The Carpenter family has a lengthy relationship to the Ouachita River. Ttoday, Carpenter Dam on the upper Ouachita stands as a visible link to that heritage and while creating the ever-popular Lake Hamilton. Some may believe that Flave Carpenter, for whom the dam is named, was the only Carpenter active on and around the river. But, in actuality, it was Flave’s father, M.S. Carpenter, who began the longstanding connection to the Ouachita.

Martin Sims Carpenter was born in Georgia during the mid-1820s and moved to Clark County in the mid-1850s. He was appointed postmaster at Clear Springs in 1856 and served in that capacity for a time. Carpenter also began his notable steamboating career before the Civil War and established himself as a legend on the Ouachita River as a part of the steamboat’s heyday. His name became synonymous with river travel in south Arkansas. Carpenter’s son Flave (born in 1851) often accompanied his father and learned to navigate the Ouachita at a very young age before making a name for himself as a lawman in the late nineteenth century.

Prior to the Civil War, M.S. Carpenter and his colleagues operated the sternwheeler Arkadelphia City on the Ouachita River. Then, when hostilities broke out, Carpenter joined the Confederate cause in the summer of 1861 as a part of local attorney J.L. Witherspoon’s company and sold his interest in the Arkadelphia City. The boat eventually sank at Deceiper Shoals about twelve miles south of Arkadelphia in April of 1863.

When the Confederate Army took control of the saltworks at Bayou Sel east of the Ouachita River near Arkadelphia, officials assigned Carpenter to oversee the facility’s operations. Salt became more scarce and new wells were dug while men worked around the clock to supply the Army’s Trans-Mississippi Department with salt. However, with the approach of U.S. troops under General Frederick Steele in 1864 during the Red River Campaign’s Camden Expedition, government salt-making ceased. After the war, Carpenter once again returned to river navigation.

Captain M.S. Carpenter became a fixture on the Ouachita River between Camden and Arkadelphia, most frequently seen aboard his boat, the Bluella. For years the Bluella provided consistent service to Clark County during the months that streamflow allowed travel on the river.

Carpenter made frequent upgrades and changes to the vessel, such as those he completed in the fall of 1869. As he prepared for the winter shipping season, Carpenter adapted the craft’s machinery to allow for more speed and power so two trips a week between Camden and Arkadelphia could be possible. The following year Carpenter added twenty-five feet to the steamboat’s length, which greatly decreased its draught. This made it one of the lightest boats on the river and enabled the craft to travel in very shallow water. In the spring of 1871, he installed a brand new boiler obtained in New Orleans.

Clearly, Carpenter possessed a variety of skills related to river navigation. The knowledge and experience with machinery and metals gained while steamboating carried over into other areas of endeavor as well. For example, under his leadership at the salt works during the Civil War, the facility produced new salt kettles created from the boilers of various steamers sunk and abandoned along the Ouachita River. And, a large furnace was built for continuous operation– remains of the structure lasted for many years. While little is known about the actual appearance of the salt works, Civil War-era records refer to several buildings, two wells, and the new  furnace.

As another indicator of Carpenter’s skills, he apparently came to the rescue of the Southern Standard in 1870 when the newspaper faced an interruption in service. Carpenter and a colleague “mended” the paper’s printing press, making it “as strong as new” and able to print the paper as usual. Otherwise, publication would have been suspended until a new press was procured. The paper observed that “there is no work in iron that these gentlemen cannot do.”

Another confirmation of the steamboat captain’s expertise with metal came in 1873 when the paper reported that “Captain Carpenter has done some very difficult blacksmithing for us this week. If you have a difficult job, take it to him, and he can do it.”    Sadly, it was not long after this that M.S. Carpenter became quite ill with “consumption” (tuberculosis). In July of 1874, the steamboat captain left Arkadelphia for Denver, Colorado, “the fame of the curative effects on consumption of its climate having inspired him with hope that he would derive material benefit from it.” Carpenter was in Denver for only about three weeks before he succumbed to the disease.