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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 11, 1937
Name: John A.M. Impson
Post Office: Durant, Oklahoma
Residence: 304 North 4th
Date of Birth: March 22, 1876
Place of Birth: Indian Territory
Father: Middleton Impson
Place of Birth: Oklahoma
Information on father: Choctaw
Mother: Mary Pese
Place of birth: Oklahoma
Information on mother: White
Field Worker: Lula Austin
 
John A.M. Impson, Choctaw was born March 22, 1876, near Bokchito on Impson Prairie. He received his education in the subscription schools of the neighborhood.

One of his pleasant chores as a young boy was to ride twice a week for the mail. He would go horseback but it was not often that he had the pleasure of taking home a letter as in those day as they did not correspond very often with their relatives and friends, a letter usually was business.

Some of the logs of our old home near Bennington are still on the site where the house was and the well is still there. I remember we dug three wells before we found water and finally we called in Daave GARDNER, an old negro slave, who was called a water witch and with a stick he located what provided to be a good well at twenty five feet.

We did our trading at Caddo, and when the Indians received their large paycheck in 1895(?) the robbers were so bad in the Caddo Hills that my father left the money which was fifteen hundred dollars with Mr. AINSWORTH. In a few days he sent me horseback for it, as I was a young boy he said the robbers would not think about my having money. Lodie HALL had gathered his cattle up, eighteen hundred in all, and had them in a pen ready to ship. Someone he supposed who was angry with him because the cattle had been getting in their crops frightened the cattle and caused them to stampede. I was only 10 years old and I will never forget the rattle of horns and hoof and the bellowing of the cattle as they came within about fifty yards of our house. My father was also frightened; he said if the leader started in the direction of the house they would all follow and we might be killed. They passed north of where Bokchito is now and stopped when they reached the bottom. He was several weeks gathering them up. Many long horns were torn from the heads of the steers.

When a little girl, Mrs. Impson lived in Caddo Hills. There was a little creek near the house where she and her little sisters played and gathered button willow. One Sunday while her parents had gone to church, she and her three sisters, ages five, eleven and eight, she being only three, were wading in the creek and gathering button willow, when a snake bit her eight year old sister. The closest house was one fourth mile but she and her five year old sister ran all the way there and brought Mr. And Mrs. ARRINGTON back with them. They brought liniment and applied it to the wound. My eleven year old sister was bathing the wound with water when we returned. It was a poisonous snake but she suffered no ill effects.

Submitted by Rusty Lang <Rlang90547@aol.com>, great great grandniece of Morris Impson 12-1999.