Our Arklahoma Heritage: Family of Georgia transplant killed in 1876 became steadfast Crawford County farmers
- Dennis McCaslin
- Jun 22, 2025
- 3 min read
Allen F. Powell Jr. was born on May 22, 1855, in Gordon County, Georgia, to Allen Powell and Esther Bennett Powell . His early years unfolded during the transformative Reconstruction period that followed the Civil War.
The Powell family had migrated westward from the South Carolina–Georgia borderlands, appearing in Forsyth County, Georgia, by 1841, and later in Gordon County by the 1860 and 1870 federal censuses.
By 1871, land records placed Allen Sr. and family in Crawford County near a ridge that came to be known as Georgia Ridge--home to several families who had moved into the area with the westward expansion.
On November 11, 1876, Allen Powell Sr. was fatally shot two miles outside Van Buren, Arkansas, on the Alma road.
According to the Van Buren Press, Powell had been returning from town shortly after a traveling circus passed through when he encountered a Black man named George Green.
A dispute arose over a missing sack of merchandise. During the confrontation, Green allegedly drew a pistol and shot Powell twice—once in the shoulder and once in the chest. He died soon after.
No records of Green’s arrest or trial have surfaced in regional legal dockets or subsequent newspaper reports. It remains unclear whether local authorities pursued the case or if Green fled the area.
The absence of legal follow-up reflects a broader pattern in the post-Reconstruction South, where the withdrawal of federal oversight earlier that year had left many rural counties with uneven or racially biased enforcement.
In such cases--especially involving African American suspects and white victims==formal prosecutions were often neglected or never initiated.
Powell was buried at Henson Cemetery northwest of Mulberry. His death left his wife, Esther, to care for several children, including 21-year-old Allen F. Powell, who would soon assume responsibility as head of the household.
Despite the hardship, Esther Bennett Powell remained in Crawford County and made a notable step for a widowed woman of her time.
In 1882, she received a federal land grant for 80 acres in Township 10, Range 2 which encompasses the land where the family lived after 1870 in eastern Crawford County.
This land provided financial stability and a foothold for her family in western Arkansas. She died in 1912 and was buried at Bolton Cemetery.
Following his father's death, Allen F. Powell established himself in Dyer. He worked as a farmer during a period of agricultural expansion and infrastructural growth across the Ozark foothills.
Sarah Ellen FrazierIn 1877, Allen F. married Sarah Ellen Frazier. Together they had nine children: Andrew Claud Powell (1878–1879), James Preston Powell (1882–1953), Walter B. Powell (1884–1963), Cora Bell Powell Teague (1886–1953), Addie Lee Powell Brown (1886–1959), Allen Thurman Powell (1889–1890), Elsie Powell Wightman (1892–1964), George Washington Powell (1894–1930), and Callie Powell Blevins (1895–1976).
After Sarah’s death in 1898, Allen remarried in 1908 to Nancy Ann Wiese. They had two additional children: James “Walt” Powell (1898–1982) and Anna Laura Powell Dewitt (1902–1939).
Allen’s work contributed to the region’s farming economy. By the 1920s, Crawford County was modernizing. The construction of civic facilities--such as the Amrita Grotto Country Club near Mountainburg in 1925--reflected growing prosperity, even as social and economic challenges from earlier decades lingered.
Allen F. Powell died on April 4, 1925, after a prolonged illness. His obituary in the Van Buren Argus described him as a respected farmer.
Funeral services were conducted at his home by Rev. G. M. Hughes of the Baptist Church, and he was buried at Newberry Chapel Cemetery northwest of Alma. The cemetery, established on land donated by settler James Albert Newberry, remains an enduring part of the county’s early settlement history.
At his death, Allen was survived by his wife Nancy, several sons and daughters, and numerous grandchildren. His siblings--R. P. Powell and W. B. Powell of Alma; Alfred Powell of Chickasha, Oklahoma; and Kate Smith of Beggs, Oklahoma--illustrated how the family’s second generation had spread across Arkansas and into Indian Territory and the West.
The life of Allen F. Powell spanned a period of regional and national transformation--from the aftermath of the Civil War through the rise of rural industry and railroads.
His family’s migration, his father's murder, and the subsequent legacy of landholding, farming, and community ties reflect both the instability and opportunities of the late 19th-century South.
His experiences, rooted in Crawford County’s development, offer a microhistory of settlement, survival, and continuity in western Arkansas.
