After exploring the Parker-Hickman log cabin, the oldest homestead on the Buffalo National River, we headed up and out of the river valley on the old mountain trail behind the house as it switch-backed and snaked its way up meandering wooded mountain edges to the top of the ridge above the Buffalo River. As we made our way up the trail, in our mind’s eye, we could see our mountain folk ancestors in late 1848 making their way back into the hills on their horses, travelling up the valley to deliver exciting news to the neighbors of the California gold strike. Newspapers seldom made it this deep into the mountains and by the time they did make it, the news was several weeks or months old. Of course, back then the mountain folks were subsistence farming. They were a part of nature, living off the land and accepting what it would yield. As we stood there surrounded by the beautiful simplicity of an earlier Ozark way of life the voices from the hills were asking me, “Have we really made improvements to our quality of life in our society today?” I often wonder the same thing.
Further up the mountain it was intense and sobering to imagine in 1863 confederate soldiers slipping stealthily through the densely forested mountain paths, heading to Missouri to join up with the likes of Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson. Down in the river valley, the Thomas Rains & William P. Love families, who were occupying the Parker-Hickman farm during the Civil War, were percolating coffee and cooking breakfast on the wood-fired cooking stove in the kitchen. The old flew is still there just in front of the back window where Thomas, William and their families could watch the soldiers emerge from the trail back behind the chicken house making their way toward the river. This fight over states rights sharply divided families in the southern Missouri and northern Arkansas region. This fact was made painfully clear on a tombstone in the old cemetery that read:
‘In memory of Joseph Buchanan. Born April the 9, 1827. Was killed by Confederates March the 5, 1861 whilst in the service of the National Army as a Recruiting Officer.’
It was a sobering reminder of a sad and difficult era in the hills. In light of the struggles we are faced with today concerning our rights as free citizens I sense the spirits of our mountain folk ancestors shaking their heads in sad disappointment as they ponder if we have learned a thing from their trials and tribulations. I often wonder the same thing.
In the light rain, as we finally made our way to the front gate of the cemetery atop the mountain above the Parker-Hickman farm we were greeted with columns of mist that sprang up from distant mountain knobs along the top of the ridge. These misty grey columns danced and drifted like young mountain children excited to see unexpected company. As we settled into the cemetery we began to hear their story of life in the hills. We felt the heart-wrenching pain and concern of many a mother who was laid to rest during child-bearing years. We heard the sad silence of infants still-born in the mountains. We heard the innocent laughter of children who passed from disease or from accidents many miles from the nearest medical attention. We sensed the solemn resolve of men who died in farming accidents and during the war. And, finally, we heard the wisdom of the few men and women who lived to old age. These folks had robust character and appreciation for life. I wonder if, deep inside, we still possess that same robust character and appreciation for life.
In the cemetery the story told by the Parkers, Hickmans, Buchanans, and several others representing this bygone mountain community of close-knit, tough country folks was plain as the patch over my eye. They knew real life – the great pains and sorrows as well as the great joys and triumphs of living close to the land within the fabric of Mother Nature. In my mind as I pictured the first Model T pick-ups laboriously slipping and sliding their way up the old mountain horse paths in the midst of a new January snow and under the amazed gazes of the mountain folks seeing their first horseless carriages, I wonder if they thought of this contraption as progress. I figure there was probably some old coot that was disapprovingly shaking his head wondering what this world had come to, while there was some young man who worked the farm with horses that was jumping for joy. Makes me wonder who was right. I think I’m probably an old coot. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.
