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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: March 29, 1933
Name: Joseph C. Dewees
Post Office: Wellston, Oklahoma
Residence Address:  
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth:  
Father: Samuel Elza Dewees
Place of Birth:  
Information on father:
Mother: Eliza Jane Gray
Place of birth:   
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Mildred McFarland
Interview #:

I lived on a farm near Mooresville, Indiana, until I was fifteen years of age. My father had fought in the Civil War. His captain was Benjamin Harrison, who was later President, and he appointed my father Post Trader for the Kickapoo and Iowa Indian reservations. He was allowed one assistant or clerk, so he hired John W. Caldwell to fill this position. We moved to Wellston in November of 1889. Our quarters, and the trading post, the only buildings within a distance of one-half mile, were set in a grove of trees. When the reservation opened for settlement, a colony of people made a rush on the trading post site: they wanted it for a townsite.

Thomas Craddock, who was also a soldier under Captain Harrison, filed a soldier's declaratory on this site, but was contested and defeated by this colony. However, he was allowed to prove up on the place, but he was to deed it back to the townsite company. It was then surveyed into town lots and one hundred fifty lots were divided among the people of the colony.

The town was called Wellston. Twelve lots on the site of the old trading post were alloted to my father. My sister and I still live on the place, although the old buildings have been torn down. The trading post was established in 1880 by C. T. Wells, and was always called "The Wellston Trading Post". The first merchandise sold there was freighted in from Arkansas City. In 1880 the government made the treaty with the Kickapoo Indians on the site where our house now stands. There were no schools until after the country was settled. We boys would spend our time hunting deer. We could stand in our door-way and see deer meat any time. The Sac and Fox reservation was about thirty miles away and I carried the mail on horseback from the trading post. The train robbers called the Dalton Gang would stop quite frequently at the post for supplies, and to rest their horses, but they never gave us any trouble. About two days after each of their visits, the United States troops would always follow them. One day an old Kickapoo Indian came to my father and offered him five ponies in exchange for my sister, Hattie Dewees. Of course he refused and the Indian went away very much disappointed.

We did quite a bit of trading in furs with the Indians, as they never had much money. One day I killed five deer, had a Kickapoo Indian to tan the hides and sold them to the Sac and Fox Indians. I then took the money to the Iowa reservation and bought some clothes. We could hear the Iowa Indians beating their tom-toms almost seven miles away when they were having their stomp dances.

[Contributors note: Copied from the microfilm at Lawton, Oklahoma library. Joseph C. Dewees was son of Samuel Elza Dewees and Eliza Jane Gray, and brother to Hattie Dewees Knight Poling.]

Transcribed and contributed by Marilyn Wallace altagram@swoidup.net August 2003.