Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: July 7, 1937
Name: James N. Cole
Residence Address: 500 Downing, Tahlequah, Oklahoma 
Date of Birth: January 10, 1852
Place of Birth: McComb, Illinois
Father: William W. Cole
Place of Birth: In Old Virginia, near Fredrickburg, Virginia
Information on father: 
Mother: Nancy Cole
Place of Birth: Old Kentucky
Information on mother: Descendant of Pocahontas and also Randolphs. 
Related to former Governor Randolph of Virginia.
Field Worker: Wyly Thornton
Interview #:
Volume 65, p. 223-233

James N. Cole was born January 10, 1852 in McComb, Illinois. He lived there until May 10, 1872. At this time he left Illinois going to Minneapolis, Kansas, then he left this place in Kansas during the fall of 1875 in about November, for a trip to Denison, Texas. He goes on to state, I came through Topeka, Kansas and headed for Siloam Springs, Arkansas, with me was my father and a brother who was two years older than I and whose name was Thomas. I drove an extra fine team of horses with good leather harness, and a new Studebaker wagon. My brother Tom had as find a rig as I, except that he had a very large team of mules. We had wagon sheets on our wagons, axes, bedding and cooking out-fits, and of course our guns. I had five hundred dollars cash hidden in the bottom of my wagon,. From Siloam Springs we moved nearly direct south swinging slightly west at times. We came over some as rough roads as a team could pull a wagon. It was up one hill and down another constantly. We saw a lot of wild game and killed some as we needed it. Finally we reached the Illinois River about where the Boudinot Ford was located in those day and we managed to pull our wagons across that difficult crossing. We didn’t come through Tahlequah. After we crossed the river as I remember; but maybe that was before there was any Tahlequah.

I do remember we swung southward after we crossed the river and we drove through Park Hill, which had one store in it. After we left Park Hill we seemed to turn westward toward Ft. Gibson. By this time father, brother and I began to get used to making signs to the Indians about roads and feed and other things which we needed to know. We didn’t have such steep hills to go up and down as we had been having east of the river after we left Park Hill. After we had traveled about fifteen miles from this last store we began to get into some kind of a prairie country. We drove through Ft. Gibson and on to the Arkansas River, near Muskogee. We paid to go across on the ferryboat and we then went through Muskogee. We found about three stores in it, and I remember well that in Muskogee we saw the first railroad we had seen since we left Kansas. Up to this point we had seen only a few white people, and a few Negroes, but plenty of Indians. We left Muskogee for Okmulgee and after several days we drove into Okmulgee. There we found about two stores and we saw plenty of Indians with all kinds of beads and blankets. I think we were told they were Creeks, but they surely did look strangely at us, but didn’t bother us.

Again we replenished our stock of food for another long stretch for we were going to Wewoka, Indian Territory. Our trip on this route was similar to the experience from Muskogee to Okmulgee. There were lots of wolves, coyotes, quails, jackrabbits, and other animals. Well, after about four or five days we landed in the town called Wewoka, which had about three or four general stores. Here we rested awhile and restocked our living supplies and walked about, viewing the old Indian village. We looked at the Indian cowboys mixing with the whites. Then we hitched our rested teams to the wagons, after a nights rest, and away we went toward Stonewall, Indian Territory. We had a cold and troublesome stretch to travel from Wewoka to Stonewall. Bad roads and bad weather was telling on us but we finally arrived in Stonewall and found one store on the banks of a creek, located on what is now known as Old Stonewall. We stayed all night there and pulled out again the next morning for Colbert Ferry on Red River. We finally reached Denison, Texas, the place where we had intended to settle for the rest of our lives. We stayed in Denison and made one crop and left again. That following fall we went back to Kansas, over the same trail we had come and with about the same experiences as we had on the way down there. I remained in Kansas till the fall of 1879, then I migrated to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and spent some time around Van Buren. After this I became associated with law enforcement. I saw nine men hung until dead. Most of them were Negroes and also, I saw two men shot. One Negro was whipped fifty lashes at the whipping post for stealing cattle. The officers at that time were called the horsemen. In other words they had horsemen instead of Sheriffs so in these punishments the horsemen did the whippings, or shooting.

The law provided punishment as follows for stealing cattle, or any live stock. First conviction twenty-five lashes, second, fifty, and third one hundred lashes. These whippings were a lot more punishment that jail sentence. I had much rather witness a man hung than to see him whipped. When a man was whipped the end of the whip usually wrapped around his body and the blood would spurt out for several feet from the victim. He nearly always faints after each lick.

I made many a trip with United States Marshal, George Scruggs into the deep mountainous country of Arkansas. We went after murderers and bootleggers, and also into the Indian Territory for bad men or every kind.

The United States Marshal was allowed to pay his posse, three dollars per day and was allowed to take along one guard, and to pay him a dollar and a half per day.

I remember making a trip into the Indian Territory on one occasion, while I was a Marshal, and arresting eight white men for murder, cattle stealing and whiskey running. I also arrested one Indian girl who was implicated in helping these men in the whiskey business some way. He would start in arresting these fellows and chaining them together. We put them on horses when traveling. We would sometimes be a week catching the last man; and during all this time, we had trouble holding our prisoners and keeping them from getting away, and also providing sleeping quarters and feeding them.

