Ann Willard Goodman, daughter of businessman and ferry owner Willis Willard, was born 3 years after the Cherokee passed through Jonesboro. In 1932, she was interviewed, and reported being told by her family that 3,500 Cherokee were camped on Dutch Creek, west of Jonesboro, during the year of the removal.

Goodman remembered hearing that Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, conductor of the 3rd detachment of Cherokee, boarded in Jonesboro with Winstead Davie and made daily trips to meet with the several thousand Cherokee camped outside in the cold on Dutch Creek.

Winstead Davie's granddaughter said that her father invited Bushyhead to be a guest in his home while the Cherokee were waiting for the ice to thaw in the Mississippi River. Bushyhead's wife was pregnant at the time and later gave birth to their daughter, Eliza Missouri Bushyhead, on January 3, 1839, after they crossed the Mississippi.