Skirmishes in Lawrence County

Smithville was already a county seat when the war reached it. Named for Colonel Robert Smith, a War of 1812 veteran who donated land, it became the Lawrence County seat in 1837 and stood on the Military Road. On June 16, 1861, ten companies of the Seventh Arkansas Infantry, drawn from seven northeastern counties, organized here under Robert Shaver and received weapons taken from the Little Rock arsenal. The regiment crossed the Mississippi in October. The town lost the seat in 1868, and its population fell from 1,144 in 1870 to 350 in 1880.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Powhatan Historic State Park — 10 mi
  A river port and county seat on the Black River whose 1888 courthouse, 1873 jail, log house and academy still stand where they were built, with a state archives branch in the same park.
• Davidsonville Historic State Park — 15 mi
  The ghost-town site of Arkansas's first post office, courthouse and federal land office, on the Black River, with open-frame outlines of the courthouse and a dogtrot house.
• Old Independence Regional Museum — 28 mi
  A Batesville museum in a 1936 WPA sandstone National Guard armory, telling the story of the twelve counties that once formed Independence County, with a research wing for local records.

More markers nearby

• The Civil War in Lawrence County — steps away
• Capt. Wiley C. Jones — steps away
• Skirmish Near Smithville — steps away
• Oldest Town Site in Arkansas — 15 mi