Clayton House

This wood frame antebellum home first stood in the 1850s and was then purchased in 1876 by W.H.H. Clayton. Two years earlier, the Pennsylvania native had moved with his family from Pine Bluff, AR to Fort Smith upon being appointed by President Ulysses Grant as the U. S. District Attorney of the Western District of Arkansas. Clayton remodeled and enlarged the home and moved his family into the grand Victorian structure in 1882.
Eight rooms plus a detached kitchen and servant quarters tell the story of upper-middle-class life in Fort Smith during this era. Although the Clayton family moved most of their furnishings in 1897 when Clayton became Judge of the U.S. Court of the Central District of Indian Territory, the house is fully furnished with exact period pieces. This is in thanks to the donation by the estate of Ms. Agnes Oglesby, a resident of Fort Smith who knew the Claytons. Ms. Oglesby lived from 1874 to 1979.