William Oscar Springer wrote the following family history just prior to his death in 1942. I'd be interested in hearing from other AR Springers to share information.

SPRINGER FAMILY RECORD
BY WILLIAM OSCAR SPRINGER

WILLIAM SPRINGER was born April 9, 1821, in Georgia, and died Jan. 23, 1866, in James County Tennessee. His wife,
RACHEL (WELLS) SPRINGER was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee, July 22, 1821. Died in James County, Tennessee, May 9, 1858.

FRANCIS MARION SPRINGER, son of WILLIAM SPRINGER was born in James County, but soon went to Crystal Springs in Montgomery County, Arkansas, where he settled. His wife was MARY STANIFER. They reared a family. He served as a soldier in the Federal Army during the Civil War. He lived to be old and is buried at Crystal Springs.

NANCY ELIZABETH SPRINGER, daughter of WILLIAM SPRINGER, was born in James County Tennessee, June 26, 1844, married RICHARD FAIRBANKS in Tennessee. Fairbanks served in the Federal Army as an Artilleryman. He came to Arkansas with his wife and children. Nancy Elizabeth died at their old home near Driggs, Logan County, Arkansas, in May 1897 and was buried at Paint Rock. RICHARD FAIRBANKS died soon thereafter and was buried at Paint Rock, between Driggs and Paris. They left several children.

WILLIAM DAILY SPRINGER, son of WILLIAM SPRINGER was born in James County, Tennessee, September 18, 1846. Served in the Federal Army during the latter part of the Civil War. He came to Logan County, Arkansas in 1870 and settled at Sugar Creek where he died at the home of his Uncle JOE SPRINGER, near Mixon. He is buried at the Davis Cemetery. He died May 30, 1876.

JOHNATHAN THOMAS SPRINGER, son of William SPRINGER, was born in James County Tennessee on February 23, 1847. He came to Logan County, Arkansas in 1870. His first wife was a HEATHCOAT. His second wife was a SMITH. He settled at Crystal Springs in Montgomery County, Arkansas and reared a large family. He lived at Hot Springs awhile and moved to Little Elm, Denton County, Texas, where he died at age of 86 years.

JAMES MONROE SPRINGER, son of William SPRINGER was born August 27, 1851. He came to Logan County, Arkansas with his Uncle
JOE SPRINGER, who settled at Mixon, near Sugar Creek, January 1870. He spent awhile at Elsworth, Logan County, where he met and married MARY SABRA BOWERS in October, 1872. They lived at Chiggo Creek, northeast of Magazine one year on the C.P. Anderson Farm and then to Sugar Creek. He homesteaded 160 acres of land where the Sanatorium now stands and received a U.S. Grant and moved there the fall of 1874. They sold out and moved to Driggs, Arkansas in 1890. In 1891 he moved to Magazine.

I, WILLIAM OSCAR SPRINGER, was born on Chiggo Creek July 23, 1873, and moved where the Sanatorium now stands the fall of 1874. He (James MONROE SPRINGER, Father of William Oscar SPRINGER) bought the claim from a man by the name of WELLS, (maybe some relation). This was a wilderness full of wild turkey, deer, wolves, black bear, fox, wildcats and a virgin forest of large pine. At night you could hear all kinds of hideous noises, made by these wild creatures. About 1876 a man by the name of STEGALL put in a large sawmill, ran by steam. The mill was on the McAmis farm. They built a little town of cabins, for the workmen to live in. Those who came to work were as follows:
THOMAS WISLEY, the engineer
TOM FINNEY
MARION FINNEY
JAP FINNEY
GIL WORKMAN
TOM QUARIE
TED MCMATH
JOE GREENWAY
GEORGE McAmis

They called the place "Happy Hollow". The Walls family,
CHARLEY SHARP and BURT SMITH lived nearby. My chums were
ANDY McAmis, JAMES WISELY, HARRY FINNEY and others. I had never seen any machinery before. The Cant Hook was a new thing to me and the terrible whistle broke the silence of the wilderness. They used oxen and some were very wild and would sull. My father spent one year at Webber Falls, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1898, the year of the big flood.

JAMES MONROE SPRINGER died at the home of Sis Macey, the old SPRINGER Homestead, December 5, 1918, with "the flu". He was buried in Mixon Cemetery, near Uncle JOE AND AUNT EMELINE SPRINGER. I think he and JACK SPRINGER had located the place for a cemetery after the old log school had been built on Blackjack Ridge. It was known as the Walls School house and later burned. The first person buried here was Mrs. LAURA Walls, wife of JEROME Walls. She was the first dead person I ever saw and it made a terrible impression on my mind when I learned we all had to die. That must have been 60 years ago.

MARY SABRA (BOWERS) SPRINGER was born in Johnson County Arkansas near Clarksville on Piney Creek, September 27, 1850, according to her knowledge. Their house was burned during the Civil War on Haigwood Prairie, where Paris now stands. They thought the family Bible was burned and the family record destroyed, but a few years ago Uncle BILLIE BOWERS told me he carried the Bible in the Army and still had it and that Ma was born April , 1849. When a girl, her father died and I think was buried at Little Piney Creek. He was a fullblooded Frenchman and was a shoe maker and made pottery of all kinds. I suppose he was born in France, and had come to Virginia. Some people said he had a wife and children. Mrs. Wolf, Mas cousin, said he was a drunkard. A fine man when sober, but was a bad man when drinking. He killed a man and went to Mississippi, where it was a wild country and here he married Mas Mother who was born in North Carolina. She was A? or more Cherokee Indian and was a widow with two children, JOHN R. BARNES, and REDDEN BARNES.

Grandmothers maiden name was CHRISTIE.
JOHN R. AND REDDEN BARNES were in the Federal Army.
REDDEN BARNES was captured at the Battle of Prarie Grove, Washington County Arkansas, and with other prisoners placed on a steamboat at Van Buren, Arkansas headed for Little Rock.

AUNT NAN WOMACK met the boat at Roseville and begged for them to release him. They supposed he was killed and thrown into the Arkansas River. JOHN R. BARNES died in 1865 at Fort SMITH and is buried at the National Cemetery (Grave No. 1834, Sec. 4). I have been to his grave.

The SCHOFIELD family lived at Haigwood Prairie, long before the Civil War. JANE SCHOFIELD was a sister to Mas Mother. LIZA WOLF was a daughter of Jane SCHOFIELD. She married GEORGE WOLF. They went to Kansas during the Civil War and the Schofields went to Texas. Mas Mother died during the Civil War and is buried in an old cemetery in Paris on the bank of a little creek. Ma and the other children were living in George Wolfs house when it was burned by Confederate Bushwhackers.

MARY SABRA (BOWERS) SPRINGER, wife of JAMES MONROE SPRINGER died on Earl Prarie, Friday at 9:00 p.m., August 23, 1929. She had lived there 20 years, she was near 80 years of age. She lived about 3 miles north of Carolan and had been able to do most of her work up to her death. DR. HEDRICK was her doctor. She was buried at Carolan Cemetery, August 25, 1929. BROTHER MARION TRICKETT preached her funeral. She was a Presbyterian. She was buried near where Harrison's first wife, GERTIE (HARWELL) SPRINGER was buried. Her brother, WILLIAM BOWERS, had died that spring. He was 84 years of age and was buried at Barnhill, north of Magazine. Mother could give some wonderful history about the Civil War days, when it was a wilderness and the people suffered many murders and burning of houses.

/s/ W.O. Springer

Copied by BESSE SPRINGER, January 1965, and typed December 1966.