The Russellville Democrat., 1879-05-01
\ BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
 OF A NOTED WOMAN.
ligiOn and Education came to Arkansas.

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 A historical old lady passed away on Saturday the 18th day of April in the person of Mrs. Abbey Woodward Washburn, widow of the late Cephus Washburn. an Old School Presbyte- rian preacher and missionary, whose history, with that of his just deceas- ed widow, is well known to many cit izens of. Arkansas and the New En- gland States. In the year 1920 Mrs. Washburn and her husband, who had married in Vermont two years previously, came up the Arkansas River in the first steamboat that ever ascended it's waters, and settled for several months at Arkansas Post. They had been near two years en- route from New England, having left the beautiful village of Randolph, Vermont on the day after their mar riage, their services having been en- gagged for Missionary work by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions" whilst they were betrothed. They sailed from Boston directly to Savannah, thence they were taken into the interior, to the home of Mir. Cobb, father of the two, afterwards, very distinguished men, Howell and Thomas Cobb; re- maining there some time, Mir. Wash burn doing temporary missionary work among the Indians. They then travelled alone to Missionary Ridge where Chattanooga now stands, where there was an Indian Mission; thence they travelled thro' an almost uninhabitated wilderness to Elliott's Mission, among the Choc, taws, where the late ill-fased Grena- da now stands; thence by water down the Yallabusha and Yazoo to Walnut Hills, on the Mississippi, where Vicksburg now stands; thence by steamboat as above stated to Arkan- sas Post. Whilst at the Post they saw the arrival of Mir. Wm. Wood ruff with printing press upon which was begun the publication of the first newspaper in Arkansas, the Arkansas Gazette, which is still in existence in Little Rock.
 They ascended the Arkansas from the Post in keel boat, propelled by French boatmen, spending Sunday at Little Rock, where Mir. Wash burne preached the first sermon ev- CT delivered in that place. After being month on the river, they f. nally settled down at a point on the Illinois Bayou, near where the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad crosses that stream, and about four miles from this town. This spot they named Dwight Mission, and here they began their great missionary work, establishing
 LARGE MISSION SCHOOL,
 in which Mir. and Mrs. Washburne and several assistants educated the Indians until the latter were sent to the Indian Territory, about the year 1880. In this year the Washburnes went to the Cherokee Nation and established a new Dwight Mission on the Salisan, near the Arkansas River, and about thirty miles from Fort Smith, where they remained for thirteen years instructing the In dians. From this point the family returned to Arkansas, opening a school in Benton Co.,, then elsewhere in Northwest Arkansas, and finally settled on little farm near, Nor ristown, where Mrs. Washburne re- mained until her death.
 This remarkable old lady was eighty three years of age when she died, and two generations, almost, have passed away since she and her husband first ascended the Arkansas 
 River. Her knowledge of the In dians in Arkansas and the Indian Territory-especially among the Cherokees--among whom she passed twenty-two years with her husband, was more extensive than that of any person now living Tn Arkansas. A great many of the old and middle. aged men, who are now the leading spirits among the Cherokees, were pupils of the missionary couple, and the Indian schools they established and their efforts at educating and Christianizing the Indians, have given them 8 warm place in the memory of that people.
 It was their youngest son. Ed ward P Washburne to whom his