It's True

Mr. Editor - I have been requested time and again by many of my old friends to write out and have published a short sketch of history of my pioneer life in now what is called Baxter County, Arkansas. My father moved here when I was 12 years old and I have been here between North Fork and White River ever since which is about 79 years will be 91 years old the 14 of next May.

Neighbors were then few and far between. One Yokum lived on what is now known as Mooney's Ferry. Another Yokum lived near what is now called Shipp's Ferry. One by the name of Florer near the mouth of Northfork, one by the name of Matney near Matney Knob.

Our meat was not exactly of Locust and wild honey, but was wild honey, buffalo, venison, bear, turkey, etc. We made our own meal by means of a pessell with which we beat the corn in a hold dug out in a log.

We could, you might say, stand in the door and kill almost any of the above named game that we preferred. Our nearest trading point was Batesville and but one store there. We thought then as much of a sack of salt or coffee as they would here now of a wagon load. If we had anything on our feet it was moccasins. I have found as many as six bee trees in a day. I caught as high as thirteen wolves in a pen during one winter. I could go on and give in detail how miraculously we escaped danger from panther and bear; also of the hardships and privation. This is only a faint representation of what then was real life.

I will here briefly state that amid all the changes and vicissitudes I with all of my posterity, with my progenitor, through pioneering, pestilence, famine and war have strictly adhered to the grand principles of our Democracy. I voted twice for Andrew Jackson ever keeping my toes to the line until I twice voted for Cleveland and not yet tired, and can now exclaim while one foot is in the grave, the other on the brink Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! For our time honored Democracy.

I suppose I am about the oldest man in the county and know my race is about run. I want to be able to exclaim with one of old. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, there is therefore a crown laid up for me.

Now a word to my children, my Grandchildren to my Great Grandchildren and Great, Great Grandchildren and to my friends generally! I can never meet with them again here and my prayer is that we may all so live and act that we may meet where there is no pioneering, no silvery hairs, no bent forms, no furrowed cheeks and where 91 years is as a thousand years, and where all is peace and joy and where pleasures unceasing roll, is the wish and prayer of, as I am familiarly called Old Uncle Wat Talburt.