Oklahoma and Family Stories; #1

INTRODUCTION

I’ve tried to look through the telescope of time, and hope there is no mirror at the end looking back, telling me what I want to hear. I’ve done my best not to see what I wanted to see, but to be objective.

I remember as a child going to a pow-wow and dad saying we had some Indian blood. I first thought we were part Comanche because we lived in Southwestern Oklahoma. I remember someone telling me “You look like a White Indian.” One day someone asked me “What tribe?” and I had no idea. I said “Comanche” because I had no idea, and since they lived here, well maybe that was it. Later I learned there was a family story that we were related to Sequoyah. However I never researched these things at that time. I just remembered them, but let them be. <added> It never occurred to me that we might have Catawba ancestry. Who were they? <end>

I was probably 40 years old before I really started looking into our heritage. I’m 60 now (as of late December 2012). I remember Uncle Andrew when asked about our heritage, replied, “I’d be careful about looking into that, if I were you. You might not like what you find.” What on earth did he mean by that? Dad bought a book by “Dub” West in 1976 entitled “The Mysteries of Sequoyah” so he must have been looking into it, too. After he passed on in 1992, I got more serious about looking into our heritage. Dad only had 2 sisters left. That generation was going fast. As a child I knew some of my great uncles and aunts, grandma’s generation. I had never asked any of them anything about our heritage. Now that generation was gone, and the generation after theirs was almost gone, too. Then one of the two remaining Aunts passed on. Time was short. I sent off a letter to Aunt Lorena, the last of her generation and I have included that. Now she too, is gone.

If you look at old family photos, one branch of the family goes from looking mostly Indian not so long ago, to mostly Caucasian today. The generations of my ancestors that knew our true heritage have gone now.

Gradually, this research has consumed me. I thought it would be easier to find our Indian heritage – it has not been. I literally looked into EVERY Guess/Guest/Gist/Gess surname in just about EVERY state I thought relevant – Oklahoma/Indian Territory, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere. One by one, just about every hopeful candidate was laid to rest. Then one day, magic! We found our Gist’s! That came after 20 years of complete confusion and frustration. I hope one day to be able to say the same about our Brown’s. I literally researched EVERY Indian Tribe found in Oklahoma, both the indigenous and emigrant tribes and their migration routes. I’ve looked into remnant groups remaining in the East.

I have tried to be sensitive to American Indian concerns. I’ve learned to keep quiet and low key at home. I just “wanna-learn” about a part of my family that is hard to track down. I say as did my father, “I have a little American Indian blood, not much though.” Then after saying that there is always someone in the group; someone mostly White, who blurts out, “I’m half-Cherokee!” – you don’t have any idea how many times I’ve heard that – dozens, literally! This person really means to say either his father or mother had family stories of having Indian blood on one side of the family, but not the other. That gets the full bloods or enrolled people laughing again, thinking we are all full of hot air, and lump us all together, and then they forget about us as worthy of serious consideration. My quiet voice is either forgotten, or gets lumped in with those who make crazy statements. I have really tried to follow the middle ground. I strongly believe many of the people who say they have Cherokee blood really have Eastern Siouan – Catawba, Saponi, Saura/Cheraw/Xualla. There is a record of the Sizemore’s who had 200 rejected applicants to the Guion Miller or Dawes Rolls who says they heard an ancestor mention moving away from the Catawba Reservation! I suspect that was true of many others as well. As I thought maybe my family was Comanche because we lived in Southwestern Oklahoma, perhaps those on the rejected rolls thought they wre Cherokee for the same reason.

I have heard people say, “Why are all these White people claiming they are Cherokee? And why do they all have to claim to be descended from FAMOUS Cherokees? Why can’t they say they descend from some average Joe?” So in many ways I wish our stories of a Cherokee heritage hadn’t included Sequoyah or the Brown’s. This research project has taken many turns and twists I hadn’t forseen. When my great uncle wrote in IPP (Indian Pioneer Papers) we lived near Fort Smith and either Sequoyah or Leflore Counties, I thought it would be easy – that’s just a short distance to where Sequoyah lived. Little did I know there would be no possible connection to Sequoyah for a hundred years further into the past, and that connection would be discovered in East Tennessee. Although discouraged, we eventually went full circle, and found a possible connection. Maybe that’s all we will ever find. We will need help confirming it, and will keep looking.

Although I have researched all the genealogies of all my ancestor’s surnames, this report is just about our Indian blood. Surprisingly, we had contact with some interesting characters in history, and we can prove it. If that character had contact with American Indians of his region and time, I might have included a page or two about it. If I write only about my family, this would be full of nothing but census records and that would bore the reader to death. I do include a generous portion of census records, but I also have some interesting stories about several historical figures.

