A trading post and steamboat landing was founded near Lewisburg in 1825 by Major William Lewis, his son Stephen D. Lewis, and Dr. Nimrod Manifee, and a town grew around it and prospered until the railroad bypassed it in 1875. After President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law on May 28, 1830, the U.S. government prepared to remove the Choctaws, Muscogee (Creeks), Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Cherokees from their eastern homes across Arkansas to Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma. Beginning as early as the spring of 1831, steamboats frequently passed this area carrying supplies and transporting Indians, while government officials traded at the Lewisburg post, with the heaviest travel occurring during 1831-1839. In 1838, two groups of Cherokees traveling by steamboat were stranded near Lewisburg: on July 13, Lieutenant Robert Whiteley, traveling with about 724 Cherokees, became stuck on Bentley's Bar four miles below town and remained camped near Lewisburg until July 19, when enough wagons were obtained to carry them overland; on August 13, Captain Gustavus S. Drane, traveling with 660 Cherokee, ran aground one mile below Lewisburg, unloaded 400 on the south bank to lighten the steamboat, then hired John Ellison to ferry them to the north side where the other 200 were also unloaded, and they camped near there until August 18, when wagons were obtained for overland travel to Indian Territory. These incidents reflect the hardships of removal, which could be so severe that lives were sometimes lost.