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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 9, 1937
Name: Benjamin Freeny
Post Office: Alex, Oklahoma
Residence Address:
Date of Birth: February 23, 1858
Place of Birth: Choctaw Nation two miles west of Goodland, I. T.
Father:
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother:
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Thad Smith, Jr.

I was born in the Choctaw Nation, two miles west of Goodland, February 23, 1858. My father freighted his supplies from Paris, Texas.

There were a few white men there, but mostly Indians who has been moved there from Mississippi. There was a Methodist church there. Mr. STARK was a preacher.

When I was five or six years old, my father sold out and moved to Boggy Depot, which is in the western part of the Choctaw Nation. I attended my first school there. It was a subscription school. The building was made of logs, covered with slab boards. Our desks were homemade and the seats were wide enough for four or five children. The teacher was an old maid, but I don't remember her name.

Church was held every Sunday in the school house, and Allen WRIGHT was the preacher. He was a Presbyterian and he preached in both English and Choctaw as there was always a great many Choctaws attending who didn't understand English. In the summers, big camp meetings would be held in the open, and nearly everyone in the surrounding country would attend. The meeting would sometimes last over a week.

The mail was carried to Boggy Depot on the stage from points in Kansas and Texas.

Julius FOLSOM, a Choctaw Indian, owned a toll bridge across Boggy Creek near Boggy Depot. I have seen as many as fifty wagons, loaded with apples from Missouri and Arkansas, cross the toll bridge in one day. Most of these wagons were bound for Texas. In Texas, the apples, and most of the time the wagons and teams, were sold. The charge for crossing the toll bridge was twenty five cents per wagon.

I have see thousands of Texas Longhorns trail through Boggy Depot. The most of them were driven to Joplin, Missouri, where they were loaded and shipped to market. One herd of 17,000 head was driven through. I averaged seeing one herd being driven through a week.

There wasn't very much farming done around Boggy Depot, but some cotton and corn was raised. Most of the farming was done with work steers. The cotton made about a bale to the acre, and was ginned at Boggy Depot with a horse-powered gin. The cotton was carried in a basket, and dumped in the gin. Here it was pressed and baled with what was called a screw press. A team was hitched to the press and was driven in a circle. This caused the press to screw down tighter. The cotton was sold for about four cents a pound.

The corn made about forty or fifty bushels to the acre, and nearly all that was sold was sold to immigrants for $2.50 per bushel.

In those days, if a person was caught stealing, he was lashed across the back with a piece of rawhide. if he was caught the second time, which usually he wasn't, he was tied to a tree and shot full of holes.

Most of the Indians had spinning wheels and looms. In making what was then commonly known as jeans cloth, they first spun the warp on their spinning wheel. This warp was then put in the loom, the threads running perpendicularly. This warp was made of cotton. Wool was spun on the spinning wheel and tied at the bottom of the loom, and was woven back and forth, horizontally. This wool string was called the filler. As they cloth was woven, there was a roller on the bottom of the loom that the cloth was wound into. Pants and shirts made of this jean cloth would wear for two to four years. Usually, they were dyed with dye made from oak bark or black walnut hulls. Both made a brown dye, but the black walnut hulls made the darkest dye. Oak bark and black walnut hulls were boiled in water to make the dye.

There were lots of Cherokee Indians at Boggy Depot. They were better shots with a bow and arrow than the Choctaws. They could shoot a squirrel out of a tree standing fifty yards away. There were lots of deer, wild turkey, prairie chickens, quail, and lots of mule-footed wild hogs. The hogs lived on acorns and pecans and made very good meat.

Dr. DUNN and Dr. LINDSEY were our doctors at Boggy Depot. G. B. Hester and Joe PHILLIPS each ran a general mercantile store. About 1888, I moved near Caddo.

Wilson JONES, a fullblood Choctaw Indian, was one of the biggest cow men in the country. His brand was WJ, and he ran about 8,000 head of cattle. He also owned a store 17 miles east of Caddo.

In the summers, nearly everyone would get together and catch fish and have big fish fries. There were plenty of fish in all of the streams.

When the Choctaws were allotted, I took my place four miles southeast of Alex, and I am still living on it.

Transcribed by Nell Williamson <genealogylover2001@yahoo.com> April 2001.