I think most communities through the years have had several folks who are remembered as colorful and unusual individuals.
One of the more colorful individuals that I remember from earlier days around Pea Ridge and Garfield was commonly known as By Golly. By Golly was what some today might call an itinerant artist. He made some of his living by traveling from community to community as a painter, painting various sorts of signs for businesses, doing paintings and portraits for people, and selling some of his paintings for decorative purposes. He usually signed his work as By Golly.
Until recently, I didn’t even know By Golly’s real name. He traveled about by horse and wagon, living on a minimum of goods, often having a few goats with him while he stayed and worked in a community.
Although he seems to have had some places which served as semi-permanent residences, I don’t know that he owned property, or had any one permanent address. Like some of today’s retirees, who liveon the road in an RV or camper, By Golly brought his “residence” with him on his travels, relying on his wagon and the supplies that he carried in it, along with the milk goats to help with his food supply.
Recently, in writing back and forth with Patricia Williams Heck, I learned that By Golly was Ernest Shilling. I also learned that he sometimes stopped by the old abandoned house which stands on the north side of the highway east of Gateway, just about a mile out. The old house was old and abandoned even back in the 1950s, and I am amazed that it still stands today, and is not much more run down than it was back then. I had long associated By Golly with an old building which stands along the north stretch of highway between Garfield and Gateway, near the business which sells concrete lawn items like bird baths, but I’m not really sure ifhe actually lived there or stayed there. He apparently spent much time around the Glade Community, the area where the old Coal Gap School once functioned. I’m hoping to learn more about By Golly, and would be pleased if some of you readers would call me or e-mail me with memories or stories or other information that you have about him.
Also, for the museum at Pea Ridge, we would be very interested if someone has on hand any examples of By Golly’s work, either paintings or signs which he produced. We also would be interested in any pictures you have of the man By Golly, or pictures of his wagon setup and his animals, especially if the picture could show him on the streets of Pea Ridge. I recall that he often established himself for several days across the street from Webb’s Feed and Seed, or more likely, across the street from the old Webb’s Hatchery, which was the building across the alley east from today’s City Hall in downtown Pea Ridge.
Sometimes we see people who choose to let thenew technological developments of their age go on by, while they continue to hold to a life style from earlier times. And because they live in old-fashioned ways, they often are regarded as eccentrics. By Golly was an eccentric individual, something of a 19th century man who happened to be living in the 20th century.
Of course, before the 1920s, seeing horses and buggies and mules and farm wagons on the streets of Pea Ridge would have been a common sight, and an automobile or motor truck on the street would have been a novelty. But by the 1950s, that situation had turned right around. Trucks and cars on the streets were the commonplace, and a horse and wagon and goats and an itinerant painter on the streets had become a novel scene. How things change!
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 01/09/2013