Season Two, Episode 9

Meet the Mayor of West Lamartine! 

Larry Polk at the workbench

When it rains in these parts, I often open the Facebook page of a guy that I know is going to post the amount of rainfall he received in West Lamartine. When I heard him called the Mayor of West Lamartine, I was intrigued. But when he repaired my mother's favorite clock, I knew I had to get a microphone on him and learn more about Larry Polk.

Larry and his wife Jean live just about a mile off U.S. 371 in Lamartine.  As befitting a "public servant" in the role of mayor, Larry's Facebook profile and background picture both feature a highway sign bearing the name of his community. Larry and Jean are active members of First Baptist Church in Magnolia, where Larry serves as a deacon. A stack of New Testaments on his workbench attests to his service through the Gideons organization.

Larry has done just about every kind of engineering there is to be done. He cut logs to put himself through college--two years at Southern Arkansas University and two at Louisiana Tech, where he earned his degree in engineering.  Having retired from Albemarle, Larry reflected that he had done everything he had wanted to do in engineering. He had worked with pumping in the brine field, on transformers providing power to the wells and even in drilling operations. 

Larry at the rain gauge

So it was no wonder that when a friend handed Larry an old clock years ago and asked if he could get it running, he added another skill to his resume. Larry became a clockmaker, a term that is used to describe someone who repairs clocks.

There's much that can go wrong with one of the old clocks. They can get "out of beat", causing them to stop running altogether. He has diagnosed a case of this issue by asking his client to hold his phone up to the clock so he can hear the beat. Another problem may be the wear and tear that comes from the gears continually spinning, sometimes causing the hole in which they sit to become elongated and restricting movement. In the case of my mom's clock, it had been in storage for eight months and some of the gears became rusty. A cleaning put it back in working order and it keeps good time today.

Obviously the title of Mayor of West Lamartine does not indicate an elected position. He earned the moniker when a neighbor on the other side of U.S. 371, Greg Rich, referred to Larry as Mayor of Lamartine. Larry replied that he was only mayor of the western half while Greg was the mayor of the eastern half.

Lamartine is one of the oldest communities in our county. As I spent some time there talking to Larry, I became intrigued with what is labeled by some as the oldest community in our county. It's on its way to becoming a ghost town, save for the modern houses that remain. Once upon a time, a two-story brick plantation house was home to John Dockery and his son Thomas, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General during the Civil War.

Dockery named the community after a French poet and politician, Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, whom he admired. Dockery had big plans for the new community, which in 1851 boasted a post office, a few stores and a number of churches. Most of their remains are long gone today.

Two events occurred which kept Lamartine from becoming the economic center of Columbia County.  Dockery and local investors began work on a railroad that would connect the Mississippi River with the Red River.  Dockery became president of the first railroad company to be chartered in Arkansas, the Mississippi, Ouachita and Red River Line. But the Panic of 1857, along with the approach of the Civil War, brought the project to a premature end.  Dockery died in 1860 and many of the young men from Lamartine were scattered by the War. When the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad was built through Waldo three miles to the south, any hopes for developing Lamartine were dashed.

Today it is little more than a ghost town. A memorial marker on the highway tells the abbreviated history of the community. It incorrectly lists Lamartine as the birthplace of T.P.  Dockery.  He was actually born in Montgomery County, North Carolina, where his father had participated in the Indian removals there. The family moved to Tennessee and on to Columbia County, where land was plentiful and cheap.

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

The plaque sits at the intersection of U.S. 371 and County Road East 60, which leads to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and Shiloh Cemetery, one of the oldest and largest in the county. Shiloh church was built in 1853 and organized in 1855. According to an article in the Banner-News of October 1936, Shiloh's first building was of split logs; the second of dressed lumber from the Grance Courtney sawmill nearby. The second building was partially destroyed by a storm so a third building was constructed in 1892 and remodeled in 1924. The fourth and present building was constructed in 1958, a modern brick structure with an auditorium capable of seating 250 people.  The adjacent cemetery had over 1,000 graves situated there in 1936, according to the newspaper article.

