Timeline
1857 Local Progress, National Problems
Though the Panic of 1857 affected the entire nation with higher prices, signs of progress in Arkansas continued. The Masons completed construction of a building for Saint Johns College and the tower was added to the Christian Church. The Arkansas Manufacturing Company established a cotton factory in Pike County and Governor Conway appointed Dr. Owen, a nationally respected geologist, to undertake a geological survey of the state.
Noting the increase in property now taxable due to its transfer from public to private ownership, P.T. Crutchfield of the Federal Land Office in Little Rock said, "it proves the rapidity with which our state is marching on to wealth and greatness, despite the croakers within her own borders."
In September, reporters, railroad officials and other dignitaries were treated to an excursion in the locomotive LITTLE ROCK, on several miles of track west from Hopefield.
Questionable practices of the Swamplands Commission saw the management of levee work and swampland reclamation transferred to the governor's office. The General Assembly also made provision for filling in gaps of the levees on the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers.
In one of the most shocking acts to occur in the westward migration, a band of Mormons and Indians slaughtered a group of Arkansawyers in southern Utah. The California-bound Arkansas emigrants surrendered to their captors, only to become their victims in the "Mountain Meadows Massacre." Of the 120 members of the wagon train, only 17 children were spared.
The continuing problem in Kansas began to split the Democratic Party nationally as Stephen Douglas, Senator from Illinois, found himself in opposition to President Buchanan's support of the proposed pro-slavery constitution for Kansas.
Sectional tension was further inflamed when the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott, a slave who had been taken into a free state. Scott sued for his liberty, arguing that through residence in a free state, he had become free. Many northerners denounced the Dred Scott decision, while some southerners used the northern reaction as further proof that the North would be forever hostile to the southern way of life. More and more people seemed to be hardening themselves against any peaceful solution to the sectional rivalry.
In Arkansas, one example of the anticipation of military activity was the reorganization of the Capitol Guards militia company and a cavalry company, both in Little Rock.
