The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 61, July 1957 - April, 1958 Page: 240

igh1lglhts of Early 1arrison
SALLIE M. LENTZ
T HE first two families known to have settled within the
present bounds of Harrison County were those of John
Beatty and a man named Amaryllis. Amaryllis arrived
first and built two log cabins near Fern Lake. When the Beatty
family arrived in the early 183o's, the members lived there until
their own log cabin was built. It was in one of the Amaryllis
cabins that Sarah Amaryllis Beatty was born, the first white child
born in Harrison County. John Beatty's parents soon followed him
to Texas and he built a new log home a few miles northwest of
Marshall on what is now the Harleton Road. Near this place a
church was erected and in the near-by cemetery are to be found
the graves of the Beatty family. This church and community were
known as Scratch Eye, signifying the dense underbrush of the
country thereabouts.
Prior to Anglo-American colonization, this country had been
the home of the Caddo Indians. There seems to have been at least
five large Indian villages within Harrison County, and many
pieces of pottery and artifacts are found that attest to the high
artistic culture of their makers. One of these five villages must
have been Big Spring Village between Scottsville and Waskom;
another one was where Leigh is now situated, between Big Spring
and Karnack; another was near Harleton; and, perhaps, several
were along the Sabine, one of which was Biff Springs, near the
approximate location of Elysian Fields.
About the time that Beatty and his family met Amaryllis, a
community sprang up in the extreme southeastern part of what
is the present-day Harrison County and was given the name of
Elysian Fields. Its first settler was a Major Edward Smith who
had traversed the section some ten or fifteen years earlier. Upon
his return home he described the new country so glowingly that
someone exclaimed, "Why that must be the Elysian Fields."