Sarah and Don Ray have devoted time and energy to the preservation of the cemetery, which is a separate entity from the church. Sarah told me last year that there were over 2,000 graves as of 2023. Many of the cemetery records were lost in a house fire, so the Rays were working on a new count to replace the one lost.

A cousin, LaJoyce Doran, told me that Shiloh was the church where her aunt Katie Hyde had died and was buried. Katie passed away dramatically one Sunday morning while sharing her testimony at church. She succumbed while speaking at a revival service, shouting that she could see Jesus before she passed on the spot. What a revival service that must have been!

 The plaque stands in front of the site of several stores that were built prior to the railroad coming through Waldo. Most of the store owners packed up shop and relocated to the south. One of those who did so was Joe Washington Dorman, a farmer who transitioned to blacksmith. His grandfather, Green Washington Dorman, had moved to the area first from Spring Hill, then Emerson and finally settling between Lamartine and Falcon.

The senior Dorman had come to the area with his wife, lured by free land. He and his wife had 18 children, 16 who lived to adulthood. His son, Wylie Richard Dorman, was one of those survivors. His son, Joe Washington Dorman transitioned from farmer to blacksmith and operated a smithy, or blacksmith shop, across the road from where the plaque now stands. His wife's father, J.W. Whitehead, had been a blacksmith and perhaps it was from him that Joe learned the trade. When the railroad came through Waldo, he was one of the merchants to relocate. 

Joe Dorman's sons learned to weld and drive welding trucks and were working in the oil fields at the tender age of 14.  Joe had taught them to weld in the 1920s, converting Model T Fords into wagons when people could no longer afford gas during the Great Depression. They called the converted Model Ts “Hoover Wagons”. 

Dr. Tony Dorman shared the information about his family line. He observed that his grandfather had lived near Dr. Grimmett in Waldo and married the twin sister of Grimmett's mother. She died in a freak accident from injuries she sustained by backing up to the fire place. Tony's grandfather, as he tells it, went to Rosston, found an old maid and married her since he had been left with an infant child following his wife's demise.

To the west of the plaque, County Road 60 is known as Beech Creek Road. The Mayor of West Lamartine lives down this road, not far from U.S. 371.  His brick house, neat as a pin, sits back from the road behind his pond. Out back he maintains a garden and his weather observation site.

Beech Creek Missionary Baptist Church

 Go far enough out the Beech Creek Road, as I did recently and you'll come to Beech Creek Missionary Baptist Church, founded in 1850.  It attests to the importance of religion in the founding of Columbia County. Tony's great-great grandfather, Green Washington Dorman, is buried in that church's cemetery. He was born in 1920 and died in 1907.

But it's time to get back to the mayor and his ability at clock repair. He had always wanted a clock and today owns several. His favorite is a weight-driven model from the Gustav Becker Clock Company. Becker is one of the better known and higher quality clockmakers from the mid to  late 19th century. Some of his clocks are so well made of such quality material that they were still precise after over 100 years of service. 

Fun fact: many clocks with pendulums have the letters R and A, separated by a down arrow. My mom's clock has these letters. This has led some folks to make the observation, "I have an RA clock." But the R/A is not the name of the clock, but rather instructions on adjusting the pendulum. R stands for Retard, A is for Advance. By turning the adjusting knob below, the pendulum will swing faster or slower. 

Larry's workshop held three or four clocks he was working on at the time of my interview, and they were all unique and interesting models.  Given enough time and parts, which can sometimes be difficult to come by, he will soon have them all operating correctly again.

This has been a longer introduction to my podcast than usual. Much of it came from the entry on Lamartine from the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, but other of it came from Facebook correspondence. I'm always intrigued by vibrant communities that once existed but today are a mere shadow of the past, remembered in piles of bricks or church cemeteries. It's doubtful that Lamartine will ever be restored to its former glory, but that's probably ok with its current residents.

Larry is a soft-spoken man of deep faith. I enjoyed visiting with him and hearing his story. If you'd like to take a listen, I encourage you to click the link below or tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for your time, Larry!