We have both saints and sinners, one of us was hung as a horsethief and another was a Methodist circuit-riding Minister. We’ve known famous Indian Chiefs and one relative knew George Washington personally. My ancestors have fought in just about every American War, and several have been killed in those wars, from the American Revolution to World War Two and beyond. At least one cousin had a son in Iraq a couple of years back, so the tradition continues. We were always (with one exception) enlisted, not officers.

There are so many people to thank that it would take several pages to name them all. My sisters, Linda Haltom and Carol Milson. My nephew Brad Haltom. Cousin Page [Beagle] Dull, granddaughter of Uncle Cecil. A second cousin Carla Davenport, wife of the grandson of grandma’s sister, Aunt Ettie, and other relatives. Off the top of my head, Dr. Thomas Blucher, famous researcher of the Catawba. When I showed him our family stories he got excited and told me about a group of Catawba who were said to have moved to the Fort Smith, Arkansas area, and told me about them. Jerri Chasteen, former registrar of the Cherokee Nation. She was one of the catalysts that helped put me on the right track. I vowed to NOT be lured by fake histories, but to rather make sure of my information and check everything out. Don Sticher and Jim Sanders, genealogical researchers of the Gist/Guess/Guess surname. Don was similar to Jerri, in that he didn’t let me get away with fake or “maybe” history – I had to check everything out, seek primary sources. Numerous others were helpful and I appreciate them all.

Table of Contents

FINDING OUR INDIAN ROOTS PART ONE

Chapter 1 FAMILY STORIES

A. The Search for Sequoyah

B. Indian Pioneer Papers

C. Tarleton Bull

D. Dad, Uncle Eual Lee, and Other Stories.

E. Oh, and Just Who Is Alph Brown?

Chapter 2 OUR ARKANSAS FAMILIES

A. The Story of the Wayland’s

B. Our Richey’s go to Arkansas

C. Our Brown’s Arrive in Arkansas in 1848

FINDING OUR INDIAN ROOTS PART TWO

Chapter 3 WAYLAND’S

A. The Wayland Files per Frances Davey

B. Nevil Wayland Sr.’s Revolutionary War File

C. Gibson’s and Wayland’s

D. The Catawba

Chapter 4 GIST’S

A. Guess/Gist – Finally!

B. James Havens and David Smith, The Dorsey’s, and King’s Mountain

C. DNA Testing Results

D. Gist Station and Gist Station’s Camp

E. Aron and John Gist, Jason Cloud and John Brown

F. Our Gist’s per Genealogical Records

G. True Stories and Tall Tales

H. More About Sequoyah

Chapter 5 BROWN’S

A. Lawrence County, Alabama

B. Hartwell H. Houston and the Joi(y)ners

C. Two Powell Brown’s and the Swetland Rolls

CONCLUSION

Table of Contents (cont’d)

Appendix 1

Catawba King Haiglar’s Letter to Gov. Glen of South Carolina

Appendix 2

Some Catawba Moved Away

Appendex 3

Evidence that Sequoyah’s Father Might Have Been the Other Nathaniel Gist

Appendix 4

IPP Papers Written by Two of Sequoyah’s Descendants

Appendix 5

Gess’s Station Camp, Established by 1775 in Wayne County, KY

Appendix 6

The Cut Throat Gap Massacre

Appendix 7

Jesse Chisholm

FINDING OUR INDIAN BLOOD, PART 1

CHAPTER I. FAMILY STORIES

My birth certificate says I am Vance Hawkins, born December 28th, 1952 in Okmulgee, Okmulgee County, Oklahoma. It also says Alpha Omega Hawkins is my father. Dad’s birth certificate says he was born August 15th, 1915 in Manitou, Tillman County, Oklahoma. Dad said however, he was born on their farm with his grandma, Josephine [Brown] Richey being the midwife who delivered him. Their farm was near Manitou, Tillman County, Oklahoma. His birth certificate says his mother was Lona (Loney) Clementine Richey. Her birth certificate (delayed) says her parents were Jeffrey Hoten Richey and Josephine Brown. It is through my paternal grandma, Loney, that we have stories of having some Indian ancestry. I have spent a great many years trying to document or disprove these stories.

Census records in 1910, 1920 and 1930 have us living in Holton Township, Tillman County, Oklahoma. The 1900 census has my Richey’s living in the Pickens District of the Chickasaw Nation. Below is a 1909-1910 school photo in shows two of grandma’s brothers, Otho and Hoten. Otho and Hoten are blown up in the next two photos. Otho, Hoten and grandma Loney are brothers and sister.

