Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: December 28, 1937
Name: Wilson, Emma Jane
Interview # 12528
Field Worker: Hazel B. Green

An Interview with Emma Jane Wilson, an orphan girl.

I was born January 29, 1877, in Eagletown, Choctaw Nation.

My father, Joshua Bohannon, was born August 24, 1819, in the Choctaw Nation in Mississippi and died November 24, 1891.

My mother, Serena Chastain Bohannon, was born in Georgia in 1858 and died May 27, 1887.  Both are buried in the Spring Chapel Cemetery, immediately south of Hugo in Choctaw County.  I obtained this information from an old leather-backed Bible which was printed in 1867.

My father, Joshua Bohannon, was a grown man with a family when he came over the “Trail of Tears” with the other Choctaws from their homes in Mississippi, but that was one thing that he never talked to us about.  He was a full blood Choctaw, and did not speak English very well, in fact, he could scarcely speak it at all but whether or not that was why he never told us about their trip out here, I do not know.  Even though he was a full blood Choctaw and my mother was all white, I am enrolled as only a quarter breed Choctaw Indian.

My father had been married three times before he met my mother and he was an old man with a daughter just two days younger than my mother when he met her.  She was raised over at Chapel Hill, Arkansas, and came over to Eagletown visiting and met and married my father and never returned to Chapel Hill except for short visits.  They were married March 5, 1876.  I was born the next January 28, 1877.  Father was an old man then.  He was the owner of a store at Eagletown in the Choctaw Nation then.

I was two years old when he sold his store at Eagletown and moved to Kiamichi County and settled on a place about half was between the present towns of Hugo and Grant.  There were no towns at those locations then.  Spring Chapel was called Pleasant Hill then.  I went to school there until my mother died.  My little sister, Levi, was the first person buried at Pleasant Hill cemetery now called Spring Chapel.  My mother died when I was ten years old.  Father died when I was fourteen, then I was sent to Wheelock Academy, a boarding school for orphan Indian children.

Wheelock was a home for orphans.  One had to be an orphan to be taken in and once taken in a child stayed there until he or she was eighteen years old then all orphans were “free” and were turned out to shift for themselves.  There were provisions for only fifty girls at Wheelock and they would take only a certain number from each county.  When one girl became of age and left or if a girl died, then others were taken in to fill the vacancy.  Nannie Farris of Kiamichi County died and I got her place.  I think she was a granddaughter of the Reverend Mr. John Turnbull.

We stayed there the year round, winter and summer, unless some relatives or friends were kind enough to take us away for the summer.  It was very nice there, cool in summer and adequately heated with steam heat in winter.  There was an old Choctaw Indian gentleman named Henry Harris who had a lovely big place at Harris, down in the southeastern part of the county, southeast of the present town of Idabel, and he was always giving orphan girls a home for the summer and he gave to some of them permanent homes after they were eighteen years old and had to leave the academy. Several of them stayed at “Uncle Henry’s”, as we called him, until they were married.  I was one among the many.  He was forever coming to Wheelock to see about “his children”.

The home-school was operated by Presbyterian Missionaries, until the year when I was eighteen years old and had finished the equivalent to the Eighth Grade and had to go. Arrangements had not yet been made to keep and girls and allow them to finish higher grades regardless of age.  I went to Mr. Henry Harris’ and stayed until I was married, a year or so later.

Now you may believe me when I say that I kept plenty of the girls at my home in the summer, after I was married.  I do not know how many spend summers with me from time to time, but I recall twenty-three orphan girls whom I have partly raised and permitted to stay in my home until they were grown and self supporting or married and had homes of their own.  I have two little orphan girls with me now.  They are five and eight years old.

Edward R. Wilson was the first Superintendent of Wheelock Academy after the Choctaw Government took charge of it.  He served as Superintendent for several years.  I met his brother, Raphael, while I was going to school the last year there and we were married January 16, 1895.

Our first home was at the water mill on Clear Boggy Creek which Raphael’s father had built long years before.  Mr. John Wilson, my husband’s father, had been dead several years when I married into the family.  So my husband just took me home to his mother. We lived there until we built our own home up the creek a couple of miles, and moved into it July 4, and took Mrs. Jane Wilson, my mother-in-law with us to live.  My husband and I have never lived to ourselves, we have always had some one with us.  First his mother, then orphan children all along, six children of our own, and now my widowed daughter has been with me several years and her two little girls.

