchain, or Phillips Bayou Cemetery as it is sometimes called, was named for Reverend Oberchain who was a highly respected minister and school teacher in Phillips Bayou. The first burial in the cemetery was Asa Bell in 1842. The story is told that there was a door from a sawmill boiler put at the head of his grave. It stood for over one-hundred years until someone stole it and sold it for scrap iron.

In the early 1900’s Phillips Bayou boasted the only picture show (Movie Theater) in the area. The theater was located on a houseboat at the landing owned by a Mr. Thornton. On weekends, Phillips Bayou was packed with guests from around the county, including Helena, awaiting the latest film. As the movie did not end until late in the evening, the majority of the out of town guests remained for the weekend. Another local festivity attended by many Phillips Countains was the barbeque. The Helena Weekly World spoke of a barbeque held at Phillips Bayou on July 28, 1896, where out of a crowd of six to seven hundred, over one hundred were Helenians. The fish fry was another favorite weekend pastime in which multitudes from Helena attended. Back in its day, Phillips Bayou was the place to be, especially on weekends.

But time took its toll on this once thriving village. By 1975, most of the old settlers had passed on and the younger generation moved to more progressive locations. Mary Lou Hannon and her sister, Mrs. George Howe, still lived at Phillips Bayou at that time. Today, in 2020, there are only about three or four families left in the area. Mike Devers’ mother lives in a recently built home where the old Hannon store stood, with Mike living on the bluff above his mother. None of the buildings of this once lively village remain, but a scenic drive through the area in February and March reveals the locations of the many, long ago homesteads of the area, because while no structures remain, the daffodils still bloom.

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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.