History of GREENOCK

Taken from

“A History of Crittenden County, Arkansas”

by Margaret Elizabeth Woolfolk

 

 

Crittenden County, Arkansas

 

 

Greenock

 

Greenock, selected as the first county seat of Crittenden County in early 1827, now is occupied by farm fields.  It was located a short distance southwest of County Road 9 on the river side of the levee east of Clarkedale. At the time it was established, Greenock was on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

Greenock is believed to have been named by the Ferguson family that came to Arkansas in 1820. The senior Ferguson – Alexander – is believed to have been buried in Greenock Cemetery.  James C. Hale, Jr., of Marion, who explored that cemetery in 1958, found the remains of a crypt cover and said the legible inscription read:

PAUSE TRAVELER

Here rests the body

of

ALEXANDER FERGUSON

An honest man

Born in

GREENOCK, SCOTLAND

and died in

Greenock, Arkansas

In the 75^th year of his ---

On the 12^th day of Jan. 183-

 

 Hale said the last number of the date was either a 1 or a 4, but partially destroyed due ot chips and places broken off the cover.

Ferguson is said to have come from his native country to Virginia and went from Virginia to Tennessee prior to coming to Arkansas.  It is possible that he settled one time in Lincoln County, Tennessee, for records show an Alexander Ferguson of Lincoln County, Tennessee, owned a Greenock lot.

Ferguson had three sons, William D. Ferguson, who probably was the leading Crittenden County citizen of the day; Horatio N., who gave the acreage on which Greenock was located, and Allen M.

William D. Ferguson was appointed as Crittenden County’s first sheriff by Territorial Governor George Izard December 8, 1825, and served 10 years in that post.  When a post office was established for Greenock August 8, 1827, he was named the town’s first postmaster.  He was the council member representing Crittenden and Mississippi Counties in the first, second, and third General Assembly sessions and earlier had served as Crittenden’s representative in the sixth session of the Territorial Legislature in 1829.

He surveyed Greenock August 29, 1827, and prepared the town plat which is on file in Crittenden records.  Although not one of the initial commissioners chosen to select the county seat, he later was appointed to fill a vacancy and as a commissioner was involved in the sale of a number of Greenock’s lots.

William D. Ferguson also served as a justice of the peace, which was an important position during his lifetime.

His first wife, Margaret D., apparently died for in Hale’s survey of Greenock Cemetery he found a fragment of a stone inscribed “This stone is dedicated to the memory of the best of women by her beloved husband.  Wm. D. Ferguson.”

William D. Ferguson married again February 5, 1845, when he was 45 years old, taking Parmelia L. Craig, 31, widow of Isaac Bledsoe, as his bride.  She died March 3, 1867, and is buried near his unmarked grave at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis.  Elmwood records show he died January 12, 1867.  In his final years, he lived in Memphis.

Hale found other graves of Fergusons in the cemetery.  One was that of Betsey Ferguson, who died at age 65 September 19, 1839; Judith Ferguson, wife of Allen M., who was born May 13, 1819, and died October 1, 1842; Campbell Ferguson, who sided July 3, 1835, in the 20^th year of his life, and E. P. Ferguson.

William D. Ferguson was described as a big athletic type man, domineering but diplomatic.  He was such a friend of his Indian neighbors that he was made a member of the tribe of the Waponockee Indians, who had a village on Wappanocca Bayou’s banks.  They called him “Wappanockee” or “Wappanoka”, which meant “long stride.”

He had fought in the Battle of New Orleans January 8, 1815, and was one of the sharpshooters of Andrew Jackson’s company.

It was a Greenock where a young man named Abraham Lincoln once chopped wood for William D. Ferguson.  In the summer of 1831, Lincoln was aboard a northbound boat that stopped near the mouth of Wappanocca Slough to buy wood from Ferguson’s woodyard.  Lincoln came ashore and asked for employment, saying he had been to New Orleans on a flatboat and had been robbed on the steamer while returning home.  Ferguson have the future President a job cutting cordwood and let him stay at his home until he had enough money to get back to Illinois.

Greenock, according to the report of the commissioners chosen to select the first county seat, was a part of 50 acres of land situated in fractional Section 20, part of fractional section 29, and a part of the northeast quarter of Section 19 in Township Eight North, Range Eight East – land owned by Horatio N. Ferguson, John H. Fooy and his wife, Catherine, also gave 4.8 acres for the town site.

