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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 17, 1937
Name: Mr.  Jesse Chipman
Post Office: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Residence Address:
Date of Birth: 1845
Place of Birth: North Carolina
Father: J. M. Chipman,
Information on Father: born in North Carolina
Mother: Mary Armfield
Information on Mother: born in North Carolina
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Interview #8293

In 1863 I joined the Confederate Army and was assigned to Captain Jim SHANNON's company.  We were stationed along Red River to keep the Indians from coming over into Texas and killing and stealing cattle.  I was with Captain Shannon's company for about a year.   We would cross Red River and make a circle through the Indian Territory on the border of the Comanche Country on the lookout for Indians.  But during my stay with Captain Shannon we never did get into any trouble with the Indians although we chased a crowd of them for three days once, but never did overtake them.

After the War my father got the contract to haul corn and oats from Texas to Fort Arbuckle.  I drove one wagon for him.  We only had steers to work then.   This was in 1886.  I remember we crossed Red River near where the Washita River empties into Red River.  This was a cattle trail we were coming over and we followed t his trail until we got to about where Sulphur is now, and from there on we cut our own trail.

We camped one night at a store west of where Davis is now, on the Washita River.  This store was owned by a white man who had an Indian wife.  Just up the river a short ways from where we crossed there was a camp of Indians.  We crossed the river at the ford where the government stage crossed on its way to Fort Arbuckle.   This government stage and mail route came from Caddo to Fort Arbuckle and from Fort Arbuckle to Fort Sill.

I believe there was a company of soldiers at Fort Arbuckle in 1866.   That was the year that we hauled corn and oats to Fort Arbuckle.  My next trip to the Indian Territory was in 1882 and I settled near where the town of Ryan is now.   There was no town there then.  I bought a lease and farmed or tried to farm but the Comanche Indians were so bad about stealing cattle and horses that I was forced to move.  I only had a small herd of cattle at that time.  I moved to where Ardmore is now in the Spring of 1883.

There had been a ranch there called the 700 Ranch but according to an old settler living a few miles south of this ranch the Indians had made a raid on this ranch and had driven off most of the cattle and the man who owned the ranch took what few cattle he had left and moved.

I settled on this place and built two log houses and these two log houses are still there about a hundred yards south of where the depot is now.

I had the largest part of the land that Ardmore now stands on in corn one year and when the railroad came through there, I sold my lease and moved to what was called at that time, Kickapoo Flats.  This was about five miles west of Whitebead Hill.

I farmed there two years and then I came to Whitebead Hill and began buying cattle for Mr. S. J. GARVIN.  Mr. Garvin owned the general store at Whitebead, where there was a drug store, a hotel, blacksmith shop, stage barn, church house and a school building.  This school was a boarding school before the railroad was built from Pauls Valley to Lindsay.  After the railroad was built the stage line was stopped.  The stage went from Caddo to Fort Sill.  It came by Mill Creek, Cherokee Town, Pauls Valley, White Bead Hill, Beef Creek, now Maysville, Rush Springs and Fort Sill.

After the court was established at Pauls Valley, I moved there and went to farming and I still live in Pauls Valley.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate <bcchoate@yahoo.com> November 2000.