MARY JANE BRADLEY CONWAY
Wife of James Sevier Conway, 1st Governor (1836-1840)

Captain Hugh Bradley served in the War of 1812 under Andrew Jackson and not long after claimed the land bounty for his military service along the Red River in the region known as Long Prairie in what would become Lafayette County, Arkansas. Settling alongside him were a collection of relatives including his brother John, John's wife Jane, and their daughter Mary Jane. They had lived in the region several years before the ex-surveyor James Sevier Conway settled there in 1823. The young Conway soon courted the beautiful Mary Jane and the two were married on December 21, 1825.

The Conways were among the group known as "the Family," which founded the Democratic Party in Arkansas. James lacked an aptitude for politics, however, and was content to manage his 3000-acre plantation with its 80 slaves, while leaving such matters to his older brother Henry. When Henry died in a duel with Whig rival Robert Crittenden in 1827, the Family undertook the apparently arduous task of grooming James for political office and finally managed to elect him as the first governor of the new State of Arkansas. The inauguration took place on September 18, 1836 in the still unfinished State House. Newspaper reports tell of parades, speeches, and even marching bands, but make no mention of Mary Jane, who may have remained at Long Prairie until their new house was built at Second and Spring Streets in Little Rock.

Conway's term in office proved ill-fated. By his fourth and final year, he had succeeded in bankrupting the government as the result of the failure of the state banks he had launched. By this time Conway had lost his taste for politics and may even have suffered a nervous breakdown. Citing failing health, he sought to resign from office. The Family refused to allow this, so Conway simply took a leave of absence, departing with Mary Jane to Long Prairie. Samuel Calhoun Roane, the President of the State Senate, finished out Conway's term as acting governor. Conway would never again hold political office.

Back in Long Prairie the Conways set about building Walnut Hill, a mansion on high ground overlooking their plantation. Conway imported a skilled carpenter to oversee the work, which was performed almost entirely by slave labor. The lumber was cleared and sawn on the spot, handmade bricks were fired in a makeshift kiln, and most of the hardware was crafted by the plantation's blacksmith. In her book on Arkansas's first ladies, Ann McMath offers this description of Walnut Hill:

Mary Jane's new home had two stories, with four rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs. Each room was twenty feet square and there was a connecting hall on each floor. This hall was also twenty feet wide and forty feet long, with double doors opening on the front onto a portico on both floors. The heavy oak doors were flanked by side-lights, thus creating an impressive entrance. The porticoes were twenty feet wide and were supported by large round columns. Across the back of the house a broad veranda extended the entire sixty-foot width of the building. The walls of the house were made of logs covered by weatherboard on the outside and plaster on the inside.

The kitchen was a twenty-foot-square building separate from the house. Its fireplace extended the full width of one wall. Three cranes, varying in length from three to five feet, hung over the fireplace. It had an eight-foot-long hearth that was used for baking; on special occasions every available space would be filled. Also in the kitchen were two solid hickory blocks two feet square, polished to a mirror finish-one for preparing pastries and the other for cutting meat. Pans of milk and bowls of butter and cream were kept fresh in a springhouse built over a rock spring.

Walnut Hill sat along a military road and the Conways frequently entertained travelers. They even hosted a going away party for the Arkansas regiment enroute to the Mexican War, serving a buffet to the troops on a specially made plank table reported to be fifty yards long. Accounts say the menu included roast pigs with apples in their mouths, roast turkeys and other wild fowls, "vegetables, salads, fruits, salt-rising bread, bowls of ambrosia, apple snow, soufflés, syllabub," and three giant cakes with white icing.

Gov. Conway died in 1855 and was buried at Walnut Hill. Mary Jane Conway died in 1876 and was laid to rest beside her husband.