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Georgia Ridge, Arkansas, is the southernmost portion of the Ozark-Boston Mountain Range. Its western end is at U. S. Highway 71, two miles north of Alma, the junction of 71 with Interstate 40. The Ridge extends eight miles east, terminating some two miles west of Mulberry. Dyer lies between Alma and Mulberry. All of these towns are lower in elevation and are within the Arkansas River basin which parallels the Ridge on the south. Little Mulberry Creek runs through a valley on the north. The community of Graphic is across this creek, about two miles farther north. Belmont post office was some two miles southwest of Graphic, in Section 10 of Township 10 North, Range 30 West. It no longer exists. Pleasant Hill is just northeast of Mulberry. Mention will be made of these small communities. The road that extends along the crest of the Ridge is much the same as when it was traveled by horse or mule-drawn vehicles, as remembered by the author sixty years ago, except that the western two miles or so now has blacktop paving. At the Dyer exit of Interstate 40, the road leading north makes a rough and rocky ascent for one and one-half miles where it intersects the Ridge road. The Church of Christ is on this corner, occupying the former one-room Chastain School that served the community until busses began taking the children to Mulberry in 1947. The original site of the Chastain School, which burned in 1915 or 1916, was a short distance east of this corner and just south of the Chastain Cemetery where many of the kith and kin recorded in this book are buried. The land for both the cemetery and school were provided by John Shelton Chastain, oldest son of Edward Bruce Chastain. This writer attended the old Chastain School through the sixth grade and remembered it well the unpainted building, the long benches that served as seats, while the students lap was his desk.

ARKANSAS AND CRAWFORD COUNTY - For a better understanding and appreciation of the period when the progenitors of our kith and kin came, in 1844, to what was to be known as Georgia Ridge, certain facts need to be reviewed. The Indians had free reign in Arkansas until after the United States completed negotiations with the French for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. With the land under the ownership of the United States, it was immediately thrown open for settlement at attractive low prices. The new opportunities beckoned thousands of settlers from the mideast and southeast. [Everett, What is now Arkansas became part of the Missouri Territory in 1812. When Missouri applied for statehood in 1819, Congress created the Arkansas Territory, included in which was now Oklahoma. On 15 June 1836, Arkansas became the twenty-fifth state of the Union. The County of Arkansas, covering the entire state, was created in 1813. Other counties were formed from it in this order: Lawrence in 1815; Clark, Hempstead and Pulaski in 1818; and Independence and Crawford in 1820.

At this time Crawford embraced present Franklin, Sebastian and part of Scott Counties. In 1833, Scott County was formed; in 1837, Franklin was carved out of eastern Crawford County; and in 1851, Sebastian was formed out of the southern portion of Crawford County between the Arkansas River and Scott County. [Shinn, 1900] SOME EARLY SETTLERS We have no way of knowing how many families found their way various eastern points to this region, arriving before our ancestors in 1844. Some of them would have been squatters who stayed for a time and moved on. We do know, however, from records obtained from the State Land Office at Little Rock, that land grants were granted to some of these by purchase or gratis. Just east of the Ridge and north of Mulberry, grants were made in the year indicated to the following: Thomas B. Moore, Sr., Thomas B. Moore, Jr., and Sally Butler, in 1831; Isaac Rainey, 1834; John Lasater, 1835 and 1837; William Chambers Maxey, 1836 and 1837; John Witherspoon Whitson, Alfred Henson and William Sanders, 1836; Joshua Fisher, William Grafton Jenkins, Elizabeth Elliott and James W. Fall, 1837. Then, on the eastern end of the Ridge, we find Robert Burton and Davis Williams, with Charles Hensley a mile farther west, all receiving patents (titles) in 1837. On the western end of the Ridge, William Edwards patented 160 acres in 1840, and, in 1841, William Reeves patented 40 acres about the center of the Ridge. Although there were surely others living in this area whose patents were not granted until some years later, these last five names represent the first established white settlers on the Ridge itself. However, the people who came, saw, and stayed to conquer this rugged terrain were the ones who gave it the name "Georgia Ridge." They came, for the most part, from northern Georgia, but their ancestry, and that of others of our progenitors, represent a wide variety of peoples and places.

KITH and KIN, by Mary Farnsworth
Note:  You can find Mary's book in the Fayetteville Public Library, Fayetteville Arkansas.