Above is an old school photo, 1909-1910. I have blown up the photos of the two Richey boys, 2 of grandma’s brothers, Uncle Hoten (above) and Uncle Otho (below). They clearly have American Indian blood [1.].

A. The Search for Sequoyah

We’ve always had a family story that we were somehow related to Sequoyah. It was supposedly great Aunt Ettie that had more of this information than the rest of the kids.

My family leased land from the Chickasaw. I haven’t found the original leases and I don’t even know where to look for them. On a trip to Oklahoma City, to the Oklahoma Historical Society building diagonally across from the state capital building, I did find the 3x5 inch index card (below)). My great grandpa did lease land from the Kiowa Agency to be used for cattle grazing. When I asked to see the file indexed however, I was told they couldn’t find it any more. Well, I’ll keep looking for it, that and many other things I can’t find.

Great Aunt Ettie's Letter to Grandma

For some reason for many years, an old letter from Aunt Ettie to grandma was kept. It must have been written in the early 1950s and has been Xeroxed many times, so many it can barely been read anymore. Here is a transcription of it (she was a poor speller). Originally there also was a small piece of paper that mentioned David Brown and Harriet Guess but I have lost it. I have tried to retain her original spelling and grammar:

Lona, here is the copy of our family history I can’t send the old original it to old it would come to pieces this is all of us childrens and their death.

Family Births

Jeffrey H. Richey was Borned May 1st AD 1851. Josey Feen Brown was Borned March 24 1854. Joseph David Richey was Borned March 4th AD 1873. Charlotte Richey was Borned January 17 AD 1875. Ettie Elizabeth Richey was Borned February 15th AD 1877. Swany Adow Richey was Borned March the 8th AD 1879. Oscar Taylor Richey was Borned September 10th AD 1881. Loney Clementine Richey was Borned December AD 21 1883. Beatrice Pearl Richey was Borned March 23 AD 1886. William Franklin Richey was Borned Dec AD 9th 1889. Otho Ewell Richey was Borned September 20 AD 1892. Jeffrey Hotten Richey was Borned October 18th AD 1894.

Lona, Joseph was borned in Ark. Me and Swanie and Charlotte was Borned in Ark. You and Taylor were Borned in Denton Co Texas. Bea was Borned in Montague [Co], Texas. The others was borned In the Indian Territory.

Marriage of the family of Richey’s

Jeffrey H. Richey and Josey Feen Brown was married March the 10th AD 1872. Etta E Richey Charley T Davenport married June 17 AD 1896. Swanie Adow Richey Zora Vanscoder were married March AD 1900. Oscar Taylor Richey Emma Price were married Sept 10, 1905. Lona Clementine Richey married Noah Hawkins

Records of Deaths

Our brother Joseph was 18 months old when he died. Our sister Charlotte was 9 month old when she died. Joseph was buried in Ark. Charlotte was buried down here in Chocktow Nation. I give you this so you will no where all is Burred. Joseph David Richey died Oct 27 AD 1874. Charlotte Richey died November 1st 1875. Otho Ewell Richey died August 17th 1917. Jeffrey H Richey died June 2 sec 1926. Josey Feen Richey died July 24th 1932. William Richey died Dec 10 1950. Swaney Adow Richey died Aug 4th 1940. Oscar Taylor Richey died July 17 1952.

Lona, I’ve wrote till I’m nervous.

From your sis, Ettie

[Vance's note: She says her sister died as an infant in the Choctaw Nation. This is confirmation that the family moved to Leflore County -- I'll explain this later.]

Dad’s Sequoyah Story

I once heard a cousin say “we descend from Sequoyah”. But I know that is not exactly what Dad said. Below is how I remember his story went.

Dad used to tell me the following story. He said he often walked to school barefoot. I used to have access to a photo of him barefoot at a one room school, but when mama died it vanished, and I have asked for a copy but no one seems to know what became of it. He also said his grandparents lived between his house and the school, and said sometimes on the way home from school, he'd stop by their house for a time. He said on occasion, his grandma looked through his Oklahoma History book, and said she pointed to a picture of an Indian in the book, and said, “Do you know you are related to him?” Dad always said he didn't remember which Indian it was. Now since Dad's grandma's maiden name was Josephine Brown, and Josephine's mother's maiden name was Harriet Guess, well many of us suspected maybe it was Sequoyah.

