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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
Date: February 11, 1938
Name: Reverend Samuel Spradlin
Post Office Address (or location): R.R.1
Residence Address: Canute, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: April 16, 1863
Place of Birth: Floyd County, Kentucky
Father: John Spradlin
Place of Birth: Kentucky
Information about father: Butcher
Mother: Sarah Vaughn
Place of birth: Kentucky
Information about mother: Raised sixteen children
Field Worker: Idah B. Lankford
Interview #9939

Interview with Reverend Samuel Spradlin, Canute, Oklahoma

I came from Floyd County, Kentucky, October 3, 1901. I unloaded at Elk City. I bought land and built a two roomed house. I had thirteen children in the family and we had only two rooms to live in. I raised cotton, corn, feed, and I would sell cotton for 5 or 6 cents a pound, corn from 15 to 20 cents a bushel, feed for 1 to 2 cents a bundle, eggs for 5 cents a dozen, chickens for $ 1.50 a dozen. I bought hogs for $1.50 a head.

I bought 2 horses and 2 mules to start my first years of work here of farming but about two weeks after I bought the horses they died. One of the mules got cut in the wire and I had no teams, so I had to hire my land plowed. In 1905 I bought another span of mules and we started another crop; we rented three hundred acres of land and plowed our land and planted cotton and Indian corn; one hundred acres of cotton, sixty-five acres of corn and the rest in feed.

Everything was looking good but in June we got completely "hailed out". Then we planted again sixty-five acres of cotton, thirty-five of corn, and the rest of the land lay untouched. The cotton grew as high as my head and we only got three thousand pounds of bolls off of sixty-five acres of cotton and off of the corn we got one wagon-box full.

I bought my farm on time and we had interest to meet in the fall, so as we had nothing to live on and thirteen in the family, I realized something had to be done. With the children, my wife and I moved in a wagon, leading an old cow behind the wagon. We moved to a place ten miles east of Cordell where we lived in a tent and picked cotton for 50 cents a hundred and boarded ourselves. We moved there November 5, 1903, and lived there till January 1, 1904, and from there we moved to a place six miles south of Cordell and lived in a thrasher's shanty, walled up just a little ways and canvassed the rest of the way. My wife and little ones slept in the shanty and the boys and I made us a bed of hay on the ground. The first night we were there the coldest blizzard came and the next day we found a dugout to move into, but that wasn't much better, our stove smoked so much that we could hardly stand to stay in the dugout.

We stayed in this place until February 15, 1904, then we returned home; we made almost $500.00 pulling bolls and picking cotton and we had the money to make the payment on the home, buy groceries and buy the children's winter clothes but I had to give up my team of mules as I could not pay for them.

In the year of 1905 I bought another team, some cows and hogs, so I started another crop. By this time we had gotten acquainted with the business men and could buy on credit and since then, we have been able to meet all payments.

My wife is still with me. She is sixty-eight and I am seventy-five. We have been married fifty-two years. I taught school four years. I was converted in 1885 and started preaching the Gospel in 1887 and preached twenty years in Kentucky and since I have been in Oklahoma I have preached every Sunday. I am a Methodist and I believe in the old time Methodist revival, I believe in salvation, you know you have got to have that and I believe in the old time shouting religion and I believe to call on the Lord in time of trouble.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Jack Durham (4jdurham@cableone.net)  June 2004.

Submitter's Comments - Sam Spradlin was a neighbor of Jack Durham's maternal grandparents, A.A. "Dan" and Ethel (McCune) Evans.