Tour Stop 10
Ridge House
We mentioned the Ridge family earlier – here is
their house, and it is Fayetteville’s oldest-known
home site. Believe it or not, an original 1-story log
house is encased inside the 2-story clapboard
structure you see today.
Based on tree ring dating analysis, the original
dogtrot log house is dated to 1834, and was most
likely built by a man named Micajah Clark. But its
most famous resident was Sarah Ridge who moved
here in 1840 with her seven children following the
murder of her husband, John Ridge.
John Ridge was a wealthy slave-owning Cherokee
Indian who was a leading signer of the treaty that
led to the forced removal of the Indians to Indian
Territory in 1838 and 1839 that became known as
the Trail of Tears. This resulted in the deaths of
4,000 Cherokees, and a group of embittered
survivors blamed the Ridge family for their suffering.
A small group met in secret, held a trial and declared
all of the treaty signers guilty of treason. On June
22, 1839, just across the border in Indian Territory,
John Ridge was dragged from his bed and in front of
his wife and children he was stabbed multiple times
and trampled to death. No one was ever arrested for
his murder, and Cherokee Chief John Ross claimed
no knowledge of the deed and pardoned all involved,
including his own son.
During this time, fancifully dressed Cherokee Indians
were often seen in Fayetteville since it was the
largest and nearest town to their reservation in
Indian Territory. At least one group of over a
thousand Cherokees had passed through
Fayetteville earlier in 1839 as part of the
Trail of Tears.
It was while working on the house in 1920 that the
original log house was discovered inside. It was
restored by the Washington County Historical Society
Photo Courtesy of: Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville
History provided by: Gary Coover, Coover Consultants
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