Editor's Note: Material for this special edition was assembled and written by Maxine Miracle Wasson.
100 Years Ago Great Battle Fought At Pea Ridge
Descendants of Original Owners Give Elkhorn History
"You
could look for years and not find a place anywhere with a more interesting
history than Elkhorn Tavern, located on the famous Pea Ridge Battlefield in
Benton County, Arkansas," a tourist said.
What is the
history of Elkhorn Tavern and its people from 1833 to when its last owner moved
away in 1959?
Wallace
Scott, Garfield, Arkansas, said, "My great grandfather Jesse Cox came from
Kansas and homesteaded part of the land and bought part of it and built the
first tavern in 1833.
"The
first tavern became Elkhorn Tavern because an elk was killed by a carpenter on
his way to work on the building one morning. The elk was killed about a fourth of a mile away, and the
carpenter took the horns and put them on the roof of the building. They decided the building should be
called Elkhorn Tavern, and so it was.
"There
is an interesting story about the horns.
You see, during the battle of Pea Ridge the Federals took the horns as
trophies of their victory. Later
the horns appeared in a pawn shop - St. Louis, I believe - and the artist,
Hunter P. Wilson, who was a close friend of my Grandfather Joseph Cox, saw the
horns. He saw that they were
labeled 'Elkhorns from Pea Ridge Battlefield.' Mr. Wilson bought the horns and brought them to my
Grandfather Cox, and again, they put them on the roof of the tavern.
"But
wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Back to Great Grandfather Cox.
When Great Grandfather Jesse saw trouble brewing between the North and
South, he decided to return to Kansas.
"One
day he called my Grandfather Joseph - his son - in and said, 'Joseph, I'm going
back to Kansas. I aim to turn the
tavern over to you.'
"Great
Grandfather Jesse left for Kansas, and my grandfather, Joseph Cox, took over
the management of Elkhorn Tavern."
"Grandfather
Cox was a great hunter. He'd
rather hunt than do anything else.
Wild animals of all kinds were killed on the farm. The meat of hogs, bears and deer were
eaten. I have a big sausage
grinder handed down in the family which once was used in grinding bear
sausages."
Joseph Cox,
with slave help, farmed, kept hives of bees, raised sheep for wool, raised
wheat for bread and took it to mill.
Besides this, he was kept busy with a blacksmith shop, tanning yard, and
boot shop. Whiskey barrels were
made from white oaks at Elkhorn. "Someone else made the
whiskey," Scott said,
"but it was brought to Elkhorn and stored in the cellar to age."
Elkhorn was
also a stopping place for stage coaches, a voting place and trading post.
"I
suppose Grandpa Joseph Cox was a real busy man with his hunting and
farm," Scott said. "But
he had a good help mate. He
married Lucinda Pratt, daughter of Lewis Pratt, who lived a short ways from
Elkhorn. Grandmother Cox was a
smart, industrious woman - very business like."
"Grandmother
Cox had to be a good business woman to manage so many people and so many
jobs," Miss Lottie Dokes, sister of Wallace Scott, said. "I think the slaves did most of
the cooking at the tavern and other jobs, of course; but grandmother was the
one who had to keep tab on everything.
Besides the work of preparing the food, there were candlemaking,
soapmaking, churning and the like to oversee, not to mention spinning, weaving,
and sewing.
"I
don't see how Grandmother Cox did so much work, for she wasn't any bigger than
a bar of soap after a hard day's wash.
She only weighed 107 pounds.
She had real dark hair, brown eyes, and they showed goodness. Even with so much work with family -
seven children in all - and managing the tavern she still found time to doctor
the slaves. Back then, it seemed
that the slave women had a lot of trouble with their babies' navels. Grandmother thought this was caused
from them leaving their babies with other children too soon after they were
born while they carried on their own duties around the household. So Grandmother saw to it that the slave
women on her place took plenty time after a baby was born before going back to
work. She would go and doctor them
and their children as quickly as she would have her own family in time of
sickness.
"They
say a night was never too cold or dark for grandmother to saddle up and ride
for miles to help out in sickness or death, or in childbirth. In fact, folks all over the
countryside, far and near, depended on her to treat them regardless of their
ailments."
"My
grandmother Cox made her own medicines with the many herbs growing at
Elkhorn," Mrs. Dokes said.
A century
and more ago mullcin was considered a valuable plant and a sovereign remedy for
various ills. The leaves were used
instead of flannel for frictions, and dipped in hot water or medicated
concoctions they were valuable for fomentations. They were also considered useful in poultices applied to
swellings.
A strong mullcin tea was taken internally for agues,
croup, coughs, bleeding at the lungs; and externally in wash for scalds and
burns. Mullcin leaves were also
cured and crumbled like tobacco and smoked in a pipe by asthma sufferers.
Trees
were used in tonics. Perhaps the
most popular trees, growing at Elkhorn, used for medical purposes, were the
sassafras, elm, oak, cedar, wild cherry, and dogwood.
Poultices,
salves, powders, teas and tonics were also made with such plants as the
bloodroot, blackberry, catnip, dandelions, and pokeweek.
Like
mullcin the indigo plant, common at Elkhorn was held in high esteem long ago
for both internal and external uses.
