In the early 1800's the new Government was encouraging people to go west and settle the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. So Hershel and Rachel Ledbetter took their thirteen children and headed west in search of free land and a new beginning. They followed National road from North Carolina to the Mississippi River, then headed south on the Southwest trail to the Fourche River. That was where the New Madrid earthquake changed everything. This story is about the Ledbetter family and the rise and fall of Davidsonville; the earliest settlement in Arkansas