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INTERVIEW WITH ERNEST NEILL Recorded in Batesville, AR 8/10/62 Click here to listen to the first part of the original recording Wolf: “About how many cabins were there?” Neill: “Well, I don’t know. Mine was not among the first. The first time I went up there, Carter Fitzhugh and Charlie Hinkle and myself and somebody else, I believe . . . There was a tent. I had a tent I brought out of the Spanish American war, and we lived in the tent while we spent a week or so. And then . . .” Wolf: “When was that? Do you remember?” Neill: “No, I can’t fix the date. It was after . . . It was in the early 1900’s.” Wolf: “Um hm.” Neill: “Before there were any automobiles, I had a little racehorse. You know, back of that, Arthur and Clint Jackson -- you remember Clinton Jackson . . . He was clerk here two terms, and uh, bought a racehorse we took over to the county fair. They hadn’t had any fair for two or three years, and we rejuvenated the fair, and we gave two nice fairs, and built a big pavilion out there, and spent a lot of money.” Wolf: “Well, about that Ozark Springs. About how many cabins do you think there were at the most?” Neill: “Well, Dr. Weaver had one, Mr. Minor of Newport had one, and Bob Weaver was up there. He was a bachelor. I don’t know whether he had a separate cabin or not. Oh, there must have been a half a dozen cabins at least, and then the big dining hall where we ate and where we had gatherings.” Wolf: “Yes. My father had a cabin. I think . . . Didn’t Dean Coleman have one?” Neill: “No, Dean Coleman didn’t have one.” Wolf: “Dr. Weaver was the one that started it up, was he?” Neill: “Yes. Dr. Weaver was a merchant at Jamestown. He was familiar with all that country . . . Jamestown was the trading point for . . . big section, clear out at Cleburne County. His trading territory reached clear out in Cleburne County and, uh, he was a very popular, capable man. He took an interest in things, generally.” Wolf: “Was that camp incorporated out there?” Neill: “No, I don’t think so. Well, I’m not sure about that. It might have been. I’m not sure about that. We had a board of directors. I reckon it was incorporated.” Wolf: “You had a cabin, did you?” Neill: “Hm?” Wolf: “You had a cabin, did you?” Neill: “Yes.” Wolf: “What did it cost you?” Neill: “Oh, I don’t know. They gave us . . . really didn’t have to pay anything for the land. They bought ten acres, fenced . . . It was all enclosed in one big fence, and all the houses were inside. And, uh, I guess it was incorporated. You could find it in the county clerk’s office, you know, the record of incorporation.” Wolf: “Yeah. Uh huh, yeah.” Neill: “Mr. James P. Coffin was one of the incorporators.” Wolf: “Yeah. What’d you do up there?” Neill: “Well, we didn’t do much of anything but sit around and drink that cold water. You know, the spring came down and had a fall, and we built a bathhouse, and they had to have you get that cold water . . . We had to warm that cold water before we could take a bath. We had a bathhouse, and we had toilets, dug pits, you know. There was a sawmill not so very far away, there where we got our lumber.” Wolf: “I remember that the ground was covered with sawdust. You put down sawdust to keep the chiggers and ticks off people, I guess.” Neill: “Sawdust?” Wolf: “Yeah.” Neill: “I never remember about that.” Wolf: “Yeah, all over the place where the dining room was built, there was a sawdust floor, sawdust floor.” Neill: “I don’t remember about that sawdust. Sam Phillips, my brother-in-law, and I built the cabin, and uh . . .” Wolf: “Cost you about fifty dollars, I’ll bet.” Neill: “Well, it wasn’t very expensive. I don’t remember how much it cost. There were two bedrooms and a sitting room, I believe was in the cabin.” Wolf: “Yeah. Well, uh, I’ll tell you something else I wanted you to tell me. Once when I was down here, you told me about a story about a man who . . . Some preacher who said he was going to walk on the water up there at the dam.” Neill: “Yeah. That was a noted murder.” Wolf: “Yeah. Tell me that story again.” Neill: “Well, it was right up here . . . It was right . . . It was in Sharp County, not very far beyond the old . . . you know . . . Well, it wasn’t very far above that. And that was in Sharp County at that time, but later . . . reaching clear up to . . . village town was stuck in Independence County. Well, there was . . . There was a political speaking. The candidates for offices met there at that place. There was a church there, they called it the Flat Rock Church. There was a flat