There's more to a small, white house that sits on First Christian Church property in Sherwood than just its former use for youth meetings and storage by the church, First Christian member Kim Ferguson told a recent visitor.
The two-story structure was built during or before 1906 along what was known as Hog Thief Road, research done by Ferguson and others shows, making it one of the oldest existing structures in Sherwood.
Also, "the White House," as church members refer to it, was likely built by Robert Clayton, a black carpenter and farmer known to have been the property's owner at the turn of the previous century. Clayton was the father of Alonzo Clayton, a Kentucky Derby-winning jockey with ties to a historic home in neighboring North Little Rock, a connection Ferguson said was only learned this month.
"It's actually in pretty good shape for being at least 110 years old," Ferguson said while giving a recent tour of the vacant house behind First Christian Church, 2803 E. Kiehl Ave., and just off Shelby Road. "I've always been told that it's the oldest still-standing structure in Sherwood, but I'm not sure enough to make that claim."
Ferguson and fellow church members David Fox and Tom Farley, with assistance from Ralph Wilcox of the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and Cary Bradburn of the North Little Rock History Commission, have put together a timeline of the house's history and of the Clayton family's property ownership in Sherwood and North Little Rock.
Their collaborative research found that, in 1890, Robert Clayton bought 80 acres in what is now Sherwood, and sold the property in 1906 that included the house.
In North Little Rock, a Queen Anne-Victorian home at 2105 Maple St. was built in 1895. That property was owned by Alonzo "Lonnie" Clayton, a 2012 inductee into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. He bought the property with his earnings as a jockey, including winnings from when, at age 15, he rode Azra to the first-place finish in the 1892 Kentucky Derby. Clayton is still the youngest jockey ever to win the Derby.
Alonzo Clayton and other family members lived until 1899 in the North Little Rock house -- later to become known as the Engelberger House after a longtime owner. Robert Clayton helped build the Engelberger house.
"It was apparently within his abilities to do that," Bradburn said of Robert Clayton. "Certain details on that are just lost forever, though. It would have been a pretty large project.
"As far as the white house on the church property is concerned, I think there is really excellent circumstantial evidence that Robert Clayton built that building," Bradburn said. "That's when Robert Clayton owned that property, and we know he was a carpenter and did construction over at the Engelberger House. It appears it was built as what was essentially a farmhouse."
First Christian Church bought 10 acres where the house sits in 1966 and used the house for its services until the new church building was completed in 1968, relocating from a North Little Rock site, according to church history. A photo of the church's groundbreaking ceremony published in The Arkansas Christian newsletter from March 1968 shows the house in the background.
The church continued to use the white house until its Chalice Hall building was completed adjacent to the structure six years ago, Ferguson said. The church had used the old house for youth group meetings, Boy Scout and Girl Scout functions, a Halloween haunted house and church storage, she said.
"I don't think anybody has lived in it since probably 1948," Ferguson said, when renters were there, according to the timeline. "Once we got the new [church] building, we did not have the same kind of need for it."
But Ferguson said the significance of the white house and its relation to that area of the city are important enough to preserve it as a locally historic structure.
"We don't exactly know what we want to do with the house," Ferguson said. "We need people who might want to financially help with its preservation. What to do with that building has a lot to do with funding."
Research of the white house property and the Clayton family by Fox and Farley showed that the Claytons are part of a unique piece of Sherwood's black history, Ferguson said. Brushy Island, an unincorporated, mostly black community, to the east of U.S. 67/167, had once extended west to include the Clayton property, Ferguson said. Sherwood wasn't incorporated as a town until 1948.
"This was, at one time, a black community in Sherwood," Ferguson said. "Brushy Island extended to this house, so this area had a lot of black history. What became Sherwood really had a black history that no one has talked about."
Clayton was one of the founders of the nearby Clayton Chapel Baptist Church at 215 Mason Road, their research found. Also, a 1920 petition filed with Pulaski County for a new public road in the area of the white house placed the road between a "school for colored children" and a "school for white children" along "the so-called Hog Thief Road," according to a copy of the petition.
Darrell Brown, a former chairman of the Sherwood History and Heritage Committee who wrote a brochure of Sherwood's history while in that role, said the white house is vital to the history of the city's founding, based on the recent research.
"I've been really fascinated by the history and the research they have done," Brown said. "If it is truly the oldest standing structure in the city, it should be saved. Sherwood doesn't have a lot of historic buildings. A building of this historical significance is very rare in Sherwood, Ark."
Modifications to the house and the lack of proven historical events there, Bradburn said, likely mean the house wouldn't be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, a designation the Engelberger House in North Little Rock holds.
"Locally, for sure," Bradburn said of the house's historic value. "And, to some extent, in the horse-racing world. Robert Clayton was the father of Alonzo, and a couple of Claytons were jockeys."
Brown said the significance of the Claytons' property ownership and influence within the area are important to Sherwood's history.
"To have African-Americans in that area and to have something still standing that they built, I think that definitely makes it historic to the city," Brown said. "I really hope they can find a way to save it and use it for something good in the community."
Metro on 07/24/2016