II. HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT LOTS--1804-66

G. The Morton-Price Property, 1849-65
1. The Plantation in 1850
In 1850 Edward Morton and his wife were reported by the Seventh Census enumerator for Arkansas Township to be the owners of 3,000 acres, 700 of which were under cultivation. Morton estimated that the cash value of the plantation was $34,750, and the implements worth $1,850.

On the plantation in June 1850 were 16 horses, 16 mules, 20 milk cows , 20 oxen , 200 beef cattle, and 150 hogs, which Morton valued at $2,940. He and his wife were owners of 115 slaves.

The Mortons in 1849 had raised on the Notrebe plantation 1,500 bushels of corn, 50 bushels of oats, and 50 bales of cotton. Five hundred pounds of butter had been churned and 100 pounds of honey collected, while the value of cattle and hogs slaughtered for consumption on the plantation was placed at $500.[92]

2. The Civil War Brings Hard Times to Arkansas Post
In the period 1850-1860, the Mortons struggled in vain to payoff the debts with which the Notrebe estate had been saddled. To do so, Captain Morton periodically mortgaged the real estate, next year's cotton crop, and the slaves. Moreover, as the years passed, Morton found more and more of his time engrossed by his banking interests in Little Rock.

The secession of Arkansas in May 1861 and the Civil War cost the Mortons dearly. In the autumn of 1862 Confederate troops were ordered to the area, and construction started on a bastioned earthen fort. This activity further disrupted the economic life of the community. Morton slaves were impressed to work on the fortifications and their fields and fences suffered. In January 1863 a powerful Union army led by Maj. Gen. JohnA. McClernand and gunboats commanded by R. A. David D. Porter came. There was a battle. The supporting Confederate force was defeated, and along with the fort, captured. In the marching and fighting, the Morton property suffered. Their plantation was used by the Union army as its place of debarkation; their property in the village was in the beaten zone, where projectiles from Union cannon that missed their mark struck and exploded. The two-story brick building which had housed the Arkansas Post Branch of the Bank of Arkansas, although taken over by Confederates as a hospital, was destroyed. As this building was adjacent to the family home, store, and cotton gin, these structures, along with others nearby, must have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting on January 10 and 11, and the brief ensuing occupation of the area.[93]

Mrs. Morton by this time had moved to Little Rock. There she was living with her children, when Federal forces occupied the city in September 1863. She made a display of her Confederate sympathies, for which she was called to account by Maj. Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds.[94]

3. The Reconstruction Years
Peace returned to Arkansas in the late spring of 1865. The Mortons, like many of their class who had rallied to the Southern cause, were broke. Their slaves had been emancipated, and their plantation and property at Arkansas Post destroyed or damaged. The Reconstruction Period was especially difficult in Arkansas Township. Crops failed in 1866, and many of the planters and farmers were unable to pay their taxes. Land had to be forfeited. At the April 1867 term of the County Court, it was ordered that $5,000 be appropriated to purchase corn "for the use of those in need who will execute a deed of trust, or mortgage, on real estate, or a sufficient amount of personal property to secure the payment for the amount of corn received by them. "

The clerk of the court was authorized upon the posting of a bond of $10,000 by John G. Quertermous to issue $2,000 of the appropriation and deliver it to Quertermous, and that he proceed to negotiate for the purchase of as much corn as he could buy with that amount of scrip. Quertermous was to have 300 bushels of the corn purchased shipped to
Arkansas Post and the rest to Crockett's Bluff.

Commissioner Quertermous sold the scrip to James H. Lucus, a St. Louis banker and former resident of Arkansas Post. After Lucus had provided Quertermous with the means to purchase the corn, he learned from the commissioner that “certain of the older residents were still living, and that they and their neighbors generally were impoverished" by the war. Lucus accordingly ordered a shipment of $300 worth of supplies to be forwarded to Arkansas, to be billed to his account. In addition, he donated a large percentage of the county scrip purchased from Quertermous to Mrs. Morton. These acts of kindness by Lucus were prompted by recollections of the "kindness and liberality" shown him in the 1820s and 30s by the people of Arkansas County and especially by Mrs. Morton's grandfather, Colonel Notrebe.[95]

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