NW Democrat-Gazette

The farms of Henry P. Walden

“Happiness is one important thing. You really have to love farming.”

Story by Randy Rice Photos by Blake Sutton

Juathina Walden Claspill Farm | Roger and Vickie Walden Farm | Smead and Mabel Walden Farm

In 1850, Joseph Wallen set out from his home on the Clinch River in Tennessee with his four sons in a covered wagon plus a few ponies for the children to ride. The small group didn’t know quite what they would find or where they would find it. Like all of the adventurous settlers who made their way to Arkansas in the middle of the 1800s, The Wallens were looking for land and opportunity. In Carroll County near Eurekas Springs, one of those four sons found both.

“My great grandfather, Henry P. Wallen, and his family started their journey of several years in a covered wagon driven by an ox team in 1850,” began Juathina Walden Claspill, owner of Juathina Walden Claspill

Farm. “They came through Springfield, Missouri. There were only a few buildings and they could have bought land for $1.25 an acre, but they kept on moving south because they were looking for wild game so they could have something to eat. They ended up in Carroll County and the next spring, so the story goes, they killed 52 deer and too many turkeys to keep count.”

Happy with the new, verdant land teaming with wild game they had discovered, Henry homesteaded about 40 acres in 1857. And so began a legacy of entrepreneurship and hard work that is the story of this extraordinary man and his offspring.

In 2022, the Arkansas Century Farm Program honored three farms that are the result of Henry’s homesteading efforts back in the 1800s and, most impressive, they are all still owned by his descendants.

“My great grandfather just kept buying and buying land,” Juathina said. “At the time he was starting out he had one pony that he plowed all of the fields with. He would labor all day long, then let the pony rest. In the morning, he would take his gun and go out hunting, while looking for his pony which had wandered off in the night. His father, Joseph, stayed up in Cassville, Mo. and is buried there.”

After settling in the area, Henry changed his name from Wallen to Walden. In 1882 the railroad came through their property. One of the three family-owned Century Farms, Smead and Mabel Walden Farm, was 161 acres of a farm that Henry purchased in 1881. He had bought the land from his great uncle John Skelton in 1875.

Tom Walden, Henry’s son, took over a few years later in 1895. Tom’s son, Smead, took over in 1939 and Smead’s wife, Mabel, owned it until she passed in May of 2022 at the age of 100.

“I am 100 years old and still living on the 131 acres which is a portion of the original property,” Mabel said in an interview last year before she passed. “I have deeded most

all of this property over to my son Roger and daughter Juathina and my granddaughter Valorie Nichols, Sara Weems and grandsons Rodney and Eugene Walden.”

The stories about Henry’s son Tom and his wife Minnie are legendary among the residents of Carroll County. “My grandfather, Tom Walden, held every office in the courthouse except one and he had built this farm up to 560 acres,” Juathina said. “He also taught school for 30 years.”

One of the oft told stories of the couple occurred when Tom was sheriff in Berryville and they lived up above the jail. “One night my grandmother, Minnie, heard a scuffle and went downstairs. She found grandad knocked out on the floor and one of the prisoners was trying to open the other cell,” Juathina related. “Grandma grabbed Tom’s pistol and said, ‘You come a step further and you’re dead.’ He wasn’t about to mess with her, so she just marched the prisoner back into his cell.”

Mabel and Smead Walden, were married in 1939. That first year they went into debt to buy the farm and also bought some cattle. “When the cattle had calves,” Juathina said, “they sold them and paid off most of the farm debt. The next year, again with the money from the calves, they paid the cows off. They really scrimped and saved. They also had a huge garden.”

“When I was three years old daddy built the great big barn that still stands today,” Juathina continued. “And at age three I climbed a ladder to the very top of the barn. When my dad saw me, he told me gently to come down and then gave me three pennies and fired me. I ran to the house crying. I didn’t know what fired meant but I knew it was bad.”

Smead and Mabel farmed the stock cattle together. But, like his father and grandfather before him, the farm wasn’t all he did.

“My dad was on the school board, the board of equalization, he was a judge and he was on the fair board,” Juathina said. “He was also on the Board of Directors at the Eureka Bank, which is now the CS bank and he worked in real estate. My dad even built the nine-unit office building, Walden Plaza, in Eureka Springs.”

Mabel was also active outside of the farm. “My mother was postmaster for 22 years at Busch, which was just a little community not very far from where they had lived,” Juathina said. “Needless to say, they were both workaholics. And they lived their entire lives within a five-mile radius of where they were born.”

Juathina took over the ownership of her own 60-acre farm in 1993 that had also come into the family courtesy of Henry Walden in 1885. It was the second of the three farms that received the Century Farm designation in 2022, the Juanithina Walden Claspill Farm.

“This particular 60 acres was also owned by my grandfather Tom Walden and my aunt Irene Walden Bunker and my dad Smead Walden,” Juathina said. “It was deeded to me and will always stay in the family.”

Roger Walden, Juathina’s brother seven years her junior, owns the third farm with his wife, Vickie, the Roger and Vickie Walden Farm. His journey began right after he got out of high school, taking ownership of a farm with a definite family connection.

“My great-grandfather on my mother’s side, John Weston, bought the farm in 1884 from my great-grandfather on my father’s side, Henry Wallen,” Roger said. “John Weston owned it until 1926 when it passed

on to my grandfather Tom Weston who owned it with my grandmother, Myrtle. I got my farm in 1972 from my grandparents. It is 185 acres. I now also have ownership of land from the original farm of 560 acres passed on from my parents.”

Like his sister Juathina, Roger remembers his parents fondly. “They were both amazing people,” he said. “And I learned a lot from them and grew up appreciating hard work. And, as a kid, there wasn’t much to do back then except work. It was a good experience and I had a lot good times and a lot of bad times which goes with everything, I guess.”

Both Juathina and Roger were very proud of the fact that they represent the three farms that have been recognized as Century Farms.

“I was so honored when we got picked to be a Century Farm,” Juathina said. “My daughter, Valorie, and I worked all one winter trying to get the paperwork done. I had always wanted the farms to be recognized as Century Farms but I didn’t know how to go about it. But then my daughter took over got it done. She’s really sharp.”

“There’s a lot of history to it with my ancestors coming to this part of the country,” Roger added. “I feel this is for them. You had to be really tough back then.”

Regarding young people starting out in farming, Roger and Juathina both feel that one has to really be dedicated to make it happen and understand it takes a lot of hard work.

“Happiness is one important thing,” Juathina said. “You really have to love farming. And nowadays I think you probably have to have another job, too, because everything is just so expensive and there’s just not that much money to be made farming.”

“It’s a pretty hard row to hoe,” Roger said. “But once you get started, there’s not too much backing up you can do. You just put one foot in front of the other and keep it going through the good times and the bad times.”

The State Of Arkansas Agriculture

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2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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