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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Name: Coffee, H.R.
Date:  November 19, 1937
Address: Sulphur, OK
Born: September 20, 1865
Place of Birth: Texas 
Father: W.I. Coffee, born in Tennessee
Mother: Mary Warren, born in Texas
Field Worker:  John F. Daugherty 
Interview # 9230

My parents were William I. Coffee, born in Tennessee, and Mary Warren Coffee, born in Texas.  Father was a farmer.  There were six children in our family. Father freighted for a settlement during the Civil War in Texas.  He was crippled and not able to go as a soldier, so he hauled supplies for the widows and children of the community in which he lived.

I was born at the close of the War, September 20, 1865, in Texas.

I married Laura Dalton in 1886 and we came to the Territory in 1888, locating at Redland on the Arkansas River in the Choctaw Nation.  My wife was a cousin of the Dalton boys.  Her brother, Bill, lived with us.  They were not like the other Daltons at all, and were ashamed of their kinship.

I bought a ferryboat from a man by the name of Williams, running across the river from Redland to Skullyville, for which I gave a fine race horse worth six hundred dollars.   We got a log house on the bank of the river, in which we lived.  The boat was a flat boat, pulled by oars, and two wagons could be driven onto it.  I charged twenty-five cents per wagon for taking them across.  I paid a permit of five dollars per year to the Choctaw Government for the privilege of operating the boat.

I was deputized as a posse man by John Salsberry, United States Marshal, but only made one arrest during the three years I operated the boat.

One day the marshal at Redland told me to watch for a horse thief riding a chestnut sorrel horse and leading another.  There was a posse at Redland waiting for his arrival there.  I told my brother-in-law, Bill Dalton,  about him and as we were talking, the horse thief rode down the bank on the opposite side of the river.  I told my wife she must get his gun and she came and got on the boat with Bill and me.  When we landed on the other side the thief got off his horse and led both horses onto the boat.  He stood near the rail, with his Winchester standing near him.  I pushed the boat purposely into a sand bar and Bill and I had to get out and wade to push it off.  I asked the stranger if he wouldn't handle the oars while we pushed.  He forgot his gun, and when he got up to the oars, my wife picked up the gun and threw it over him.  I pulled my gun, and we had him.  He was very angry and started to get his six-shooter, but I was too quick for him.  We put the handcuffs on him, and rowed back to the Redland side, where John Salsberry and a posse were waiting for us.  I received a reward of one hundred dollars for his capture, and sixty dollars for the horses.  He was a very bad character and had killed eight men.  I didn't know that until I had arrested him.

During the time I operated the ferry, a large steamboat came up the river from Fort Smith to Fort Gibson.  It hauled groceries and dry goods to the people in the Territory and went back to Fort Smith laden with bales of cotton, hay and hides.   They often loaded cotton from my ferry.  They had large Negro men who could carry a bale of cotton on their backs, as if it were a sack of flour.

There were sleeping rooms, a dining room and saloon on this boat.  Bootleggers met it in skiffs all along the river.  They never went to the regular landing places, but rowed out to the boat in the middle of the river, as it went up stream. 

There was a large wheel on the back, which propelled the boat, and when the river was low this wheel killed many fish each time it passed.  After it had gone by we often went in a skiff and picked up fish floating on top of the water, many of them were very large.    The boat left such waves behind, it wasn't safe to run a skiff or the ferry for fifteen or twenty minutes after the boat had passed.

The Mauldeen, as it was called, was fired with wood and some coal was used.  They carried cord wood on the side of the boat.  One span of the "Helen Gould" Bridge, at Fort Smith, turned so that the large boat could pass through.  After the river was high a snag boat went up ahead of the steamboat to drag the river and make passage safe.

One day when the river was low, a whiskey boat got on a sandbar and couldn't get out until the water was high again, which was about two months.  They did a rushing business during this time.  Boats were constantly being rowed out to the boat to purchase their whiskey.

After I sold my ferry I moved to Denton, Texas, and lived for awhile.  Once I had to make a trip to Fort Smith and I came through the Territory.  Bill was with me and when we camped on San Bois Creek enroute, we were cooking our supper when a hack and two horses and their riders stopped.  We were frying bacon and making coffee.  There were three of them, and one said, "You don't need to eat that meat, come around to the back of the hack and get some fresh meat."  Bill went and while he was getting the meat he said, "I heard the man call you Bill.  What is your last name?" Bill replied, "Dalton." and he said, "That's my name.:   They ate supper with us and we had a very enjoyable evening around the campfire.   As we sat and talked one of Bill's companions said, "Bill, what about the thousand dollars you gave the widow?"  Bill replied, "That didn't cost me anything."

They told us of the incident which had occurred a few days prior to this.  They drove up to a home and asked for some food.  The woman said she had nothing but some corn meal, but they were welcome to eat corn bread.  Bill handed her some money and told her to go to a nearby store and purchase food for all of them.  After supper they were talking to the woman and found out that she was a widow with several children.   The next day a man whom she owed for her home was coming to take the property, because she was not financially able to pay for it.  She had paid five hundred dollars, but owed a thousand more.  Bill gave her the money and cautioned her to be sure and give it to the collector when he came to put her out.  He told her to be sure and get all the papers before she handed him the money.  The Daltons rode off some two or three miles from the home of the widow the next morning and they watched for the coming of the collector.  He passed and did not see them.  As he returned, they robbed him of their thousand dollars.  So the widow retained her house and they got the thousand dollars back.  They never harmed the poor and needy.  In fact, they were generous with their money.  As they left us the next morning, they handed each of us a ten dollar bill.

I moved to Durant in 1903 and have been in Sulphur for the past eight years.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate,  September 2003.