As Crater of Diamonds prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary as a state park later this month, my thoughts turn to John Wesley Huddleston. He was the struggling farmer who found two diamonds in a field near Murfreesboro in August 1906, a find that received national media attention and set off a diamond rush as fortune seekers headed to Pike County.
Huddleston was recognized as the first person outside South Africa to find diamonds at an original volcanic source.
In his book "Genuine Diamonds Found in Arkansas," Glenn Worthington describes Huddleston as an "illiterate pig farmer." Others referred to him as the irresponsible "son of a sharecropper" and as a "dreamy backwoodsman" who squandered the cash he received for his property.
But, writing for the Central Arkansas Library System's Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Dean Banks points out that Huddleston used his cash to buy clear title to land in rural Pike County and adjoining Clark County. In early 1908, Huddleston moved his family to Arkadelphia to give his five daughters the social and cultural benefits of a college town.
The Pike County native was born during the Civil War in 1862. Huddleston's paternal grandfather, David Huddleston, served 22 years as county judge. Great-uncle Lewis Huddleston was sheriff from 1843-53.
"Members of the large extended family settled along the Little Missouri River a few miles south of Murfreesboro and owned several properties by the 243-acre tract where the diamonds were found," Banks writes. "Huddleston was known as one of the many avid outdoorsmen and amateur prospectors of his era, and no doubt he became familiar with the wooded hills and gullies of those 243 acres before he and his wife Sarah paid $2,000 for the tract in July 1905.
"The Huddlestons intended to finance the new property not only by farming or other work but also by selling appreciating parcels of land or using the rising value of their home to secure loans from a well-to-do landowner in the area."
Huddleston made a $300 down payment to obtain 112 acres from H.M. Ross, and 131 acres from W.T. McBrayer.
"I had a hunch that there was gold on this diamond pipe when I bought it, but had no thought of ever finding a diamond," Huddleston later told an Arkansas Gazette reporter. "The soil was different from anything I had ever seen--full of crystals and bits of minerals. When it got wet, it became slick. ... The dirt on the surface was black. Where the rains had cut gullies, it showed yellow under the black, green under the yellow, and blue under the green.
"As soon as I got my deed to the land I started to prospect for gold. I dragged an old tub and wash pan all over the tract, washing and panning, but I didn't find any gold. I was disappointed but kept on working, hoping to pick up a few moss agates if I didn't run onto any of the precious metal. About then I started crawling so I could see the ground better, and I picked up everything that sparkled. And I found some mighty pretty crystals."
On Aug. 8, 1906, Huddleston was crawling on his hands and knees on a day that was so hot that "heat waves shimmered before my eyes every time I looked up. I was crawling along a little ridge when my eyes fell on another glittering pebble, and I reached for it. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and looked at it carefully. I had picked up hundreds of glittering pebbles during the last few months, but as I turned this over and over in my hand, scanning it closely, I knew it was different from any I had ever seen before.
"It had a fiery eye that blazed up at me every way I turned it. Of course, I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling that it was a diamond. I hurried to the house with the pebble, saddled my mule and started for Murfreesboro. Any glittering pebble then would stop me anywhere. Riding through the lane, my eye caught another glitter, and I dismounted and picked it up out of the dust. It was a little different from the first one I picked up, but I knew it was the same kind."
Experts in Little Rock and later New York identified his finds as diamonds.
"When diamond-mining interests appeared on the scene in September 1906, the Huddlestons accepted $360 cash for an extendable six-month option on the 243 acres at a purchase price of $36,000," Banks writes. "Afterward, they signed deed contracts and received payments on principal and interest for almost 10 years.
"In Arkadelphia, the Huddlestons reportedly enjoyed a life of ease and leisure. Huddleston soon purchased an automobile and often was seen driving near his old home and diamond field. Then Sarah had a fatal heart attack in December 1917, and their youngest daughter died in February 1918. The following month, Huddleston and his unmarried daughter moved back to Murfreesboro, where he occupied himself with grandchildren, cars and real estate."
The Gazette writer who visited Murfreesboro in 1920 found "a wealthy man, as wealth goes in this remote region." Trouble came in the form of his December 1921 marriage to a young bride named Lizzie Curtis.
"At first patient and hopeful, he went so far as to indulge his restless bride by putting up various properties as collateral for loans totaling almost $4,000," Banks writes. "After she deserted the home a second time, he got a divorce in June 1924 on grounds of adultery and abandonment. Huddleston salvaged most of the mortgaged land with the financial aid of J.C. Pinnix, Pike County's leading lawyer and banker."
Huddleston died at home in November 1941. He was buried three miles south of the diamond field.
Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.