Back in 1993, I was able to visit both Missouri and Arkansas, following the ancestors’ trails. Here are a couple of photos from the Arkansas portion of the trip.

William A. Williams and Hepsabeth Davidson Williams left Marion County, Tennessee and migrated to Lafayette County, Arkansas. As Arksansas was a federal lands state, using the township, range and section property description, I was able to fairly closely determine where their new home was located.

The day we drove through there, it was 104 degrees and I think the humidity was even higher. This is what we saw and the photo was taken from the side of the road:

Williams Land?

This is a (mostly) wordless post, so I have only a couple of comments. That roof is not on a collapsed building. The vegetation is actually that high and it looked like settlers would have needed a machete to cut through it.  Second, this was not a unique overgrown old home. The surrounding area was even worse looking in terms of clearing the land because there were hundreds of tall, thin trees growing among the other weeds.

What ever did they think when they first viewed their land?