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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: January 10, 1938
Name: Mrs. M. E. Brownlee
Post Office Address: Cordell, Oklahoma
Residence Address: 314 East Main St.
Date of Birth: March 15, 1857
Place of Birth: Choctaw County, Mississippi
Name of Father: Eleam Hobs
Place of Birth: South Carolina
Other information about father: Farmer
Name of Mother: Mary Hill
Place of Birth: South Carolina
Other information about mother: Housekeeper
Field Worker: Ida B. Lankford
Interview# 9647

Early Day History

I came from Cleburne, Johnson County, Texas. We started November 1, 1887, landing in Mountain View, December 25, 1887.

We had five covered wagons and were driving teams of oxen; the oxen had on shoes like horses.

The hardest blizzard I have ever saw came soon after we landed in Mountain View, and we almost froze to death. My husband rented a farm the first year we were here; then in 1889, we moved on an Indian lease. The Indian who owned this farm was named Amos Wade and he was a very nice Indian, friendly and kind. We put in one hundred and twenty-five acres of cotton; the way we planted are cotton, we used the broadcasting system. Most of the folks sowed wheat, oats and feed by the broadcast method. We also put in watermelon seeds in with the cottonseeds and we made good cotton and large melons in 1889. We hired all the people we could get and picked cotton until March, 1890, and then left the fields as white as snow.

We lived in a little one-roomed shack but we did not have any close neighbors but the coyotes kept us company. They would come up to our door and howl and they would kill our pigs, young claves, and chickens.

The water was so hard that we could hardly wash or do our cooking at all.

We visited a place called Kickapoo Flat, an Indian place located in the lowland. The lowland was covered with the long horned cattle and it was dangerous to be walking by yourself.

I have lived in cabins, shack, dugouts, tents and camped out, all over this Indian Territory.

My children went to school with the Indians and they were always our friends.

I remember in 1889, I put my three little kiddies in a covered wagon and we started across the prairie to see my dad and mother. My husband had to stay at home to do the work.

We started from Lehigh in Choctaw Nation to go to Clinton; there were no roads; all we could see were long horned cattle. One day while going to Clinton our team got thirsty and spied a pond of water across the prairie so they went towards the water in a big run. It was so muddy around the pond that I was afraid we would bog down and be with the cattle all around us, I knew we would have to stay there as no one was passing by, but when the team got all the water they wanted, we were on our way again.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Deonna Henderson < leshelle72@hotmail.com > July 2002.