01 Jun 2025 Men with a mission
By Vivian Lawson Hogue
There were uncountable men in our early United States whose first and middle names were George Washington. Our own Arkansas town of Conway and county of Faulkner had their own men who not only had the name, but a shared mission for our community.
Oddly enough, so many of our first residents seemed to be from anywhere but Arkansas. Conway’s founder, Asa Peter Robinson, was from Connecticut. His late first wife was from New York. His second, Mary Louise de St. Louis, was from Montreal, Canada. Both are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery.

George Washington Donaghey was born in Louisiana. His road to success was a rough one with family farming, then taking up carpentry just to make ends meet. In a short time, his reputation escalated from fine quality carpentry to building, then to construction of Little Rock’s school for the deaf, the mental asylum and the state capitol building! His work is still seen in all three of our local higher education institutions and in other cities. If that wasn’t enough, he became the 22nd Arkansas governor! He said he regretted leaving Conway’s “tree-shaded streets and the magnificent oaks.”Col. George Washington Bruce was a South Carolina native but later moved to Georgia with his family. Raised on a plantation, he was educated in county schools and became an attorney. When the Civil War began, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and fought in the Battles of Savannah, Manassas and Murfreesboro. He was captured and taken to a federal prison, where he remained until the war ended
He arrived in Conway in 1873, the day after Faulkner County was created from parts of Pulaski and Conway counties. He is remembered for his efforts to get our three colleges established. This resulted in bankruptcy due to using his own finances to create the Central College for Women. Bruce Hall, the college’s first dormitory, was named for him. Bruce Street, which ends at the Oak Grove Cemetery, was also named for him as he was the first president of its founding organization. He established the Conway Democrat newspaper and served as a state representative and mayor of Conway. He and his 10-member family are buried in a large plot at Oak Grove Cemetery with five other members nearby.
Some local heroes of Conway were just men who saw the early and future needs of our community. Dr. Henry Baxter Hardy was, according to family, a “physician, teacher, farmer, statesman, conservationist and humanitarian.” Born near Quitman in 1873, he eventually earned his medical degree but also ran for and was elected six times to the Arkansas House of Representatives, where he was able to address state issues.

The issue with which I am most familiar is his creation of the first soil conservation project in Arkansas.
This was carried out by the building of Lake Bennett and the employment of state soil authorities to study erosion and show the importance of maintaining amounts and speed of erosion. Thus, he gave us Woolly Hollow State Park! The reason for my interest? My dad was in that group as a botanist and soil conservation scientist in the 1940s, and that’s why my family moved to Conway.
Capt. William W. Martin was Tennessee-born in 1835 and moved with his family to Bee Branch in 1838. He had little education but in adulthood farmed with his parents until the Civil War began. He joined the Confederate Army and participated in battles across the South, including the Battle of Shiloh. He was taken prisoner and was detained until the end of the war.
Another move brought him to Conway, where he became very active in church work and politics and served in local government. His goal was to clean up Conway since the population growth had distracted attention from its image and behavior. Much can be said about what Martin did for Conway, but with his 10-year position as city mayor without pay, he replaced wooden sidewalks, built streets and closed down saloons in 1888. He acquired Conway’s own electric system and advocated water and sewer systems. It was no surprise that he would even become a state representative. He was buried on the Hendrix College campus.
Our list of men and families whose mission it was to help grow a productive, peaceful, educated community is more than can be recorded here. City folks with degrees, business experience and funny accents walked beside the farmers and their agricultural knowledge to provide needs and services for residents. Mission accomplished.
I once had a conversation with a local official who doubted my belief that the early prominent people didn’t come just to make money. Of course they made livings for themselves, but how many men and women do we know today who work with no salary? How many have spent themselves into bankruptcy to help keep our colleges in existence?
If it weren’t for Asa Peter Robinson, we would never know.
- All for one and one for all - June 30, 2025
- Men with a mission - June 1, 2025
- A lifetime of wonder - May 11, 2025