News & Events

Arkansas History Commission Receives Copy of Rare Manuscript

2/1/2007
The Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock announces the acquisition of what is thought to be the last copy of an original handwritten manuscript telling the story of Faulkner County’s earliest settlers, the Benedicts and the Standlees.  It was written by Russell W. Benedict, born in 1810, at the urging of “numerous friends and acquaintances” who convinced him to write down the story of his parents’ settlement at the mouth of Cadron Creek beginning in 1811.  Accounts of Arkansas settlement from this period are very rare.  Benedict, who was born in 1810, composed the sixty-seven page manuscript between 1878 and 1889.  The manuscript is noted for its lengthy description of effects of the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and 1812. The original manuscript is now though to be lost.  A researcher made the copy, now at the History Commission, several years ago.  Much of Benedict’s story was published in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly in the summer of 1951, edited by the late Ted R. Worley, who was then Director of the Arkansas History Commission.  After processing, the manuscript will be available in the Commission’s Small Manuscript Collection.