Chapter
4
LOSS OF HIS FATHER
FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS
1889
In 1889, Fort Smith, Arkansas, was booming. It had grown from a frontier town of 3,000 residents, in 1880, to over 12,000, by 1889. It was the days of the telephone, telegraph, electricity and steam. The city had just invested in a full sewer system and were in the process of paving the main downtown roads. In 1881, Ft. Smith had installed rail lines for a mule-drawn streetcar service, that was converted to electric power in 1893. The Arkansas Telephone Company wire had reached the city in 1883, allowing for Fort Smith’s first telephone exchange. The major industry and employers, in 1889, were the six saw and planing mills, two furniture factories, two wagon factories, two iron foundries and machine shops, a cotton compress, and a factory for evaporating and canning fruit. Between 1887 and 1888, the city experienced a construction surge of 55 brick business houses, a $60,000 opera house, a $100,000 federal courthouse, a $50,000 federal jail, a $40,000 school house, and 700 dwellings from board shanties to elegant residences. During the summer, there were even hundreds of residents living in tents unable to yet find housing.
Perhaps the most awe-inspiring
element of Fort Smith, occurred in 1888, with the implementation of electric
lights. In 1881, Thomas Edison perfected his work with the accomplishment of the
electric light bulb. Five years later, in 1886, the seventh annual Fair of
Western Arkansas, held at Fort Smith, boasted of a splendorous event, conducted
on the evening of October 13th, in which the city would be “magnificently
illuminated with electric light...” For those seeing it for the first time, this
magnificent illuminator was described as – “a small burner, about the size of a
coal oil chimney, giving off a clear white light equal to 16 candles, that is
not injurious to the eyes… It had no flame or smoke, only a fierce dazzling
ball of flame between the points of the carbons like molten metal. Wind nor rain
could not affect the light one bit. Fed by the powerful electricity it burned
and defied the power of the elements. The light will burn under the water as well
as above water.” In 1888, Fort Smith businesses began using this amazing
illumination to the wonder of the general public. Although the city, in 1883,
had outfitted its main streets with gas burning lamps for nighttime
illumination; in 1890, Ft Smith extended the franchise of the Gas and Electric
Light Company in return for 13 free electric lights to line Garrison Avenue,
replacing the old gas lamps.
Compared to the frontier towns frequented
by the Shapard family in Indian Territory, Fort Smith would have felt like a
bustling metropolis. A thrilling environment full of wonder, high society and
innovation. A place constantly immersed in the sounds of machinery, train
whistles, and horse traffic. Amplified by the palpable aromas of city life, in
the form of factory smoke, general refuse, manure, burning coal, etc. The population
of Fort Smith was on full display, as a viable canvas of success and failure and
everything in between. Among the many amenities, Fort Smith did hold the
advantage of some of the finest schools in the states, and Rev. and Mrs. Shapard
valued education greatly. Perhaps for no better reason did they retire to Fort
Smith than for their children’s education.
Rev. Shapard wrote of his
experience after the Annual Conference of 1889; “As soon as Conference was
over, I prepared to move to Fort Smith, Arkansas. We remained for three days in
Eufaula before starting. Mrs. S [Shapard] dropped down to Muskogee to spend a
day with friends there before bidding farewell to the Territory. Leaving
Muskogee on Monday October 14th, we reached Ft. Smith that same day.
Entering the house where we lived once before, we unpacked and adjusted
everything that we had in its proper place. We are a wearied, broken down family.
Now what are we to do? A
dilapidated Methodist preacher, without physical strength enough to work. Dr.
S. [E. H. Stevenson], friends and others say that I must not study hard, still
a living must be made for wife and children. 30 years have been spent in the
ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 17 of the 30 were spent in
working the Indian Mission Conference. I never asked for an appointment in my
life and always tried to fulfill whatever work was signed to me.
The hardest duty which I ever
attempted to perform was to ask the Conference to refer my case to the
committee on Conference Relations. Not so much to ask them as to get the
consent from my heart that I could work no more. Once satisfied on this point I
wanted to be out of the way.
