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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: January 13, 1938
Name: Arthur J. Beams, Choctaw Sheriff of Woodville
Post Office: --
Date of Birth: March 15, 1894
Place of Birth: Bennington
Father: Calvin Beams
Place of Birth: Bennington
Information on father: Choctaw Sheriff of Blue County
Mother: Elize Houston
Place of birth: Atoka, OK
Information on mother: Full blood Choctaw
Field Worker: Lula Austin - Interviewer

I am Choctaw Indian, and was born near Bennington, I went to school at Black Jack Grove, near Bennington, in a one-room log house and Sally Floyd was the teacher. I only went to school two years.

My father, Calvin Beams, was Sheriff of Blue County. He was with the officers when they killed George Carpenter, one of the noted Carpenter horse thieves. There were twenty-four buckshots in his body.

My mother was a full-blood Choctaw. I was married before I knew she had a sister and brother, she had never mentioned them to me. One day I had a letter inquiring about my mother, the writer stating she was a sister of my mother; I answered the letter and told her my mother had no sister, but before I mailed the letter my wife told me I had better talk to my mother. I did and she told me about the sister and brother who were placed with a family when small, after her mother died, and she had never heard from them. The writer proved to by my mother's sister and made us a visit. The brother had died several years before.

When I was a boy of seven, I went fishing with my father on Sulpher Creek between Bennington and Bokchito; we fished awhile and then my father said, "Come and I will show you were some gold is buried." He went to a bluff near by and dug under the bluff and then removed a large rock, under which was a granite stewer, the bottom had rusted out of the stewer and the money was gone. I just remember all father said was, "The money is gone," and then covered the hole up placing the rock back.


Transcribed and submitted by Jami Hamilton <Jamialane@aol.com> 02-1999.