References to gold and other minerals in the Ouachita River valley appear frequently in the writings of early residents as well as explorers and visitors. One of those who described what they had seen here was Louis Badins, a native of France who lived along the Ouachita River for over twenty years, in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

No permanent settlement by people of European descent is known to have occurred in Arkansas’s upper Ouachita River valley (north of Arkadelphia) until after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, but French and Spanish hunters and traders frequented the area for decades prior to that time. Wildlife was abundant in the wilderness of the region, making products such as fur, bear oil, and buffalo wool, very important to the economy.

Louis Badins moved to le Poste du Ouachita, the site of modern Monroe, Louisiana, in 1785, to make his home.  He called himself a gaboteur, which means “peddler” or “unlicensed trader.” According to Sam Dickinson, Badins “must have been both.” Badins peddled goods to the camps of the migratory white and Indian hunters across the entire region during his first years in the area. He eventually became a farmer and independent businessman.

Of particular interest are Badins’ descriptions about the time the area became a part of the United States. According to Badins himself, his memoirs were based on observations made “during a residence of twenty and some years” in the Ouachita district, “the entire extent of which I have traveled by land or by water.”

In extolling the virtues of the region as a whole, Badins proclaimed that “the mountains are crammed with minerals, especially with iron and copper; coal is very common here, as well as quarries of plaster and slate. No doubt there are mines of gold and silver; lead ore and marcasites are very commonly exposed close to the mountains. Aromatic plants are found here in abundance . . . seeds are surprisingly productive here; the woods provide constant pasturage for domestic animals which never are confined.” In summary, he stated that “this country offers all the advantages that a reasonable man can want.”

Traveling up the river from Louisiana, he described the Ouachita in the Hot Spring County vicinity this way: “Opposite this prairie and on the other side of the river is another prairie of the same size surrounded by high mountains; it seems from the herbs growing there that this was a swamp that dried up and filled up to the brim with dirt brought by rains from the mountains; at three leagues higher up is found a place named la grande chaine des roches [Great Chain of Boulders]; these are blocks of arrow stone, square shaped, which may be from twenty to twenty-five feet, like three seated in a triangle in the middle of the river, intercepting the water in its course, forming a very swift cataract. “

Further up the river, Badins found some of what he saw to be quite beautiful: “The rivulet passes a block of stone that is soft like gypsum, and it rises uniformly in sheets, and they are transparent like glass; it presents a variety of colors so beautiful and so sparkling that I have found nothing comparable except the colors that the prism gives to the sun. The diversity of these colors is innumerable, sometimes changing like a peacock’s tail or like the taffeta throat of a pigeon, but more brilliant; this material decomposes in fire and produces a kind of purple colored lime. This salt lick is singular because of the number of wild oxen that come here to lick the salty clay; it appears that from time immemorial these animals have been accustomed to doing it. I have seen on the edge of the bluff surrounding the level bank holes that resemble caves capable of holding four or five wild oxen, and from which the earth has been eaten by these animals . . . it is rare to go to this salt lick without finding either wild oxen or deer that come to eat the earth; these animals have only one path to come to this salt lick; it was in this little beaten path almost twenty years ago that a hunter found a quite beautiful emerald.”

While there may be inaccuracies in Badins’ report (for example, emeralds are not known to be found in Arkansas, other minerals may be identified incorrectly, and some of the locations Badins mentioned later are now under the waters of man-made lakes), he clearly appreciated the upper Ouachita River valley’s rich and distinctive natural features. He had seen for himself a true wilderness area of which we can now only imagine.

Today, Badins’ memoir is preserved by the New-York Historical Society Library as a part of the Robert E. Livingston Papers. The memoir was translated and edited in 2003 by the late Samuel Dorris Dickinson of Prescott.