OKGenWeb   Oklahoma Genealogy

OKGenWeb Indian Pioneer Papers    About  Copies  Copyright  Index  Search  Submit  Transcribers

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: c1935
Name: Mrs. Orpha Brown
Post Office: Goodwell, Oklahoma
Residence Address:  
Date of Birth: October 18, 1885
Place of Birth:  Llano, Texas
Father:  Peter C. Ravia
Place of Birth:  
Information on father:
Mother:  Arimathea Milliron
Place of birth:   
Information on mother:
Field Worker:
Interview #:

"Mrs. Brown's story: 

"My first husband, Robert Buckholts, was a member of the Choctaw tribe. I came with my parents in 1891 to the banks of old Glassy Creek near Madill, Indian Territory. We came from Texas.

"Several families, in covered wagons, came together. One of them, the Penningtons, consisted of two daughters and a widower father. There were several young men and women in the party. We camped on the banks of the Red River out from Sherman, Texas. The young people played party games on the frass while my father played tunes on his fiddle after supper. We were delayed there a half-day for old cherry, our cow, got stuck fast in the quicksand and had to be pulled out with a cable and horses.

"I saw John Luttroll ride past our house, on the Munday farm, the day there was a man shot down on the hill near our home. He had a rifle strapped to his saddle. My father, a ginner, sent a load of baled cotton by Evans Craft with ox teams, and long wagon to Dennison, Texas. On a long hill near Cliff, the coupling pole broke and all those bales of cotton rolled to the bottom of the hill through the brush.

"When I was a small girl we lived at old Blue Springs near Coleman (then Marysville). Mrs. Freeney, part Choctaw, lived near us. They were real well to do, and she bought what she pleased. A patent-church agent tried respectfully to sell her a churn, but failed. He talked of everything and the weather, the churn in plain sight, but did not even mention the churn. Her curiosity got the better of her. She asked about the churn. "OH," he said, "I never persist in trying to sell a churn to anyone who is not able to buy one." "Young man," she declared, shaking her finger in his face, "I'll give you to understand I can buy a dozen if I want them. Unload that churn!" He did.

"A man once drove up madly to Mrs. Freeney's door to inquire when the train left from Boggy Depot (pronouncing it to rhyme with 'not') for there wasn't any 'train track' through there. 'All those goofs around here, though,' she said, 'pronounce it like you, Boggy Depo.'

"The man who surveyed that part of the Indian Territory camped at our springs. On finding that I liked to read and intended to be an author, he gave me an arm load of Munsey's Magazines. There was Ethel Barrimore (sic) in 'Captain Jinks' and the 'Divine Sarah' in flowing velvet.

"Near our spring, at the edge of a little grove, grew both blue and white violets with six inch stems. Not a trace of the white ones have been seen there in recent years.

"I taught Indian children near Caney, Oklahoma (I.T.). I found them unusualy bright and eager to learn. They were gifted at drawing, and loved to memorize literary gems. I shall never forget the Humes family, Choctaws, who gave us free run of their orchard when I was a child at Marysville. He grew the finest Indian peaches I ever saw.

"During the Civil War, my grandmother, Rebecca Davis (should be RAVIA)* came to Salt Creek, near Old Boggy Depot, where, with a group of her neighbors, she camped for many days to boil the spring water in great iron kettles furnished by the War Department to make salt. (Page 2) They came from Grayson County, Texas. At that time there was a military supply station at Boggy Depot and a detachment of troops there. Allen Wright's home, with its open fireplaces in every room was there. Also, nearby was the home of WILLIAM BUCKHOLTS. He had seven boys and one girl, ELIZABETH. ELIZABETH married Baldy JONES. Their home was near Coleman. Mr. Jones had a famous orchard. He even had a bearing fig tree he kept covered with a straw filled tarp in winter. The springs near his home bubbled clearly from the white sand, but there are none of them there now.

"Five deer came to our spring to drink on Spring day in 1895 in Marysville. My father hunted wild hogs in Red River bottom. He brought us holly and sweet gum from the Ouchita Valleys. (sic) I have seen cream and red woodbine hanging like wreath from the cliffs of old Glassy Creek.

"My husband's family, the Buckholts and Jones, are buried in the cemetery at old Boggy Depot, which has been made a national cemetery. There are tombs and monuments there, cut from the native sandstone. One grave, in the eastern part, had a steel tableknife stuck down at the head. It was reported that the knife was used by a member of his family to kill him. Captain Nester, father-in-law of Judge Robert L. Owen, was buried there, but his remains were taken away later.

From the WPA Historical Project -- Oklahoma -- c1935 -- 
Interview of Mrs. Orpha Brown, Goodwell, OK, born at Llano, Texas on October 18, 1885. 
Parents, Peter C. Davis and Arimathea White (sic) (should read Peter C. Ravia and Arimathea Milliron). 
(Copy in RAVIA file at the Chickasaw Council House Museum Library, Tishomingo, OK.)

Submitters comments: "P.C. Ravia said that when he was a boy, men cut brush corrals in the deep bogs with wings leading out from a gateway where they hung a trap gate and then drove the long-horn cattle through the switch. After capture, the cattle were either slaughtered or tamed. Mr. Ravia lived just across the Red River in Texas then.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Anne & Jason  jdsalg@hot.rr.com   March 2003.