I, James Robert Barnes was born at or near
the place now Hartfort, Arkansas, May 14, 1849. My father’s name was Joseph
BARNES, a farmer and a Baptist preacher; my mother’s name was Nancy GOFORTH.
They both were born in the State of Missouri, but I do not know the name of
the place where they were born.
There was one full sister named Mary Jane
Barnes, born Dec. 10th, 1831, and a full brother, William T.
Barnes, born September 30, 1854. My mother died and my father married again.
Nancy Goforth, my mother, died when I was about four or five years old. She is
buried East of Old Hartfort, about one mile.
My father married again two or three years
after my mother died. The name of his second wife was Sarah Elizabeth TUCKER.
She died in 1915 and is buried at Summerfield, Oklahoma.
I first went to school in 1855. The school
building was a hewed log house; there was no window glass in the windows, just
wooden shutters. This was where Old Hartfort was. It was a subscription
School, One Dollar a month, and the term lasted three months. The teacher’s
name was Columbus GODARD.
We had to move, in the latter part of 1862
on the account of Indian raids taking all the stock and grain, even the
blankets out of the house. These Indians were Choctaws from the Indian
Territory. We left Old Hartfort and went about twenty-five miles North-West of
Springfield Mo. to a place called Turn-back Creek.
My father belonged to the Federal Army as
Private, 2nd Arkansas Calvary, Co. C.
We traded at Springfield. We lived at
Turnback Creek until 1866 when the War was over, then we got ready to come
back home to Old Hartford. While in Missouri, we made a crop with steers, 10
acres of corn. After the corn got up pretty well, I plowed it with just one
steer, as the yoke broke it down. When we got ready to leave, we had two
wagons, one loaded with shelled corn, about 20 bushel, and they pulled this
with the steers. The other had in it what few belongings we had. We had a team
of horses hooked to this. It took two or three weeks to make trip to Hartfort.
My Father said, "Now we have got to
go to work, clear up some land and make a crop." We cleared about 12
acres and planted it in corn. We ran out of anything to make bread of about
the time the corn was up and was able to cultivate it, so Dad hooked up the
team of horses and went back some place in Missouri and got another load of
corn, about twenty bushel. That lasted us until the corn we had planted could
be used. Dad said, "Well we need a cow, and I have two six shooters to
trade." He went down to this side of Red River into an Indian Settlement
and traded his two six shooters for five cows. This was in 1866. We lived in
Mississippi Township. Sebastian County, and Greenwood was the County Seat,. We
lived here at Old Hartfort until we moved to Salt Lake Prairie, close to
Kullychaha.
We leased land from Bill PAGE, a
full-blood Choctaw Indian. We agreed to build a house, clear the land, dig a
well, and fence with a rail fence for payment of the fee for the lease.
In the early Spring a person could go out
and see the deer eating the tender grass on the edge of the prairie, also lots
of turkey. If a person wanted a Squirrel just take the gun and go out in the
timber and stand around a little bit and shoot one and take it up to the house
and have it fixed for breakfast. We lived easy then. When we lived here at
Salt Lake Prairie, we traded at Ft. Smith.
I traded with Uncle Ed MCKENNEY, General Merchandise, and also with BEKE and
RUTSEL, General Merchandise, (Not sure of spelling of names). We drove oxen 33
miles to Ft. Smith, it took us one and one-half days to get there. We bought
supplies for two or three months at a time. Green coffee cost 7 cents or 8
cents a lb. We could get 26 or 30 lbs. at a time. There was no such thing as
white sugar then. Brown sugar was all we had-it was very cheap, but I don’t
remember the price of it. You bought your supplies at a General Merchandise
store not at a Grocery Store, because the only thing sold in Grocery stores
then was Whiskey and some Lager Beer. For the best brand of Whiskey was $1.00,
Wild Cat Whiskey .50 cents a gallon.
I married Fanny ANDERSON in 1870. She
lived one-half mile East of Pleasant Valley Cemetery, North of Sugar Loaf Mt.
We had eleven children whose names are as follows:
James T. Barnes Dead Born 10 mi. Hartfort,
Ark.
Nancy Ellen Barnes Dead Born Salt Lake Prairie
Dora B. Barnes Dead Born Salt Lake Prairie
Della Wilson Barnes Living Born Salt Lake Prairie
Y.A. Barnes Living in Poteau, Born in Gilmore
Joseph Milburn Barnes Living Born in Gilmore
Suse Barnes Dead Born in Gilmore
Mary Barnes Dead Born in Gilmore
Ida Barnes Dead Born in Gilmore
Ada Barnes Dead Born in Gilmore
Pear Vest Barnes Living in Poteau, Born in Gilmore
The mother of my children, Fanny Anderson,
was born in Missouri in 1853, and came to a farm south of Hacket City in 1863.
