Timeline
1838 Treasury Troubles and the Trail of Tears
William E. Woodruff ran the State Treasurer's office conscientiously, but also with an eye toward personal gain. Before statehood, the treasurer had retained a 10 percent commission on the redemption of land sold for taxes and Woodruff assumed this practice would continue. He also assumed that he would be reimbursed by the state for travel required in the cashing of federal revenue drafts. The lingering impact of the Panic of 1837 made collection of the money in specie (gold or silver) difficult and Woodruff went to great lengths to collect as much of the revenue in specie as possible. When he submitted his account statement, the General Assembly disallowed both the commission on land sales and almost half of his travel expenses and demanded he return $2,395.18. When he decided to challenge this decision in court, Absalom Fowler and other Whigs tried to have Woodruff impeached, but the House rejected the proposal.
Woodruff's troubles with the legislature also extended to his role as state printer, so, late in the year, he chose to sell the Gazette and declined to run for another term as treasurer. He still had his land agency business to attend to and, in August, he received delivery on the small steamboat, Little Rock, built for him in Cincinnati.
To carry out the Indian removal policy established by Andrew Jackson, thousands of Native Americans were forced to migrate to new Indian territory. Every path on this "Trail of Tears" came through Arkansas. In 1838, 2,970 Cherokees, 630 Chickasaws and 2,237 Seminole Indians passed through Little Rock from their homelands east of the Mississippi River.
After having a difficult time selling bonds to raise capital, the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas finally opened to assist agriculture in Arkansas. Within weeks, the Bank loaned out all of its funds with only land mortgages as security.
In the congressional election of 1838, Judge Edward Cross of Hempstead County, brother-in-law of Chester Ashley's wife, defeated the Whig candidate, William Cummins. Democrats also won a healthy majority in the General Assembly over the Whigs. The assembly finally recognized the crime problem on the frontier and appropriated funds to acquire property and begin construction of a state penitentiary.
