Francis Posey (1823-1901) came to Grant County in 1840 and observed Natives and European hunters headed toward Pine Bluff with meat, hides, and deerskins filled with bear’s oil. Witnesses claimed that the woods and waterways in Grant County contained plenty of wild game and fish, enough to provide sustenance for any number of families. The German family Fenter, the Brashiers, and the Pages hunted and trapped full-time in the area now known as Fenter’s Township (Magnet Cove and Malvern). In 1842, the first cotton was shipped from Pine Bluff, with wheat coming a few years later. Cotton became the most profitable venture, and many farmer-hunters soon transitioned to growing the lucrative cash crop.[1]
[1] Aline McDonald Milholland, “Early Days in Grant County,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 7 (Winter 1948): 319-320.
For more about Grant County and Francis Posey, see “GRANT COUNTY,” in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas, Goodspeed Publishing Company (1890).
Arkansas Wildlife History 