sand rock there nearby, and they had a gathering there, and the candidates for county offices met. And this murder . . . homicide took place while that crowd was there. There was some fellow came into the country. He preached . . . They called it the ‘New Light’, and he . . . great excitement up there in the country, and this fellow Miller . . . Let’s see, his name was Miller, was just one of the natives there . . . came to the church and got religion, got a big dose. And he tried to get this . . . one of his neighbors and friends . . . converted, and he didn’t want to be converted, and he just kept bothering him and made himself a perfect nuisance and, uh, Miller got mad about it . . . Not Miller, but . . . Oh, what was that fellow’s name? Bob . . . There’s a family of that name still there. Anyway . . . Matlock - Bob Matlock was the man that committed this crime. He had a pocketknife out, whittling, and this fellow Miller come to him and kept annoying him. The evidence in the case was that he probably didn’t intend to kill him, but he had a knife out a-whittling and he was vexed and annoyed with Miller, and just threw his hands out with this knife in it, and cut his throat. And they said the blood gushed out in a stream as big as a man’s arm. Was a great throng of people there, political speaking. One of them was . . . Dickinson, who was running for clerk. He was clerk for . . . He was up at this house on the corner. I remember him telling it. Well, my father and old Uncle Bill Padgett defended Matlock. I think he was tried in change of venue in Fulton County, I believe it was. He wasn’t tried in this county. And he was acquitted.” Wolf: “Well, where did the walking on the water come in?” Neill: “Well, that was . . . this evangelist that tried . . . and there was five little water mills on Polk Bayou at that time, beginning . . . The first one was about a mile, half a mile, upstream from the mouth of Miller’s Creek, where Miller’s Creek runs into Polk Bayou. And then clear on up into Izard County, all together there was five of those little water mills, and at one of them--the closest one to Barren Fork, I reckon--not Barren Fork, Cave City . . . The nearest one, I reckon, was where the baptizing was. And they had baptizing, and he had announced that he was going to walk on the water, emulate the savior, and a great throng came there. But the homicide didn’t take place at that gathering. That was just one of the exciting things that happened. And he . . . The man must have had some attraction, ability to interest people and gather them. I don’t remember what his name was, the preacher. But he didn’t walk. His faith failed him just . . . They had to pull him out to keep him from drowning.” Wolf: “What’d he do, step off the dam into the water?” Neill: “Yes, he stepped off the middle of the dam, the middle part of the dam. There was a bank where the water was deep. He stepped off, and his faith failed him . . . and he went down.” Wolf: “What was his name? Do you remember?” Neill: “No, I don’t.” Wolf: “Well, did that kill the movement?” Neill: “Hm?” Wolf: “Did that kill the New Life Movement when he . . . when he failed to walk on the water?” Neill: “No, I don’t think it did altogether. He had some excuse for it. . . . continued to preach.” Wolf: “About when did that take place?” Neill: “Oh, I reckon that was . . . I was born in 1871 . . . I was about, oh, about ten years old. I tell you what I . . .” Wolf: “It was in your lifetime, was it?” Neill: “Oh, yes, sure. I tell you, the Matlock family’s still there. Matlock . . . Bob Matlock had a brother that continued to live there, and after I became grown or practicing law I used to meet him up there and talk to him. And he may be up there now. If you go up there and inquire among the older citizens, I expect you could find people that know more about it than I do, now. I don’t know whether . . . whether Matlock’s . . . any of the Matlock family’s still living there, but the brother of Bob Matlock, the man who committed the homicide, continued to live there a good long time, and I got so I knew him, used to see him up there, talk to him.” Wolf: “Well, there was another thing I wanted you to tell me about - that you know a good deal about - and that’s this, uh, Willie Richardson . . . the old man Erwin case.” Neill: “Yeah. Well, Will . . . Will Erwin, that was old man Erwin’s son, was somewhat older than me. He was a dull (?) boy, and no good. He, his first marriage, married a German girl in . . . oh, a town up in Missouri where there used to be a business school. Mr. Erwin sent him