The Fooy’s conveyance was made to William Hagins (also mentioned as Hagan and Hagin, John Sphar, and Arthur C. Welch, who were then commissioners, for $1 and because they were “desirous to aid” and was for land “commencing on the west bank of the Mississippi River at the North East Corner of Fractional Section twenty in fractional township Eight North of range Nine east thence North up the margin of the Mississippi River six chains and ninety three links to the Southwest Boundary line of James H. Fooy’s tract of land thence with said line to the beginning.” Fooy’s wife signed the document with her X mark.

In giving most of the land for the county seat June 30, 1827, for $1, Horatio N. Ferguson and his wife, Jane Proctor, who also signed with her X mark, put 71 lots and a fractional part of eight others in the commissioners’ trust.  Lots apparently were sold by the commissioners to raise funds to provide a courthouse and jail for records show sales by the commissioners for various amounts, ranging form $10 up.

Among those who acquired lots in Greenock were James Livingston, who was appointed by Territorial Governor George Izard as the county’s first clerk and held that post in 1825-32 and who also served in the seventh Territorial Legislature; Alexander Ferguson, sheriff in 1836-38, and as treasure in 1838-42; George S. Fogleman, county treasurer in 1842-62, Oliver Wallace, county coroner in 1829-32; Solomon R. Cherry, county clerk in 1832-34; Samuel Lewis, William Wallace, John Stance, Marcus E. Browning, John H. Fooy, Harvey Spurlock, Franklin B. Read, Lafayette Spurlock, Robert N. Wit, Albert McMillan, Matthew Spurlock, John Lucas, John S. Mosby of Mississippi, John R. James, Amelia Sphar as administratrix for John Sphar, Samuel Lockees (or Larkin or Larcem), William D. Ferguson, James Monroe Rogers, Sylvester Blankenship, David R. Hupin, Lucretia Spulock, Cynthia Ann Spurlock, and James B. Lewis.

The plat of Greenock showed it extended westward from the Mississippi River approximately 900 feet.  The first north-south street west of the river was named Front Street.  Other north-south streets were Bruce and Burns Streets, each 50 feet in width.  Burns, the second street to the west of the river, ran along the west side and Bruce along the west side of a 300-by-300-foot public square, which was almost in the heart of town.

From Front Street one could enter the public square by Ovoca Avinew, a 60-foot wide street which terminated at the square, or by Jackson Street, which formed the square’s north boundary, or by Wallace Street, which was the square’s south boundary.

North of Jackson Street was Clinton, Crawford, and North Streets, all running east and west.  Eat-west streets south of Wallace Street were Byron and South Streets.  North Street was dedicated as a 60-foot wide street and others were 50 feet in width.

Twelve-foot wide alleys ran north and south to bisect the lots on the east and west sides of the square, and a 10-foot wide alley bisected lots north and south of the square.

Early maps show roads leading to and from Greenock closely followed the bank of the Mississippi River.  In the November, 1827, term of the court, John Stance, William D. Ferguson, and Anthony Neely were appointed commissions for a road leading from the house of William Curtis to Greenock and from thence to the house of Anthony B. Neely by way of the Mississippi Rover.  Later a road connected Greenock and Marion, lying slightly west of the present levee, then following the west bank of Lake Grandee.

Greenock’s post office, according to federal records, was discontinued February 2, 1846, but was re-established January 14, 1851.  April 18, 1851, the post office for the area was moved to nearby Oldham.  Ezra C. Frizbie and John Henderson also were listed as postmasters at Greenock.

Records shows Horatio N. Ferguson stayed at Greenock until 1835, then moved to a location lower down the river.  He died at Frankfort, Kentucky, October 1, 1840.  He and his wife, who died in 1871, were parents of two sons and four daughters, one being Mrs. Kate A. Brown, who lived at Marion.  Mrs. Nancy E. Lyon and Sarah J. were other daughters.  Alexander H. Ferguson was their youngest son.

Allen M. Ferguson eventually moved to Sharp County and died there in 1872.

The construction of the Military Road left Greenock an out-of-the-way place for county government and prompted the request for a new county site.

After the county seat was moved to Marion in 1836, Horatio N. Ferguson regained title to most of his property.  February 28, 1838, the Arkansas General Assembly passed an act for the relief of Horatio N. Ferguson and it provided that all claims of Crittenden County to the grounds were conveyed back to Ferguson.

Today a few tombstones still remain in the old Greenock Cemetery, most of them covered over by weeds and brush.  Markers indicate the graveyard was used long after Greenock’s demise.

Hale made a list of the graves he found there in 1858, taking his information from inscriptions that were still legible.

Greenock Cemetery Inscriptions

The last interment there, according to the markers, was that of Glenda Simpkins in 1935.  Other Simpkins graves nearby are those of Rufus E., Dora I., Rufus H., Flora T., and Peggy Joe.

Evening Times Article 1987