Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: October 1, 1937
Name: Thomas Sloan Self
Post Office: Hugo, Oklahoma
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Father:
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother:
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker:

My mother was grown when her father, William Baxter, was enlisted in the Army during the Civil War, and I believe that she said he was stationed at Fort Towson, and the the family moved to Doaksville to be near him. I don't know how long they lived at Doaksville, but I know that my mother's mother was buried at Doaksville in the Doaksville Cemetery.

Mother's oldest brother was named William Baxter and was killed in action in the Civil War. A little brother of Mother's, nine years old, was killed by the Yankees. Mother's sister, Jane married Arch Russell. He also fought in the Civil War and lived to be a good old age. He died at Caddo, Indian Territory about 1905. His wife, Jane, died when their son, Billy (William) Russell was born in 1867. He was eight days old when Mother took him and reared him as a twin to my sister, Harriett Self Springs, who now lives in Brittain. Billy was sheriff of Kiamichi County, Indian Territory, Choctaw Nation, and in his capacity as sheriff was transporting two prisoners to surrender them to another sheriff. This sheriff was also named William Russell and lived at Denison (TX). At Madill the train stopped to take on water and the prisoners shot my brother to death and escaped. This occured on Christmas Eve Night in 1904.

Grandfather Baxter, William Baxter and Arch Russell all fought under of the command of General Cooper. I do not know the names of their companies. Mother's father had only two brothers; one named Elisha Baxter and he was the Governor of Arkansas when he died. The other brother, James, was a minister when he died. My mother's brother, Elisha Baxter, moved to the Indian Territory long years before we did, and settled near Caddo. That was the reason we moved over here to the Indian Territory. We wanted to be near them. Elisha Baxter raised a large family out about three miles east of Caddo. Granville, Walter and Charlie Baxter still live there. A daughter, Daisey, who is Mrs. Guy Crossett, lives at Caddo. Mr. Crossett is publisher of a newspaper at Caddo and frequently writes for magazines. Mother has a half-sister at Caddo. She is Josephine, widow of Clay Freeny. She was sixty years old last April. Mother's sister, Betty, married George Oaks who was one-eighth Choctaw Indian and who was also a brother to Lem Oaks. They had been married eight months when her clothing caught fire, from a fire around a wash pot, and she was burned to death. Then George married Missie, a daughter of Colonel Sim N. Folsom of Doaksville.

Mother lived until June 19th, 1915. She was seventy-three years old when she died. When we moved from Selfs, Texas to Caddo I was just a lad. Bill Russell was a couple of years older. Father got dissatisfied and returned to Texas, and left Bill and me to finish the crop that was barely just started. We gathered it and then we returned to Texas, to find that Pa had the "Territory fever" again. He was arranging to move over here again, so he, Billy Russell and I came over that Spring and camped at the home of George Oaks. We brought a hundred head of catle with us and Pa pretended to sell them to George Oaks, because no white man was permitted to have more than ten cows and calves in the Indian Territory and every white man had to pay $5.00 per year permit to keep ten cows and calves here, but Choctaw citizens were allowed to own all the stock they cared to get together. The brand was O Bar O.

After I had married an Indian girl and become a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, I claimed the cattle and we branded them with the Mule Shoe brand. This brand consisted of two mule shoes with a bar over them on the side and one on the hip. We raised cattle by the hundreds. Our brand was known all over the Choctaw Nation and up to the lines of Texas and Arkansas. When Father died we rounded up sixty thousand dollars worth of his cattle and sold them to John Helm, present sheriff of Pushmataha County. Those were Father's individual cattle. We had a way of distinguishing his brand from mine, even tho we both branded the Mule Shoe. He kept all of the choice salable cattle sold off each Spring, but he still had sixty thousand dollars worth of cattle on the range when he died. We never raised man hogs, just enough for our own meat, and for guests, and we always had plenty of guests.

