Late 1800's - Early 1900's Memories of Fayetteville by Wythe Walker

The panoramic photo above was taken about 1890, showing the buildings surrounding the square at far right with the cupola of the old Washington County Courthouse, which then stood at the center of the square, showing above the other buildings. The traces of roads coming off the hillside into the valley are, from left, Center Street, Mountain Street and Rock Street. The valley, known now as Spout Spring Hollow but also called Tin Cup Hollow for many years, is mostly hidden by the roll of the hillside in the foreground. At the extreme left is the old City Roller Mill, also called the Old White Mill. It was near the intersection of Huntsville and Mill streets. The photographer is unknown.

(Editor's note: Events do not have to be a century old to qualify as history.  We were reminded of this when we received a reminiscent letter from Wythe Walker of New York recalling some events from his boyhood and Fayetteville.  This is the sort of stuff of which history is made.  The murder of Mrs.Winkelman and the killing of Josh Thompson are occasionally mentioned in the bull sessions in our history office.  This is because many of the old timers remember these events.Wythe Walker's reminiscences have a certain literary flavor that we approve of.  He will be interested to know that one of our members, Jack Reed, is collecting anecdotes about Wythe's illustrious father, J.  Wythe Walker and his uncle, J. Vol Walker. --WJL)

Dear Walt (Walt J. Lemke - The Editor of FLASHBACK): 

Where your house stands (231 E.  Dickson St.) or immediately back of it, was a large vacant lot.  Some way or other, there was also a dirt road attached to Dickson street which ran along the creek, past the "Big Spout Spring" ended through Tincup, the colored section.  This lot, back of your home, was an area where we played cowboy Indian.  There was a rumor that had buried treasure was there.  At night, grownups did dig! 



Gunter House. (Photo by Walter J. Lemke)

Gunter's pasture, where the circuits used to perform, near the old Gunter house, was another favorite playground.  Believe it or not, when I was some 8 or 9 years old, we found a freshly dug a hole, neatly dug with square sides.  Something, a chest or a box, had been removed.  Certainly it's contents were not Spanish gold nor silver plate.  I imagine nothing much, but hidden during the Civil War, noted by slaves and subsequently dug up by their descendants or relatives of the owners.  Dad used to laugh about people digging around the kneer house on East Mountain.  It appears that old Judge Walker had buried lead bars for casting bullets, and the word got out that it was gold bars!
 

Did I ever tell you that those shallow ditches around the Walker and other old graveyards contained the legs and arms and bodies of the dead from Prairie Grove and possibly Pea Ridge?  Dad was there when they dug them up.  He said many had a small Bible on them, and that he jumped in the trench and found a coin and was called by a digger "a young grave robber." Dad was born 1867, I recall.  Maybe he referred to someone else, as I'd have to look up the time when the Confederate cemetery became operative.

Another--do you recall the Winkelman murder?  I do, clearly.  I and Byrnes and Phil Williams (Nathan Boone Williams' son) war "camping" in a tent a block south of my home on a vacant area.  Mother sent someone down to tell us to get home, but quick!  We did.

The Winkelman home was about one block south of the street which dead ends on College and one west of Block.  Mrs. Emma Hodge's daughter entered the home, opened a closet door and her mother fell into her arms.  Mrs. Winkelman--I remember her and Uncle John Winkleman--carried her money in a bustle.  Later, Mrs. Winkleman, Ben's mother, remodeled the place and it was the Kappa Alpha fraternity home.  I always felt leery when I'd pass that closet!

 Anyhow, there were arrested one Red Fox and one Mr. Sartin.  Sartin hanged himself in jail somewhere, possibly Van Buren.  Dad prosecutor Red Fox and lost.  Some 8 or 10 years ago I read of Red Fox's trial as defended by an Oklahoma lawyer who had been a boy in Fayetteville, in TRUE magazine.  I wrote Buzz Fawcett of TRUE and talked with the author of the story.  Dad always had a strong opinion as to who actually instigated or served in this murder other than those arrested.  I won't mention names. 

Everybody in Fayetteville said the hour "Constable" could hit a running rabbit with his pistol.  They all said and I never believed it.  I was growing on 13 and I knew how hard it was to hit a running rabbit with the 12-gauge shotgun.  But I never argued with them or disputed their words as I was having my share of trouble in just growing up and if they wanted to believe what they said I couldn't change their minds.  And besides, I didn't think they believe what they said. 

But our "Constable" could handle a pistol and after he killed Josh Thompson, people said they had said that Constable Sam was hell with that  .44.  I didn't think that killing Josh proved much of anything.  Any man hiding, with the law backing him up, could have killed old Josh.

I never knew much about Josh Thompson except that he was a colored man who looked old to a little boy and that he did odd jobs around town and would cook and row the boat when the family when a camping.

Word got around the school that Josh had been killed by the Constable and at noon most of us ran up to the furniture store and there lay Josh.  To this day I don't know why the let us in, but there lay Josh, and he wasn't a color man anymore because his face in death was as white as the palms of his hands when they were alive.  

Somebody had stuck yellow lead pencils on each side of his head just above his years, to show the path of the bullet.  Some grownups said, "Josh must have been stooping down to pick up that sack of chops when the Constable threw down on him, and Josh never knew what hit him"

Right back the Gilbreath and Taylor's grocery store on Center Street was where Josh died.  He was stealing a tow sack full of chops out of the shed in the back of the grocery store when the Constable killed him.  It was in wintertime and the pool of blood was hazing over kind of, like the frosting on baking shop cupcakes.  The sack of chops was still there.

When the people came to see Josh dead, somebody said, "We'll have to have somebody carry the news to Josh's wife" --whose name was Addy. Embus, a colored man, was there and he said he would and they told him to break the news gently to Addy.  Josh's death was the first time I ever learned that there are those who will hurt the living through the dead as salve to their smug pride of still being above ground.

For a long time word was said that Embus walked by Addy's house and yelled "Addy!" and that Addy called back, "Yes, Embus? " And that Embus hollered, "Addy, they done killed Josh!"  

Embus, although I wasn't with him, never said any such thing.  I never knew a colored person who in time of trouble, and God knows they have had their share of it, who wasn't kind and gentle, and I knew Embus and I knew he could not ever yell such words.

But it made a good story.  It made a very good story.  The town loafers, when the dog days came, would sit on the rock wall caddy corner from the Courthouse and when the heat dried up their talk, somebody would slap his thigh and come up with "Addy, they done killed old Josh!" It was always good for a laugh. 

I think most of the town was shamed that anybody had to steal a sack of chops to feed his few chickens.  Some said they did not know the Josh was light fingered and had been warned, but most were shamed.  The only ones who said that Josh got his just dues were those who had to feel superior to Josh as there was no one else they could feel superior to who was still alive.

Some years later I came back home and was asked to go out on a picnic with a crowd who were several years younger.  There came a lull in the talk.  Some young lady, to break the Paz said, "Addy, they done killed Josh!" Everybody laughed and the talking started all over again.  I asked what was the meaning of the saying and they told me it was just a pointless thing that everybody said when nobody had anything to say.

I'm not leveling a judgment on a town of good people, nor on a good constable, nor on a thief. I just don't believe that any man should be killed over a six-bit tow-sack full of chops.

-J.  Wythe Walker  

**Taken from the Washington County Historical Society's publication FLASHBACK Vol. XVI, No. 4, October, 1966