I also remember the time we went after the meanest woman outlaw known at that time, Belle Starr. We left Fort Smith several times bent on catching her; but because of the perfect spy system among those Indian friends of hers we would get there just a few minutes too late to see her. Belle Starr only needed three minutes notice to get away, as she was as good a horseback rider as any man.

After several attempts we again felt lucky. This time we had with us two of the shrewdest United States Marshals of that time, Charley Barnhill and Tine Hughes [probably Tyner Hughes]. We again crossed the Arkansas River on a wooden ferry and went into the hills of he Indian domain. We rode straight to a point about three miles south of where Salisaw is now located, to what was then Doctor Fleetwood’s place.

That night we stayed all night and left next morning for a point now known as Whitefield. There we hired a spy, a white man whose name I can’t recall, and the spy left us in camp near the store called Whitefield and he slipped by night to a hollow called the Starr Bend. This was five miles away, and he crawled to the house where she often stopped. He brought us word just before daylight that Belle Starr’s noted spotted pony with saddle on was tied to the front porch, ready for a dash at any moment. We slipped down there before daylight and surprised her and got her that time. The white man spy disappeared from that country after that but we got away quickly with that woman. As we got right in the middle of a creek the next day, three or four fellows rose up from behind some brush on the bank and began shooting at us. The bullets were singing near our heads. I believe they were intending to kill us but save the horses. Just as we began poking our Winchester into the brush, Belle Starr said, "Let me stop them and you men quit shooting. If you don’t my boys will kill you fellows." We told her ‘All right, stop them" quickly and she screamed out something, I don’t know what she said, while she held up her h ands and even after they quit shooting she kept talking to them. She seemed to be giving them orders or arguing with them, I don’t know which. Anyhow she then told us, "Well lets go now." We went ahead and those men ran off on their ponies down the creek.

The oddest thing was when we got down to Fort Smith and the guards searched Belle before pushing her into the jail. They found a great big hog leg in her clothes. Yes, a great big forty-five colt, with a full round of cartridges in it. You should have heard those other Marshals and guards laugh at us.

On another occasion when we were returning to Fort Smith with prisoners we stopped to camp somewhere about where Salisaw is now, of course there was no Salisaw then. We had a full blood Cherokee who was charged with selling whiskey. His name was Sebern. All of us men left the camp for just a few minutes to walk around. We left only on Marshal to supervise the stretching up of our tent, and we left the Indian to help him drive the stakes down. We had an axe to drive the stakes with. Sebern watched, and as he saw his chance he split Mr. Phillips wide open and made a dive for the brush. He got away, but one of the greatest manhunts ever carried on began. This Indian was finally killed in a battle sometime afterward.

About 1882, I quit working as a United States Marshal and immediately began peddling with a especially built wagon. It had a double decked body on it. I went into the Indian Territory making regular trips every two weeks. I hired a full-blood Cherokee Interpreter by the name of Christie. His parents lived near what was known as Wauhillau, Indian Territory. I remember he was some relative of that famous Cherokee outlaw, Ned Christie. Christie was fighting the United States Government along about that time, or not very long after that.

I sold all kinds of notions such as buttons, combs, dress patterns, beads, perfumes, cartridges, and every other notion I could sell, or rather trade to the Indians. I exchanged this stuff for venison, pork, deer hides, and furs of all kinds. I got a great deal of money besides these other things. My route was from Ft. Smith to the Cookson Mountain, now known as the Cookson Hills, and back to Ft. Smith. I really made money on these trips besides buying those hides and dried venison, and dried pork.

I made these trips for about five years before I quit. During these five years I made fast friends with the Cherokee Indians, and many outlaws, such as Dick Anderson, and many other like him. I remember I met Dick Anderson on night near Old Dwight Mission and he stopped and visited with me for a long time. He bought a red flannel shirt from me before he left. He told me he never had felt like he did wrong for killing that first white man. He said that white men beat him almost to death with a big quart bottle and he didn’t have a thing to protect himself with. The next day he met the white man in the middle of the road and he thought be just shot better than the white man because the man was trying to shoot him. Now the Marshal wanted to take him to Fort Smith to hand and he wasn’t going to be hung if he could help it. I remember later on another Indian by the name of Hooley Sanders got him drunk and emptied his gun and then turned him in to the Marshal, so they got him. He was hung at Fort Smith but I never did believe that Indian received justice. I remember that Dwight Mission Indian School was already established about three miles south of what is now Marble City. I used to unload a lot of my meat at that school. I sold it to them for a good profit, but they were glad to get the meat for the school. After this five years of peddling among the Cherokees who had already convinced me they were the finest people in the world to deal with, I left Ft. Smith for the prairie country. My next stop was at Tecumseh, Oklahoma. After almost a year I came back to what is now Shawnee, Oklahoma, just as the first railroad was built through that country. I was give free of charge a fine lot sixty feet by one hundred forty feet to get as to move to this new spot. They wanted to start a little town provided they could get enough people to come there. That was in the spring of 1893s as I remember it today. Here I stayed for twenty-one years. After the twenty-one years, I have just rambled from place to place stopping for a short time at each place until I reached here. I have been here in Tahlequah for five years and expect to stay here. I am now eight-five years of age and feel pretty good most of the time. I can still enjoy eating a good beefsteak.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Catherine Widener <catz@kcisp.net>  March 2002.