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| Early dentist walked to Boone County in mid-1800s |
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| Question: My family enjoys the history column, especially ones about early settlers in Boone County. Keep up the good work. BJ |
| Answer: There are many stories of interest about early settlers in Boone County and today we feature the life of the county's first dentist, Dr. Franklin Clark Maxey. In early writings, some from the newspaper articles and other written files from local residents, Dr. Maxey's arrival in our area has been well documented. According to his grandson, N. C. Maxey, "Doc walked to Boone County from Oklahoma after he was dismissed from the Union Army." Records tell of him carrying a double-barreled shotgun all the way, camping out at night and being very careful about making too much smoke for fear Indians would kill him. |
| Originally from Jefferson County, Illinois, Maxey and his first wife, Susan A. Warren, had two children, John T. Maxey and Raleigh Maxey. Susan died early in their marriage and by 1862 he had married Rachel Mabel Downs. This second marriage produced the following children: Louisa, Angus, Lillie, Robert Arthur, Carrie, Franklin and Curtis Claude. |
| When Maxey settled in Harrison about 1870, he built a log cabin on the site where, much later, the Piggly-Wiggly store stood. Water was provided from a spring about 100 yards from the cabin. According to a grandson, Norman C. Maxey, he lived in town for some years and farmed ground near where the courthouse now stands, raising corn while practicing dentistry in his spare time. |
| Like many dentists of that time, they had to travel from one community to another to obtain enough work to justify their continuing in the dental practice. Searching old Searcy County newspapers, we found where Dr. Maxey had scheduled visits to Marshall in 1903, and two days later would be in Leslie to see those who needed dental work. This travel was done by horseback or horse and buggy, carrying the necessary supplies and equipment with him. |
| Dr. Troy Coffman said some itinerant dentists had very little professional training, with their equipment often only a pair of forceps made by the local blacksmith. Local anesthesia was not used, so your ancestors had to have a lot of nerve. |
| Franklin Maxey also homesteaded 160 acres just southwest of Bergman. He built a large double-hewed log house consisting of two large rooms with an open hallway between the brick chimneys at each end of the house. This style was commonly called a dog-trot" house. While living on the farm, his second wife died in 1892, and Dr. Maxey sold the farm and moved to the Highland community, about four or five miles north of Harrison. All this time, he kept up his dental practice, riding into town each day in a double-seated hack. |
| Dr. Franklin Maxey married for the third time in 1895 to Mary Belle Kinzer of Newton County. One son, John T. by his first wife, became a dentist but practiced dental extractions only in the Oregon Flat and Bergman area. John married Ellen P. Nolan and nine children were born to that marriage. They were: James Calvin, Bessie M., Norman C., Walter Boone, Walsie E., Ina Irene, Nola E., John and Jessie Josephine. |
| Norman Maxey wrote that his father, John, homesteaded a tract of land just west of his grandfather's farm and married his mother, an orphan girl, Ellen Nolan, who was brought into the community by a family who had taken her in as a child as her family had been scattered like so many following the Civil War. |
| Dr. John Maxey was a member of the first band organized in Harrison, and would ride either horseback or drive a buggy into town for band practice, or to play for gatherings in the court park where the bandstand was located. The family wagon was also often filled with family and neighbors for drives into town for fairs and picnics. |
| This writer had the privilege of meeting Bill Maxey, great-grandson of Dr. Franklin Maxey - the grandson of Dr. John Maxey and son of James Calvin Maxey. Bill, who had not been to Boone County since he was a small boy, enjoyed finding information on his ancestors. He did not know his grandfather and great-grandfather had been early dentists, and was pleased to find their grave sites in Rose Hill and Bethany Cemeteries. |
| Boone County Heritage Museum holds a multitude of information on early settlers to our county and often serves as a research site for those trying to find records on their ancestors. As we plan to publish Volume II of the Boone County, Arkansas Family History Book, we welcome your entry. Documenting families will continue to be important to the history of Boone County and its people. |
| The museum is now observing winter hours and is open only on Thursday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Come spend a Thursday with us. |
| This column appears Fridays in the Harrison Daily Times. Mail questions to Boone County Heritage Museum, P. O. Box 1094, Harrison, AR 72601. Marilyn Breece can be contacted at bchm@windstream.net |
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