"My parents were Byrd and Lorena MARTIN. The
places and dates of their birth are unknown.
I was born in Georgia March 20, 1849. My first
husband and I came to Ardmore January 25, 1887, from Atlanta, Georgia. It was
sleeting and snowing the night we came to Ardmore. When we got off the train
we had no place to go. There was only one hotel. This was operated by an old
man by the name of BUCKLES. The building was built of cottonwood lumber, and
this cottonwood had warped and shrunk until there were large cracks in the
wall. We had to stay somewhere until daylight, so we walked over to this
hotel. There was only a cook stove to warm by downstairs, and it gave very
little warmth in such an open building.
We were sent upstairs to sleep. There was no heat
in the room at all, and there were six beds in the one and only sleeping room
they had. These had only two sheets and a "spider web" quilt. I
said, "I’ll not stay in such a place, we’ll all freeze to death
before morning". Two men sleeping in a bed back in the corner said,
"Lady, you’re right. We are almost frozen". We went back
downstairs and out into the cold to the depot. The agent gave us some old
quilts and plenty of coal to keep the fire going. We made a bed down on the
floor of the depot, and I never slept better in my life. When daylight came my
husband went in search of a place to eat breakfast. He found a tent-hotel
called "Dad’s Place" and we ate there. While we were eating some
officers came in and looked around for whiskey. They found two gallons and
carried it away with them. After breakfast my husband went in search of a
place to live. He happened to meet Alva ROFF and asked him about a farm. Alva
said, "You can move on to my ranch if you care to".
Arrangements were made, and we started for the
ranch, eight miles from Ardmore. We were driving a ranch team and it was so
cold that ice hung all over my husband s whiskers. We had to walk part of the
distance to keep from freezing. When we arrived at the ranch, there were
twenty-eight of us to live in three dug-outs. We stayed there for six weeks.
We slept late every morning, and had a late breakfast. About four o’clock
dinner was served, and about ten o’clock we ate a snack for supper and went
to bed. Each dug-out had a chimney.. We cooked with a skillet and lid on these
fireplaces. We later moved to a log cabin on the ranch.
There were some boys by the name of LEE, who were
cattle thieves. They had killed a brother of Mr. Roff, and were stealing his
cattle. He told Heck THOMAS and Jim TAYLOR if they would kill these boys he
would give each of them a thousand head of cattle. The Lee boys had lived in a
small log hut without any doors. They crawled in through a window, and had
post holes through which they shot at anybody approaching their cabin. They
finally moved out of this log hut and stayed in a ravine. One morning Heck and
Jim, who was a deputy under Heck, rode up to our house for breakfast. Heck and
I had been sweethearts in Georgia twenty years prior to this. We hadn’t seen
each other during this time, and neither of us knew the other was here.
Heck had been gone from Georgia, and we didn t know
where he was until he rode up and asked for breakfast. He told us he was
expecting to find the Lee boys soon. That day Heck and Jim were hiding near
the ravine where the Lee boys were concealing themselves and they saw a man
cautiously making his way toward the ravine, and as the Lee boys were eating
their lunch, Heck shot one and Jim shot the other. The lunch carrier
disappeared in the shrubbery and they didn t find him. Mr. Roff drove up two
thousand head of cattle and gave these cattle to these two officers.
My husband died during our stay on the ranch, and I
moved on to a farm owned by Sam BROWN. I later married Mr. BRITTENBURG and we
moved near Fort Arbuckle. We lived there for thirteen years. My husband
furnished beef for the soldiers stationed at this fort, and ran a store, a
mill and a blacksmith shop. We moved to Davis thirteen years ago, where Mr.
Brittenburg later died. I have lived in Murray County for twenty-six
years."
END OF INTERVIEW
[SUBMITTER’S COMMENTS: Transcribed from the
original document and submitted to OKGENWEB on Aug. 28, 2000 by Alice Lourinda
Davis, GGGrandaughter of Lourinda Hudson Martin Minor Brittenburg, daughter of
Rance Byrd Martin b. 18 Feb 1816 d. 18 Jul 1864 and Millie Ford Martin b. 20
May 1821 d. 16 June 1884 of Gwinnett County, GA. Rance and Millie were married
16 NOV 1837. Lou married her first husband, J. W. Minor (b. 11 Oct 1836) on 13
JAN 1881 and after his death, which she mentions in her narrative, she married
Don A. Brittenburg on 28 Sept 1905. Lou died in January of 1938 and is buried
in Greenhill Cemetery in Davis, Murray County, OK.]