Interview #13687
Field Worker: Levina R. Beavers
Date: April 19, 1938
Name: Jane Cubit
Residence: Eagletown, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1854
Place of Birth: On Howell's farm
Father: George Richard Pitchlyn
Mother: Millie Pitchlyn
Mrs. Cubit, who gave this interview, was no relation to the Jackson Hudson
family but she was a slave of the Howell family, well-to-do Indians living in the same
neighborhood with Jackson Hudson. Her mind and memory are perfectly clear and
because of the prominence of Mr. Hudson, she remembers the events in his life.
Jackson Hudson was born near Eagletown, Indian Territory, now McCurtain
County, in 1842. His father, James Hudson was born and raised in Mississippi and
came here in 1832 and his mother, Pishema Hudson, came to this country in 1832 from
Mississippi.
Jackson Hudson attended the local school of his tribe and in later years
went to Spencer Academy and in 1857 he went to an Eastern state to finish his college
education. On his return home he married Miss Ishtimonahoke McCoy, an uneducated
Choctaw Indian girl, who was a very industrious young woman.
Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hudson moved themselves and Jackson
began clearing up and putting in cultivation a farm. This farm is one hundred and
thirty acres down on Mountain Fork River tow and a half miles from his home.
During the time of the Choctaw Government Jackson Hudson served his people
in many public capacities and in later years was elected County Judge and served in than
capacity for twelve consecutive years but in the thirteenth year he was defeated. He
owned three or four hundred head of cattle and many hogs and he began to ride after cattle
and hogs while his busy wife was at home cutting and drying her fruit, peaches, apples,
and pears. She gathered her beans and peas and put them away in the cellar for
winter.
The Indians did not know anything about canning fruit in those days so
they dried the fruit and put it in sacks. They killed their beef, dried it in the
sun and sacked it and killed their hogs, smoked them and put away their lard.
I saw Jackson Hudson gathering his steers. He had twenty-five head
of five year olds to sell to get money to let his brother-in-law have to pay on a debt on
a sawmill which he had. Daniel Hudson and John P. Holman drove the cattle to
old Goodland to sell to someone up there in 1897. He had many more head of one, two,
three and four year olds left. I never saw such a bunch of steers that age at one
time in this country.
In 1900 Jackson Hudson became delirious. He got up out of his bed
one frosty morning in February and built a good fire in a living room and went out side.
His wife was up about that time and so was a little girl of sixteen years, the
niece of Mrs. Hudson. All at once Mr. Hudson came running into the house without any
clothes or shoes on. He ran jumped in the bed and covered up. His wife sent
this little girl up to ask Mr. Hudson's sister, Harriet Amos and others to come down there
so they came and he just lay there in the bed not saying a word.
His sister and the others went to hunt his clothes and found them away
around the orchard where he had pulled them off and thrown them everywhere and he had
thrown away what money he had in his pocket and when he saw them bringing his clothes and
shoes he told them not to bring them into the house for he was through with them and did
not want them anymore and he told his sister just to pray for that was all she could do.
From then on Jackson Hudson stayed in bed all of the time and he forgot that he
ever had any cattle.
In later the girl married Roer Hudson and left the old folks to
themselves. She lived a mile and a half from there.
In her old age, Mrs. Hudson's eyesight began to fail and one evening while
she was out side a little way from the house picking up some kindling for the next
morning, the house caught on fire from the fire which Mrs. Hudson had build in the kitchen
before she left the house and it was in a big way when she discovered what it was that was
roaring so. She was so nearly blind that she could not go very fast and when she got
to the house Uncle Jackson was out by the gate trembling. Mrs. Hudson went right in
and grabbed some bedding, threw it out on the edge of the porch and snatched the wall
pocket she had her money in, threw it out side and about that time the fire was coming
into the room so she ran out and the bedding and money pocket which she had thrown out
were in such a hot place she couldn't reach them so she let them go, and she ran away out
without them. Besides this Uncle Jackson had all his money, several hundred dollars
under his pillow all the time and it all went to ashes.
His nephew, Roer Hudson and wife, Alice, came over with a wagon, took the
old folks home and they made their home with Roer and Alice the rest of the time they
lived.
Mrs. Hudson turned all the farm, cattle, hogs, horses and everything over
to Roer Hudson to manage. Mrs. Hudson lost her eyesight completely and both she and
Jackson stayed in their room all the time until she died in 1917. Then Jackson lived
on until he was taken sick with the flu and died in a few days in 1926 and both are buried
at the Eagletown burial ground.