With my experience I say the life
of a Methodist preacher is a happy life. The hardships of it are visionary,
when the soul is in the work. My desire was to die in the active work the Lord
seems to will otherwise, I submit, I cannot say that I submit cheerfully to the
providence of God in this case. I would have preferred to die with the close of
ministerial work. I love the church, the ministry and more especially the
ministry of the Indian Mission Conference. What I shall do I do not now know. I
hope to get into some business that will not hinder me from attending to some
duties as a preacher.
My family I suppose will have their
headquarters here all of the time. I have gotten too weak to be moving them
about as I have done for several years. Besides this, my children can here be
in the public schools and thus will have the advantage of other places. There
is nothing that I appreciated higher than the universal and hearty sympathy of
the brethren. This though could not supply the desire to have shoulder to the
wheel and to be a co-worker with them. I hope to be able to write often, though
my future work is altogether in trust in God, not knowing now what a day may
bring forth.”
The Shapard family attended church, their first Sunday in Fort Smith, at the Central Methodist Church (South) and heard a sermon from the pastor, J. L. Massey. The pastor announced the presence of Rev. Shapard and his family in the city and they were extended a hearty welcome. Their second Sunday in Fort Smith, the Shapard family attended the First Methodist Church (South), where J. A. Anderson was pastor.
In the late 1840s, the Methodists
constructed their first church in Fort Smith. It was a brick structure located
at 110 North Fifth Street and, named the Harrell Chapel, in honor of the
serving pastor, Rev. John Harrell. During the Civil War in 1861, the church was
used as a hospital, due to it being the most suitable building in town for such
a purpose. In the autumn of 1863, when the Southern army evacuated Fort Smith,
the Federal army confiscated the building for its own purposes. After several
years, the Methodist recovered the edifice through litigation, but the
congregation was so greatly weakened and it took years of effort to rebuild it
to a flourishing condition. Eventually, the congregation out grew the walls of
the little church and a more spacious building was needed, but the membership
failed to agree on the location; one faction favoring a location on North
Seventh and A Street and the other favoring a location on at North Thirteenth
and B Street. So, the church divided, each faction building at its own
location. The cornerstone of the First Methodist Church on North Seventh Street
was laid in 1887, with Rev. J. A. Anderson as the first pastor. Also in 1887,
the congregation of the Central Methodist church erected a wood frame building
on North Thirteenth and B Street, with Rev. J. L. Massey as the first pastor.
Central Church was destroyed by a tornado that hit Fort Smith in January of
1898, and a brick church was erected in its place. These two congregations
survived independently until 1916, when Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon united the
churches under the name of First Methodist Episcopal Church, South and a new
church was built on North Fifteenth Street.
The Shapard’s were provided some
form of income through their rent houses in Fort Smith, as well as, their three
shares in the production of the undivided Neely Farm in Tennessee. However,
Rev. Shapard felt the need to further
support his family, and about November 1, 1889, he accepted a job as the Indian
Territory Field Canvassing Agent for the New York Life Insurance Company.
Though still physically weak, he did a little business and made one trip
to Muskogee and Tahlequah. At the latter place he became very ill and hurried
home, reaching Fort Smith on Thursday afternoon. His health declined and on Saturday
morning the Mayor of Fort Smith, Daniel Baker, sent a telegram to Rev. T. F.
Brewer and other ministers of the Indian Mission Conference, informing them of
his perilous health and asking for their assistance in Fort Smith. His health
continued to fail and on Saturday, November 16, 1889, at 11 p. m., Rev. Edwin
Ruthven Shapard died at his home, among the love, tears and comfort of his
family. The Shapard family doctor, Elam H. Stevenson, found that, after an
illness of seven days, his cause of death was from a “softening of the
bronchioles” which resulted in “capillary pneumonia.”
Rev. M. L. Butler wrote upon hearing the news of the death of his friend and coworker, “I received the sad news of Rev E. R. Shapard’s death yesterday morning. No intelligence ever gave me such shock. While I knew our departed brother was liable to pass away at any time, because of his feeble health, still I did not think the end was so near…It is certainly a heavy blow to his family, his home always seemed to be an earthy paradise, to-night that home is in mourning. A great sorrow has come to that house, but the Lord will protect those that are left behind to battle with life’s difficulties…
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