Internally, in a weak decoction, it was considered useful as an
antiseptic, in mortification and all putrid complaints. It was made into an ointment with lard or
cream and used externally.
REFUGE FOUND IN CELLAR
Mrs. Lottie
Dokes said, "When my Grandmother and Grandfather Cox knew the battle was
really coming they refused to leave home.
Instead they grabbed a few necessities and went to the cellar. Grandmother had her knitting needles
with her, and in the cellar she found a gourd with grease in it, so she rigged
up a lamp. She took a piece of
cloth and put in the crease and propped the cloth up with her knitting
needles. By this sort of light,
while the bloody battle raged, she wrote a poem called, "The Battle of
Elkhorn Tavern." This poem
describes the awfulness of the battle: the wounded crying for help, offering
prayers and asking that God protect and care for their loved ones, and some
were even begging to die.
"My
grandparents stayed in the cellar three dreadful days and nights. Grandmother told how horrible it was
cringing from the cannon's thunder, hearing the screams of the wounded and
dying, and trying to dodge the blood seeping through the crevices of the
upstairs rooms. These rooms were
being used as a hospital by both armies.
Men were undergoing surgery without benefit of an anesthetic.
"Grandmother
said the dying men begged for water.
After the springs were cut off by the Federals, Southern troops were
without water as well as without food and shoes. How could the Confederates have possibly won under such
horrible conditions?
"Gen.
Sterling Price was wounded in the battle and my Grandmother Cox tore a strip
from her apron and bandaged his wound.
She did this in the cellar.
General Price was a friend of Grandfather's. They had known each other before the battle.
"When
the terrible battle ended and my grandparents came from the cellar a ghastly
scene lay all around them. Clear
around the tavern were piled arms, legs, hands, and feet. While the battle raged, there was
nothing else the doctors could do but toss the amputations out the
windows. There were bodies of men
and horses scattered all over - guns and sabers and the like, too. Even the trees were scarred and
disfigured. Tops were broken out
of old oak trees and part of the walnut tree, standing in the yard, was shot
away.
"Of
course, my grandparents were sickened at such a horrible sight and stench, and
they knew it would be impossible for them to live at Elkhorn Tavern until the
place was cleaned up. So they
moved, not far away, to wait until this was done. But in the meantime, the bushwackers came and burned the
tavern."
Tavern Rebuilt on Old Site
Elkhorn
Tavern was rebuilt in 1865. The
foundation and chimney, built by slaves, still stood after the first tavern
burned, and these were used in the new tavern. The lumber for the building was hauled by oxcarts from the
Van Winkle Mills at War Eagle.
Joseph and
Lucinda Cox went home again to Elkhorn Tavern and continued to operate it until
their deaths. Mrs. Cox died July
14, 1902. Mr. Cox died November 13,
1903. Both are buried in the Pratt
Cemetery, just a short distance from Elkhorn Tavern.
Wallace Scott Recalls Childhood Memories of Historic
Tavern
Wallace
Scott said, "My mother, Frances Cox Scot, was born in 1865 at Elkhorn
Tavern and had lived there all her life until 1959. She, of course, inherited her part of the place. Then my father, L. D. Scott, bought the
other heirs out and he and my mother took over the management of Elkhorn
Tavern.
"I have
a lot of good memories about Elkhorn.
For instance, I especially remember my mother's dining table loaded with
good things to eat. There was
always plenty of butter, honey, pork, both wild and tame fruits, and all kinds
of fresh garden vegetables in the summer.
I seen my father kill as high as 15 hogs to feed travelers. My mother would fry lots of home-cured
ham and just round it up on huge platters. She'd do eggs the same way. She'd make lots of hot biscuits and coffee to serve her with
fine meals, too. And what do you
suppose se charged for such a meal?
All of 25 cents. But if a
traveler spent the night at the tavern, had supper and breakfast both and had
two horses to feed, then he'd be charged the whopping sum of 75 cents.
"I can
still see those drummers, in my mind, who used to pull up for a night's stay
with us. They drove a two-horse
hack. There was a top over the
front part of the hack, but the back wasn't covered. It was filled with colorful samples of their mysterious
products - mysterious to a boy anyway.
"I
remember the sawmills would hardly saw lumber from trees around the
tavern. You see, there was lots of
grapeshot in the trees, and this would knock out the teeth in their saws.
"When I
was a boy I could walk over the fields, and pick up bucketfuls of battle relics
- pieces of guns, bayonets, horseshoes and the like. I feel there are several battle relics to be found yet at
Elkhorn Tavern, around the field and in the woods.
"In
later years the Elkhorn Tavern was turned into a Civil War museum. Mother was the proprietor. She always looked forward to seeing
visitors and telling them the stories that her parents had told her concerning
the battle of Elkhorn Tavern. Even
though she was advanced in age, she kept on telling the history of the battle
of Elkhorn - Pea Ridge as many call it - until the building was bought for a
national park. After this, she
moved to Garfield, Arkansas."
Mrs. Frances Cox died April 3, 1960, at the age of 95. She is buried in the Pratt Cemetery, only a few feet from the graves of her mother and father, Lucinda and Joseph Cox and her husband L. D. Scott, who died January 3, 1932.