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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: April 15, 1937
Name: George Wiley
Post Office: 
Residence Address: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1850
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: 
Place of Birth: 
Information on father:
Mother: 
Place of birth: 
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Interview #1225

Biography of Mr. George Wiley 
Told buy his son, Gloster Wiley

My father was born in Texas in 1850. He was owned by the Taylors, who owned a big ranch in west Texas. When he was ten years old he drove the chuckwagon for the cowboys on their roundup. He helped do the cooking while on these roundup trips. He said, in the evenings the cowboys would have fun out of him. They would rope a yearling and make my father try to ride it. He said that was how he learned to ride.

He left the Taylors in 1867 and went to work with the Vance boys, who owned a large ranch in Texas. When he was eighteen years old he helped drive five thousand head of cattle from Texas to Kansas at one drive. And he said they went through a little east of where Rush Springs, Oklahoma is now. He was working for the Vance Ranch and in 1875 he came to the Indian Territory.

He came by the old Cherokee Town, then located about five miles north of where Wynnewood, Oklahoma is now. At that time a Negro named Allen was living about a mile east of Cherokee Town and he had one daughter at that time. My father stayed all night with Mr. Allen. His daughters name was Jemmia (Jemima?) Allen. She was eleven years old.

My father went on to a big ranch between Blanchard and Purcell. I can't call the name of the rancher but my father went to work for him and after he had been working two years, one day he and six white cowboys were out on the range hunting and rounding up cattle. He said he always carried a Winchester on his saddle. Alone that afternoon he had rode off about a mile from some of the cowboys and when he got in about a hundred yards of some timber looking for stray cattle, all at once arrows began sticking in the ground around him. He did not know whether to make a run for it or not. About that time he got over the shock his horse was shot by an arrow, so he grabbed his rifle and got behind his horse. The Indians would run out in the open and shoot at him and run back to the timber. He said, all that save his life was the cowboys heard his rifle shots and knew something was wrong, so they came on the run. After the fight was over there was ten dead Indians and one cowboy. My father got shot in the shoulder with an arrow so he took his knife and cut around the arrow head and let the wound bleed good. 

They got the dead cowboy and went back to the ranch and the cowboy was buried that evening. He said the cowboys dug a grave about a hundreds yards from the ranch house and rolled the dead cowboy in a blanket and buried him. My father said he rode back to where they had the fight with the Indians about a week later and there wasn't any Indians there. He said either the wolves ate them up or the Indians that got away went back and got the dead ones. He said there was about twenty Indians altogether. They killed only ten of them. There were the Comanche Indians.

My father worked on cattle ranches until 1885. He came to Cherokee Town about five miles north of Wynnewood, Oklahoma. He went to work for Mr. Allen, who he had stayed all night with in 1875. He worked for Allen about a year then he bought a place and started farming for himself. And in 1890, he married this Mr. Allen's daughter, Miss Jemmia (Jemima?) Allen.

My father lived on his farm north and east of old Cherokee Town from 1885 until his death in 1920.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Brenada Choate.