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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
Name: Graves, Gus
Date:  November 30, 1937
Address: Davis, OK
Born: September 12, 1872
Place of Birth: Arkansas 
Father: Ben Graves, born in Arkansas, Farmer
Mother: Georgia Ann Ward, born in Arkansas
Field Worker:  John F. Daugherty 
Interview # 9350

My father was Ben Graves, born January 10, 1849, in Arkansas and my mother was Georgia Ann Ward Graves, born January 20, 1849, in Arkansas.   Father was a farmer.   There were six children in our family.  I was born in Arkansas September 12, 1872.  I was married to Lucy Tutor in 1895 in Arkansas.  We are the parents of two boys.

In 1892 I came to the Territory on a visit.  I spent four months near Elmore City, Beef Creek and Erin Springs in the Chickasaw Nation.  There was one store at each place.  In those days one store made a town and these stores usually had a meager supply of goods consisting of a few bolts of cottons, a few pairs of shoes and a small supply of canned goods.

There were no houses between Dripping Springs and Elmore City, a distance of perhaps fifty miles.  One could drive all day and not see a house.

Grass was shoulder high and there were only trails for roads.  If one was in a wagon it often became necessary to chop his way through brush and timber with an axe.   Nearly everybody carried axes in their wagons for this purpose.

One day we were driving along near Elmore City when a large turkey gobbler crossed the trail in front of us.  We shot him, dressed and prepared him to fry.  We went to a nearby creek and got water to make coffee.

I went back to Arkansas and in 1899, since Father and Mother were in very poor health, I persuaded them to come to the Territory.

There were four families and we all came in covered wagons.  We crossed the Arkansas line near Wister, came to Calvin, Stonewall and stopped at Davis.  We were on the road twenty-one days.  There were no bridges across the creeks and we had to wait at several crossings for the high water to subside.  We crossed on a ferry boat across Mountain Fork Creek between Wister and McAlester.  We paid 50 cents per wagon to the boatman for taking us across.

We settled near Wynnewood on the Washita River and have lived here continuously since coming to Davis a few years after we moved to the Territory.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate,  September 2003.