OKGenWeb Notice: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material may not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission.
The creator copyrights ALL files on this site. The files may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from the OKGenWeb Coordinator, [okgenweb@cox.net], and their creator. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which they are presented, the notes and comments, etc. are. It is, however, permissible to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use ONLY.


Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: July 16, 1937
NAME: S. A. Hambleton
Post Office: Chickasha, Oklahoma
Residence Address 316 Colorado Avenue
Date of Birth: September 28, 1852
Place of Birth: Essex County, Missouri
Name of Father: W. H. Hambleton
Place of Birth: Not known
Information of father: Buried in Missouri
Name of Mother: Matilda Campbell
Place of Birth: Not known
Information on mother: Buried in Missouri
Field Worker: Thad Smith Jr.
Interview # 4827

In the spring of 1884 my wife, two* children and I drove into the Northwest corner of the Indian Territory coming from Missouri.

We had our beds, our cooking utensils and a supply of groceries in our wagon and made our camp any place the night overtook us.

We got our drinking water from springs and clear streams.

We traveled a dim wagon road that ran southwest.

We had a small girl who was sick and when we got near Eufaula, OK the child became so sick that we stopped traveling, and a kind settler took us into his home, where we could better care for the baby.

I went to Eufaula and got a doctor named STOVALL to come and treat the child. The seventeenth day after we stopped traveling, the child passed away.

I went to Eufaula and got a coffin, made of walnut.

The graveyard was about six miles south of Eufaula, across a river. The river was up and we couldn't ford it so we carried the coffin by hand across the railroad bridge to the graveyard. The procession followed afoot.

A Cherokee Indian Methodist preacher preached the funeral sermon.

The people were very kind to us during our sadness.

After I had fenced the grave with walnut posts and walnut planks, we resumed our journey, taking a southwest course.

We met a good many families traveling in covered wagons, coming from Texas and going to Missouri.

We crossed one bridge over a high bank, Dry Creek, where we paid a toll of 25 cents to an Indian woman.

We saw lots of Indians on our trip but none of them attempted to bother us. Most of the Indians were on horseback and traveled in single file.

We were about six weeks crossing the Indian Territory and on the nineteenth of June we crossed the Red River on a ferryboat just north of Denison, Texas. The charge for crossing was 50 cents.

About the last of December 1902, I came back to Indian Territory and settled near Temple, on the Comanche Reservation. My intention was to get a farm when the "big pasture" was sold. I scouted around over the reservation and got the land numbers of several quarters, so that I would know what to bid on and how much to bid.

When the auction was called I bid on twenty odd quarters of land, but did not buy any of them. The quarters I wanted most, I bid $2,000 on but others bid higher.

I leased some land and raised some cotton and acorn. The cotton made a half bale to the acre and I sold it for .08 cents per pound. The corn made about forty bushels to the acre and was worth about .25 cents per bushel.

Some of my neighbors raised forty bushels of wheat to the acre and sold it for .50 cents per bushel.

I believe it was in 1904 the Comanche Indians had a three day picnic at Temple. There were hundreds of Indians there.

There had been several head of steers barbecued and there was plenty for all including the white people who were present to see the Indians dance.

Geronimo, one of the Comanche Chiefs, was there. He had ninety-nine scalps.

SUBMITTER COMMENTS:
* He started the trip with two daughters and one son. He talks about the one daughter who died before they got to Indian Territory, she was born about 1881. The other two were William Harrison Hambleton dob 7/25/1879 and Golden Myrtle Hambleton dob 1-24-1884.

S. A. stands for Samuel Alsie His father was William Henderson Hambleton b 2/21/1819 in NC died 6-9-1861 in Bloomfield, MO His mother was Matilda Elizabeth Campbell born 1813 in NC buried in Bloomfield, MO.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Phyllis Arbogast < shelties@erinet.com > February 2001.