Interview #
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: March 1, 1937
Name: Mr. C.C. Harrison
Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1853
Place of Birth: Grundy County, Tennessee
Father: Miles H. Harrison, born in Alabama
Mother: Mary Ann Lambert, born in Alabama
Mr. C.C. Harrion's story:
My schooling was in a log school house in Grundy County, Tennessee.
I came to the Indian Territory in 1888. I stopped at Wynnewood,
Oklahoma, then Indian Territory. I did not have a penny to my name. I went to
work for a Mr. McGee, loading corn. Mr. McGee was selling corn to someone in Austin,
Texas. He got ten cents a bushel for the corn, loaded on cars. Corn was so
cheap I have seen people burn it for wood.
I went from Wynnewood to Hennepin, Indian Territory. I taught the
first school there. That was in 1889. I charged one dollar a scholar, but if
they didn't have the dollar, I would take corn meal, meat or anything they could give.
One man had a horse he wanted thirty-five dollars for. I took the horse in
payment for his children's schooling. That was the first horse I owned after coming
to the Indian Territory.
I was married in Texas and my wife died when our two sons were very small.
I taught the first school at Elmore City, Oklahoma and saw the first
person buried in the Elmore Cemetery. It was a man who had been killed at Pauls
Valley, Oklahoma. I do not remember his name.
I helped get the post office at Brady, Oklahoma and I taught school there
four years.
I moved west of the Clayton Ranch and also taught school there. It
was called Pumpkin College and is about eight miles southwest of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.
It was a log school house and had logs hewn down for seats. I used the Blue
Back Spellers and I taught the ABC's and the Primer. My two sons went to this
school.
In 1900, I moved to Adell Post Office at Green Head Prairie in
Pottawatomie County and lived there two years, moved one mile north of there, close to the
Jim Salvage place and stayed there one year. Then I bought a place four and one half
miles northeast of Saint Louis, Oklahoma. We lived in a tent there for a while.
That fall I built a two-story log house.
I have seen lots of turkey there. We raised lots of corn, peanuts
and cotton. I lived there until 1920 when I moved to Pauls Valley, my present home.