She went to her first school at Pleasant Valley in 1865, Her first teacher was
a Choctaw Indian woman, and the next was John CLARK. The school house was a
log cabin type. It had split log seats with the round part turned down, holes
bored in it and legs drove in the holes. We also wrote with slate pencils and
slates. We had Webster's Blue-back Spelling Book.
MEMORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR
There were four leaders whom I remember, Chili MCINTOSH, maybe a Cherokee
Indian, Jack MCCURTAIN, Choctaw, Stan WATIE and COOPER, a White man, all Rebel
leaders. I think the Chief Commander over the army of the territory was named
Barnes.
When Father lived in Sugar Loaf Valley, he
lived close to a fellow named Cunningham CRAWFORD, who ran a steam saw mill
about one and one-half miles North of Old Hartford, Arkansas. He also had
negro slaves. The Federals were coming one day, so a bunch of Rebels got their
Cap and Ball Muzzle Loaders and met them at Oak Hill. They defeated the
Federals, then in about two weeks the southerners came back home. Crawford was
creased in the middle of the forehead about the hairline; he got well though.
After that Crawford changed his tune and decided to go North, so he left.
"They shot him into the Union."
Six hundred Federals were camped on Mazard
Prairie about 14 miles south of Ft. Smith. I was about 14 or 15 years old and
small for my age. I was to see my Uncle John Barnes, who lived there. My Uncle
John and some more fellows whose names I remember were Tom JOHNSON, Jonathan
GLENN, I just can’t remember any of their other names, but anyway, they were
hiding out in the timber and hills from the Rebels, and would slip into the
house to get something to eat. One morning, they slipped into the house and my
aunt Polly fixed them some breakfast-this was just about daylight. They told
me to go out on the porch and watch and see if I could see any one, and if I
seen anyone, to come in and tell them. While they were getting breakfast, I
saw a string of Rebels coming down the hill on the North side of the field. I
ran to My Uncle and said, "I see a bunch of Rebels coming yonder."
The men made a break for the brush. Jonathan Glenn ran up the road to the West
to cut into the brush and, as he did not see some of the Rebels, they got him.
The others got away.
They brought him on down to the house,
then went on down to Flem JOHNSON’s house about 200 yards from Uncle John’s
house. Flem had the pneumonia and was expected by everyone to die. Rebels
carried Flem out of his bed in the house and set him up against a tree and
shot him to death. This was a part of Jack McCurtain’s Choctaw Army
(Rebels), about 1500 in number.
Jack McCurtain was a brother to Greene and
Ed McCurtain. The rebels came to where the Federals were camped, at about
daylight. I heard a shot, while I stood on the front porch., then a steady
fire. The Federals were in bed, they came out in their night clothes, with
their guns. The Rebels killed lots of Federals. I do not know how many and
lots of Rebels were killed, too. There was about 45 minutes of fighting there.
Across the Prairie there were more Federals camped, they had the Artillery.
They heard the firing and just as soon as they could get their big guns hooked
up, came running. The Rebels had all gone but had to leave in such a hurry
that they had to leave their dead at the Federal camp.
I went down there after the battle was
over. Some of the Federals with the Artillery came while I was there at the
scene of the battle. Some of the Federals with the artillery were Cherokee
Indians, the White soldiers called the Cherokees, "Pin Indians," I
do not know why they called them that, though. The Pin Indian cut a patch of
scalp about the size of the palm of their hand off of the top of the dead
Rebels head, taking the scalp with them.
After scalping the Rebels, the Federals
dug a ditch wide enough to hold a man and about three feet deep and made ready
to bury the Rebels. They took the Federal dead somewhere back North to bury
them. The Rebels had home made wool felt hats. The Federals took these hats
and dipped them in the water and put them on a post or stake and stretched the
crowns to three or four feet in height, then they took the hats and placed
them over the dead Rebels’s faces that were lined up in the ditch and filled
the ditch up with dirt. The tips of the crowns of the hats could be seen after
the ditch was filled. The object of the hats was to keep the dirt out of their
faces. The bodies were wrapt (sic) in blankets. This was at "Mazard
Prairie." The Federals went back to Ft. Smith a short time later to
blockade the town to keep the Rebels out. The General’s name was, I think,
Thayer, of the Federal Army at Ft. Smith.
I remember Federal Judge Parker, he was in
charge of crimes committed in the Indian Territory, between Indians and
Whites. By this I mean, if an Indian killed a White or a White killed an
Indian it came up before Judge Parker, but if one Indian killed another Indian
it was up to the Tribal law. Every one dreaded to be brought up before this
old Judge Parker, because he was very severe with offenders.
