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NELSON F. CARR
Vol. 3, p. 1191-1192
Book has photo of family

It is with the title of "The Pioneer of Big Caney" that Nelson F.
Carr has long been known to the people of Bartlesville and Washington
County. He was the first white settler of any real importance along
that river, and nearly fifty years have elapsed since he and Mrs.
Carr, his noble wife, began housekeeping in the wilderness which has
since been transformed by civilization and is now one of the richest
sections in the Southwest, with its great oil and grain fields and
with the great development of railroads, cities and general
industrialism.

He was born in Wilton, Saratoga County, New York, September 2, 1844,
a son of William Henry and Sarah M. (CLANCY) Carr. His father was
born in New York State and his mother in Vermont. The father died in
September, 1848, at the age of thirty-one, and of him Nelson F. Carr
has only a faint recollection. In 1859 the widowed mother brought her
son and two daughters to the western frontier. Mr. Carr was fifteen
years of age at the time and was born only sixteen years after the
first railroad was put in operation in the United States. When the
family came out to Fort Scott, Kansas, in the year 1859, they rode a
railroad train only as far as Pleasant Hill, Missouri, then the
terminus of the Missouri Pacific. From there they journeyed by stage
as far as the present Kansas City and Mr. Carr's active lifetime
covers the entire period of railroad development in the country west
of Missouri. Mr. Carr's mother remained a widow for sixty years, and
died at the age of eighty-nine in California. Her two daughters were:
Anna BRIDMAN, now deceased; and Jennie BENT, of Colorado, who has two
sons and one daughter.

Nelson F. Carr grew up on a farm with his mother at Fort Scott,
Kansas, and both of them entered a quarter section of land there.
Nelson F., according to the land laws, entered his quarter section as
the head of a family, although only fifteen years of age. He was only
sixteen when he enlisted for service at Fort Scott in July, 1861, in
Company B of the Sixth Kansas Regiment. In March, 1862, the regiment
became the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, under Col. W. R. Judson. He is one
of the last survivors of this noted Kansas regiment.

After his active military service he was employed in store at Fort
Scott, and in 1865, he returned to Kansas schools. In September,
1865, he returned to Kansas and was employed in a store at Fort Scott
until February, 1866. He then became one of the first settler of
Oswego, Kansas, and built the first log house in the town and put in
a stock of goods. He owned a half interest in this trading post, and
he still has a copy of the document signed by the postmaster general
which records his appointment on October 4, 1866, as postmaster of
Oswego. He was the first to have charge of the postoffice in that
town. One year later he resigned the office, which had paid him only
a nominal salary.

The Carr store was the social center of the town and the surrounding
country, and among those who came to trade there was a Cherokee
Indian named Rogers, who lived at Timber Hill, eight miles south of
Chetopah and about seventy miles from the present City of
Bartlesville. Hillard Rogers was a native of Georgia, a quarter-blood
Cherokee, a well educated man, and a descendant of one of the
greatest Cherokee chieftains. Hillard Rogers died near Bartlesville
at the age of fifty years in September, 1870, and his wife passed
away on January 18, 1870, at the age of forty-two. She was a native
of Tennessee, and was sixteen years of age when she married Mr.
Rogers. At the age of seventeen Hillard Rogers acted as Indian
interpreter for Generals Scott and Taylor in Florida during the
Seminole Indian war. He was one of the prominent members of the
tribe, and a man of fine character.

Between this Cherokee and the Indian trader Mr. Carr, there grew up
a friendship, and in the course of time Mr. Carr came to hear much of
Annie ROGERS, the daughter of the Timber Hill resident. She had many
unusual accomplishments even for an Indian girl, and in September,
1866, when Mr. Carr first visited the Rogers home he fell in love
with the young woman, and on the following 25th of August they were
married. Soon after their marriage they removed from Oswego to the
Big Caney. They were almost the first people after the war to locate
in that section, and for almost forty years Mr. and Mrs. Carr had
their home on a farm three miles north of the present City of
Bartlesville. In the early days Mr. Carr traded supplies to the
Indians for furs and buffalo robes and sold the latter at
Leavenworth, Kansas. He was frequently away from home, and Mrs. Carr
was left with her own children and with her young orphan brother
William Rogers, who now lives in Dewey. At one time they remained in
the lonely cabin eight days while Mr. Carr was away on one of his
trips, and in the many dangers and discomforts of pioneer life Mrs.
Carr was a participant as well as her husband.

