There’s something about seeing tulips in bloom that feels both hopeful and deeply historical, especially here, at the old home of Colonel Samuel West Peel—a man who knew something about comebacks.
Born in 1831, Peel was not just some idle Southern gentleman with a flair for Italianate architecture. He was the son of a judge, a lawyer by training, a soldier by necessity, and a politician by calculated ambition. During the Civil War, he served as a Confederate officer, which complicates the image somewhat—though complexity seems to be the family inheritance. After the war, while much of the South was licking its wounds, Peel returned to Bentonville and did what many men of his station did: he rebuilt. But he didn’t just rebuild a house—he helped shape a town.
In 1873, he was elected as the first native-born Arkansan to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. From there, he became a voice not just for Benton County but for a region still recovering from war. He advocated for veterans’ pensions, Native American affairs (though through the 19th-century paternalistic lens, to be clear), and infrastructure development. In a time when Bentonville was little more than a dusty commercial outpost, the Peel family represented stability, stature, and connection to national politics.
And while Sam Peel was off legislating in Washington, his family life continued here in the house on what was then the edge of town. He and his wife Mary Emaline Berry had nine children—though not all survived to adulthood. There’s a sadness threaded through the history, as there often is in homes of this era, tucked between the portraits and the parlor chairs. You can sense it in the children's room upstairs—painted a soft green now, but still holding the hush of absence.
But the Peels weren’t just symbols of old Southern aristocracy. They were civic actors. Their presence helped Bentonville evolve from frontier village to county seat, and eventually to the peculiar modern hybrid it is today—home to both Victorian mansions and global corporate headquarters. The Peel name carried weight here long before “Walmart” became the town’s unofficial synonym.
Standing in the garden, watching a breeze tip the tulips gently toward the earth, I couldn’t help but think how far the town has grown—and how strange it must be to be remembered not as a person, but as a landmark. The house has been restored. The grounds manicured. There’s even a gift shop now, where you can buy heirloom seeds and reproduction china. I doubt Colonel Peel would recognize half of it, and part of me suspects he wouldn’t entirely approve.
But maybe that’s the point. Legacy isn’t something you can control. You plant what you can, tend it with care, and then let the next season decide what survives. Today, it was tulips. Tomorrow, perhaps, a new chapter.