While statues and monuments celebrating the history of our country seem to be under fire, a lone monument tucked into an out of the way corner of western Fort Smith stands as a testament to one of the earliest pioneering families in the region and the history of our city.
In 1806, just three years after the Louisiana Purchase, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spearheaded the first official American effort to explore the western Great Pains and eventually the Rocky Mountains. Sent out by President Thomas Jefferson, the party spit up on September 29.
A faction of the expedition led by Lieutenant James Biddle Wilkinson, traveled downstream along the length of the Arkansas to its mouth and back up the Mississippi, safely returning to St. Louis.
They “found” Belle Point in the late winner of 1806 and because of the strategic location, it was decided that a fort would be established at the confluence of the the Arkansas and the Poteau rivers.
By 1811 the Fort had been established on what was truly considered the western edge of the United States at the time. In 1817, numerous civilians had made their way to the region in search of adventure and what they hoped would be a better life.
Into that setting came John R. and Rebecca Tinchenal and their daughter Mary. When they arrived in Fort Smith, John was 26 and Mary was 22. John Was a blacksmith who worked for the federal troops and the Tichenal’s built a small home and hop just outside the walls of the fort. John also raised and sold livestock to the army forces and within six months of arriving in Fort Smith the couple conceived their second child, William Henry.
But it was the birth of a third child, Sara Ann, in 1822 that led to a monument being erected by the Noon Civics Club in 1936.
The 1859 lithograph accompanying this story, showing Fort Smith as it look in 1817, shows the homestead of the Tichenal’s which was located on the eastern approach to the fort.
A close up of the Lithograph shows what is believed to be the original Titchenal homestead, located in the the small dark structure in the center of the lithograph close up. This would be the approximate location of the homestead if historical tradition and folklore are correct.
Two days before Christmas in 1823, Sara Ann would be born to John and Rebecca with the help of an Indian midwife. When Sarah Ann came screaming into the world on that could December morning she would become the first white child to be born in Fort Smith. There had undoubtably been births to native tribes that lived throughout the area but the birth of Rebecca was the first registered birth of a non-native child in the wilderness frontier known as Fort Smith.
In 1936, the Noon Civics Club of Fort Smith was looking for a community service project. and monuments and statues were all the rage for those who celebrated local history. Two monuments were commissioned by the club and placed within 25 yards of each other on the western edge of what would eventually become the Fort Smith National Historic Site.
One marked the location of the original wharf of the port of Fort Smith. The second was a monument to the birth of Sarah Ann Tichenal.
It is interesting to note that 113 years after Sarah’s birth, the Civic club got the date of her birth and her name wrong on the plaque.
The inscription reads:
HERE WAS BORN SARAH ANN TICHNELL(sic) IN 1826. THE FIRST WHITE CHILD BORN IN FORT SMITH.
ERECTED A PUBLIC SERVICE BY THE NOON CIVICS CLUB
While, in today’s climate, the placement of much a monument would trigger untold sentiments, the reality is that the world in 1936 was a different place. The intentions of the fine, upstanding women of the Noon Civics Club were clear … to leave a monument to a historic moment in the founding of Fort Smith.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The monument also serves a purpose by honoring the birth of Sarah since she went on to become in important part of the growth of the region. Sarah went on to marry Jeremiah Hackett, Jr. on August 12, 1841.
Jeremiah Hackett was a farmer and stock man. He served in the American Civil War with the rank of Captain in Company H, 2nd Arkansas Calvary. He was later promoted to Major.
After the war he held a number of civil offices and was elected to the Arkansas Legislature in 1866. All Sarah and Jeremiah’s children were born in south Sebastian County.
The family went on to establish he community of Hackett. It is estimated that 92% of those with the surname “Hackett” born in western Arkansas can trace their ancestry back to this pioneering family.
The Hackett family also has a long history in America. Jeremiah Hackett, Sr., was the son of Thomas Hackett, Jr., who was a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. Thomas, Sr. and his wife Elizabeth came to America from Ireland in 1674 and settled in Dorchester County, Maryland.
The Tichenal monument stands behind the Belle Point Beverage building on the banks of he Arkansas River on a narrow strip of National Historic Site land. It can be located just south of the old Frisco Station within the shadows of the Garrison Avenue Bridge close to the service road that gives access to the stage in Riverfront Park.
