Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: April 19, 1938
Name: Mrs. Dan A. Bain
Post Office: Newkirk, Oklahoma
Residence Address: same
Date of Birth: September 26, 1862
Place of Birth: Indiana
Father: Christian Hostetler
Place of Birth: Pennsylvania
Information on father:
Mother: Amy Inbody Hostetler
Place of birth: Indiana
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Robert W. Small

I was born September 26, 1862, in the State of Indiana, the daughter of Christian Hostetler, of the State of Pennsylvania, and Amy Inbody Hostetler, of Indiana. I was married to Dan A. Bain, the son of John Bain and also Rebecca Stuart Bain, of Iowa, on May 11th, 1880, at Eldorado, Kansas.

In the opening of the Cherokee Strip my husband, Dan A. Bain, made the Run and secured a quarter section of land about twelve miles northeast of Ponca Ciy. My husband built a little shack about 14 x 16 feet, of boxed lumber and the cracks stripped with 1 x 4 inch strips of lumber. We moved into this little house on the twelfth day of December, 1893. I had fifty-eight yards of new rag carpet and we used that to put up around the walls on the inside of the house to make it more comfortable in the wintertime; we also sewed sheets together and tacked up to the joists as a ceiling for the house.

There were about ninety acres of the claim that were heavily timbered, as our claim was on the Arkansas River bottom mostly, and very heavy timber grew on most of it very thickly. My husband got a man to move a sawmill down to the claim and saw up the timeber into lumber, giving half the lumber to get it sawed up and a great quantity of lumber was secured from the timber on this land. Mr. Bain built a small barn and shed for stock. We had four head of horses which we hitched to a wagon with an overjet on it when we moved to the claim and thus we brought along with us household equipment which consisted of two bedsteads, an old cook stove, an old couch, some dishes and cooking vessels, a few stool chairs and a rough looking dining table. We used dry goods boxes for a cupboard and for a bureau, and used newspapers for window curtains. We brought about a dozen chickens and our four horse team. After we got settled on the new claim we got two cows, and an old cat came to our place from somewhere and we named him Benjamin Harrison.

Mr. Bain broke out about thirty or forty acres of land that was most all prairie and put into corn and feed crops which made a little but not a good crop. After the first year he rented land to farm outside of his own land. The most of his land was so heavily timbered that it took several years to get it all cleared up.

Mr. Bain raised mostly corn on his land for it was good corn land and he made as high as ninety bushels to the acre when the seasons were favorable. He also got a start of hogs and raised lots of hogs to eat his corn and he did well with that combination; a few years after we took the claim he bought an additional eighty acres of land adjoining his claim. We raised lots of sweet and Irish potatoes on our land most of the years.

In 1900 Mr. Bain was elected to the office of Sheriff of Kay County and we moved from the farm to Newkirk, the county seat; in 1908 he was re-elected for a second term as sheriff. After that term expired he went into the livery business which was a thriving business at that time; he had as many as eighteen drivers of livery rigs at one time in his employ.

In 1910, he sold out the livery business and bought a farm one-half miles west of Uncas and we lived there until 1918, when Mr. Bain was appointed to fill out an unexpired term in the office of sheriff, and we moved back to Newkirk again, and he was elected for two more terms as sheriff, after which he went into the automobile and the real estate business. He bought and built seventeen residence buildings in the town of Newkirk. 

In 1927, he sold out the automobile buiness and moved to Guthrie and ran a meat market for six months when he sold it out and came back to Newkirk and engaged in the automobile business again with a Mr. Wynn, stayed in that business until 1930, when he took pneumonia fever and never reagined health sufficient to enable him to work.

We have raised four of our own children and in addition took a neighbor's little boy at the age of six years and kept him till he reach manhood, giving him a good education and a moral training that has produced a very splendid man of him. We also kept two girls for a number of years and another boy for several years, just becauase we felt we could be of benefit to them by taking care of them and giving them the advantage of a good schooling which they otherwise might not have had.

I have in my possession an old demi-john of solid silver, which is about 150 years old and was handed down from my great grandmother. I have a small rocking chair that I rocked all my babies in and it is still in a good state of preservation; I have a cabinet of drawers that was in Oskaloosa, Iowa, over seventy years ago. It is of solid Walnut and was made for some of the ancestors in the Bain family. This cabinet has five large drawers and it stands about fifty-four inches high and is about forty inches wide. In addition to these antique pieces I have two solid gold goblets of a more modern age. They were presented to my husband and me by wealthy friends, they said in recognition of the exemplary lives we led and the many deeds of kindness shown to every one with whom we came in contact.

I live in a two story stone residence of twelve rooms and spend most of my time trying to make people happier and the world better.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Rochelle, September 2001.