“The chief told him the fountain was far off in the interior of a great island almost inaccessible on account of the snow and ice to be encountered in reaching its shore, but which, on being reached, it spread out into a vast world, most of which had a pleasant climate.
“Levendez told many of his friends this wonderful story upon his return to Spain and the tradition lived in the fancy of many an aspiring and ambitious Castillian, even to the time of Christoval Colon when it received a new impetus in the mind of Ponce de Leon when he heard the same story told to him by the Mobilian Indians, on his first visit of exploration in Florida. This Indian chief said that he had the story from a Shawnee prisoner taken in battle, and that the fountain was far to the northwest, and after crossing a great river. Says the credulous Mobilian:
“‘I have not seen the fountain myself; I only know that the Shawnee told me so, and he said that his father had drunk of the water, and that he was restored to perfect health and activity after being almost double with pains in his bones for six moons, and he proposed to guide me to the spot for his liberty, but the voice of the other chiefs was against me, and he was put to death. The story may have been true: I found all else true that he told me.’
“Ponce de Leon set out in search of this fountain but he did not even reach as far as the Great River the Shawnee said must first be crossed (its width four times as far as he could shoot with an arrow); being wounded by the natives, he died in the summer of 1512, the remnant of his forces returning to Cuba.
“Now, is there not corroborating evidence of these stories, though reaching back 2,000 years, to convince us that the same spot and the famous fountain lately discovered in Carroll County, Arkansas is the identical fountain of the ancient tradition? Though it may not do all the Tartan chief claimed for it, it does seem to do what the Shawnee asserted it would do, and even more, restoring hair to bald heads, and the gray hairs of age to the color they bore in youth.”[6].
IV THE DISCOVERY OF THE INDIAN HEALING SPRING
The man largely responsible for the starting of a town at “the springs” in Carroll County, Arkansas was a pioneer doctor named Alvah Jackson. He was a man of many talents. He not only practiced medicine but was also a great hunter and trader. In 1834 he was shipping bear oil down the White River from Oil Trough in Independence County, Arkansas. The town of Jacksonville was named in his honor.