Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 26, 1937
Name: W. A. Welch
Post Office: Shady Point, Oklahoma
Residence Address: Same
Date of Birth: August 11, 1866
Place of Birth: Van Zandt County, Texas
Father: David R. Welch
Place of Birth: Ireland
Information on father:
Mother: Sarah E. Welch
Place of Birth: Texas
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Gomer Gover
W. A. Welch was born in Van
Zandt County, Texas, on August 11, 1866 and came to Indian
Territory with his parents when he was two years of age. The
family settled at the old Brazil Stage Station, in what is now
LeFlore County, where his father engaged in a general
merchandising business.
He attended school only
eight months in all his life.
As a youth he assisted his
father in his store. This gave him an excellent opportunity to
study the Indian character, as the principal part of their trade
was with the Indians.
Like all others who had
occasion to have business dealings with the Indians, Mr. Welch
says of them that when once their word is given they feel honor
bound to carry out the terms of any trust bestowed upon them:
the spoken word being as binding as the most expertly drawn
legal document.
He recalls that on one
occasion, an Indian whose name was Douge LEFLORE had an unpaid
account at the store of something over eight hundred dollars
which he finally paid to the last penny.
In that period embracing the
late seventies and the eighteen eighties, Mr. Welch relates that
the Stage Station (Brazil) was on the Fort Smith and String Town
Road and that during the terms of the Federal Court at Fort
Smith vast numbers of people from the interior of the Choctaw
Nation would travel this route, and that it was a favorite
camping ground for travelers as well as being a point where
provisions could be bought. He has seen as many as two hundred
people assembled there, some going and some coming.
There being no railroad
accommodation available all federal prisoners from the interior
would be brought overland through this point by the Federal
officers and, as may well be imagined, many notorious characters
who were on their way to Fort Smith would be chained together
and securely locked to a tree under which blankets would be
spread for beds, where under the watchful eyes of the officers,
they would spend the night. Hacks were used for the conveyance
of prisoners and when the conveyances were found to be
inadequate to accommodate all the prisoners which had been
captured, the surplus number would be chained to the rear of the
hack and forced to walk, sometimes there being long strings of
such surplus prisoners.
All feared the sort of
justice meted out by the famous Judge Parker. Sometimes,
however, the dignified court of Judge Parker would be outwitted,
as is illustrated in the outcome of a charge of murder which had
been lodged against one Captain REYNOLDS, a very close friend of
Green MCCURTAIN and of Mr. Welch's father. Captain Reynolds had
been incarcerated at Fort Smith awaiting trial for the crime.
Green McCurtain and the elder Mr. Welch secured his release from
prison through habeas corpus proceedings, after which a trial
before the Choctaw District, presided over by Judge Noel HOLSON,
at the old District Court House near the present village of
Summerfield, was speedily arranged, which ended in the acquittal
of Captain Reynolds, and having once been placed in jeopardy he
could not again be tried for the same offense. All of which
tends to show that law was more a matter of expediency than the
administration of justice.
An old council house had
once been established at a point about two miles southwest of
the Stage Station, but accounts of the activities into which it
entered are not remembered beyond the fact that it served as a
council house at some remote period and later was converted into
a dwelling house.
It is related that about
1875, a white man whose name was RUNNELL, came with his family
from the state of Iowa and occupied the old building. In the
family were two daughters who were noted in the community for
their beauty. Several Negro families lived in the community
then, as they do today. There being but few young white men, the
daughters took up with the Negroes, one of them living with a
Negro, the other committed suicide at the home of Mobile BOYD
because his mother, a Negro woman, objected to her son, Mobile,
keeping her as his wife.
The Welches, both father and
son, had ever been close friends of Green McCurtain and had
supported him in all his undertakings and it was with great
consternation that the younger Mr. Welch received an eight-page
letter from McCurtain in which he complained in no uncertain
terms that it had come to his ears that he, W. A. Welch, while
avowing true friendship, had at the same time acted
traitorously. A like letter was sent to Captain E. J. Reynolds.
This occurred soon after Mr. Welch had moved from the Brazil
Stage Station to the city of Poteau and after the
Jones-Locke-Jackson campaign, probably in 1893.
The brothers, Adam and Noel
JAMES, Choctaws, were particular friends of both McCurtain and
Welch. They had done all their trading at the Welch store at the
Stage Station and upon its removal to Poteau continued to trade
at the store. The two brothers went to Poteau with their wagon
to get a bill of goods from the store. It was their custom to
spend the night at the store on these occasions as the distance
was too great to make the round trip from their homes in one
day. Mr. Welch apprised the brothers of the receipt and the
contents of the letter from McCurtain. On the following morning
when Mr. Welch supposed the brothers would be getting ready to
return to their homes with the goods which they had purchased,
neither of them could be found. Mr. Welch could not imagine
where they had gone without the goods. To his delight they drove
in late at night after making a trip of more than fifty miles to
Sans Bois, where McCurtain lived at that time, where they had
gone for the sole purpose of defending their friend, Mr. Welch,
against all false accusations which had been the cause of the
charge of unfaithfulness by Green McCurtain. The assurance of
these two faithful friends that the rumor which had inspired the
writing of the letters was groundless and had been circulated
with the hope of causing disaffection in the ranks of the
progressive element of which McCurtain was the leader was
sufficient to fully restore the close friendship which had been
so nearly destroyed through the circulation of a false rumor.
Mr. Welch kept this letter for a number of years but it was
destroyed in a fire which at the same time consumed his home.
The particular complaint made was that an organization was being
formed at that time for the purpose of bringing about the death
of McCurtain because of his activity in the contest for the
office of Principal Chief, which had just closed, and that Mr.
Welch and Captain E. J. Reynolds were members of that
organization.
After spending several years
in the mercantile business at Poteau, he moved his business to
Shady Point, where he still conducts it.
W. A. Welch is a
half-brother to Robert Anderson Welch.
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