Mississippi County was once a part of Arkansas County then Phillips County and Crittenden County, from which it was separated by the Territorial Legislature November 1, 1833, and named Mississippi County from the river that is her eastern boundary line.
The original boundary extended as far west as the St. Francis river and embraced 1,000 square miles.
The first County seat, which was located opposite the first Chickasaw Bluffs was called Cornwall.
The first white settlers in the County of whom there is any knowledge, were Carson's and William Kellums; They were hunters and lived and hunted peacefully with the Indians.
Carson's Lake Township and Kellums Ridge took their names from these men who were here as early as 1812, at which time the Country was visited by a great earthquake known as the New Madrid earthquake.
The Quapaws, for whom Arkansas is named, were a powerful nation and possessed nearly the whole of the State. They were here as early as 1720. In 1824 Robert Crittenden effected a treaty with them, which ceded the reservation and title of "Tribe" to Arkansas. They then removed to the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma.
Mississippi County has many Indian names, such as Osceola, Chickasawba, Shawnee and Tyronza.
Osceola, one of the earliest settlements in this Territory existed for a number of years as a collection of log huts on the Mississippi River. The town was named for the then famous Seminole Chief who was at one time a visitor among resident Indian tribes here in 1832, as Florida history reveals that Osceola was one of five Florida Indian Chiefs sent to Arkansas with the idea in mind of an exchange of Arkansas land for the Seminole land in Florida.
The Indian population of Mississippi County was located about Barfield, Chickasawba, Big Lake, Little River, and Shawnee Village and near Carson Lake. Generally the same place where the white settlements were first made.
An Arkansas Journal published soon after the new Madrid earthquake gave in account of how the Indians sought to avert the danger of the shocks by reviving an almost obsolete religious rite among the aborigines in imploring the Great Spirit to avert his wrath.