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A B C D E F G H I J K L M Mc N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June 22, 1937
Name: Thomas Gritts
Post Office: P.O. Box: Tahlequah, Ok. Rt. 1
Residence Address: P.O. Box: Tahlequah, Ok. Rt. 1
Place of Birth: Born in 1860, one mile east of Siloam, Springs, Arkansas
Father: Lole Gritts
Place of Birth: Georgia
Information on father: Full Blood Cherokee
Mother: Quakie (Zia-Li-Yu-Guh) Gritts
Place of birth: Georgia
Information on mother: Full Blood Cherokee
Field Worker: Wylie Thornton
Interview #: 6383

Thomas Gritts was born in 1860, one mile east of Siloam, Springs, Arkansas. His farther, Lole Gritts, and mother, Quakie Gritts, were born in Georgia and came to this place, east of Siloam Springs and settled and lived there until their deaths.

My father joined the army on the Union date at the start of the Civil War. I remember I was told that a man names Captain Fisher in the Union Army came by one morning and told my father he had to go and he got ready and went away. Mother said it was hard for him to leave on account of her and me and said he would not have hated it so badly if my older brother, "Harnett", cold be allowed to remain at home to look after us, but Captain Fisher forced brother Harnett to go along also.

I never saw my brother and father but once after that day and that was about a year after they went away. One day a man came and told us brother Harnett was killed and was buried on the battle-field, away north somewhere; and later we were told my father was wounded seriously and died in a few days, and had been buried.

My mother died when I was about seven or eight years of age and that left me without a home.

After my mother's death the neighbors came and got me and seemed to love and care for me the very best they could, but our old home place went down to nothing.

School

The nearest school I can remember was located, I was told, ten miles west of Siloam Springs and that school was opened after I was about ten years old. I didn't was to go to school to that white woman teacher because I was told she whipped the other Indian children awfully hard. But I believe if I had had someone who cared enough about me to have persuaded me, I might have gone to school.

Church

I don't remember anything about church until I was about fifteen years of age. There was a Baptist church located near what is now called Terisita, ten or twelve miles north or Tahlequah and I do remember there were about three Indian preachers coming there at different times and it seems like one was named Joe Rust and one was something like Jenup Big. They tried awfully hard to get me to join their church. They said all I had to do was quit being mean and that's why I didn't join, because I believe God above (raised his hand upward) has been with me and look after this old Indian in every way.

Medicine

I never have had a single enemy among the Cherokees or whites either and I have never taken a single dose of medicine of any kind.


Mother used a lot of different kinds of roots when she was sick but I am sure it was God's will for her to go end that's why the medicine didn't do any good. I believe in Indian herb doctors.

Clothing

The Indians made their clothing, spun the thread on looms and knitted the cloth, and I remember we had a good many sheep to furnish our wool but along later we began to see clothing in the few stores in Siloam Springs.

Stores

I remember about three stores in Siloam Springs back when I was about seven or eight years old, and they were run by white men. I remember, too, we usually sold them a calf or hides for things we wanted at the stores, and I started to chewing tobacco about that time. I began chewing because it made me feel big, but later on after I was about fifteen years old I quit chewing and began smoking.

Mr. Gritts at this point brought a very old pipe out of his hip pocket and said he had had it for a long time, so long he didn't know where he got it.

After I was about fifteen years of age I began to roam around because I was very much dissatisfied, and I believe, too, it was because the Civil War had taken my father and brother, and my mother was also gone. I felt like if I could get away from the scenes of my hardships and losses. I felt I must get away from these horrid scenes of killed men and the memory of starvation whit it was common not to have breed for two or three days at a time. I got my bread from the government bread man who came in a two horse wagon loaded with sacks of crackers. These crackers were our bread supply and looked just about like the crackers or nowadays, but not so white. They were little yellow like cakes, and we would get about two sacks full at a time.

Food

I never know anything about flour or biscuits until about thirty or forty years of age, but we had corn bread made of corn pounded in to meal in mortars or a hold in a long or stump. For meat we had deer, squirrel, turkey, quail, and wild hog. We killed this wild game with flint lock rifles; and a little later on we learned to buy coffee and whiskey, that I drank a little of when I felt weak or tired.

I decided to go to Tahlequah about this time and walked a trail and part of the time it was wide enough for a wagon. It wound around from Siloam toward what is now Kansas and Iowies's Prarie, and down by where Teresita is now located, coming into Tahlequah right through the grounds where the Teacher's college now is located.

A man named Deniz Hendrix lived right where those school buildings are located now. We Cherokees called him Denis Hendrix. He had a boy we called Jim Wagoner.

Finally I reached Tahlequah the second day and I fooled around town and I got in with a Cherokee named Ketcher Tehee. I don't think he was any kind to Houston Tehee though. He seemed to like me and I worked for him about four years.

Stores in Tahlequah

I can remember only the names of three storekeepers in Tahlequah at that time and they were Henry Woods, Johnson Thompson, and Bob French. They usually had saddles, harness, wire fencing, guns, cartridges, horse shoes, wagons and meal and flour in the later years.

Cattle Buyers

I remember some of the cattlemen were Tom French, Tom Finley and Mock Mayes, and others whose names I can't recall. We didn't know anything about dehorned cattle at that time.

Marriage

About this time I was about nineteen or twenty years of age and I came out on this creek and there was a man by the name of Eagle Brown ( who was married to Peggy Downing ) who lived right down there below the Grease Spring, right where that graveyard is down there. He had a daughter by the name of Agnes Jane Brown whom I later married and by her I have the following children: Levi, John, Burn, Steve, Thomas Jr., and Sam, Maggie, Sharlett, Lillie, and Lizzie.

All but the youngest, Sam, had allotments. I want the Indian Agency to give me permission to deed this place here, the old home place, to Sam, who did not receive an allotment. There are eighty acres in this homestead. I have about ninety acres in cultivation and I have a fair crop of wheat this year on all of it. I figured wheat would be the surest crop this year, and the boys are cutting it now with a binder.

My wife was an educated Indian and taught school several years after our marriage and I had to take care of the children while she taught school.

My father in law, Eagle, started the burial grounds down there. He had a son by the name of Feather (John) who died from a fever at the age of about thirty and this boy is buried there. Tom Greece of welling can tell you more about that Graveyard then anyone in this country.

I didn't favor statehood and I still say it was a bad thing for the Cherokees. First, the white man brought in Fox and scattered our game with his dogs and he bought up our land too cheap, because we didn't know the real value of our homes and the value or our freedom.

When asked what he meant byt he dogs brought here by the white men, Mr. Gritts said that white man brought into the Indian country the first dogs; that the first hound he ever saw was down there in Tahlequah. He remembers how people stood around and gazed at its great long ears.

My wife, Agnes, died in May 1932, and is buried down here in this Double Springs burial ground.

[Submitter's note: This was a story of my Great Great Grandfather Thomas Gritts; I am  35/128 Degree of Indian blood, I have Indian Blood on both sides of my family.  Thomas was on my father's side.
Dawes Final Rolls, Page 467
25354 392 Gritts Thomas 42 M Full 6871 Cherokees by Blood]

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Jarrod Nathan Brock, blueyedindian77@msn.com April 2003