up there, and all he learned was to write a pretty fair hand. I don’t think he learned anything about bookkeeping. He married this, or he boarded with a widow who had a daughter, and he married her. She was a nice German girl, and she came down here and lived with him several years, and finally she just got tired of him and went back home. She lived up there in a cabin, nice little house; that little house is out there now. You go out towards the Erwin place and look up, look up that dry run (?), and you see a nice little house up there. That was the Will Erwin house. Well, let me see, what was it I started out to tell you?” Wolf: “You were going to tell me about the Willie Erwin . . . the whole story about Willie Erwin.” Neill: “Yes. Well, Willie Erwin married, and that first wife was a nice girl, an intelligent girl, but it was such a dreary life. He was so no-good that she just went off and left him. After she’d been gone a bit he sued and got a divorce. And then he married twice more after that. He married . . . Mr. . . . There was a man, T.R. Taylor. You’ve heard of T.R. Taylor?” Wolf: “Yes.” Neill: “T . . . Taylor, he came from North Carolina out here, and he married one of John Glenn’s sisters -- Mr. Glenn’s first wife was a Glenn, John Glenn’s sister -- and uh, she was . . . She was the mother of all his children. Second wife didn’t have any, didn’t bear any children. Well, Will Erwin married a daughter, married a niece of T.R. Taylor, Thomas . . . Taylor. She lived in Memphis. She was a widow, and poor, and had two daughters, as I remember. One of them came out here and lived with the Taylors. The Taylors . . . The old granddad, he was a tightwad and saved his money and accumulated a pretty good sum, and he gave his daughter five thousand dollars, and they built that hotel down there, the old Arlington. And this girl came out from Memphis and lived in the hotel. The Taylors owned the hotel, and sometimes they run it, and sometimes they leased it out. The Taylors traveled . . . were gone a good deal of the time. But his wife stayed there. She lived in the hotel. Well, . . . finally Will Erwin married one of those girls, was a niece of Mr. Taylor. Well, that made old man Erwin mad. He . . . He didn’t like the Taylors. . . . he married the third time. Little Willie, who married a Richardson, was a daughter of the Taylor girl that married. She lived with her grandfather. Will Erwin finally contracted tuberculosis when he was living with his last wife. Old man Erwin sent him to Texas, way down in that dry part of the country, and he died down there. And when he came back, his widow came back, little Willie was just an infant, and she lived . . . and old man Erwin didn’t . . . other people thought they didn’t do right about it. He didn’t like the woman. He resented the way the Taylors . . . He finally did take Willie in his home, when she was a little girl. She used to . . . Sometimes she’d go to school here in town. And they lived out there where there was no . . . Second wife was an old maid when he married her, and she was too old to bear a child, and she was an exacting woman, and not affectionate with little Willie. Little Willie had an unpleasant life there. This old woman was so strict with her. She didn’t seem to realize that she was a child and ought to have childish things. And Willie lived there. And sometimes her wife, her mother, old man Erwin threw her off, wouldn’t have anything to do with her; wouldn’t support her. And she just traveled around, and she had some kind of job peddling something, and she was mercenary, and sometimes Willie would be living there with her grandfather and Pearl (that was the woman’s name), she’d come and she’d take the child with her and take her off. And one time they lived way out in Oregon, had her out there, and she had a new job peddling some kind of . . . and she was immoral, too. She’d take Willie off and finally Mrs. Ewing, who was Mr. Erwin’s sister, she’d get a letter from Pearl saying she wanted her to come and get Willie, and she’d go out there and get her and bring her back. Well, the child just led that kind of life. She was just battered back. Part of the time with her grandfather and part of the time with her mother off somewhere. Well, Richardson came in here, just an adventurer. He had a wife, and he got a divorce with her, and after Willie grew up, he somehow got a license to practice law. Oh, I can’t remember too much of it. He first brought a suit against old man Erwin, charging that he’d neglected Willie, I believe, or something. He lost that suit. No, the