Interview #8293
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: August 17, 1937
Name: Mr. Jesse Chipman
Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1845
Place of Birth: North Carolina
Father: J.M. Chipman, born in North Carolina
Mother: Mary Armfield, born in North Carolina
In 1863 I joined the Confederate Army and was assigned to Captain
Jim Shannon's company. We were stationed along Red River
to keep the Indians from coming over into Texas and killing and stealing cattle. I
was with Captain Shannon's company for about a year.
We would cross Red River and make a circle through the Indian Territory on the
border of the Comanche Country on the lookout for Indians. But during my stay with Captain
Shannon we never did get into any trouble with the Indians although we chased a
crowd of them for three days once, but never did overtake them.
After the War my father got the contract to haul corn and oats from Texas
to Fort Arbuckle. I drove one wagon for him. we only had steers to work then.
This was in 1886. I remember we crossed Red River near where the Washita
River empties into Red River. This was a cattle trail we were coming over and we
followed t his trail until we got to about where Sulphur is now, and from there on we cut
our own trail.
We camped one night at a store west of where Davis is now, on the Washita
River. This store was owned by a white man who had an Indian wife. Just up the
river a short ways from where we crossed there was a camp of Indians. We crossed the
river at the ford where the government stage crossed on its way to Fort Arbuckle.
This government stage and mail route came from Caddo to Fort Arbuckle and from Fort
Arbuckle to Fort Sill.
I believe there was a company of soldiers at Fort Arbuckle in 1866.
That was the year that we haled corn and oats to Fort Arbuckle. My next trip to the
Indian Territory was in 1882 and I settled near where the town of Ryan is now.
There was no town there then. I bought a lease and farmed or tried to farm but the
Comanche Indians were so bad about stealing cattle and horses that I was forced to
move. I only had a small herd of cattle at that time. I moved to where Ardmore
is now in the Spring of 1883.
There had been a ranch there called the 700 Ranch but
according to an old settler living a few miles south of this ranch the Indians had made a
raid on this ranch and had driven off most of the cattle and the man w ho owned the ranch
took what few cattle he had left and moved.
I settled on this place and built tow log houses and these two log houses
are still there about a hundred yards south of where the depot is now.
I had the largest part of the land that Ardmore now stands on in corn one
year and when the railroad came through there, I sold my lease and moved to what was
called at that time, Kickapoo Flats. This was about five miles west
of Whitebead Hill.
I farmed there two years and then I came to Whitebead Hill and began
buying cattle for Mr. S.J. Garvin. Mr. Garvin owned the general
store at Whitebead, where there was a drug store, a hotel, blacksmith shop, stage barn,
church house and a school building. This school was a boarding school before the
railroad was built from Pauls Valley to Lindsay. After the railroad was built the
stage line was stopped. The stage went from Caddo to Fort Sill. It came by
Mill Crkke, Cherokee Town, Pauls Valley, White Bead Hill, Beef Creek, now Maysville, Rush
Springs and Fort Sill.
After the court was established at Pauls Valley, I moved there and went to
farming and I still live in Pauls Valley.
