Saline County Ghost Towns
By Cody Berry
While Saline County has had its share of spooky events, and crimes like the Staner Murders, I wanted to write about something less intense this Halloween. Did you know that in its earliest days the settlers of what would become Saline County formed whole communities that no longer exist? There was Saline Crossing near Benton, Collegeville near Bryant, and Caldwelton, which is somewhere near the Fair Play Community now.1
The first white man to settle in the county was William Lockert, which is sometimes written as “Lockhart.” He and his family lived in a small village near present-day Benton called Saline Crossing in 1815 where the military road crosses the Saline River.2 This is believed to be the site of the Old River Bridge crossing at the end of River Street today. In 1817, Abner Harold and his two stepsons, Isham and John Pelton, settled there along with James Buckan. Between then and 1821, more people came to settle near Saline Crossing, including Judge William Caldwell.3
In around 1823, Ezra M. Owen and several others started a settlement called Collegeville near the geographic center of Arkansas. Owen’s dream was to build the first State University there, which explains the name Collegeville. Once Owen was settled, he began planning his town and seeking the capital he needed, presumably to build his school. While Owen never built his university, the area did have good farmland, so it was settled rapidly. In 1825, Caleb Lindsey and 12 families from Lawrence County came through Collegeville to form “Lindsey’s Settlement.”4 That was the beginning of the present-day Kentucky Township.
Judge Charles A. Caldwell built a water mill on the Saline River near his farm on the river’s North Fork in 1830. On January 6, 1830, Caldwell was made a trustee of the then town of Little Rock, and in 1832 he was elected to the town council. On November 11, 1833, the name of the post office near Caldwell’s farm was changed from “New Kentucky” to Caldwelton in his honor. Caldwell was its postmaster until 1843.5 Caldwelton was never an official town, but it is on some maps. We have a map showing Arkansas in 1836. Caldwelton is shown just above Benton.
Citations:
1 Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas, Chapter XVII, 1889, p.233-234.
2 Ibid, (Same as 1)
3 Ibid, (Same as 1 and 2)
4 Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas, Chapter XVII, 1889, p.233-234.
5 J.S. Utley, “Charles A. Caldwell’s Part in the Pioneer Days of Saline County,” Benton Courier – Centennial Edition, March 25, 1937, p. 10-11.