Well Dad and I used to argue over petty things when I was young -- I was rebellious. Him being born in 1915 and me in 1952, there was a generation gap. As a child he went to town in a mule driven wagon, and a 20 mile trip to town and back took all day and half the night. It was so different from how things are now. He was penniless as a child and I never lacked much. He was a very good man. Now I understand why he was as he was, but he’s not here to tell him. I didn't get interested enough in those stories until Dad was older. I finally showed him that photo of that famous King painting of Sequoyah from an old Oklahoma history text book and ask him if that was the photo he'd shown his grandma and she'd referenced. But all Dad would ever reply was “I just don't remember.” Too bad. So I wished I'd asked him before, and I'd wished I'd been more curious about this when I was younger, and that we hadn’t argued so much. He was a lifelong Democrat and practically worshipped Roosevelt, saying his policies saved the family “from starving to death” (his words), during the Dust Bowl. The children of the Dust Bowl are probably rolling over in their graves, looking at their grandkids attitudes towards Roosevelt’s reforms.

This is grandma, Lona [Richey] Hawkins – called Loney. That is a honey suckle vine behind her, and that mark on her left arm is the shadow of that honey suckle. I remember very well when I was a small child her walking up to me and pulling off a honey suckle bloom from that vine she is standing by, and showing me how to suck out the “honey” from it. Below is a copy of a very old tin-type of, I was told, my great great-grandma, Harriet [Gist/Guess] Brown. It was sent to me by a relative, Carla Davenport. She emailed me how she received it. A copy of that email is below. I don’t know who the child is. I suspect it might be her granddaughter, my great Aunt Ettie. It was her descendants that preserved that old tin-type.

Correspondence with Carla Davenport

I received a lot of help from Carla Davenport. She was wife to the grandson of my great Aunt Etta, grandma’s sister. Now Aunt Ettie (that is what we called her even though technically, she was a great aunt) was a sort of family historian, and had old records, all of which were lost when she passed on in the 1960s.

I asked Carla about our Indian blood, and she had been researching it longer than I. Here is something I received from her on that topic, and how she came to have that old tin-type, above. I asked her about how she obtained that tin-type. Here is her response:

This is very sad. When I went to visit Ettie in 1965, she showed me many pictures and then took out the Bible, but would not let me read it for myself or even hold it. I asked her why and she said because their spelling was not correct. Even though I told her I could still read it she refused to let me. She said she would read it to me. So she did, read the "parts" I asked about. Then when she died, my mother-in-law found the center section of the Bible ripped out and thrown in the trash. She was only able to salvage 1 page for me, that was all that was left to my knowledge. Apparently someone wanted the Bible and did not care about anything else. Then she found the oldest photos and tintypes we had gone through in another trash basket, and she brought those to me. Makes me sick to think of the callous disregard for her things.

It seems the entry for David B. Brown and Harriet Guess was exactly that and she insisted that her name was Guest. This was very confusing to me as the marriage record as recorded from the marriage index by B. Sistler was Harriet Guess. (Thank goodness, your sister Carol had a copy of the original from the Memphis courthouse. Now we know it was Guess.)

When I told Ettie that J. L. (her son) had told me about her Indian heritage, she was furious, and said she did NOT HAVE ANY INDIAN. Of course, we all know that is not true from what she has told so many of the kids, even J.L. knew. Unfortunately, my baby had developed an earache on the trip and she was very disruptive until we found a doctor. When I came to different photos, she would tell me who they were, we did not get through the entire box because I had to cook dinner and after I had cleaned up I found she had put the box and Bible away and wanted to go to bed and would NOT get them out again. The next morning we left early so I was really elated that I "inherited" what little I did.

Later,

Carla

It was from Carla that we got a copy of the tin-type of Harriet.

Aunt Lorena’s Story about Sequoyah

After Dad and Aunt Lula passed away, I realized if I wanted to have any other stories about our Indian blood, I'd have to ask Aunt Lorena, the last of her generation. So I wrote her and asked her if she ever heard any family stories about us being related to Sequoyah. Below is what she replied. Now there was originally a fifth page in which (I'm paraphrasing) she said she was “quite sure” her mother had said that Harriet (Lona Richey, Aunt Lorena's mother, was the daughter of Josephine Brown, and Josie's mother was Harriet Guess/Gist) was Sequoyah's “niece or great niece”. Now there were only 4 or 5 lines on that fifth page, but what it said was important. I don’t know what became of it. I have transcribed the majority of her letter, and I had part of page five transcribed on my computer before I lost it. Here is that transcription:

Dear Vance and wife,

I am sorry I have been so slow answering your letter. I have no idea what I could tell you that you don’t already know.

