Susan “Sue” Griffith and her brother, Gary Ford Griffith, have taken a step back in time in creating the Jackson Creek Homestead near Pearson.
They have built a pioneer village of about 14 buildings. The village is complete with a chapel, a general store, a blacksmith shop and a milling company on about 3 acres of their 150-acre farm. They hope to “someday” offer this living-history museum to the public.
“Right now, we open it to family and friends for special celebrations, like weddings and birthdays,” Sue said.
Sue, 62, and Gary, 65, are children of the late Freddie Lee “Cotton” Griffith and Mary Frances Griffith of Pearson, which is not far from Quitman.
“Daddy was born in Godley, Texas,” Sue said, the son of the late Walter Lee Griffith and Ida Vinther Griffith.
“He married my mother in 1947 in San Angelo, Texas, and they moved to Arkansas, where they bought land and started a family.
“Daddy brought the first tractor to Cleburne County. He towed it 650 miles behind his 1940 Ford pickup from San Angelo, hitting a top speed of 25 mph.”
Sue said her dad, along with his brother, Walter, used the tractor to bale hay on their connecting farms, and for friends and neighbors, using the first square baler in the area.
“Daddy farmed,” Sue said. “He raised cattle and soybeans.”
“When my mom died in 2002, we started cleaning out closets and found a lot of old things,” Sue said. “We decided to build something where we could display some of these antiques.”
Sue and Gary built the village themselves, starting on it in 2004. Their dad died in 2009.
“Gary milled the lumber from the pine trees we cut from the land,” Sue said, adding that she designed the cabin, which is habitable.
“I framed it all,” she said, adding, “I made the dining table, too.”
The cabin features a rocking chair that belonged to their grandfather Griffith and a treadle sewing machine that belonged to their grandmother Griffith. There is also a trunk that belonged to their grandfather in 1911, when he and their grandmother married. There is a quilt top in it that the couple received as a wedding gift.
“Mama gave me the quilt, and my brother got the trunk,” Sue said.
“We furnished [the cabin] with family antiques,” she said.
She said family and friends have also brought items to furnish the other buildings in the village.
The forge in the blacksmith shop belonged to Sue and Gary’s uncle, the late Walter Griffith. The anvil belonged to their dad. There is also a stone for sharpening knives that belonged to their great-grandfather, William Harris Griffith. Gary does the smithing.
The building that houses the Trawick Milling Co. is a deer-camp cabin donated by Casey Trawick of Quitman.
Sue and Gary have stocked the general store with a little bit of everything.
“We’re always looking for something to put in the general store,” she said. She makes her own labels for the canned goods that are on the shelves, as well as those for the medicine bottles.
“I can cure anything,” she said with a laugh.
“It’s been a lot of fun putting it together.”
They also have an original telephone from the telephone exchange in Godley, which their grandparents operated before they traded the business for a farm in Mereta, Texas, where their dad attended school.
“Friends tell us they had rather come out here than go to [Silver Dollar City] in Branson,” Sue said.
Jackson Creek is the eastern boundary of their land and was named for the Jackson family who settled in the area. Sue said Clayborn Jackson bought 80 acres in 1860 from the federal government.
“That 80 acres is now part of our farm, and the Jackson Creek Homestead sits in that section,” Sue said.
“Clayborn Jackson’s fourth-great-grandson, Darren Jackson of Conway, married Brandi Wiseman, also of Conway, in our chapel Oct. 20, 2015,” Sue said. “That was our first wedding here, but we hope it won’t be the last.”
Sue is a 1971 graduate of Quitman High School. She attended Petit Jean Vo-Tech in Morrilton, now the University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton, where she studied computer programming.
“I moved to Washington, D.C., where I worked in data processing for the FBI,” she said. “I gave them one year and one day, and then I moved back to Arkansas. D.C. is a great place to visit, but I was ready to come home.”
Sue went to work for the Arkansas Department of Revenue in Little Rock, where she worked for 27 years, retiring as a systems analyst in 2002.
“I lived in Little Rock and commuted for 15 of those years,” she said.
When Sue is not working on the village, she enjoys genealogy.
The Griffiths trace their roots to Samuel McAdow, founder of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Dixon County, Tennessee. Sue said McAdow is their fourth-great-grandfather.
In fact, the chapel they built in the village is called the McAdow Chapel and School, which they dedicated June 8, 2013.
“A former co-worker from the revenue department, Dan Brown, was my biggest helper,” Sue said. “He drove up here from Benton two days a week to help us build the chapel.
“It’s patterned after the one on Little House on the Prairie,” she said. “Our cousin, Lee Griffith of Russellville, now of Bentonville, took benches and put desk tops on them that will fold up when they are used in the school and fold down when they are used in the church.
“It is tough to build on this land,” Sue said. “You can’t dig 2 feet; it’s solid rock. “Daddy always said the only thing this land was good for was holding the rest of the world together.
“That is a perfect metaphor for the chapel.”
Sue said she also enjoys traveling. When asked where she likes to go, she said, laughing, “Cemeteries, as I do my genealogy.”
Gary and his wife, Linda, have a son, Carl Griffith, 42, and a grandson, Weston Griffith, 11, who live in Sherwood. Linda is a math professor at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
“Gary worked to get her through school, and then he retired,” Sue said. “She has a Ph.D. in education.”
Gary is a 1968 graduate of Quitman High School. He attended Foothills Vo-Tech in Searcy, where he studied auto mechanics.
“He ran the Exxon service station in Quitman for years,” Sue said, adding that he also farmed for years. “He is
our auto repairman.”
In his spare time, Gary enjoys playing golf.
“One thing our family enjoys on weekends is having bonfires on Jackson Creek,” Sue said. “We have a fire pit on the creek and like to roast hot dogs and marshmallows. It’s a lot of fun.”
Contact information for the Jackson Creek Homestead can be found on Facebook.