In 1782, the Spanish government sent Jean Baptiste Filhiol to establish a post in the Ouachita region, and he chose Ecore a Fabre, today known as Camden. Here, early French trappers and traders had rendezvoused on the high bluff above where the Caddo Trace crossed the Ouachita River. Filhiol moved the Post a few years later. By 1819, trapper Jesse B. Bowman, his wife Nancy, and three children, Lucinda, Polly, and Joseph, became the first Americans to settle at Ecore a Fabre. The family built a cabin northwest of the Ouachita River near the bank. Another trapper named McClusky arrived the same year and constructed a cabin next to the Bowmans. The Bowmans and McClusky lived there for a couple of years and then moved on to better hunting grounds in present-day Hempstead County, which was often the case for market hunters.[1]
[1] Fay Hempstead, Historical Review of Arkansas (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1911).
Arkansas Wildlife History 