Scott County ArArchives History - Books .....The First Inhabitants, Chapter 1 1922
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Book Title: See Comments Below

CHAPTER I. The First Inhabitants

  When the New World first became known to Europeans at the end of the fifteenth
century, the entire country was inhabited by a barbarous people which later came
to be called Indians. They lived in tribes or bands, and at intervals moved from
place to place in search of game or for other reasons. They lived by hunting and
fishing mainly, but practiced a rude agriculture. In some parts of the New
World, notably in Mexico and Peru, they had reached a comparatively high state
of civilization.

  These early inhabitants had spread over the whole of the territory now
comprised in what is Arkansas and Scott County, where they had settled along the
creeks and rivers. The numerous mounds along the small streams of the county,
especially in Lewis Township, indicate the early occupancy of this region by
very populous tribes. On the farms now owned by William Chitwood and J. P.
McCutchen no less than two scores of these prominent mounds are situated. They
are circular in shape, being on an average about twenty yards in diameter, and
generally rise to a height of eight or ten feet. They lie along the course of
the Little Petit Jean creek.

  On the McCutchen farm is a large burial ground. It occupies the south bank of
the Little Petit Jean directly across from the mound area, and was evidently
used by all the numerous peoples along this stream for many miles. It is
situated on the highest point of land on that side of the stream. The soil of
this burial ground is of a black, murky, greasy character, and after a rain on a
hot day it gives off an offensive odor. It is filled with arrow heads, broken
pottery, remains of mussel shells used in making their earthenware, skeletal
fragments and other evidences of the use by the Indians of this vicinity, of
this plot as a place to bury their dead.

  Game was abundant in this part of the country during its occupancy by the
Indians. Buffalo and elk abounded, as did deer and turkey. Besides, the forests
teemed with wolves, bears and panthers and the lesser animals and birds. But it
was principally the buffalo, of the animals, that helped to determine the tribal
dwelling place. This animal had well defined trails over which it, yearly
migrated, and these usually led along the river courses and the higher land or
the crests of ridges, where the traveling would be free of the swamps and mire
in all seasons. A trail of this sort was the old Indian trail that ran from the
northeastern part of the State to the southwestern corner near where Texarkana
now stands. Its course was almost parallel with that of the present line of the
Iron Mountain Railway across the State. It led along the edge of the high ground
that commences there and rises to the mountainous portions of the northwest. By
these game trails the Indians settled, and they came to be his roads, as later
they were to become the highways and railways of the white men who succeeded the
savages in dominion over these realms.

  In Scott County, these trails found the mountain passes through which our
roads of the present day lead. There were the passes of Cedar Creek and Mill
Creek and Forem through the mountains of the south, while Petit Jean Pass and
Lookout Gap gave the game and its Indian pursuers passage to the north. And
today the white man uses these selfsame passes in negotiating the mountain
barriers on these two sides of the county.

  When De Soto pased through the county in 1541-42, he found the region fairly
thickly settled by the Indians. They lived in cities—probably on the mounds
before described—and tilled the soil. The abundance of high ground in the county
made it suitable for Indian occupancy and the grazing of the buffalo. And De
Soto found these people well supplied with food and living comfortably.


Additional Comments:

HISTORY of Scott County Arkansas
By Henry Grady McCutchen

Printed in Arkansas
U. S. A.

Copyright, 1922, by H. G. McCutchen


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