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From: Jean Mayfield Cuevas <>
Subject: [ARIZARD-L] Daniel HIVELY
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1999 06:59:39 -0400


Izard County Historian, July 1977, Vol. 8, No. 3:


The Hivelys

As mentioned previously, more is known about the Hively family than any of
the other families whose descendants moved to the Cross Roads area. In one
of A. C. Jeffery's columns appearing in the Melbourne Clipper in 1877, we
found the following account:

"One o fhte characters composing the early settlers of the White River
Valley was Daniel Hively, a very remarkable and peculiarly constituted man
who made quite a mark in the early history of this county. Daniel Hively
was a Pennsylvania Dutchman of medium stature, with an iron constitution
and nerve to undertake anything. He was a remarkable man of strength for
his size. This combined with a temper which he never was able to control,
often led him into difficulties which he was ready to settle in single
combat; yet he was a warm friend and a good man.

"It is said of him that in his younger days he had a contract to keelboat
salt from the Ohio River up the Cumberland to Nashville. He made several
trips, but could not get his pay. He came to the conclusion that the salt
man was going to break, so he went and engaged another load. He got is
load of salt and instead of going up the Cumberland he came up White River
and never went back any more. He was a fine mechanic and could

"In another of A.C. Jeffery's columns we found the following: Daniel
Hively and George Brinsfield became two of the countryside camp preachers
of the day a few years later and they held some real crowds for their
revivals. People would come in wagons to camp for the duration of the
revival and once a family brought a fresh killed beef and the people just
ate like gluttons on it. Needless to say there were urgent calls for the
safety of the brush the next morning, but neigher on of the preachers made
it to the bushes in time and they had to use the 'baptising' creek to clean
themselves up and wash their clothes before the meeting that night.

"Daniel Hively was said to be so fervent in prayer and could pray for hours
at a time. There was a long drought hitting the country one time so he
went to the old Wayland Arbor early one morning and had decided to pray for
rain. He was still on his knees that afternoon when a small cloud appeared
in the Southwest. He kept praying. Finally, the thunder and lightning
crashed around him and it was said that on that day if he had not been
kneeling under the eave of the east side of the arbor, he would have been
killed when lightning hit the roof on the west side. It rained in torrents
and the drought was over. He felt to his dying day that his faith brought
the rain and who are we to say it wasn't for aren't we told in the Bible
that...'prayer in faith availeth all.' All our early settlers seemed to
have had this fervent, childlike faith that carried them through drought,
flood, vicious storms and epidemics."

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