SULPHUR SPRINGS — While sifting through an abstract record (Sulphur Springs property abstract, Chancery Record "B," Page 373) that documents the history of the Northwest Arkansas region and specifically Sulphur Springs, I came across the following land description dated April of 1880 that tickled my funny bone.
The setting is the sale of land now known locally as Colony Hill, once owned by Walter Eaton and lots later owned by John Brown of John Brown University.
Jacob Sleeper and his wife Mariah bought the NE quarter of Section 23, Township 21 and Range 33 west of the 5th principal meridian from the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company. The railroad Act of Congress in 1866 set up the rail company that Pres. U.S. Grant signed into law. President Andrew Pierce signed off on the above homestead document in the presence of George Butler. Secretary Clinton B. Fisk countersigned the paperwork on Dec. 13, 1875.
It was Feb. 20, 1878, when Sleeper and his wife sold R.A. Dickson the SW ¼ of the NE quarter of the above land. Dickson decided to sell five acres of his land to Henry Dobbs. The paperwork described that transaction's legal description as follows:
"Beginning at an ash tree on the Bluff of Butler Creek below a spring on the above tract, thence in a northerly course twenty rods to a sassafras stake, thence west forty rods to a post oak stake, thence south to a hackberry on the creek bluff, thence east forty rods to the place of beginning, situated in Benton County Arkansas."
Community on 08/30/2017