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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: March 16, 1938
Name: John H. Conley
Post Office: Hominy, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1873
Place of Birth: Kentucky
Father: Benjamin F. Conley
Place of Birth: Kentucky
Information on father:
Mother: Elizabeth Anderson
Place of birth: Kentucky
Information on mother:
Field Worker: C. H. Holt
 
I was born in Kentucky in 1873; my father, Benjamin F. Conley, and my mother, Elizabeth ANDERSON, were also born in Kentucky.

Father made the run in 1889 and staked two lots near Guthrie and mother and I came to Guthrie on a train and in a boat. Johnny JOHNSON, a man whom father had hired, came to the train and met us and we were taken home in a four-wheel carriage drawn by two grey mares. At that time father was a game hunter for the government, he hunted chickens, turkeys and quail, which were loaded on a train and marketed in St. Louis, Missouri.

Father decided to build a new house and make it of rock; these rocks were purchased from the Bushyhead quarry and were delivered by four Indian men in a large cart drawn by four spotted horses. When the house was completed the household things were moved into it, and the old house was made into a barn for livestock and chickens.

One time we were attacked by seven savage Pawnee Indians and my elder son was badly wounded, but recovered. Our barn was burned down and three cows were killed. The Indians attempted to burn the house but did not succeed. Three days later the accident was reported to Sheriff MCCREA of Pawnee County, who said there wasn't much he could do as the names of the Indians were unknown.

When farming time came and the land was broken it rained almost continuously for ten days straight and three weeks later the crops were planted. Fruit that year was unusually good on account of the rain. I had a small orchard consisting of fifty apple trees and one hundred peach trees, and my wife canned 370 cans of fruit last year.

[Submitter's Comments: John H. Conley is my great uncle. His father, Benjamin Franklin Conley, was born 14 Jul 1849 in Kentucky. His mother, Elizabeth Boone Anderson, was born 15 May 1854 in Verona, Boone, Kentucky. She was the mother of 14 children, and five of them died within a two week period of an epidemic that swept through Kansas in the late 1800s.]

  Submitted to OKGenWeb by Gwen (Cochran) Nolte <Gwennolte@aol.com> 03-2000.