OKGenWeb Notice: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material may not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission.
The creator copyrights ALL files on this site. The files may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from the OKGenWeb Coordinator, [okgenweb@cox.net], and their creator. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which they are presented, the notes and comments, etc. are. It is, however, permissible to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use ONLY.


Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date:  September 20, 1937
Name:  John Ward
Post Office:  Chickasha, Oklahoma
Residence Address:  728 Illinois Avenue
Date of Birth:  December 23, 1858
Place of Birth:  Boggy Depot
Father:  Sam WARD
Information on Father:  born New York buried at Limestone Gap, Oklahoma
Mother:  Eliza TYNER
Information on Mother:  born Cherokee Nation. 
                                        1/2 degree Cherokee and buried at Atoka, Oklahoma
Field Worker:  Thad SMITH, Jr.

I was born in the Choctaw Nation, at Boggy Depot in 1858, where my father, Sam WARD, was a carpenter and he built a store building and a gin run by horse power for Jonathan NAIL, a Choctaw Indian at the ford, on Blue River.

My father ran the store and gin for Mr. NAIL, and had his goods freighted by wagon and or team from Baxter Springs, Kansas.  The freighters would load their wagons with the hides of coons, panthers, wild cats, deer and cows in June and start to Baxter Springs, Kansas, where, after the hides were sold, the freighters would buy for the store.  The freighters usually returned home the latter part of September.  Seven yoke of oxen were worked to each wagon.

My father owned thirty-five negroes whom he had farming, raising cotton, corn and wheat.  The wheat was ground into flour by rocks at the water mill, and used at home, but the cotton, after being ginned there, was freighted to market at Fort Smith, Arkansas.

My father bought his wooden beam turning plow at Baxter Springs, Kansas, and used a Georgia Stock to cultivate with.

There were lots of Indians living near Boggy Depot who had cattle, horses and hogs.  The stock was all wild, especially the hogs (some of them were mule footed).  The hogs were ear marked and turned loose to rustle for themselves.  There were lots of acorns and pecans which the hogs ate and got fat on.

All of the Indians lived in mud chinked log houses which had mud and stick fireplaces, and most of them had dirt floors.  Some of them had puncheon floors, or floors made of split logs, the flat side of the logs turned up. All of the houses were roofed with homemade red oak shingles which were eight or ten inches wide and about eighteen inches long.

There was a log schoolhouse at Boggy Depot for Indians, also a Presbyterian church.  Governor WRIGHT, a fullblood Choctaw Indian, who had been educated in the East, preached every Sunday.  He preached both in his native tongue and in English.

My mother dried lots of beef and deer meat in the summer and after the meat had stayed in the sun three or four days, and was completely dry, it was put into a sack and hung up for later use.  My mother used the dried beef to make hash by pounding it up in a mortar with a pestle, and putting onions with it.  This made a very delicious dish when cooked.

My mother made my clothes.  First she  carded the cotton or wool and spun it into thread, and then wove it into cloth.  She dyed the cloth with water that had had black walnut bark boiled in it.  The color of the cloth after being boiled in this water was brown.

My father fought in the Civil War, and during the War he returned home and sold his negroes, thinking that the South might lose their fight.

When he returned home, after the War was over, he settled down at Boggy Depot and stayed until 1868, then he moved to Wardville, (which was named after my father) taking a large herd of cattle with us.

After the War the Indians got some of the flint lock rifles, used in the Army.  They were excellent shots with them, and could and did kill squirrels with them.

In 1876, when I was eighteen years old I made a trip to Kansas with a herd of cattle belonging to Sam COATES, a Texas cowman.  Sam WISE, George LUCKY and Billy the kid were working for Mr. COATES and helped to move the herd to Kansas.  John STRICKLEY was Mr. COATES' foreman.

Occasionally some Comanche Indians would stampede our herd at night, where this happened we would always lose a few head of cattle which the Indians would gather up and eat.

I went to Texas with Mr. COATES'  cow outfit and worked until 1881, then returned to the Indian Territory.

While my father was living at Boggy Depot he made salt at a place a mile or two south of town at the old salt works.  There was a water well there that was very salty.  Father had some big kettles which he boiled the salty water in.  He made, or rather had the salt made the year around and he sold it for $3.00 per bushel.

In 1882, I went to work for W. M. DUNN, a big cattle rancher, near Boggy Depot.  His cattle brand was WD branded on the left side.

In the spring Mr. DUNN would send out three wagons, each in different direction, to work the country for his cattle, as the country was open then and there were no fences except some fences around small horse pastures.

We worked the country as far as one hundred miles away from the headquarter of the ranch, as sometimes the cattle would drift that far, especially if we had had a hard winter.

In 1883, I married and Mr. DUNN boarded my wife and me and gave me $20.00 a month for work.  I worked for him until 1900.  I raised five boys and one girl, while there and educated them all at Atoka.

While my father, a white man, married my mother at Boggy Depot in the Choctaw Nation, my mother was one-half degree Cherokee, which made me a quarter blood Cherokee and entitled me to an allotment, but because I had not gone to the Cherokee Nation to get my land I failed to get any.

