Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 09/07/00
SUMMARY
The Barron-Craig House is reported to be the single surviving example of an antebellum structure in Paron. The second oldest extant log structure in Paron was constructed circa 1880s and was occupied for several years by the Hogue family. The Hogue house stands approximately one-half mile north of the Barron-Craig house on Arkansas Highway 9. The Barron-Craig house was built by one of the earliest settlers to the area circa 1857 and was purchased approximately thirty years later by Thomas Young Craig, a merchant and farmer who was an early substantial landowner, merchant and community leader. The Barron-Craig House, though altered, retains its original single-pen log construction and remains in an agricultural setting reminiscent of early rural Arkansas.
ELABORATION
The earliest settler to present day Paron in Saline County is thought to have been William Lockhart (or Lockert) who moved to the area in 1815. The town of Paron began as Union Township, which was formed prior to 1836. Holland Township, named for 1852 settler William Thomas Holland, was then created out of Union in 1877. John Barron, who purchased land from Jesse Brazil, constructed the Barron-Craig House circa 1857 in what was then Union Township (now Paron). By 1877 the structure became part of Holland Township. The house was a single-pen log building with a cut stone chimney and gable roof on a foundation of stone piers. Little has been recorded about Barron but it is known that John T. Barron sold the land encompassing the location of the Barron-Craig House to Thomas Young Craig circa 1877.
Thomas Y. Craig was born in 1838 in South Carolina. The Craig family moved to Nashville, Arkansas, circa 1859 to take up farming. By 186l Thomas had enrolled in the Confederate Army and had served with the Davis Blues organized out of Hempstead and present-day Howard Counties. The troop entered state service as Company F, 5th Regiment, Arkansas State Troops. Craig served with Company F as a Private and after 186l as a Sergeant in Company I of the 19th Arkansas Infantry. He was taken prisoner and sent to Camp Douglas in Chicago for four months, after which he was exchanged and transferred to City Point, Virginia, and finally Richmond, Virginia. Thomas participated in battles at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, and Chickamauga, Springhill, and Franklin, Tennessee.
After the war he resumed his farming life in Nashville until 1866, at which time he moved to Little Rock to learn carpentry. Craig married Sarah Jane Ray in 1870 and they had two daughters. In 1876 the family moved to Holland Township (now Paron) and settled on 380 acres, 100 of which were already under cultivation. The family raised grain, cotton, cattle and mules and operated a general store close to the house. In addition to farming and mercantile ventures, Craig was a Justice of the Peace and Worshipful Master of Paran Lodge No. 319, A.F. & A.M. in Jefferson Township. Holland Township was informally known as Craigtown by area residents so when the post office built a facility there it was requested that it be named after Craig. The community was informed however, that the postal service does not name its offices after living people. Thus in 1909 the post office was named Paron and the town was named the same. It is not known where that name originated from but as previously mentioned there was a secret society named "Paran" in the county, which is strikingly similar.
Sarah Jane died in 1878 and Craig remarried Emily Brashears the next year. This marriage produced six children. With so many offspring there was a need for enlarged quarters so the Craig family added a weatherboard dogtrot wing to the north side of the house and an ell for a kitchen and dining room to the rear. The current owner states that the dogtrot was still extant in the 1940s but the ell had been removed or deteriorated by that time. The dogtrot eroded over the years and materials such as the weatherboard and stone from the chimney were utilized elsewhere on the farm. The only evidence of this wing today is weatherboard sheathing on the exterior north wall and the plan of the house has returned to its single-pen origins.
During the years that the Craig family occupied the house it was the scene of local square dancing parties and in 1900 the farm became a circus ground. The circus caravan came from Little Rock and provided rare entertainment for the secluded community from a tent pitched in the turnip patch. Craig's daughter, Mrs. John Fowler recalled in 1968 that her father participated in the show by shaking hands with a trained bear. Life on the farm for the most part was quiet and the children would spend evenings listening to their father's Civil War stories. Around the turn of the century Emily passed away and Thomas remarried a third time to a woman named Mary McAllister in 1904. Craig divorced Mary in 1917 and the farm was sold to his son-in-law, Thomas A. Green. Thomas Craig died in 1921 and was buried in the Fowler Cemetery approximately a quarter of a mile west of the house on the banks of the Little Maumelle Creek. In 1999 Brett Herndon, the great-great grandson of Craig, applied to the Federal Department of Veteran's Affairs for a military issue gravestone to mark his ancestor's resting-place. The original flat marker was replaced with a white tablet style marker in a small formal ceremony attended by family and friends. Thomas Green sold the land and the log house to W.F. Greenway circa 1925 but the family did not move to the site until 1927. A small Craftsman home was built on the land, but the Barron-Craig House remained untouched. A third generation of Greenways continues to look after the house today.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Barron-Craig house in Paron has survived from post Civil War years to the present in a largely intact fashion. The home has come full circle from its single-pen origins to an L-shaped plan and back to its original configuration. There have been changes to its profile in recent years, which prevent a listing on the National Register, but those few alterations can be easily reversed. The Barron-Craig house remains in its original setting and effortlessly evinces the feeling of a rural 19th century agricultural operation. The Barron-Craig house is being nominated to the Arkansas Register under Criterion C for its antebellum single-pen log construction, and under Criterion A as the earliest extant dwelling remaining in Paron from the earliest years of its settlement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dunnahoo, Pat, "The Old Craig House in Saline County Holds a Wealth of State History,"Arkansas Gazette, 14 July 1968.
Goodspeed Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Central Arkansas: Jefferson, Saline, Hot Spring, Pulaski, Garland, Lonoke, Perry, Faulkner and Grant Counties. Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis: the Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889. Reprint, Easley, South Carolina, Southern Historical Press, 1978.
United States Census, Holland Township, Saline County. 15 June 1880.
United States Census, Holland Township, Saline County. 15 June 1900.
United States Census, Holland Township, Saline County. 15 June 1910.
Greenway, Rogie & Virginia, interviewed by Holly Hope, 2000.
Herndon, Brett & Joanne, interviewed by Holly Hope, 2000.