The reason I am so late answering is I had an accident at a dinner theater here in town during intermission. I have no idea how it happened unless I tripped on a man’s coat lying on the floor or someone may have pushed me. I fractured my shoulder and hip on the left side. Have spent almost two months in rehab hospitals. I walked the first time last week. I’m home now and will have rehab at home. I tire easily.

I remember more about what our mother told us than grandmother

Richey. We had a wonderful grandmother and I suppose she talked more about Sequoyah to the boys than to us girls. Alpha was almost 6 years older than I. She was a Brown before she married grandfather Richey. Her mother was a Guess before she married great grandfather Brown. I think mama said she was a niece of George Guess, “Sequoyah”.He was known as a Cherokee intellect. I have some literature on him. He was never a Cherokee chief but was called upon to deal with the U. S. Government. He did live in Indian Territory as well as Arkansas. He had a home in Sallisaw, Ok. I don’t know if it still exists. He was born in 1778in a small Cherokee village of Tuscegee in Tennessee.

He is known for inventing the Cherokee alphabet. I remember a lot about him in our Oklahoma History.

Our mother looked a lot like some Indian trait, as well as her sister Aunt Bea, Uncle Hoten, Uncle Will, and Uncle Swan. I saw a picture of Uncle Hoten and Uncle Otho (he died in 1917 or 1918). A school picture of the old Holton school just about a mile and ½ from where we were raised South and East of Manitou. They definitely showed Indian blood, very nice looking, though. The Cherokee were the most civilized of the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

Grandpa and Grandma Richey came to Indian Territory before Oklahoma became a state. They lived in covered wagons when Mama and Aunt Bea were

little girls. I used to love to hear her talk and tell when they were children. Aunt Etta drove a team of oxen while grandpa and I suppose Uncle Swan drove the others/horses. Sage grass was taller than mama and Aunt Bea. Grandmother made little red caps for them to wear when they went out to play. Both Andrew and Raymond were born before Oklahoma became a state. They and Cecil were born in a half dugout. Our Aunt Zora (Uncle Swan’s wife) was the mid-wife to the three boys. Grandmother Richey delivered Lula. They were having a snow storm and the doctor couldn’t get there until she was three days old. I think Doctor Comp delivered the rest of us kids. He lived in Manitou.

I know you didn’t ask for –

[Note: And I no longer have the last page. But I did save in one place on my computer some excerpts of her letter. The following was on page five.]

I know you didn’t ask for a lot of the things I have written. I’m proud of them and still love to think about their early lives, so different from today . . .

I’m quite sure it was Great-grandmother Brown who was a Guess and was a niece or great niece of George Guess.

With love and best wishes,

Aunt Lorena

What my Cousin Said About Sequoyah

I have some relatives who wrote about Sequoyah that I wasn't aware of at the time I first wrote this book. I have their interesting story here. Pioneering in Kiowa County (wixsite.com).

I love reading it. So I have three family stories of our relationship with Sequoyah.

B. Indian Pioneer Papers

There is a historical record of some early settlers of Indian Territory called IPP, or Indian Pioneer Papers. This was a Dust Bowl Era project to get Old Times of all races and mixes to tell their family story of how they came to live in Oklahoma when it was known as “Indian Territory”. There were thousands of such interviews.

About the Collection

In 1936, the [Oklahoma Historical] society teamed with the history department at the University of Oklahoma to get a Works Progress Administration (WPA) writers' project grant for an interview program. The project employed more than 100 writers scattered across the state, with headquarters in Muskogee, where Grant Foreman served as project director. Asked to "call upon early settlers and (record) the story of the migration to Oklahoma and their early life here" the writers conducted more than 11,000 interviews, edited the accounts into written form, and sent them to the project director who completed the editorial process and had them typed into more than 45,000 pages. When assembled, the Indian-Pioneer Papers consisted of 112 volumes, with one set at the university, the other at the society. There are only two complete bound sets of originals.

These interviews can be found online (along with other documents) here –

http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/whc/

My great uncle Oscar and his wife Emma both responded to this request. [2] Here is a record of the transcription of their contribution:

Oscar Taylor Richey

Oscar was grandma’s brother. Both he and his wife were interviewed for this project. Here are those accounts.

Date: August 23, 1937

Name: Oscar T. Richey

Post Office: Lone Wolf, Kiowa County, Oklahoma

My parents were natives of Arkansas and grew up near Fort Smith which is just across the line from Indian Territory. Both come from pioneer families.

