Door to the PAST

LITTLE ROCK — What began as a spring cleaning a year ago in Batesville has spawned a celebration of history this weekend near Morrilton.

Jackie Guccione of Russellville, a history buff with family ties to Conway County, came across an oil painting in May 2006 while helping her sister in Batesville move. Her sister initially put a price tag on the painting to include it in a garage sale.

"We stuck $5 on it and figured it would end up in the landfill," Guccione said.

When the painting didn't sell, Guccione took it home and began doing some research on the Internet to determine the painting's origin. She found a Web site with pages from a Conway County history book, one of which showed a black-and-white photograph of the painting.

"So then I called a friend of mine (Euna Beavers) who I know is active in genealogy in Conway County," Guccione said."She got so excited because she knew the picture from the history book."

After some research, Guccione discovered the painting had been left in her sister's house by a relative of the original artist.

Bit by bit, Guccione, Beavers and a group of other Conway County historylovers pieced together the story of the painting.

It was a bittersweet tale of the prosperity Lewisburg experienced in themid-1800s and its decline and eventual demise after the Civil War.

The painting, recently restored and ready for viewing, will be unveiled at Old Lewisburg Days, which will be celebrated from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in downtown Morrilton next to the Morrilton Depot Museum.

Beavers said it was determined that the painting was the work of Susan Gordon, a young woman who was a member of the most prominent family in Lewisburg. Guccione said she believes the painting was completed around 1870, when Gordon would have been 20. The painting itself depicts Lewisburg circa 1852. Guccione speculates that Gordon was trying to capture the best days of Lewisburg as a way of generating hope in the trying times of Reconstruction.

"My best speculation was that [Gordon] painted it while she was pregnant with her child," Guccione said. "After the Civil War, Reconstruction was atough time in Lewisburg and Conway County. I think she was trying to paint a painting showing how peaceful life was there before the war."

Lewisburg struggled to survive after the war, but when the railroad bypassed the little town and instead went through nearby Morrilton, Lewisburg soon became a ghost town.

"People just kind of moved up over the hill and into Morrilton," Beavers said.

Gordon died because of complications in childbirth a few years after she finished the painting, Guccione said, and her family moved away several years later.

A remnant of the old Gordon home was recently found in whatused to be Lewisburg, which is just south of modern-day Morrilton. Beavers and several others set out looking for artifacts from the area and found more than they expected.

"We found the rock footer of the Gordons' house," Beavers said. "We knew it was their house because there were two magnolia trees in what would have been their front yard. In everything we've read and even in Miss Gordon's painting, those two trees are there."

Besides the Gordon's plot, there's not much left of Lewisburg.

"There are no buildings at all," Beavers said. "We found three or four foundations and a few wells and cisterns. It's private property and it's grown up and very heavily wooded.

"A lot of the buildings weregone. A lot of them were in really bad shape. Some of the ones that were still good, the people tore them down, they took down the materials to build their homes in Morrilton."

One thing depicted in Gordon's painting is the Markham Tavern, which was a rest stop for river travelers and a stagecoach relay station on the Butterfield Trail between Memphis and Fort Smith. The tavern served such travelers as famous Texan Sam Houston and was owned by Ruben T. Markham, Guccione's great-grandfather. She said many people whose roots run deep in Conway County have ties to Lewisburg.

It will be those folks and others simply interested in history who will turn out to the event Saturday. In addition to the unveiling of the painting,Beavers said there will be historic displays showing what the town looked like in its heyday as well as artifacts found from the town throughout the years. Many people will be in period dress, and there will be demonstrations by a horseshoer and a woman with a covered wagon. There will be storytelling and several musical groups, as well.

While the tale of Lewisburg is ultimately a sad one, Guccione said it's important to remember the role Conway County's first county seat played in the development of the region.

"It was a very important city for a very short period of time," she said.