Thomas Nuttall travelled up the Arkansas River from Arkansas Post at Fort Smith in 1819.
Thomas Nuttall was a British botanist, pteridologist, mycologist, and zoologist, who lived and worked in North America from 1808 to 1841.
From 1818 to 1820 he traveled along the Arkansas River and the Red River of the North, and after returning to Philadelphia he published his "Journal of Travels in the Arkansas Territory during the year 1819".