A year or so ago an interesting little story was told and published
in a monthly magazine, the subject of which was Mrs. Carr and her
experience as a pioneer on the Big Caney. It contains a well deserved
tribute to this splendid pioneer woman of Oklahoma, and a portion of
the article, beginning with her experiences when she came as a bride
to her new home, is quoted herewith: "The young bride took possession
of the home prepared for her with as happy a laugh as if the rude
logs had been blocks of stone and the dirt floor a carpet of plush.
All the hardships endured in the little cabin did not conquer the
laugh that bubbled forth from the brave spirit of the Indian maid.
One-fourth of the blood in her veins came from a race keen in
intellect as well as strong in body. From her Cherokee father she
brought to the lonely plains a spirit of never failing courage and
cheerfulness. Her own father, descended from the great chief FOYAL,
who invested a wonderful Indian alphabet of eighty-six letter, was
prominent man of his tribe and had been United States interpreter for
General Harvey. The life of the pioneer is ever lonely, but to have
been the first in a country so rich in natural resources and in
future possibilities is recompense for many hardships. Mr. Carr's
trading post drew other white people to settle in the vicinity, and
the homes that soon dotted the river bank made life seem almost gay
to the young trader and his wife. Thus it was that Mrs. Carr was
instrumental in the foundation of one of Oklahoma's industrial
centers. His business prospered too and more comforts crept into the
little cabin. Lumber for a floor was brought from the Spadmore hills
east of Grand River and later a new home was built. For almost forty
years the devoted woman lived on the site of the log trading station
and reared her splendid family. Hardships gradually became but a
memory to her and so broad and noble her nature that they are a
pleasant memory. About 1907 Mr. Carr built a comfortable home in
Bartlesville and the ideal home life begun in the rude cabin shed a
broader influence. Still more recently a handsomer home was
purchased. There Mrs. Carr, still strong in all her faculties, with
her happy vivacious personality permeating her household, surrounded
by noble sons, beautiful daughters, and lovely grandchildren,
occupies a position that queens might envy, her throne a home on the
spot that she watched grow from a lonely plain into a thriving county
seat, with magnificent business blocks, churches, schools and homes.
The achievements of a woman of Mrs. Carr's nature cannot be measured
in material things. She was placed in a hard situation and her
strength was sufficient to meet it and to make of the hardships a
joy. To be able to make a home in a cabin as well as in a mansion, to
fill it with laughter, to rear children to honor the humble home and
her who made this is the greatest work of woman's life."

In 1868 during a raid from the Arapahos Mr. Carr's store was robbed,
and after that he gave most of his attention to farming. In addition
to his own claim he bought other lands which gave his a ranch of
1,200 acres under fence, and in time he bought 800 acres of this
under cultivation. In 1868 he paid $2.50 for a bushel of seed Indian
corn, and his own energetic example was an important factor in
promoting the general agricultural industry. About that time Mr. Carr
built the first grist mill on the Caney just across the river from
the present site of Bartlesville. He dug a tunnel across a neck of
land around which the river flowed and thus secured a fall of eight
feet, which was sufficient to turn his mill wheel. Later he sold this
mill to J. H. BARTLES, who replaced it with a modern flour mill.
After that Mr. Carr gave his entire attention to farming and stock
raising until 1907, when he removed to the City of Bartlesville. He
still owns more than 200 acres three miles northwest of Bartlesville,
including the land on which he first settled when he came to what is
now Washington County.

Mr. Carr is a member of the Baptist Church and belongs to the Grand
Army of the Republic and has been a Mason since 1866, having
affiliation with Keystone Lodge, No. 102, Ancient Free and Accepted
Masons, at Coffeyville, Kansas.

He and his wife take pardonable pride in their fine family of
children. Their son, Edward R., the first born, died at the age of
nine years. Ida J. is the wife of John JOHNSON, now living on the old
Carr farm near Bartlesville. Grace Maude died at the age of
seventeen. William A. lives in Mound Valley, Kansas. Frank Marvin is
a resident of Washington County. Sarah Louise is the wife of William
KEELER of Washington County. Josie May married L. J. BROWER, of
Washington County. Beulah Mabel is the wife of S. C. BRADY, of
Bartlesville. They are also twelve grandchildren. Since Mr. Carr
married prior to 1874, he was placed on the roll as an Indian, and he
and his family have received the usual allotments of land and money
with other members of the Cherokee tribe.

Mr. Carr has witnessed every improvement made in the hands of
civilized man in the vicinity of Bartlesville. In many ways he has
helped in this development, and his own example has been a potent
factor to increasing the complete utilization of the splendid
resources found in the soil and climate of Northern Oklahoma. Both he
and his wife have traveled extensively, but with all their
observations of other countries and states they remain extremely
loyal to Oklahoma, which represents to them the greatest as well as
the fairest portion of the Globe, and in all the "beautiful land" the
spot most sacred to them is the site of the rude log cabin as it
stood half century ago and in which the joys of young married life
were sweetened and accentuated by the hardships and adversities of
frontier existence.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, October 24, 1998.