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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: April 29, 1938
Name: C. W. Spencer
Post Office: 
Residence Address: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: May 30, 1869
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: R. F. Spencer
Place of Birth: Missouri
Information on father:
Mother: Amanda Adams
Place of birth: Arkansas
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson 
Interview #10598

I was born in 1869 in Texas.  I came from Texas to the Indian Territory in the fall of 1886 and went to work for Dave Colbert on the farm at Colbert's Crossing in the Chickasaw Nation.  There was a ferry crossing on Red River at Colbert, which Dave Colbert's father had established in the early days and the stage and freight lines crossed Red River there and went on to Caddo and from there to Fort Sill by Mill Creek, Cherokee Town, Pauls Valley and Rush Springs.

The only railroad then crossing that part of the country was the M.K. & T. Railroad which was built through there in 1876.  The Santa Fe Railroad was being built from Gainesville, Texas, north through the Indian Territory in 1886, but I believe it was in the early part of 1887 before there were any trains going over this road.

The Indian court was held at Tishomingo which was the capital of the Chickasaw Nation when I came to the Indian Territory.  The white man's court was held then at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Judge Parker was the judge.  In that day and time it was against the Indian Law to carry a gun and if the Indian laws caught you with a gun, they would take the gun and that would be all there would be to it.

There were lots of killings in the early days and a great many of the killings were over whiskey.  White men would haul whiskey from Texas over into the Indian Territory and sell or trade it for cattle and the Indians would give anything they owned for some whiskey and when the United States Marshals ran onto these bootleggers it spelled trouble and someone would get killed but if a man stayed at home and attended to his own business, he would get along all right.

It was easy for a young man to get a job of work then as men were very few in the Indian Territory and to start in farming for yourself was easy as the ground was so rich that corn or cotton would make good without being half worked.

I worked there at the Colbert until the fall of 1889.  At that time I came to Pauls Valley and went to work for Ed Tellie on the farm.  Pauls Valley was not much of a place at that time.  Although it was the main trading point for this part of the country.  There was only one gin in this country then and it was owned by Zach Gardner, a Chickasaw Indian.  This was a gin and grist mill and was run by water power.  It was only a one stand gin and could not gin more than six or seven bales of cotton a day.

There were no wire fences in this country then and very few roads and no bridges across the creeks and if the creeks or rivers happened to be bank full, you would just have to wait until they went down or swim your horse across.

There were very few doctors in this country then.  People just didn't seem to need doctors then as they do today.  I worked for Mr. Tellie for a few years then went to farming for myself.  I have lived in this country since I settled here.

I now live in Pauls Valley.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate.