Pre-History of Jackson County, Oklahoma (3)

By 1891, a few short years after its founding, the town of Frazer was home to several businesses. These included a hotel, drug store, a general merchandise store, and even a jewelry store. A medical doctor, J. E. Fowler, and his family lived in the drug store. The proprietor of the general store was C. C. Hightower, for whom the Altus High School football stadium is named: Hightower Memorial Stadium. In 1887, J. R. McMahan came to Frazer and became the first school teacher in Greer County, Texas. Eventually, he would replace Mrs. P. H. Holt as postmaster.[1]

Residents of Frazer likely knew their town was in a vulnerable spot. Although it was nice to have the Frazer River (known today as the Salt Fork of the Red River) and Bitter Creek nearby, Frazer stood where the creek and the river met. The dangerous potential turned into reality in 1891. On the night of June 4, torrential rains fell just north of Frazer, in the area that feeds Bitter Creek and the Salt Fork. The two currents overflowed and formed one very wide and swift river running at least three feet deep. Decades later, Dr. Fowler's daughter, only four years old in 1891, recalled: "I remember Mama walking from bed to bed on chairs because there was so much water on the floor." Townspeople got up in the middle of the night, gathered what they could, and moved to safety on higher ground. For many years after the flood, old-timers would say, "The average rainfall here is twenty inches a year and I remember the day it fell."[2]

When residents of Frazer fled their homes, they knew of a higher settlement just two and a half miles to the east-northeast. A post office had been established there the year before, in 1890. At some point, W. R. Baucum, who had formerly lived in Altus, Arkansas, and who knew the Latin word Altus meant "high," suggested that name for the new town.[3]

This traditional telling of the story about how and why Altus got its name leaves a question: if a post office was established there the year before the flood at Frazer, then what was the name of Altus prior to that event? The story assumes that Altus was given that name only after the people of Frazer moved to "higher ground." However, every U.S. post office has a registered name. So, again, what was the name of Altus in 1890, the year before the flood? If the original name of the settlement was Altus, then the story about the town being given that name after the flood doesn't add up.

Notes

[1] Chesser, Across the Lonely Years, 139, 179; Barbara Kay Shelton, "Altus on the Hill Above Frazer in Old Greer County," Chronicles of Oklahoma 40, no, 4 (Winter 1962-63): 390-92.

[2] Chesser, Across the Lonely Years, 139-40; Shelton, "Altus on the Hill Above Frazer," 392.

[3] George H. Shirk, Oklahoma Place Names, 2nd ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974), 8; Chesser, Across the Lonely Years, 141.

James J. Trott: Missionary to the Cherokees, 5

In spite of minimal help from congregations or from the Disciples' American Christian Missionary Society, by the end of 1859, James Trott had resumed his dream of working among the Cherokees, this time in Indian Territory. By then, Trott and his second wife had five sons and three daughters.[1] Not long before the outbreak of the Civil War, he was able to report:

We have already about 75 disciples in the Cherokee Nation, which we humbly hope and pray may be the first fruits of a glorious harvest. Some of these are the result of our humble efforts in the old nation more than twenty years ago. Some are the fruits of the able efforts of Bro. Graham, and the pious labors of Bro. Robertson; and some 50 were converted by the zealous efforts of brethren Goodnight and Phillips. We had the pleasure last fall of immersing three descendants of the red man, while on a visit to Grand Prairie, where we have a good prospect of establishing a High School. Having volunteered our humble efforts in this missionary field, free of charges to church or state, and having a large family to care for, we have not been able to devote as much time to preaching the word as we desired, and the cause demands.[2]

Trott's report indicates that he was enjoying at least some success in his mission. It also tells us that he worked among a network of fellow preachers. At least some of those men resided in northwest Arkansas and made trips across the border into Indian Territory in order to preach to Cherokees. 

But in 1862, troops entered the Cherokee Nation confiscating goods as they went. They helped themselves to provisions that belonged to Trott, and one of his sons, Timothy, was killed. At this, the family fled to Arkansas, and then to Missouri. Eventually, they found refuge in Kansas, but not before one of Trott's daughters, Elizabeth, died from exposure on Christmas Day 1862. 

One might guess that after the war, Trott would have stayed in Kansas, where the Disciples had made him the state evangelist, or gone back to Tennessee, where he had many friends and family. But in June of 1866, he returned to the Indian Territory to once again work among the Cherokees. Nevertheless, by that time deprivation and depression had taken their toll.

In 1868, James Trott set out for Tennessee, and died on December 19, 1868, not long after he arrived. He lies buried in Carmack Cemetery in Sumner County.[3]

Notes

[1] J. Edward Moseley, Disciples of Christ in Georgia (St. Louis: Bethany Press, 1954), 130.

[2] Report of the Proceedings of the Anniversary Meeting of the American Christian Missionary Society Held in Cincinnati, October 23, 24, 25, 1860 (Cincinnati: H. S. Bosworth, 1860), p. 16.

[3] Moseley, Disciples of Christ in Georgia, 130-31; Tolbert Fanning, "James J. Trott: Messenger of the Church of Christ at Franklin College, Tenn., to the Cherokee Nation," Gospel Advocate (March 25, 1869).

J. J. Trott: Missionary to the Cherokees, 4

On March 6, 1856, J. J. Trott sent a letter from his home in Franklin College, Tennessee, to the Gospel Advocate magazine in Nashville. He explained that he had just returned home from a three thousand mile trip through Arkansas, Missouri, and the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, in what is now northeastern Oklahoma. Wisely, he had avoided the deadly chaos over slavery in what came to be known as Bleeding Kansas.

The trip, which took up the previous November through February had Trott traveling in frigid conditions "by steamboat, railroads, stage, horseback, and sometimes on foot." He was disappointed that although he had been authorized by the American Christian Missionary Society to solicit funding for his proposed Indian mission, he had managed to collect only $166.

The churches had contributed their thousands to Bethany College and Christian University, and their hundreds for Revision, and therefore came to the sage conclusion, that a few dimes or dollars was all that they could and ought to do for the conversion of the children of Shem![1]

(If you happen to serve as a missionary, or you work with a large, multi-staff church, it might be some consolation to know that your never-ending competition for resources is not a new one).

In spite of the cold weather, Trott enjoyed his time in Indian Territory. While in the Cherokee Nation, he "preached at several important points" and visited with many old acquaintances and friends he had first met in Georgia over twenty years before, prior to the removal of the Cherokee people to the West.

A man of his day, Trott noted with satisfaction that the Cherokees had advanced in all of the ways regarded by Euro-Americans as marks of civilization: large-scale agriculture, animal husbandry, frame and brick home construction, and high rates of literacy resulting from a modern school system. "Thus," he wrote, "we see that the Cherokees have all the means of improvement. All they need in a religious point of view is more missionaries to them in applying the means." He observed that the Moravians, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists already had "missionaries, mission schools, and churches among the Cherokees." Would the Christian churches in the United States continue to do less?[2]

Notes

[1] J. J. Trott, "The Indian Mission," Gospel Advocate (April 1856), 110. Christian University was the original name of the school that came to be known in 1917 as Culver-Stockton College. See George R. Lee, "Culver-Stockton College," Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, 258.

[2] Trott, "The Indian Mission," 111.

Demographic Change in Clay County Arkansas and Numerical Decline in the South Thornton Church of Christ, Piggott

Back in June and July of 2014, I put up a couple of posts that tell just a bit about the history of the South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, Arkansas. I was blessed to be the preacher at South Thornton from October 1988 until August 1993, and will always be grateful for that opportunity and challenge. (I was a mere 25 years old when we first came to Piggott). To say the least, I will always be thankful for the good people of that congregation and what they have meant to me and my family.

Here, I want to establish and discuss some of the local contextual factors that have contributed to the numerical decline of the congregation during the second half of the twentieth century. But first, just a bit about what this means.

Anytime a church increases or decreases numerically, there are a number of contributing factors. In other words, church growth and decline are complex. To quote Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and his colleague in No County for Old Men, it's never just the one thing. To understand change over time, it's important to look at what are called "local contextual factors." That phrase simply refers to changes in a community that impact the church.

For example, let's say that a small town gets absorbed by a nearby growing metropolis, as McKinney, Texas has recently been absorbed by the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. New homes and stores pop up quickly. The local population soars from 5,000 to 50,000 in a matter of a few years. Given that local contextual factor, it would not be surprising to find that several churches in the one-time small town started to see a large number of visitors. Those churches would likely attract several new members. That would be a case of numerical church growth strongly tied to a local contextual factor: a rapid growth in population. My question is, How did such factors impact the history of the South Thornton Church of Christ during the twentieth century?

Available census and demographic figures indicate that Clay County, including the town of Piggott, became smaller and older beginning around 1950. For example, in 1990, the population of the county stood at 18,107. That was down from 20,188 in 1980. At the time (the early 90s), some residents of Piggott were encouraged to see that, according to the 1990 census, the town was one of two communities in Clay County that grew in population between 1980 and 1990. But those figures were misleading since, during the 1980s, Piggott annexed one or more surrounding communities. Thus, the town's small increase in population during the decade of the 80s resembled swelling more than growing. Also during the 1980s, the population grew older, with the median age of the town at over 42 years old in 1990. To add a bit of perspective, consider that in 1990, out of 3777 residents of Piggott, nearly 1000 were at least 65 years old.

As the population grew smaller and residents of the town grew older, predictably, the congregation also grew smaller and older. In other words, the demographics of the church mirrored those of the community. To get a feel for the numeric decline of the South Thornton Church, I put together the following table. Having spent countless hours compiling these numbers, I can assure you that they are reliable. The first column in the table gives the year. The second column is the average Sunday-morning Bible class attendance for that year. The third is the Sunday-morning worship attendance average. Finally, the fourth column gives the average of the two averages. This is called the "composite" number. I figured and posted the composite because church analysts tell us that it is actually a better number to look at if you want to gauge the numeric strength of a church over time. Thus, if anything, the figure at the extreme right is the most significant:

Year       Sun Class Avg        AM Worship Avg        Composite        

1963                328                             376                           352

1964                304                             371                           338

1965                305                             370                           338

1966                302                             372                           337

1967                305                             371                           338

1968                290                             368                           329

1969                273                             345                           309

1970                261                             338                           300

1971                265                             341                           303

1972                260                             342                           301

1973                252                             338                           295

1974                255                             329                           292

1975                271                             323                           297

1976                274                             342                           308

1977                281                             349                           315

1978                283                             360                           322

1979                268                             336                           302

1980                282                             348                           315

1981                273                             343                           308

1982                266                             338                           302

1983                252                             323                           288

1984                247                             301                           274

1985                250                             304                           277

1986                246                             304                           275

1987                227                             282                           255

1988                223                             276                           250

1989                225                             281                           253

1990                226                             285                           256

1991                213                             265                           239

1992                215                             281                           248

A few observations about the numbers in the foregoing table. Notice that from 1963 to 1992 the composite number drops from 352 to 248. Occasionally, the numbers remain stable or increase moderately over several years. Nonetheless, the basic trajectory is downward. Significant to our investigation is that, if you were to draw a line graph of the population of Clay County during these years, and then drew another line representing the composite numbers given in the table above, you would see two lines that were basically parallel to each other. Most people would assume that the numerical decline of the congregation and the increasing age of its members were directly related to the same phenomenon in the local context. They would be right to come to that conclusion.

Not long after I began my work with the South Thornton congregation in 1988, one thing became absolutely clear to me: long-time members of the congregation were dismayed by the church's obvious numerical decline over the years. Most of them had one or more theories about why the church was not so large and vibrant as it had been in decades gone by. One thing that was especially remarkable about all of this is I don't recall one person ever suggesting to me that the numerical decline of the congregation might be related to the numerical decline and the rising age in the local population. This was true in spite of the fact that many of those I talked to had actually lived through that decline and understood it first-hand.

Those who study church dynamics agree that anytime a church grows smaller it also grows older. (Conversely, as churches grow in number they tend to grow younger as well). Smaller and older was the trend in Piggott, and in that part of Arkansas for that matter. But most members of the South Thornton congregation had theories about congregational decline that did not include these demographic facts. Instead, when it came to the long, slow decline of the congregation, most of the reasons that were offered had something to do with leadership: the preacher and the elders.

The foregoing is offered not as an excuse or full explanation for anything. I put this out there because I have compiled these facts and have thought about these matters for many years now, and also because the South Thornton Church in Piggott is not alone. Similar stories, thousands of them, have unfolded in many parts of the U.S over the past 75 years or more. We should think and talk about those stories.

Joe S. Warlick Encounters R. W. Officer in Arkansas, 1926

Joe S. Warlick (1866-1941), editor and publisher of the Gospel Guide, often included an "Editorials" section in his paper. These occasional pieces told of Warlick's travels, speaking engagements, debates, etc. To anyone interested in Restoration History, they are a must read.

In the June 1926 issue, Warlick tells of a recent trip from his home in Dallas, Texas to Arkansas and to other states north and east. Along the way, he preached wherever he could and delivered at least one school commencement address. His report includes the following:

"Saturday night we began [preaching] at Center Point, the old county seat of Howard County.  . . .

"We had dinner on the ground Sunday, which all enjoyed greatly. Among those who were with us was the venerable R. W. Officer, who now resides in Nashville [Arkansas], not far away."

"Editorials," Gospel Guide, Volume XI, No. 6, (June 1926), p. 4.

What is the significance of this for people interested in the life and times of R. W. Officer (1845-1930)?  Here we have one of the very few references to him in any church paper between about 1906 and his death in 1930. Up until the first few years of the twentieth century, R. W. had been a long-time and prolific contributor to a large array of Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement journals, especially the Gospel Advocate and Octographic Review.

Why he ceased sending notices to the journals and magazines is a puzzle. Shortly before, Officer did complain in print about his rheumatism. It's been some time since I've seen it, but there was also reference to a wagon accident that may have injured his hand. But these obstacles, it seems to me, would not be enough to stop an inveterate writer with the grit of R. W. Officer. Not to mention that during most of that time he had a second wife, several years younger than him, and also a son, Leon V., who lived close to his father.

Although brief, Warlick's notice includes more than one piece of important information. First, it locates Officer in Nashville, Arkansas in the spring of 1926. This is especially interesting because according to the U.S. Federal Census of 1930, Officer, by then 85 years old, was still living in Nashville. He is listed as a "boarder" in home of a "farmer" named Parker Russell (age 66); Russell's wife, Gillie (who was 59); and their son, Garner (19). Also according to the 1930 Census, Officer's occupation was "minister" of the Christian Church. It appears, then, that R. W. Officer spent at least the last four years of his life preaching for the Christian Church in Nashville, Arkansas, while residing with a farmer and his family who were presumably members of that congregation.

Second, Warlick's notice indicates that Officer (a veteran of the Civil War who was then 80 years old) was still vigorous enough to get out and around. Center Point, where Warlick shared lunch with Officer, is about 9 miles from Nashville, where he resided.

Third, it seems to indicate that Officer had not moved away from his convictions in previous years. In the time leading up to his silence in the papers, Officer had been suspected of all sorts of "isms" and heresies. Some people probably imagined that he stopped sending notices to the papers because he had indeed "gone off the deep end" religiously. But Officer's appearance at the Sunday gathering and dinner at Center Point, Arkansas in 1926 suggests otherwise. Officer's "heresy trial" in Alabama in the 1870s includes much the same rhetorical tone and tough stance as one would find in the pages of Warlick's Gospel Guide. If by 1926 Officer had long since changed his thinking in a radical way, then why would he want to venture out to see and hear the likes of Joe S. Warlick, a staunch preacher and debater?

All of this suggests two basic conclusions regarding Officer between the ages of 60 and 85. First, he did not stop publishing in the papers because he was no longer able. Second, it does not seem that Officer had significantly changed his views. Even if he had, he was still willing to go hear and visit with Joe Warlick, a preacher who certainly had not.

Preachers at the South Thornton Church of Christ, Piggott, Arkansas, 1965-1993

It's now been more than twenty years since I and my young family moved from NE Arkansas to Southern New England. In August of 1993, we said our sad good-byes to members of the South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, AR. Then, we spent three days (me driving a diesel truck with my wife and two small children in the cab, and with one of our cars in tow) making our way to Wallingford, CT, where I became the preacher for the Ward Street Church of Christ.

During the last two years before my move from Arkansas, especially in late 1991, I conducted a good bit of research on the history of the South Thornton congregation. More about that in a future post perhaps. Here is the best information I have about pulpit preachers for the congregation from 1965 to 1993:

C. Ray Miller, July 1965--December 1975
Carroll P. Bennett, June 1976--September 1981
Glen Goss, October 1981--May 1983
Kenneth Burton, June 1983--July 1988
Frank Bellizzi, October 1988--August 1993

Richard Runions, served as an associate minister 1974--1983

South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, Arkansas: From Early Beginnings to the Mid-20th Century

The historical roots of the South Thornton Church of Christ in Piggott, Arkansas go back to the small band of Christians who first began meeting together in the Haywood community around 1917. The first building was erected on a plot of ground donated by Jake Haywood. About the same time, another small church was meeting in homes and in a theater in Piggott. Around 1932, the Haywood church decided it would be better for them to meet in town. The two churches merged.

The newly-formed congregation first met in a lodge hall at the corner of Front and Court Streets. Occasional preachers for the church in those early years were A. B. Shaver, Elvis Huffard, Cecil Wright, Thetus Pritchard, Thomas Pack, and B. G. Hope. Several special efforts to evangelize the community by public proclamation were conducted by C. L. Wilkerson, Joe Warlick, and G. C. Brewer. The consensus of recollection is that the most notable of these efforts was a 1931 tent meeting in which the preaching of G. C. Brewer attracted much attention and during which many were baptized.

In November of 1940, the plot of ground at the corner of South Thornton and Bruce Streets was donated to the church by Randall Davis. Soon, a frame building was erected, utilizing lumber from the old Haywood building. In May 1948, continued growth necessitated more space. A brick auditorium was built. The old building was turned ninety degrees, placed at the back of the new auditorium in the early 1950s. In 1963, a large auditorium was constructed adjacent and parallel to the existing one. The older building was partitioned to provide classrooms and a remnant of the old auditorium was retained as a fellowship area in the center.

In many respects, the most notable character who contributed to the tremendous numerical growth of the 1940s was Harbert D. Hooker. At first, Hooker commuted to Piggott from his home in Poplar Bluff, Missouri in order to preach and to promote the gospel. Around 1945, Hooker became the first full-time preacher employed by the congregation. His five years of work with the church were very fruitful.

Note: The bulk of this brief overview, which I wrote in November 1991, comes from histories recorded in several South Thornton Church directories, and from C. Ray Miller, "Church of Christ: Its History in Piggott," Piggott Times, Vol. 1, February 29, 1968. For a sketch of the lives of A. B. Shaver and C. L. Wilkerson, see Boyd E. Morgan, Arkansas Angels (Paragould, AR: College Bookstore and Press, 1967), pp. 93-94 and 136-38, respectively.