Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is an incorporated town in east-central Faulkner County, Arkansas, near the border with White County. The city is located at the intersection of Arkansas Highway 36 and Arkansas Highway 310. The population of Mount Vernon is 144.

Religion

Mt. Vernon Baptist Church, established in 1848, is located here. The original church building dates to 1867, though the current sanctuary is of newer construction. Another of the oldest churches in the area was the Cedar Grove Baptist Church. A Methodist church opened in 1904.

History

One of the earliest settlers in the area was Breean Hawkins. Mount Vernon was originally called Stone Wall Jackson in the 1850s and then Houseville in the 1860s after Thomas "Tom" House, a cotton farmer and later the owner of a local saddle shop. House received goods by trading cotton bales for finished goods in Judsonia with a team of six oxen.

Mount Vernon was the site of a Civil War skirmish on May 11, 1863.

Tom House operated out of the old Fears Store beginning in 1865. A blacksmith's shop opened nearby under Art Matthews at about this time. Around 1867 Wade Ussery established a steam mill and cotton gin in town. In 1877 general supplier Greer & Bacuum opened for business. A liquor store opened in the 1870s under the ownership of the Johnson Brothers.

Demographics

Mount Vernon is 98.6% white and 1.4% Hispanic/Latino.

Population:

2000 - 144

Geography and Geology

The town sits at approximately 433 feet above sea level. The section was originally populated by many large oaks and hickory trees on rolling hillsides.

Notable Residents

• Menefee House was born here on February 10, 1877. House became a prominent Little Rock attorney.

References

• George Washington Dalton, "Early Days of Mount Vernon, Arkansas," Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Fall/Winter 1996): 40-43.
• A Look Back: A History of the Town of Mount Vernon (1989).
• Proceedings of the Annual Session of the Bar Association of Arkansas (Bar Association of Arkansas, Texas Bar Association, Louisiana State Bar Association: The Association, 1908), 20.
• Deb Sanders, "Mount Vernon," in Faulkner County: Its Land and People (Conway: Faulkner County Historical Society, 1986), 308-309.