Several years ago my family took my Dad on a road trip to Arkansas to visit the old Martin homestead. We spent time visiting family in Springdale and fishing on the Bull Shoals Lake, then we took a drive to Martins Springs near Norfork. It’s a little town on the White River just south of a dozen other small towns. We had difficulty finding it on the map but Dad took us right there from memory. The Martin cemetery was very well cared for and we hadn’t been there more than 5 minutes when a teenage girl stopped us and asked if she could help. We told her we were Martin’s and there to look around, she said ok and left. Not more than 10 minutes later a car zips in and out pops the young girl’s grandmother. She was a distant Martin cousin and she pulled out the family welcome mat. We talked for quite some some and she gave us a stack of papers on Martin research she had.

Here’s one of my favorite stories from her regarding Old Joe (Joel C. Martin 1819 – 1891) and his brother Thomas D. Martin.

Joel and Tom were born in Overton County, TN. In the spring of 1851, Joel and his family, and Joel’s brother Thomas and his son, James (age 6) along with several other families, loaded up their flatboats with livestock, household goods, and anything else they could fit, and floated down a series of rivers to Izard County, north central Arkansas. There, Joe and his brother bought a few hundred acres of rich bottom land along the White River, part above and part below the North Fork River, and began farming. Joe had been a stock raiser in Tennessee and concentrated on raising horses. Horses were scarce and oxen were commonly used, so he got good prices for his horses. Thomas, who came as a widower, soon married Susan Hutcheson, who’s family was already well established in the Norfork area. Beside farming and raising stock, Tom was also a fine blacksmith and wagon maker.

Joel was called “Old Joe” by his family and friends. Family tradition tells that Martha (Harrison) was the daughter of a plantation owner in either Ohio or North Carolina, and Joel was a worker on her father’s land. Joel and Martha fell in love and wanted to get married but it seems that Joel wasn’t good enough for the landowner’s daughter, and he figuratively put his foot down and ordered Joel out. This did not sit well with Joel and Martha so they decided to elope. Martha’s mother learned of the plan and being more mellow than her husband gave her daughter her blessing, one thousand dollars and a wedding gift of a Negro slave, “to keep her hands pretty”. Old Joel gradually used the money and sold the slave. Martha’s life was a hard one, especially since she had never had to work at all in her girlhood. When she was old she remembered her mother’s gift, and looking at her wrinkled, chapped hands she was heard to say “Oh Gawd look at my purty hands now”.

Unraveling the history of the Martin family………

Cheers,

Deborah