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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Name: Roberts, E. R. 
Date:  November 10, 1937
Address: Sulphur, OK
Born: March 28, 1864
Place of Birth: LaMar County, Texas
Father: Andrew Roberts, born in Pennsylvania, Doctor
Mother: Elizabeth Martin, born in Illinois
Field Worker:  John F. Daugherty 
Interview # 9159

My parents were Andrew Roberts, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth Martin Roberts, born in Wayne County, Illinois, dates unknown.  There were six children   in our family.  I was born March 28, 1864, in La Mar County, Texas.

Father was a doctor until the Civil War began.  Then he laid down his pill bag and carried a gun.  After the War he was a writing school teacher.

I came to the Indian Territory in 1888 with a bunch of yearlings.  We crossed Red River at old Doane's Crossing and drove the cattle up the Chisholm Trail to Coffeyville, Kansas.  On my return trip I got a job, on the ranch of F. E. Herring in the Kiowa country near Headrick.  I made several trips up the Chisholm Trail.  As we went north with the cattle we worked all night in shifts to hold the cattle at their bedding ground.  I worked with another cowboy the first shift.  When our time was up we awakened the next two and they were to come immediately and relieve us.  But when the weather was cool they sat around the fire smoking and talking for an hour sometimes.   We hated to tell the trail boss, so I fell upon a plan whereby he would find out what they were doing.  One night after we called them, they sat as usual talking.   I told my partner he could go to bed. Then I went to bed.  Soon the cattle were coming around the camp fire and when the trail boss saw them he certainly did make those two boys move.  I got on my horse and helped get them back to their bedding ground.  After that I didn't have to work overtime.

As I was returning to the ranch one day, I saw the woman whom I later married.   She crossed the trail ahead of me.  I said to the boy with whom I was riding, "There is the girl I'm going to marry."  I stopped at the dugout where she lived and asked for a drink of water.  She didn't live far from the ranch and I was a frequent visitor at her home after that.

The ranch house on this ranch was a large frame building of about seven or eight rooms.   We seldom slept in the house in the summer.  But in the winter we had cots inside.  It was impossible for us to sleep inside in warm weather.  Our range boss decided he was tired of sleeping on the ground with only his saddle blanket for a bed, so he purchased a canvas cot.  It wasn't a folding one, and when he put it on the pack horse, the horse decided he didn't want to carry it.  He began rearing and pitching.  We certainly did enjoy that.  The cot was completely torn up by the time the horse was corralled and the boss continued to sleep on the ground.

The trail driving ended in the eighties when railroads began to be built over the Territories.  We drove our last bunch of cattle to the Red Moon Agency near Hammon.   This was where supplies were issued to the Cheyenne Indians.  They were very ill tempered.  If one rode upon them while they were skinning a beef and they waved for him to ride on, he had better go.  They were experts with a Winchester and they didn't hesitate to use it.  They had three sticks tied near the top which they stood up, laid their Winchester on this stand, squatted behind it and sited.  Their shots seldom missed the spot at which they aimed.  They came to us and asked for "Tipsy Man Waha", meaning "white man's beef".  We allowed them to ride among the herd and select what they wanted.  They asked us to shoot the yearlings for them and as soon as they fell the squaws got off their ponies and began skinning them.  The bucks stood around smoking until the animals were cut open.   Then they made a dash for the paunch, cut slices from it and ate it as if they were really enjoying it.  They ate the gall as we would eat candy.

Another favorite dish of theirs was terrapins.  They gathered the terrapins, made a fire and threw them into it alive.  When the terrapins were cooked they took them out of the fire, pulled the shell off and feasted.  They lived in tepees which were made of poles and ducking.  The poles were tied together at the top and a hole was left.  One pole was larger than he others and a piece of ducking was fastened to this as a smoke guide.  A fire was built in the center of the teepee and the smoke escaped through this hole.  The ducking on the pole was moved as the wind changed so that the smoke would not blow back on the teepee.  Their beds were sticks and grass covered with blankets, around the fire.  One of them said, "White man big fool.   Build big fire, sit way back. Indian build little fire, sit close."

Their buried their dead on the side of a mountain.  They dug a shallow grave, put the blanket wrapped Indian into this and laid a cow head on top of his face with the nose pointing toward his feet.  Then they covered the rest of his body with dirt and rocks.

I was very well acquainted with Little Bow, Chief of a small tribe of Kiowas.  He came to my cabin many a day.  Ate supper with me and then I had to take him home.   He said if my gates were down the next morning he didn't want to be blamed.   One day he saw a preacher passing the house.  He said, "Heap big preacher, on Sunday Big Jesus, Mebbe so on Monday, steal Kiowas' wood."  Nobody was allowed to cut wood on the Kiowa Reservation and the white settlers often stole it.   When they were caught by the marshals they had to go to Anadarko, stand trial and pay a fine.  Later when the Indians were allowed to sell the wood, they received twenty-five cents a load for it.

One day a bunch of Cheyennes came to our camp and sat around waiting to be fed.   We didn't want to feed them and we didn't want to offend them by sending them away, so the range boss got up and went to the chuck wagon.  When he returned he was carrying a bottle of cough syrup.  He uncorked it and began pouring it over the ground.  The Indians began yelling "Coyote Medicine", and away they ran.   They thought it was strychnine which was placed on fresh beef to kill coyotes and they were afraid he intended to give them some of it.

When we began shipping cattle we drove them to Woodward, which became a great shipping point for cattlemen.

I married Laura Ross in 1895 and we are the parents of one girl who resides near here.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate,  September 2003.