Chapter 8

By 1880, the Civil War wounds were beginning to heal and change was taking place along the Buffalo River.  The county seat’s name was changed from Burroughsville to Marshall in Searcy.  Calf Creek changed its name to Snowball where Captain Taylor built a gristmill.  Mills were scarce, forcing people to haul their grain a long way to be ground into meal or flour.  There was a mill built on Bush creek that was powered by a large undershot water wheel.  Schools and churches were being built in the hills.

At the age of fifteen years, George Grinder parted his hair in the middle of his head and wore two braids.  His face was pretty and smooth.  In fact, one would have thought his tintype picture was one of an Indian girl.  Now George had changed into a handsome young man with traits like his Mother’s people.  He talked only with persons he knew well.  He was not one to be friendly with strangers.  After the war, men were few in this area with whom he could be friends.  There was an old Indian named Blue Belly who was not only George’s friend, but took on a father image.

George visited Blue Belly’s cabin often.  As he walked up from the river, Geoge would see his friend outside the cabin, stretching a racoon’s hide over a board.  The dogs beside the old man gave out a bowling howl.  The old man continued his task of preserving the animal hide.  After hanging the skin on the cabin wall, Blue Belly reached for the latchstring to open the cabin door.  The open door exposed a room twenty feet by fifteen feet with a fireplace.  In the corner of the room was a cornshuck matress.  A split log table with log benches on a dirt floor held an oil lamp.  The old Indian walked over to the fireplace where an iron kettle hung and turned to motion George to enter.  He looked into the kettle to make sure there was enough coffee for him and his guest.  He took two cups from nails off the wall, then filled them with black coffee, and placed the cups on the table where he and his young friend sat down.  Blue Belly said there was a man on Bush Creek who made molds to form silver dollars.  The old Indian informed George there was a silver vein that they could work for a few dollars.  The Indian cautioned George that no one must learn of its location, or he must not become greedy.  The discovery of gold had been the reason the white man made the Cherokees leave their home in the east.

Dancing Rabbit Creek became Begly Creek after the family of Sarah Lucinda Begly, who was the daughter of Henry and Sophia Begly; Sarah Lucinda married Albert Watts.  Albert was the son of John Watts and his first wife.  John Watts was born in Virginia in 1799 of parents who came from England.  John married a Cherokee Indian in Wayne County, Tennesee in 1822.  Albert was born in Tennesee, and at the age of sixteen he came to Wiley’s Cove with the Watts Party.  Here the Watts men cleared land, built log houses and barns, and planted crops.  John built a gristmill on Little Red River.  John Watts became the first taxpayer of Searcy County and married again after Albert’s mother died.

Albert Watts was a stone mason.  He went to Talequah and built the Cherokee Capital.  He returned to his family in Arkansas after building the capital for the Cherokee tribe.  Albert and Lucinda reared seven children of whom the two youngest were girls.  These girls were Nancy, who married Sam Cotton, and Sophronia, who married James Washington Delk.  Sam Cotton was killed during a feud, leaving Nancy a widow.  Sophronia and James Delk had nine girls and two boys.  Some of the girls’ names were Emily, Julie, Minne, Anthy, and Othy.  The two boys were named King and Ira.  This family lived in a large, white, two-story house about a mile north of Gilbert.