After they were married in the year 1872, they moved into Indian Territory and settled in either the present Sequoyah or Leflore Counties. [Vance's note: Great Aunt Ettie had said her sister had died as an infant in 1875 in the Choctaw Nation, so I am using that reference to assume they moved to Leflore County.] I do not know on which side of the Arkansas River they lived, but I remember very clearly hearing my mother say that the territory was like a wilderness and that they had to go back to Fort Smith for everything they had to buy and that when they needed protection all the officers of the law had to come from Fort Smith.

Mother never ceased to tell us children of an experience which she had while living at that place. Two White men and Two Negroes committed some kind of a crime in the Indian Territory, were taken to Fort Smith tried and convicted and were sentenced to be hanged.

When the day of the hanging came, she and Father like everybody else in the country started early for the hanging was to be a public affair, and they traveled all day through the woods and across the streams and when they reached Fort Smith there were literally a thousand people which was a great number at that time, gathered as if at a picnic to witness the hanging. Mother watched the hanging and it was so horrible to her that she regretted attending such a thing all the remainder of her life.

My parents then moved to Texas where there was more settlement and I was born in Denton County, September 10, 1881.

In 1889 we came back to Indian Territory and Father bought a 10 year lease, from a Squaw-man named Clint Murcus. Our lease was east of the present town of Duncan in Stephens County, on Mud Creek.

Living was pretty hard for us as we were poor and the land had to be cleared and broken before we could plant or grow any crops. Everything had to be hauled by wagon from Nocona, in Montague County, Texas and the roads were only wagon tracks with no bridges on the streams to amount to anything and the bridges which were built would wash away every time there was a flood on the river or creek.

At first we depended for our food mostly on rabbits, squirrel, fish and other small game. These animals furnished us with meat and we raised a little corn on land which we were able to clear out. The brush had to be cut by hand or with ax and burned. The larger trees had to be girdled or out all round and left to die, so the tree could be gotten off the land and if they would not burn they had to be dragged off the land.

For plowing we used a Georgia Stock which is a walking plow drawn by one horse and in the stumps that was slow work. As we cleared more land and got it into a state of cultivation we planted other things, vegetables, some cotton, and some feed for our stock. In that way we lived much better and built more log houses and sheds and fenced in more lots.

After the rock Island Railroad came through the country living conditions improved for we could buy our necessities and sell our produce at Duncan instead of being forced to go to Nocona, Texas.

People settled in communities and built small school houses at their own expense and paid all teachers from one dollar and a half to two dollars per month for each pupil and the school ?year? would last from two to three ?months? a year.

The little school houses were __?__ and for churches. The first minister I remember was the Reverend Mr. White. When the Comanche Reservation was ???, Mr. White drew a claim west of the town of Comanche and built a dugout on it. The dugout was not built well and fell in killing him and his family.

I remember a Holiness Minister, we called him Stammering John. His name was John Fry. As the years passed I continued to farm using the improved machinery. I later moved into the Kiowa Country, settling North of Lone Wolf, where my family and I now live.

Transcribed in August 2003, by me, Vance Hawkins, great-nephew of Oscar.

Emma

Emma Price married my great Uncle Oscar Richey. Although we are related to her family only through marriage, her story tells another story of what life was like in Indian Territory.

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma

Date: August 23, 1937

Name: Emma Price Richey

Post Office: Lone Wolf, Kiowa County, Oklahoma

Field Worker: Ethel B. Tackitt

Interview #:

My parents moved to Indian Territory in 1890 and settled 12 miles northeast of the present town of Duncan. in Stephens County.

My father was very fortunate as he bought a lease from a Chickasaw Indian named Belton Colbert [Vance’s note: I suspect this was Benton Colbert. I found no “Belton” Colbert, but there was a Benton Colbert. She was writing in the 1937 about what happened when she was a child in 1890. The Colbert’s were a powerful/well known Chickasaw family] which was rather well improved. He also bought a lease from an Indian woman by the name of Leewright and at last a lease from an Indian named Hahan.

Leases could be purchased very cheaply from these Indians for the white people would come in and take a ten year lease and stay as long as they wanted to or until they grew tired of the hardships of the country and then they would sell out for anything they could get. Sometimes they would sell out for a cow, horse, or wagon and then if they could not find a buyer for their claims they would simply move out and leave what improvements they had put on the land

If a person bought a lease he or she would finish out the remainder of the ten years of residence which were required. Father bought this Hahen lease and it only had two years on it. The house was a good boxed two rooms in front with a shed room running the full length. We were proud of this house for it was the best in the country and had a shingle roof. Almost everybody else lived in a log house or in a dugout.

We then lived near Harrisburg about 12 miles southeast of Duncan. Harrisburg had a store and a post office. And the community built a little boxed school house.