When Mrs. Wilson left the water mill to come and live with us, she rented it for a few years, then she sold it a Mr. Smith from Paris, Texas.  Then he sold it to Mr. Prince.  Then we bought it in 1920 from Mr. Prince, and lived there one year, then sold it back to Mr. Prince.  He sold it to George Collins.  George Collins died and his heirs sold the mill back to Mr. Prince. And I think some of the Prince family own it now. 

When the Wilson settled there, they built a log home and a log store, but they hauled the lumber with which to build the mill house from Texas.  They crossed the river at the Hooks ferry which was owned by Blake Hooks, a notable character and a gentleman. He, like Mr. John Wilson, wore his hair long, down to his shoulders and longer.  Blake Hooks was a white man and John Wilson was almost a full blood Choctaw with some French blood, though some people are under the impression that he was nearly white.  Mrs. Wilson, herself, must have been at least a half-breed Choctaw.  She was Jane James.

My husband, Raphael Wilson, was the last District Judge of the Eastern District of the Choctaw Nation before statehood.  Prior to that he was a representative in the Choctaw Council.  He had also been sheriff of Towson County.

Before statehood, in 1902, the town of Valliant was started.  The railroad was being put through and everybody was moving to the railroad.  We put up the first General Merchandise store in Valliant and built one of the first homes.  My husband freighted goods from Clarksville, Texas.  It took two days to make the trip.

A man named Charlie Johnson built the first residence in Valliant.

The first death in Valliant was that a year old baby boy, son of Mr. And Mrs. Nick Sturgeon

The first child born in Valliant was the son of Mr. And Mrs. John Brewer.  They named him Valliant, and he lives at Durant now.

The first fire that I remember was in the hotel of Will Irons.  The first killing I recall was of Ike Irons, on the street.  Dr. Wright was an officer and Irons was resisting arrest, and shot Dr. Wright, so Wright killed him.  Two of Ike Iron’s brothers were killed in the same way.  One at Millerton and one down on the river.

The first telephone exchange was put in by local people, and called the Big Ten Telephone Company.  We were members of the company.

My husband, Raphael Wilson, was Field Clerk in the United States Indian Service for two or three years.  After statehood, he was appointed Treasurer of the Board of Regents at Stillwater, A & M College.  He was appointed by C. W. Haskell and served five years.  He died March 25, 1925, and is buried in the Valliant Cemetery.  He was born in 1870, June 9^th.

His father was buried at Goodland Academy Cemetery.  He was on his way to Choctaw Council and had reached the home of his daughter, Mrs. Frank Locke, when he was taken ill and died.  Mrs. Jane Wilson was buried at Doaksville.

My half-sister, Frances, who was the same age of my mother, was married to Wash Hudson at Eagletown.  Her son, Peter W. Hudson, was born August 28, 1877.  He is the present Land Appraiser for the Indians at Hugo.

My father’s sister was Susan Bohannon Spring, mother of Billie, Levi, and Tom Spring.  Her husband was a German and married her in Mississippi and immigrated to this country with the Choctaws.

I remember when we lived between Hugo and Grant, (or where they are now, of course there were no towns then), an old Negro woman came walking to our house, seeking her “ole  Marsa”.  She was old Aunt Cilla Cole and she had tramped from Eagletown to see us.  She said that she had been a servant for my father and mother even after I was born and that she had nursed me.  Then after I was sent to Wheelock, she came down there and did laundry work for the school, and called me her baby and treated me as her child.

It was while we were living somewhere near Spring Chapel that three of us little girls were rocking in a chair in front of a fireplace, when we all fell out, and one fell in the fire and was burned to death.  Her name was Selma Sanguin, daughter of Charlie and Susan Spring Sanguin.   She was about five years old.  I don’t remember it, I have just been told about it.

I have my family record in the old leather-backed Bible that was printed in 1867 – a record of the Bohannons, Hudsons, and Chastains.

I have held one public office in my life, that of automobile tag agent of McCurtain County.

Transcribed and submitted to OKGenWeb by: Sharon Olive DeLoache (deloache@intellex.com)  a descendent of Joshua Bohannon, his daughter Frances Bohannon Hudson, and her son Peter Wayland Hudson.