Records Contributed by Vicki Bell-Reynolds rreynolds@pdq.net

you could hear the wheels screech for miles around and until you applied the coal tar again.

He cultivated the land and raised stock on the place until he died. Then my grandmother hired a man to work the land for her until she got old and to feeble, so she bought her a house in Woodville and moved off the farm in fall of 1905 on January 10 1906 she died, leaving the farm to my father and his brother Joseph who lived in Searcy ARK. Uncle Joe as he was called never did come to the territory after my father died in 1907. Uncle Joe told my mother that there was not enough land for all of us so he gave his share of the land to her.

My father moved on the place, December 23, 1906 and on April 7, 1907 the IndianTerritory became one of the stated of the union. My father died on July 26, 1907 at 9PM at the age of 56 years, my brother Ben died July 26, 1948 at the age of 56 years, just 41 years later and about 19 hours difference in actual hours.

When the territory became statehood in April 1907 the homestead law was changed from 170 acres of land to 80 acres. That made us have 80 acres of government land under our fence.

There was a family by the name of Frank Dowdy and he placed a homestead on this 80 acres of government land under our fence for one of his children of which was an Indian. Because the government would permit Indians to homestead land.

Dowdy was approved by the Indian government and gave the authority to sell this 80 acres of land. My mother after our father's death decided that she wanted to buy this 80 acres tract so we would won all the land under the fence. By that time my brother Ben was of age and she sold to him the guardianship of the estate, he in turn went to the bank there in Woodville to borrow the money to buy the land. The banker was a crook and he saw that by working the transactions smoothly he would gain this farm. He wouldn't advance the money just on the 80 acres and for the 80 acres of land to stand for itself he demanded and received a mortgage on all the 160 acres. My brother Ben was ignorant enough to sign for such a loan.

That fall when the note became due, the banker told Ben that he wanted the money or the farm, so the banker foreclosed on him and took the farm away from him. And in the deal not a one of us realized a thing out of the farm.

Woodville is located in the extreme south eastern part of Oklahoma of which was the old Indian Territory and Woodville was located in the forks of the Red River and the Washita River. It was 3 miles from the Red River and 3 miles from Washita River near the mouth where Washita emptied into the Red River.

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