Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/05/12

SUMMARY

The Beard House, which was built c.1870, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion C as a good embodiment of the dogtrot plan, a popular vernacular plan in Arkansas. This design was innovative in its use of the breezeway as a cooling system, making it very popular among people living in the Southeastern United States, including Arkansas, in the nineteenth century. Also, due to its relocation from Ouachita County to the Rison area in 2010, the Beard House is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration B: Moved Properties.

ELABORATION

Ouachita County was founded in 1842, and was formed from land taken from Union County. The county is named after the Ouachita tribe, which lived in northern and north-central Louisiana in the early 18^th century. The area that became Ouachita County had some settlement by the time of the Louisiana Purchase, mostly by French settlers. But as more white settlers and their slaves came in throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the French were slowly absorbed by the incoming Anglo-European population. The county seat of Camden, incorporated in 1844, was a bustling city with schools, churches, doctors, and a courthouse, and the Ouachita Herald newspaper was first published in 1845.[1]

Camden played an important role in the Civil War and was the focus of Union General Frederick Steele’s 1864 Red River Campaign. On his push south to Shreveport, Steele only got as far as Camden, which he occupied while the Confederates tried to defend Washington. After Steele lost the battles at Poison Spring and Marks’ Mill, he retreated towards Little Rock, and Camden and South Arkansas remained in Confederate control.[2]

Ouachita County’s first high school was built in 1871. The first railroads came in the 1880s, and many new towns grew around the railroads. After Reconstruction, timber companies came to southern Arkansas to take advantage of the resources and the new railroads which made the venture efficient and profitable. The best known was Garland Anthony’s timber company which began in 1907. By 1928, the first paper mill was built by the International Paper Company in Camden. The first two courthouses burned down, and the third was nearly destroyed by a tornado, but was completely rebuilt.[3]

Camden’s prosperity continued into the twentieth century, especially around the time of the 1920s with the oil boom in South Arkansas, and again during the World War II period. In late 1944 and early 1945, the Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot was built just to the east of Camden, and it required 24,000 construction workers to build the facility. However, after World War II the facility maintained only a small staff on standby status and in 1959 it was considered surplus by the U.S. Navy and Highland Industrial Park is now located on the property. [4]

The Beard House was originally located near the Smead community in Calhoun County but near the Ouachita and Calhoun County line. Smead apparently was a small community that served the surrounding residents in the rural part of the county. Cotton and corn were the principle agricultural products that were grown in the area, and lumber mills were also established in the area.[5] (In fact workers at the Garland Anthony sawmill would come to the well at the Beard House to get water.) Smead had a post office established in 1892, but it closed in 1924 and the mail was rerouted to Bearden.[6]

The Beard House was built c.1870, in an area of Ouachita County the government declared swampland, approximately 1.5 miles from Tulip Creek. The house was purchased by John Samuel Beard in the early 1890s from his mother’s family the Leaths. The house originally had a cellar under the left front room where the Beards kept sweet and Irish potatoes, and a large smokehouse was originally on the property.[7]

John Beard was born November 19, 1872, in Saline County to Dr. and Mrs. William Beard, and he died on March 25, 1956. On December 22, 1895, he married Nancy Adeline Elizabeth Leath who was born on March 25, 1875, to Hoe and Jane Leath of Pine Grove, Dallas County. Nancy died on June 6, 1960.[8]

The Beard House was built using the dogtrot form, which was a popular form in nineteenth-century Arkansas. Dogtrot style Folk dwellings had their origins in Scandinavian, Western Slavic, and Germanic building styles that were brought to the United States by immigrants.[9] The style required careful use of available wood, and thus was very efficient and required less wood than other European styles. The construction technique was to have “logs hewn square and then placed horizontally, one on top of the other, to make a solid wooden wall. This massive structure was held together by various systems of carefully interlocking or notching the squared timbers where they joined at the corners of buildings.” Because it required less intensive felling of trees, along with the ease of its construction, many immigrants adopted this style of home and adapted it into what is now considered Midland Tradition, Pre-Railroad.[10] The most notable adaptation came from immigrants of the British Isles, who used the building techniques and retained some of their own floor plan styles. [11] Among this adaptations of styles included the dogtrot layout, which was used primarily in the more humid regions of the Southern United States, where the breezeway was a much desired cooling tool.

The overall construction included felling trees to hew the log into a squared shape, in some cases pressing the wood into the desired shape. Then the ends of the logs were carefully notched so that the logs would fit in place and become securely positioned to allow stacking. The spaces between logs were filled with mud or clay, and depending on the craftsmanship put into building the house, were built with a shingled roof, planked or earthen floors, and a chimney of mud or field stone, or perhaps brick.[12]

Like many dogtrot houses, the Beard House was added onto numerous times as the family grew (John and Nancy Beard eventually had 11 children). A rear ell was added onto the house and the dogtrot was also eventually enclosed. However, by the early 2000s, the house was vacant and deteriorating. In order to save the house, Bob Abbott, a grandson of John and Nancy Beard bought the house and had it moved to his property outside of Rison where it remains today.

Although the Beard House is not eligible for inclusion in the National Register, it still remains a good example of a dogtrot house, and is eligible for inclusion in the Arkansas Register.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] The Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, 592.

[6] Baker, Russell Pierce. From Memdag to Norsk: A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Offices, 1832-1971. Hot Springs, AR: Arkansas Genealogical Society, 1988.

[7] Information on Beard House from Bob Abbott, filed under Arkansas Architectural Resources Form CV0064.

[8] Information on Beard House from Bob Abbott, filed under Arkansas Architectural Resources Form CV0064.

[9] Jordan, Terry G. American Log Buildings. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. p. 7-12.

[10] McAlester, Virginia & Lee. A Field Guide to American Houses: The Guide that Enables you to Identify, and place in their Historic and Agricultural Contexts, the Houses you see in your Neighborhood or in your travels across America – Houses Built for Americas Families (Rich, Poor, and In-Between), In City and Countryside, from the 17^th Century to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1984. p. 82-84.

[11] Jordan, Terry G. Texas Log Buildings: A Folk Architecture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978. p. 24-25.

[12] Jordan, Terry G. American Log Buildings, 15-17.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Beard House, which was built c.1870, is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion C as a good embodiment of the dog-trot plan, a popular vernacular plan in Arkansas. This design was innovative in its use of the breezeway as a cooling system, making it very popular among people living in the Southeastern United States, including Arkansas, in the nineteenth century. Also, due to its relocation from Ouachita County to the Rison area in 2010, the Beard House is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration B: Moved Properties.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baker, Russell Pierce. From Memdag to Norsk: A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Offices, 1832-1971. Hot Springs, AR: Arkansas Genealogical Society, 1988.

Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas. Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

Information on Beard House from Bob Abbott, filed under Arkansas Architectural Resources Form CV0064.

Jordan, Terry G. American Log Buildings. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1985.

McAlester, Virginia & Lee. A Field Guide to American Houses. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1984.

Ponder, Debbie Fenwick. Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. “Ouachita County.”http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?search=1&entryID=795.