first suit they brought was against Erwin McGuire. You see, Mr. Erwin had two sisters, Mrs. Ewing, who was a childless woman, and Mrs. Clint McGuire, and that’s . . . and she had children. And one of her sons was Erwin McGuire, and Erwin didn’t have much sense, and was a problem. And this crooked (?) lawyer first brought a suit against Erwin McGuire, charging that he undertook, tried to have sexual intercourse with Willie when she was just a little girl. Well, they had old Judge . . . removed down here from Evening Shade, and he was . . . and . . . from Newport was one of the attorneys. They tried to . . . they removed it to the federal (?) court, and it was quite a sensational case. Willie got to be a very artful liar. The poor little girl was neglected, and old Mrs. Erwin, that is, his second wife, was a cold, exacting woman. Oh, she just ruled like a rod of iron. And . . . one thing that came out in evidence, there was a lilac bush, way out at the gate -- they built a two-story house setting well back from the road, and the place was fenced in -- and right out by the gate there was a lilac bush. Well, that lilac bush was in bloom, and Willie wanted to pick some flowers . . . she would go to school. She’d walk all the way from the edge of town to the public school, and walk back. I’d sometimes pick her up in my buggy. I fished up the creek a good deal, and oftentimes I’d be going out that way, and overtake Willie . . . would carry those books, and I’d pick her up in my buggy. Well, nobody . . . Erwin McGuire was such a no-good that people generally didn’t know whether he was guilty or not. Of course, Willie was too young to . . . for any man to have had intercourse with her. She was just a child. But they . . . She testified that Erwin did something to her, tried to do . . . Well the jury . . . They lost that case. But after that suit was tried, Richardson married her. Of course, the reason he married her, he . . . Old man Erwin was getting old, and getting ready to pass out, and he married her for what he could get, and he did get it. When the old man died, why, he got half the estate -- that is, his wife did. Divided it. They brought a suit right away, and he got half of what old man Erwin had, which was about two hundred thousand dollars. The whole estate was more, at least four hundred thousand dollars. Oh, it was a . . . sensation. I tell you, I’ve forgotten a great deal of it.
Richardson was a bad egg, and he had been shot in the back. The marshal at Newport had shot him with a small caliber pistol, and the bullet had penetrated almost
to the spinal cord, Richardson . . . Padgett (?) boy got to screwing Willie. Tom Padgett’s youngest child, you know, Farrell (?) Padgett, he was a bad egg, and uh, he was screwing Willie all the time, and Richardson found out about that, and he didn’t kill him the first time. But he had him come up to his office; he was practicing law. And his office . . . second story of the Fitzhugh building, and had Farrell come up there and told him, says, “I’m not going to kill you.” Says, “I’ve forgiven Willie because she’s young, but if you ever touch her again, I’m going to kill you. I want you to stay away from her.” Well, the little hussy, she was responsible for his death. She was driving -- oh, she bought this expensive automobile, she spent lots of money, and she . . . The evidence showed that she sent him word some way, sent him a note to meet her out here
on the road going up across Miller’s Creek. And she drove out there, and this boy did meet her out there, and Richardson had spies. There was a fellow there
lived up toward Cave Creek, a young gambler. He who came in, and he was coming down, and he saw them there talking. All they did on that trip was they just met and talked. But this fellow came and told Richardson about it, that he’d seen Farrell Padgett talking to Willie. So Richardson killed Padgett. They had a street fair down there, the Adler block down there where the Simon Adler building was? Over there where that big automobile place is now was vacant. And these street fairs used to show there. There was a street fair going on there, and Farrell was, he was just a bad boy, he was the town bad boy. He was down there . . . after Richardson died. He killed himself, when he was in bed in the hospital. And uh . . .” |
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All Songs Recorded by John Quincy Wolf, Jr., unless otherwise noted The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas Back to the Song Index Back to the Wolf Collection Homepage ©Copyright 2002 Lyon College |