The old Iron Posts on the Arkansas and
Indian Territory line were put in to settle an argument over how far East the
I.T. [Indian Territory] land went. West of Old Hartford was a Grocery store
(Grog Store), this store was about 2 or 3 miles from Old Hartford and the
Arkansas, and I. T. Line ran about 20 feet on the West side of the building.
An old man owned it, named George FOSTER. One night in 1861, a bunch of
Choctaws from Indian Territory, came over to this Grocery Store and got drunk
and got to fighting. One Indian, whose name was Pack SWEENEY cut another
Indian’s throat and killed him. (his name was CUMBY). The bunch, after the
throat cutting, left to go back to the Indian Territory. They left the dead
Cumby with his jugular vein cut, on the front porch of the Grocery store. I
saw him the next morning when I went down there. The I.T. law could not bother
Sweeney because he killed this other Indian in Arkansas and not in the I. T.
after the killing. So the Ark. Officers just waited till Sweeney came back
into Arkansas. Not long after the killing Sweeney came across the line into
Arkansas and they got him. They brought him past our house, when they got him.
They were taking him to Greenwood, as this was the county seat. There they
sentenced him to the penitentiary. He was turned loose later to join the Rebel
Army.
I, James Robert Barnes, and my Father,
Joseph Barnes, were Charter Members of the Masonic Lodge, called Moshulatubby
Lodge No. 13, about one and one-half miles north-west of Kullychaha. Martin
James, a Choctaw, was also a charter member.
Joseph Barnes , Father Born 1829
Sarah Elizabeth (Tucker) Barnes (second Wife) born, 1839
Joseph Barnes Father Died Sept. 13, 1895
(Joseph Barnes' children by Nancy Goforth.)
James R. V Barnes born May 14, 1849
Mary Jane Barnes born Dec. 10, 1851
William T. Barnes born Sept. 30, 1854
(Joseph Barnes' children by Sarah Elizabeth Tucker.)
Nancy E. Barnes born May 22, 1861
Josephine Barnes born July 21, 1863
Patience Barnes born Dec. 25, 1865
Edward Z. Barnes born May 23, 1868
John C. Barnes born Nov. 25, 1870
Lewis M. Barnes born Jan. 18, 1872
Daniel N. Barnes born July 1, 1876
(Son of James Robert Barnes by Fanny Anderson)
John A. Barnes born June 8, 1892
James T. Barnes born Oct. 28, 1870
This record I, Marvin ROWLEY, copied out
of an old Bible. The Bible belonged to Joseph Barnes when he used to preach.
The name of it is "The Peerless Edition of the Parallel Bible." It
was by the Historical Publishing Co., St. Louis Missouri, Philadelphia Pa.,
San Francisco Cal., Cost $25.00 with reduction to Preachers. I, James Robert
Barnes stayed about four or five years at Salt Lake Prairie after moving from
Old Hartford, then moved on Nail creek buying a lease on a place from a man
named DOBBS. Stayed there about two years, and sold the lease to Isaac NAPAIR.
Moved to a place one mile NW of Gilmore on Gap creek, and bought a lease for
$300.00, from John MILLS. This land was partly improved when I got it. It
belonged to John DURANT, a full-blood Choctaw Indian. I then sold the lease to
Bill PAGE, a Choctaw Indian. I stayed here till Statehood.
About 1909, I was Postmaster at Gilmore,
Okla. I held this job and ran a Grocery store together for about 12 years.
Went out of business and stayed there a little while and in 1932 came to
Poteau and have lived here since.
I, Mrs. James R. Barnes, used to spin and
wove jeans, counter-panes, coverlids for beds, lintsey, cotton cloth, cloth to
make underclothes, knit gloves, stockings, socks, and suspenders. We always
cooked on a Fireplace, as we had no stove. We cooked with skillet and lids and
pots made of potmetal. We dried beef on scaffold or by a fire. We also dried
peaches, apples, grapes, black-berries, and jerked venison.
DYE
Take the inner bark of Blackjack tree, boil up about four or five gallons,
take out bark when boiled good. Put in two or three table spoonfuls of Copper
as while hot, boil for a few minutes and then put in clothes. Makes a dark
Purple color.
Walnut bark used as above makes a brown
color. Red Oak used as above makes a purple. Indigo weeds boil and put madder
about 10 tablespoons full in four or five gallons of solution. Dye when hot,
makes a Pale Blue color.
Polecat weeds boiled and set with copperas
as in using Blackjack bark, make a Purple color.
Log Wood, buy at store, pulverize about 1
ounce, boil in about four gallons of water, put in 1 tablespoon full of table
salt, then dye. Makes the color of black.