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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: November 15, 1937
Name: Knox Beal
Post Office: Cache, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1872
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: Quanah Parker
Place of Birth: Oklahoma
Information on father: He was a Comanche Chief of Oklahoma
Mother: died when I was very small
Place of birth: Unknown
Information on mother: 
Field Worker: R. B. Thomas

My name is Knox Beal. I am sixty-five years of age, and I live in Cache on a small tract of land one mile from town. I was born in Texas and my parents died when I was a small boy. I came to Western Oklahoma when I was small boy, and the Comanche Chief, Quanah Parker, adopted me and called me his son. I learned to speak the Comanche language and know if fluently now. I was interpreter for the Agency many years.

I went on trips to Texas hunting with my adopted father and we killed a great many buffalo and deer and turkey. My Chief always wanted me to go as he loved me as his own son. He was a very kind father to me and I loved him very much. Dave Grantham was also adopted by Chief Quanah Parker but he was grown and did not stay with him all the time; however, he did draw an allotment from the Government when the Comanches were allotted. He now lives at Mountain Park and is close to ninety years old. But he did not go with Quanah Parker all of the time like I did. I learned to shoot buffalo and deer and learned to use a bow and arrow; also I was my Chief's personal bodyguard and advisor. I did not get to school very much but received a practical education. I went to South America in 1914 for two years with an oil company. I have traveled a great deal since I was twenty-five years old. I have been in every western and central state and have been with shows and told the people of other states about Oklahoma Indians. I was a personal friend of I-Do-See A-Pe-An-Tone, a Comanche Chief, who died in Cotton County, near Apeahtone, a town named after him. I have been on long hunting expeditions with my father in Texas. Tom Burnett was a personal friend of Quanah Parker and helped him build his house three miles north of Cache, in Comanche County, in 1890. It had twelve large rooms and had four large stars on it, and Quanah had a special room for himself and one for each of his three wives. He built a fifteen foot fence around this house and kept the gate locked all the time.

Quanah Parker, my father, fed a great many Comanche Indians. He had a great herd of cattle and horses in 1890 and when he died in 1911, he did not have many left because he was so generous. When a person became hungry he fed them. He could not stand to see anyone of his tribe go hungry.

I was a close personal friend of Herman Lehmann, a white boy of Texas, whom the Indians captured when he was nine years old and kept for nine years. He and I had lots of fun together. We were about the same age. He wrote a book in 1900, entitled Nine Years Among The Comanches. He was allotted land in the Pig Pasture near Grandfield and is now in Texas. I remember going on a big hunt in Texas with Quanah Parker, Herman Lehmann and Tuck Locke, another white man who was raised with the Comanches. We killed a number of deer and buffalo, and the Comanches dried the meat and sold the hides.

I think I know and speak Comanche language better than any other white man with the exception perhaps of Tuck Locke. I went to Parker County, Texas, with A. C. Birdsong, and helped bring back the body of Cynthia Anne Parker and they buried her at Post Oak Cemetery. I was personal friend of Lone Wolf, the Kiowa Chief, Jasper Saunka, now a United States Marshall for Western district of Oklahoma. I knew General Hugh Scott; he and I-Oo-See were great friends. I-Oo-See was his Apache scout. I spent many days at Fort Sill among the Apaches and with Colonel R. A. Sneed who was a trader from 1887.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Jami Hamilton <Jamialane@aol.com> 02-1999.

May 2004 Chris.J.Choney@conocophillips.com   submits the interview has incorrect information.  He states: I am a direct descendant of both Quanah Parker and Tahbonemah (I-see-o )  In the article he is referred to as I-oo-see.  Also it states that he is Apache.  I-see-o was Kiowa.