Our home was a typical "Rangers Motel". No person ever went away from our place hungry. The table was kept sed day and night. Any range rider or any member of the family could come in at any time of the day or night and find plenty to eat, either on the table under covers or in the two big old kitchen safes that stood on either side of the hall. The long table occupied the central part of the hall and the extreme south end of the hall was used for a bedroom. The hall was about twenty-eight feet long and it ran clear through the house. The Spring that we came over here I guess it was about 1884, we selected a building site, about four and a half miles north of Hugo.

The location was upon the prairie, a half mile or so from where Salt Creek flows south of the famous Salt Springs, where Mr. Robert M. Jones and Mr. Thomas William Oaks attempted the manufacture of salt. We made rails and fenced lots, patches for corn and other; we cut poles out of which to make corn cribs and horse barns and all kinds of out buildings, including a saddle house because there were so many of us boys and each had his own saddle. Bill and I then went to hauling lumber from the saw mill that belonged to Dick Locke (Victor M. Locke Sr.)

From away upon one creek, southeast of Antlers, we hauled lumber enough to build two 18 x 18 foot rooms, two side rooms and the hall. We had to haul this lumber for twenty miles. We made our boards for roofing. Mr. Chouteau, a Frenchman, built the chimneys of native stone. We put up our winter's supply of hay that Summer too. We just cut it out on the prairie and stacked it in the lots around poles. It would turn water when properly stacked.

Mother and the girls and the little boys came over when the house was completed. The big east room was always the boy's room. It was strictly for the boys and their guests. The girl's room was immediately back of it and the kitchen was across the hall. The hall was always the diningroom with the south end reserved for a bedroom. There were two front doors to the front room, and then all the other doors led into the hall and out the back of the hall. This hall has been the place where many a notable of pioneer Indian Territory has put his feet under the table and eaten as fine a meal as one could find anywhere in the Indian Territory. I have known my mother to bake a hundred biscuits for breakfast, slice a whole ham the night before, make coffee real strong in a big old tea kettle, and have another kettle boiling with water to thin it with.

Father churned always, and always while Ma cooked breakfast; she used a big wash pan to take up the butter in, and put it on the table in a big bowl. A pound of butter would just be a starter for the crowd who usually ate at her table. They would milk about ten cows daily. Grace was always said at our table. If Pa was not there to return thanks, Ma would do it or one of the boys. And we always felt like returning the thanks too, for those meals. Pa and Ma reared nine of their children to be grown and they all married but one. Walter was killed by a train at Goodland Railroad Station when he was sixteen. Mother reared several orphans and partly reared several others, and when these orphans were married she gave to them just like she did her own children. Billy Russell was the oldest boy, I was next, then George, Dave, Frank, Charlie, Doss and Walterl; Georges twin died. The girls were Harriett and Nannie. Then the orphan girls, whom I recall were Lula Spring, Nannie's daughter; and Nancy Potter. There were a few others who stayed just a few months or years. I have known my father and mother when they would hear of some children being orphaned, going for miles to bring those orphans to our home and care for them until they were either grown or provided with other homes. If they needed new clothes Pa bought the cloth and mother made the clothes. If they were sick pa got a doctor for them. When any of Pa's and Ma's married children died, Pa always paid the doctor's bills and burial expenses and he always bought $40.00 coffins.

Nobody got up before sunup at our house, unless there was some special reason. Pa always said from sun to sun was long enough for anybody to work. He was a wonderful success. He was a good manager, though the could neither read nor write. He could not even write his name. Just anybody signed his checks and he has a certain mark that he made and his banker's always knew that mark. Along about 1904, the country around Hugo got so fenced up that there was not enough range for my father's stock, so he established a ranch upon Rock Creek, fourteen miles northeast of Antlers, just north of Rattan, and was there about seven years when he died.

When we lived on the ranch east and north of Hugo in 1884 and 1885, Bill Russell and I carried the mail for about three years from Lonview, Indian Territory to Doaksville; and thence to Goodland and Nelson. Longview was a Post Office in the home of George Oaks, and was two miles south of our ranch, and the old house still stands three miles east of Hugo, just a hundred yards or so up in the pasture, off the highway running east to Fort Towson. We took turn aobut carrying the mail, but Pa must have had the contract, because we were so young, and we never saw any money, but I imagine Pa got about $45.00 per month. We would go to Longview, get the mail and strike out on the Military Road east, then northeast past the head of Dry Creek, past the Indian ball ground prairie, to Rock Chemney Crossing on Kiamitia River, where Mitchel Willis, a Negro-Choctaw ran a ferry, thence we would go to Doaksville, where Edward W. Tims was Post Master. We always returned the same day, or tried to do so. Once or twice the river rose passed the ferrying stage after we go over there. Mr. Mitchel put us across the river many times. I remember once when Red River had run down so fast that the Kiamitia was swift and water was all over the bottom too so that Mr. Mitchel would have been afraid to ferry us across but fortunately we wer on the home side.

When we left Goodland we traveled just a little way until we struck the mouth of Boggy Road (Creek?) which led to the Military Road, which ran east and west from Doaksville to Old Bennington or Jackson, I guess it was then, and when we struck the mouth of Boggy Road, we followed it north about three miles, where it intersected the Military Road, we crossed that and traveled a trail of our own which led us regularly past Dick Roebuck's place to Nelson. Just here I want to say that the road that I traveled with the mail ran from Spring Chapel, west between the Levi Spring and Charlie Sanguin place which is about a mile southwest of Hugo and then on west about three miles to the Bacon place.

From Dick Roebuck's place to Spencer Academy there were only two houses in sight. They were James Usray's and Judge Tom Oaks'. And they were not with in "hollering" distance of the road. I was not allowed to leave the regular trail or route, and the only place where I could get a drink of water on that fifteen mile trip was a seepy spring out there on the prairie about half way between the Roebuck place and Nelson. It was a poor spring and sometimes I had to run the cattle out of it to get a drink, but it would sure taste good, after riding in the hot sun so far. We always returned home the same day or that is, we carried the mail back by Goodland to Longview. Then it was all repeated on Thursdays and Saturdays; on alternating days we made the Doaksville trip.

I would have liked to stop at the Usray place every time I passed, I would just have to wait until Sunday, because of not being allowed to leave the regular route. Then the girl and I decided to get married. Her name was Annie Maude Usray. She cost me a hundred dollars, which I had to pay for the license, after I had gotten ten men to sign a paper to the effect that I was an honorable an upright, and would make a good, substantion citizen. I presented that paper, with my hundred dollars, to the Reverand Mr. Silas Bacon, who was the County Clerk, and he wrote out my license and we went over to Long Creek to the home of Mr. Parson Miller and were married. That ceremony made me a citizen of the Choctaw Tribe, with all their rights and priviledges. It gave me the right to vote in the Choctaw election and gave me also a right to an allotment of land.

Annie Maude and I kept house for Mr. Jim Usray the first year we were married. Then we moved to the Usray place on the road about a mile southeast of Spring Chapel. We lived there a couple of years, then settled on our place about eight miles west and two miles north of Hugo. By the way we used to go straight across the prairie, our place was only about eight miles from Hugo. There we reared our family and there we lived for forty years or more. There our house was burned and we moved into this shack where we live now. My father nearly always had a duputy sheriff's commission, and carried a gun. Once when he had been warned to look out for an escaped horse thief, Father rode out on the road which he thought the horse thief would come along and was patrolling it when the fellow rode along side of him, the thief we too quick for Pa and wrenched his gun out of his hand and shot at him until he emptied his gun. Pa always said he outran the bullets. He swam his horse across the river to get away from the thief. That fellow would have killed him if his aim had been good, because he was so desperate. You know they executed horse theives here in those days. Pa was a member of the Anti Horse Thief Association.

Interviewers note: Mr. and Mrs. Self, parents of Thomas Sloan Self, are both buried in the Spring Family Cemetery, about a quarter of a mile south of the city of Hugo, at the end of South Eighth Street.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Jami Hamilton <Jamialane@aol.com> 02-1999.