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His present modern residence is situated within the city limits of Bartlesville, the judicial center of the county, and he has in the homestead place a tract of thirty acres, the remainder having been platted into city lots. Mr. Armstrong is of French and Delaware Indian blood and came to Indian Territory at the time when the government sent the Delaware's to the reservation. His is a strong mind and he has lived a godly, righteous and Christian life, has been the forerunner of progress in educational and religious affairs in what is now Washington County; he served as a soldier of the Union in the Civil War; and his life has been one of kindliness, of helpfulness and of impregnable integrity, so that he may well be accorded consideration in this history of a great state, the development of which he has witnessed and assisted in. Arthur Armstrong, whose Indian name is Sikalace, and who retained his constant use of the Delaware language until he married a white woman, was born at the confluence of the Missouri and Kaw rivers, Kansas, on the site of the former City of Wyandotte, now known as Kansas City, Kansas, and the date of his nativity was July 16, 1848. He is a son of James Armstrong, who was one-half Delaware Indian and one-half French blood and whose Indian name was Nespanaqua, though he used also the English name of Armstrong. His wife also was of Delaware Indian and French blood, and both were born in the South, whence they accompanied other members of the Delaware tribe when they were removed by the Government to Kansas. Both died when their son Arthur of this review was about six years old, and they are survived also by an older son, Henry, who resides at Coody's Bluff, Nowata County, Oklahoma. Arthur Armstrong was a youth when he came with the other members of the Delaware tribe to Indian Territory, about fifty years ago, in consonance with the demands of the Government. During the long intervening years he has maintained his home in what is now Washington County, and, like other members of the Delaware tribe, he has been a successful exponent of agricultural industry, these sterling Indians having bee content to follow peaceful vocations and to hold aloof from the turbulence of other tribes, as history fully records to their credit. The allotment of which the present attractive little homestead of Mr. Armstrong is a part originally comprised 160 acres, and his modern residence is at the east end of First Street, Bartlesville. The remaining 130 acres are now included in the city of Bartlesville and this property has been sold by him for platting purposes. His original domicile was within a stone's throw of the present courthouse of Washington County. Mr. Armstrong is the owner of a large and well improved landed estate, one farm of 500 acres, being situated on Curl Creek, at a point sixteen miles distant from his place of residence. On his land was put down the first oil well in the vicinity of Bartlesville, and three producing wells are now in operation on his property. From nine wells he formerly received $403 a month on lease and still more remuneration when the production of oil ensured. Mr. Armstrong takes an intelligent and lively interest in public affairs, especially those pertaining to his home county and state, and his political support is given to the republican party. At the time of the Civil War he served one year and three months as a soldier of the Union. He was a member of company M, Sixth Kansas Cavalry, within the ranks of which were a total of eight Delaware Indians, including his brother, Henry. Mr. Armstrong was for a time confined to a military hospital at West Point, Missouri, and was with his command at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, at the close of the war, his honorable discharge having been their received. It is gratifying to record that he is an appreciative and honored member of the Bartlesville Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and also that he received from the Government a pension of $22 a month in recognition of his gallant service as a solider. Mr. Armstrong has been a member of the Baptist Church about forty years, and his zeal and devotion have been in harmony with his characteristic loyalty and nobility of character. In the early days he used to go once a month to Nowata, a distance of about thirty miles, for the purpose of listening to the preaching of Chief Johnnycake, and these journeys were made on horseback, along the old trails. Mr. Armstrong well remembers Chief Hardrope and his tribe of Osages, who frequently camped in the vicinity of the present City of Bartlesville, where they would give their war dances and indulge in horse races during the summer seasons, after which they would go forth to hunt buffalo, to provide meat for the winter. About the time when he "found Christ," as he himself has expressed it, Mr. Armstrong built a little cabin on the banks of the Caney Creek and designated the same as Union Church, this having been the first church building on the site of the City of Bartlesville. In this primitive edifice a clergyman of any denomination was given welcome and the privilege of conducting services, and with the passing of years the founder has not abated his tolerance of spirit, but is ready to aid all denominations and to do all in his power to further the cause of the Divine Master. The little building was utilized also as the first schoolhouse in the community, and later, when white settlers arrived, the little church and schoolhouse was not disturbed, but adjoining it the white pioneers erected a somewhat more pretentious building for combined church and school purposes, the new structure being on the land owned by Mr. Armstrong during the earlier period of his farm operations in Washington County Mr. Armstrong and his family had no neighbors nearer than a mile or more distant, and when he needed groceries he was compelled to go to Baxter Springs, Kansas, about 100 miles distant, while he went to Parker, now known as Coffeyville, that state, for his mail until the establishment of the Star route from that place into Indian Territory. In those days Mr. Armstrong did much hunting and fishing, finding an abundance of deer and turkeys, buffalofish and catfish, all of which trophies of his skill aided in replenishing the family larder. The first marriage of Mr. Armstrong was with Nancy JACKSON a full- blood Delaware Indian, and she is survived by one son, Henry, who is a prosperous farmer near Bartlesville. She was a consistent member of the Baptist Church, and of the same the present wife of Mr. Armstrong likewise is a devoted member. After the death of his first wife Mr. Armstrong wedded Mrs. Maggie DAVIS, who is entirely of Caucasian blood, and who was at the time a widow with one daughter, Myrtle, who remains with her mother at the pleasant family home. Lucinda, Mr. Armstrong's only daughter by the first marriage, died at the age of twenty-one years. Readily may it be understood that this sterling pioneer, a credit to his race and to the state in which he resides, has a rare fund of information concerning the conditions and incidents relative to the early days in Indian Territory, and he has so ordered his life as to merit and receive the confidence and high regard of all who know him. Typed for OKGenWeb by Marti, October 1999.