The school was paid by subscription at the rate of a dollar and a half per month for each pupil. The term was usually two or three months and never more than four months. As a general thing, if it was grammar school it was a two months term and if it was taught in the winter, it was a three months term.

The first teacher I remember was Charley Davenport [Vance’s note: This is the same Charles Davenport that married Oscar’s sister, my great Aunt Ettie. Many ex-Confederate political and military officials moved into the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations after the Civil War, so many that parts of southeastern Oklahoma are called “Little Dixie” to this day. The Davenport’s were one of these families.] and later Will Metcalf taught us. A school teacher in those days did not have to have any certificate for teaching and reading, writing and spelling were about the only subjects taught unless the teacher wanted to teach arithmetic and geography too.

Later, there were camp meetings where the people would build brush arbors at some convenient place and would come and bring their families. The people would put up tents or would put up smaller brush arbors and make themselves camps where all who came for miles around were welcome and these meeting would continue two, three and four weeks. The ministers would take turns at preaching and nobody thought of its costing anything for everybody brought vegetables, fruits, chickens, and meats or anything they had to eat and nobody thought of imposing on anybody else.

I remember one summer when Father and Mother took our whole family to Sunset, in Montague County, Texas to attend a camp meeting held by the Hudson brothers.

I married Oscar Richey and when the Kiowa Country, opened up we moved to Lone Wolf community and have continued to farm and live on our claim. Here we have reared our family and have taken part in all the activities of the community. ??? enjoy the rural mail delivery, the telephone, the highways and consolidated school districts with the busses which take the children to school.

Transcribed in August 2003, by Vance Hawkins, great-nephew of Oscar and Emma.

James Harvey Gist

J. M. Gist was the son of James Harvey Gist. DNA test results and genealogical data say that my family is closely related to James Harvey Gist. His descendants also have family stories of having Indian ancestors, by the way. A descendant of his also was interviewed for IPP, Indian Pioneer Papers. Here is a transcription of his interview:

Interview #9000

Field Worker: John F. Daugherty

Date: October 23, 1937

Name: J. M. Gist

Residence: Route 1, Mill Creek, Oklahoma

Date of Birth: August 24, 1868

Place of Birth: Missouri

Father: James Gist, born in Kentucky

Mother: Annie Meek, born in Texas

My parents were James H. Gist and Annie Meek Gist, born in Kentucky [Vance’s note: These Gist’s were in the Whitley, Wayne, Pulaski County area of Kentucky before they moved to Northwestern Alabama] and Texas. Father was a farmer. There were two children. I was born August 24, 1868, in Missouri

I came to the Indian Territory in 1887. I had an uncle living at Berwyn and I came to see him. Father and Mother lived in Arkansas in the swamps and Father was in very poor health. I decided that Indian Territory was the ideal place for him. He enjoyed hunting and fishing so I saddled a horse and went home to move them here.

We moved in a covered wagon. We came through Sulphur and there was nothing there but an old log ranch house and the old Gum Springs. We camped at this spring. We had no bread and the man (Col. Froman?) who lived in the log house had his wife bake us some corn bread.

When we got to Berwyn we had no house to move into, so we camped under a large cottonwood tree until we could cut poles to make a log house. We built our house on the bank of the Washita River and drank river water. I went to the Creek Nation a short time after we moved here and went to work on the Bar-B-Q Campbell Ranch east of Okmulgee.

I was working here when the Buck Gang stole several steers and burned their brand on them. This was done by a group of six Indians and one Negro headed by Rufus Buck, a Creek Indian. They were very wicked. Human life meant nothing to them and they killed several women before they were captured.

They took these cattle near the F. S. Ranch. A posse of cowboys and ranchmen were searching for this gang when they found these steers from the Bar-B-Q Ranch and knew that the gang was not far away. They found their hiding place and a lively shooting fray ensued, without the loss of life.

Just as both sides were about out of ammunition, the Creek Light horsemen arrived on the scene and some United States Marshals arrived shortly afterwards. The Buck Gang saw that they were caught so they surrendered peaceably.

Two of the gang escaped, however. One was wounded and was hidden in the brush and couldn't be found and the other ran away. They were chained together and loaded into the prisoners' wagon and taken to Okmulgee. When they arrived everybody began shooting to signal all the parties hunting for the desperadoes to come in as the desperadoes were captured and the team hitched to the prisoners' wagon became frightened and ran away. Then there was some more excitement. But the team was stopped without the loss of a prisoner and the Buck Gang was put in jail at Okmulgee.

The next day before the officers started to Muskogee with the prisoners an old squaw brought one of the escaped members of the gang in. She had him rolled up in a feather bed in a wagon and he was nearly frightened to death. It was a number of days before they found the wounded outlaw. He finally came in and gave himself up. These men were taken to Fort Smith and tried. They were hung according to law and thus ended one of the worst gangs of cattle thieves in the history of territorial days.

One night a crowd of our boys went to a Creek Stomp Dance. They heard that the Buck Gang was coming so they left to avoid trouble. The cowboys hated the Buck Gang and there was always shooting when they encountered each other. I was just a boy and I stayed to see what would happen. When the Buck Gang rode up, they began shooting and tried to frighten the Indians, but the dancers paid no attention to them. They soon became tired of their sport and rode away.

When our boys started across Elk Creek there was only a small cow trail down the bank to the creek and when one started down he must go on as there was a thicket on each side and it was impossible to turn around.

Just as the leader got to the bed of the Creek he saw Rufus Buck on his buckskin horse. He couldn't turn around and he couldn't warn the boys behind him, so the cowboys proceeded across the creek without giving any sign of recognition to the Buck Gang, who stood and watched our boys ride away.

After Buck and his gang were captured he was asked why he didn't kill the Bar-B-Q boys that night and he said the gang had used all their ammunition at the dance or they would have fired at the cowboys.

The cattle on our range were very wild. If a person went across their range walking instead of riding, the whole herd would get after him. They paid no attention to anyone riding but they certainly permitted no walking on their range. Some of the cattle had horns four feet long.

One day I was in Checotah when a very funny incident occurred. An Indian man named Gentry had a store there and his brother, Bill, drank a great deal. Bill would sit on the porch of this store and his favorite pastime was shooting between the feet of cowboys and making them dance. On this day a cowboy stepped up on the porch where Bill was asleep. He suddenly awoke and began shooting at the cowboy's feet, commanding him to dance. The cowboy said that he couldn't dance, but Bill told him he would kill him if he didn't dance. So the cowboy danced until he was almost exhausted. He went into the store and purchased what he wanted. When he got ready to go home, he came out of the store and Bill was asleep again. He stepped over to his saddle, got his gun and shot between Bill's feet. Bill sat up in astonishment, asking what he meant. The cowboy took his gun and told him to dance. Bill said, "I can't". The cowboy told him that he would kill him if he didn't. Bill began to dance and the cowboy continued to shoot. He made Bill lie down and roll over like a pet dog. Then the cowboy made Bill dance some more. He had him doing all sorts of tricks with the townspeople looking on. When the cowboy got through putting Bill through these antics he had him a sober man. The cowboy got on his horse and rode away amid the cheers and whoops of the onlookers. That cured Bill of making cowboys dance. He decided it wasn't much fun when he had to do the dancing instead of the cowboys.

Bill enjoyed playing jokes. One day a drummer came into the store and Bill was drunk as usual. He had a very fine buggy and mare. He asked the traveling man to go riding with him. The man unsuspectingly climbed into the buggy and away they went up and down the street and around the town. The traveling man thought he was seeing the town. There was a lake southwest of town which covered about four acres of ground. The mare would do anything Bill told her to do. He started to the lake. Just before they reached it he gave the mare a cut with the buggy whip and commanded her to go to the lake. Then Bill rolled out of the buggy and dropped the lines on the ground. The mare jumped into the lake with the buggy and the drummer. The drummer couldn't get the lines and the water came up into the buggy and almost drowned him before he could get out.

I was married to Georgia Ray, near Center, in 1893. We have two children. I have lived in Johnston County since 1918.

There is some information online about Bill/William Gentry. Mrs. Caroline Everett was also interviewed in the same “Indian Pioneer Papers” – she was daughter of William E. Gentry – the same “Bill Gentry” mentioned in the above account, the same man who ordered the cowboys to “dance”. She also mentions same city of Checotah. As you might expect, her description of her father was far different that my relatives story about him. At the beginning of the interview it says in parentheses:

Mrs. Caroline Everett, informant Council Hill Oklahoma (daughter of Wm. E. Gentry). Interview as given to Jas. S. Buchanan, Indian Research Worker.

Mrs. Everett is recorded as saying:

By ancestry, he [note: meaning William/Bill Gentry] was a Catawba Indian adopted into the Creek Tribe . . .

His business interests, however, were not confined to the cattle business, as he owned a large share in the Gentry hotel in Checotah . . . I will have more about the Catawba Indians in Indian Territory, later. The Creek Council House still stands and is in Okmulgee, Okmulgee County, Oklahoma – which is also the town where I was born.