My only schooling was a two month term,  I attended at Atoka, when I was twelve or fourteen years old.

Interview
Date:  September 17, 1937
Name:  John WARD
Address:  Chickasha, Oklahoma
Name of Father:  Sam WARD
Name of Mother:  Leza TINER WARD
Field Worker's name:  Etta D. MASON

My father built most of the bridges and water mills in this part of the county.  He built and operated the toll bridge here at Atoka and also had the stage line station here.

We lived at Boggy Depot first and then moved here.  My father died when I was a young man, but I was old enough to help around the stage line station and at the bridge.

I remember at one time when the stage coach was within a mile of Atoka, coming from the west, that Cole YOUNGER and his band held it up, killed the driver, robbed the mail sacks, took the best horses and rode away, leaving the dead man lying in the road.

A few hours afterward the news of the robbery was reported to my father and he and I went to the scene of the tragedy.  My father took the body of the dead man to the stage station, but before the man could be buried, Father had to get the news to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and as there were no telephones or telegraphs, he had to ride horseback there and back.  He was told by the officers at Fort Smith to bury the man on the spot on which he was killed.  There was no cemetery at Atoka at that time.

Father died and I took his place as best I could.  This was still a wild country and we people who wanted law and order had our hands full.

Men such as Cyrus KINGBURY, Allen WRIGHT, W. J. HASKINS, Curran BALL, Alfred WRIGHT, Cyrus BYINGTON and many others were among the real builders of Oklahoma.

HASKINS gained notice by capturing a liquor plant in the mountains near Atoka.  This was a very important capture because the plant was so large and the men operating it were so influential with their own class that the capture nearly ended the making of liquor in the mountains near Atoka.

HASKINS was also head of the Police Department of Atoka and did more to enforce the liquor laws than any other one person connected with the law in this part of the country.

The first church bell ever brought to this country was one bought by the Masons and used in their hall at Boggy Depot.  The bell was shipped to Kansas City and had to be hauled in a wagon from there to Boggy Depot.  My father furnished the oxen to haul the bell with.  It took two yoke of oxen to make the trip.  After the lodge was dissolved at Boggy Depot, the bell was given to the Indian Baptist Church at Standing Rock.  I do not know where the bell is now.

Standing Rock is eight miles west of Atoka in Atoka County.

There was a ferryboat on the Delaware River or creek where it runs into Boggy Creek about a mile north of Boggy Creek.

The ferryboat was operated when the water was low by poles, but when the water was high, we used a cable to pull the boat across.

There was an Indian ceremonial ground at Black Gum Springs where the Indians met for councils and for other ceremonies.

Black Gum Springs are located about four miles south of Boggy Depot in Atoka County.  There was also an Indian mission call Black Jack House. This place is about two miles west of Tushka in Atoka County.

Nearly all my life has been spent in Oklahoma.  I was a cowboy and helped to drive cattle to Caldwell, Kansas, and to other shipping points.  I drove cattle with "Bill the Kid"  before he became a desperado.  I knew the TURNBULL outlaws, the DALTONs and all the others who roamed this country at that time.  I never had any trouble with any of them but have befriended them often.

I have been a stockman and farmer, too.  At one time I had twenty-one hundred head of cattle at Wardville.

Oklahoma has surely had a career but it was not true that the Territory was filled with renegades and outlaws.  People who settled here were of good substantial stock who were just trying to better their condition in a new country.

Second Interview
Date:  September 22, 1937
Name:  John WARD
Address:  Chickasha, Oklahoma
Indian tribe:  Cherokee
Field worker:  Joe  SOUTHERN

A stage robbery happened in Atoka County in 1867 in which Fred NICKOLDS, the stage driver was killed.  There were no other passengers riding on the stage coach at the time this robbery and killing happened.

The location of this place is now in Sec. 21 NE 1/4, NW 1/4, T2S, R11E, one and a half miles southwest of Atoka, where the Fort Smith and Boggy Depot Freight and Stage line crossed the creek.  This crossing was named Dead Man's Crossing, and a man of the name of Billy SHIELDS and his gang were supposed to have done the robbing and killing.  Jim DAVIS and John WARD's father and other[s] buried the man near the place where he was killed.

After receiving order from the court located at Fort Smith, Arkansas, a posse of United States Deputy Marshals, led by one whose nick name was "Negro" SMITH from Fort Smith, came to Atoka for the purpose of capturing this gang of killers and robbers.  They met these men near Atoka and had a gun battle with this robber gang in which one of this gang got shot through the leg.  They brought him to Atoka, had his leg dressed and left him in a small empty house near my father's blacksmith shop, and my father had me carry cold water to this man and keep the bandage around his leg, and keep his wound damp.

That evening, about dark, three men rode up to the door of this small house and called out to this man and asked him if he was able to ride horseback; he answered, "Yes".  They put him on a horse in the middle in front of one of the men and rode off in the dark.  If the United States men ever arrested them I have no knowledge of it.  One of these men gave me a $10.00 gold piece for my service in taking care of this man who was shot during the day.

The grave where the stage driver was buried is still visible.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Gay Wall <t31892@wind.imbris.com>  November, 2000.