Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June 21, 1937
Name: Tony Wade
Post Office: Cole, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 29 Dec 1864
Place of Birth: Hopkins Co., TX
Father: C. T. Wade
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother:
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: 

I came to Indian Territory in 1867, at the age of three years. My father settled on a lease which he took from Jim TIBBLE, an Indian, near the Red River.

My first home here as I remember was of logs and was one room about 12 x 14 feet, covered with boards which my father made himself, and it was covered clapboard fashion.

What furniture we had we made ourselves. The chairs were logs, split open then four holes bored in them, two holes near each end with logs put into the holes with the flat sides up. The beds were on the same order.

As I grew up I hired to a Mr. GORDON to ride the range. This man had some eighteen thousand head of cattle and we would just range them from Criner back to the Red River, a distance of about one hundred and twenty-five miles. Cattle are strange creatures; they always have a leader and as long as we could keep that leader headed right we would not have any trouble to speak of. The ranch was called the Bar Six, and this was the brand 6 (with a bar across the top of it).

After I was married I went back to farming again. I raised some cotton and corn until the Cheyenne country was opened and then I made that run. We were on a line. There was a line of men as far as you could see and at twelve o’clock a cannon was fired as a signal to go, and when that cannon was fired the fight started. People started in a dead run, some on foot, some in wagons and some on horseback. When anything or anybody got in the way he, she or it were just run over and on they went. I reckon I did not run fast enough for I did not get a claim.

Every time I would stop to stake, a flag would already be set, so I just gave up the run and decided to camp and stay awhile anyway. I stayed a year in that country and it was very interesting to watch those Cheyenne Indians at work.

The Government built houses for them which were small. They were also given a team, plow tools and a wagon to each family. Those Indians would put their plows in their houses and would live in teepees in the yards. They would take off all the breeching and backbends of the harness and just have the harness and tugs. They would take the wagon bed off and cut poles and floor the wagon with them; then all who could get on it would start across the prairie, all singing.

One time I came up on one of them plowing. He had a pair of little Indian ponies that would weigh about five or six hundred pounds a piece, and had two plows, one a fourteen inch and the other a twelve inch. He had the twelve inch plow tied on behind the fourteen inch one and was trying to plow both of them. One of the ponies could not have pulled either one of the plows.

I was herding cattle that winter. The winter was awful hard and one night we had fifteen head of cattle frozen to death. We just rolled the carcasses away. After two or three days some Indians came up and pointed to those dead cattle and said, “Give’em heap beef, Indian”. They skinned those cattle and cut the meat into quarters and ate it.

The Cheyennes did not do as much curing of meat as the Chickasaws.  Sometimes they would roast meat on a stick held over a small blaze of fire and sometimes they would cure meat in the sun and air, some of it would be eaten raw.

If they decided to move, the squaws would tie the tops of the teepees to the saddle horns, bind the papooses on their backs, get on their ponies and go down the road dragging the teepees, while the men would walk along behind with their guns or bows and arrows. When they got to wherever they were moving, the squaws would stand the boards to which the babies were laced, up against a tree or anything that might be handy; she would then set up the teepee. Then the buck would come up and fall down on the ground inside the tent and that started their housekeeping. They had no furniture at all and no beds only a few blankets and some cooking vessels, a frying pan and a bucket for water was all.

One time my uncle and aunt met a chief they called “First Man”. The chief said, “You trade ‘em white squaw, have many ponies”.  Uncle said, “Fifteen”, and thought no more of it. In two or three days up came that Indian with those ponies and said, “Here, count ponies and bring white squaw”. My uncle had quite a time trying to make him understand it was only a joke.

After a rain the squaws would walk over the prairies, gathering up the terrapins and then they would have a big fire and just toss those terrapins into it alive and roast them; then they would hull them and eat them.

If an emigrant came through and happen to lose a horse or steer, people would make up enough money to give him another horse or steer, and generally they would give him from one to four hundred dollars in money and wish him well on his way and think nothing of their gifts.

I came back to near Criner and took a lease on the old Arbuckle Trail which was a trail from the Arbuckle Mountains to Fort Sill. At that time there were no roads and people would not have known what a bridge was. The traveling was done just mostly by direction. Game was plentiful. There were lots of deer, turkey, quail, coon, mink, opossum and some few buffaloes, and fish of all kinds. I have chased many an old gobbler and caught him. Quail and prairie chickens were thicker than tame chickens are today.

Our principal food then was corn bread, biscuit, coffee and meat, turkey, deer and beef. We would haul our supplies from Gainsville, Texas or Ft. Smith, Arkansas.

I know nothing of my father at all as he and mother separated when I was too small to even remember him. Mother is buried somewhere in Oklahoma, I don’t know where.

Transcribed and submitted by Cindy Hogan <robert.h.hogan@worldnet.att.net> 10-1999.