Arkansas Atlantis: The Lost Town of Napoleon

Abstract

MARK TWAIN'S SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER in Life on the Mississippi had heard a tale of murder, revenge, and buried treasure. A dying man told him of an unscrupulous Union soldier who had stowed ten thousand dollars in gold in Napoleon, Arkansas, during the closing days of the war. Twain sought the treasure and was on his way to Napoleon with directions to the loot: "Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of Orleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fourth row." As the riverboat approached Napoleon, Twain told the captain to go ashore, but the captain explained: "Why, hang it, don't you know? There is n't any Napoleon any more. Has n't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it, tore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!" Any hope that the treasure might remain in the ruins was dashed as the captain described the destruction of the town: "Just a fifteen minute job, or such a matter. Did n't leave hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a shanty and one brick chimney,-all that's left of Napoleon." Twain fondly recalled that Napoleon had been a "good big self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat of a great and important county; town with a big United States marine hospital; town of innumerable fights-an inquest every day; town where I had used to know the prettiest girl... and the most accomplished in the whole Mississippi Valley."1 Napoleon had been washed away by the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers in the years following the Civil War. Twain's 1883 account of its destruction-"swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes"-was more dramatic than the actual process, but the town's ruin demonstrated the Mississippi's power and the futility of efforts to control it. Yet the river had also brought the town into being. The ambitious residents of Napoleon, who had made their town into a well-known stopover for those traveling the Mississippi between the 184Os and 186Os, had paid more attention to the commercial possibilities than to the dangers of the river, which often flooded the town.2 The town of Napoleon existed at the confluence of the Mississippi and Arkansas for fewer than fifty years. But many notable events took place at that site even before the town was founded. Some suggest that the Jesuit missionary Marquette may have celebrated Arkansas's first Catholic mass there. It might have been the burial site for Pierre Laclede, who founded St. Louis in 1764 and died on a return trip from New Orleans.3 Napoleon was founded in the 182Os or 183Os by the planter, land speculator, and former French soldier Frederick Notrebe, who named it for "his old commander," though he had been forced to flee Napoleonic France.4 Scholars have disagreed as to the exact year of Napoleon's establishment, some placing it as late as 1840. But Napoleon's first primary school was founded on December 10, 1838. Earlier that year, Bishop Joseph Rosati of St. Louis sent Father Peter Donnelly to establish a Catholic church in Arkansas. He purchased land for the church in Napoleon and held the first mass there in May 1839.5 Many accounts bear out Mark Twain's description of a robust riverine community. Napoleon served as the county seat for Desha County and quickly became prominent as a shipping center where steamboats and sternwheelers transferred passengers and goods to shallow-draft boats that traveled up the Arkansas River. An 1890 almanac suggested that before its demise, the town had "about 2,000 inhabitants" and was the "chief business point for miles up and down the river."6 "Lusty" Napoleon was known for hosting many river travelers.7 John Brown, who later attempted to spark a slave uprising at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, was even rumored-to have been among the town's guests-though Brown's biographers fail to mention any such visit.8 This "Port Said" of the Mississippi offered travelers goods and services on wharf boats, as well as in the saloons, theaters, banks, inns, and cotton offices on shore. …