Interview # 9763
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: January 17, 1938
Name: Mr. J.R. Massagee
Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: June 3, 1850
Place of Birth: Tennessee
Father: Richard Massagee
Mother: Mary Brassfield, born in Missouri
I was born in Tennessee, June 3, 1850, and my first remembrance of events was in Texas.
I was living with my grandfather Massegee. My father died in Texas when I was only a year
old, according to my grandfather, and my mother died in the same state when I was only
five. I received very little schooling, in the early days in Texas there were very few
schools.
My grandfather lived on a farm in Texas. Before going to Texas he had lived in the
state of Arkansas where he owned a small farm. My grandmother having passed away at an
early date, this left only grandfather and me, so in 1860 we loaded what belongings we
owned into a wagon and, working the only team grandfather owned, a large pair of horses,
we left for Arkansas. We passed through the Choctaw Nation and were several weeks making
the trip. While crossing the Indian Territory we came upon several small settlements of
Indians but the best I can remember we didn’t see but a very few white men. There
were at that time plenty of deer, turkeys and wild animals. At night the panthers would
come right up close to our camp and scream. We would keep the horses staked near the
wagon. If we killed a deer any time during the day while we were traveling, we would have
it with us until we made camp, then after taking what meat we wanted off of it for supper
and breakfast we would drag it about two hundred yards from where we made camp and leave
it. In doing this if some wild animal did come near our camp it would not attack our
horses as long as it could find a freshly killed deer. We had no trouble with the Indians
while crossing the Indian Territory. There were no roads or bridges in the early days.
Sometimes we came to small creeks that would be nearly out of their banks and often we
would have to wait a day or so until the water would go down so we could cross. There were
no wire fences, in some places we came to a small piece of land that would have a log
fence around it; this would belong to some Indian for that was the way they farmed then.
They would have three or four acres of corn. These patches of corn were called Tom Fuller
patches. There must have been very few white men living in that part of the Indian
Territory at that time, as I do not remember seeing a white family.
When we reached Arkansas we settled on my grandfather’s place and farmed until
1867, at which time my grandfather passed away. By the time everything was paid off, I had
one yoke of oxen and a two-wheeled cart to haul what few things I owned. So in the early
spring of 1868 I left for Texas, working the yoke of oxen to my two-wheeled cart. I went
back over the same route that Grandfather and I had come over in 1860; I was only eighteen
years old and all alone going on this trip. I didn’t ride but had to walk, as the
cart was a homemade one and at times it didn’t look like it was going to carry what
few things I had piled on it, but in early June, 1868, I drove my yoke of oxen into
Jacksboro, Texas, and found that the Government was building Fort Richardson, about a mile
from Jacksboro, and the Sixth U.S. Calvary was stationed there.
Everything then was hauled by wagon train, so I went to work for the Government,
hauling lumber to finish building the fort. While I was working on this wagon train
hauling lumber there was another wagon train hauling corn to Fort Griffith and this wagon
train hauling corn consisted of eleven wagons, one man to each wagon. The boss over the
wagon train was named Warren. One morning in the fall of 1868 this wagon train left Fort
Richardson, commanded by Warren, and it was loaded with sacks of shelled corn on its way
to Fort Griffith. Before the wagon train pulled out it was short one driver and Mr. Warren
asked me if I wanted to make the trip. How I got out of making this trip I don’t
recall, but another man was hired to make the trip and, after seeing what had happened, I
was glad I did not go. This wagon train had made one day’s drive and camped and early
the next morning before it pulled out for another day’s drive they were attacked by
the Comanche Indians and only five escaped alive and three of the five were wounded. The
boss of the train was killed and one of the men was wounded so badly that he could not get
away. The Indians tied his feet to one wagon and his hands to another wagon and while he
was swinging this way they built a fire under him and burned him in two; after this the
Indians took the sacked corn out of the wagons and must have laid the sacks in front of
them on their ponies and cut a hole in the sacks and rode in a large circle, and the corn
was scattered all over the prairie around where this massacre took place. There were over
four hundred Indians in that raid; it was later learned that Chief Big Tree was one of the
Chiefs on this raid and according to what he told at his trial, the white man that was
burned after being wounded to where he could not get away, had lain on the ground and,
with his two-six shooters, had killed several of the Indians and that was why they had
burned him, according to Chief Big Tree’s story. The men who had escaped met a
woodhauler and were brought to Fort Richardson and put in the army hospital. At that time
General W. T. Sherman was on a tour of the west looking over army forts and happened to be
in Fort Richardson at the time. He was notified of the massacre; everybody was in an
uproar over what they had heard. General Sherman ordered out fifty soldiers and headed for
Fort Sill and by hard riding this company of soldiers, commanded by General Sherman,
arrived at Fort Sill the next day and General Sherman stationed an interpreter near
headquarters at Fort Sill to see what could be learned. It was a custom of the chiefs of
the Comanches, Kiowas and other Western Indians to gather at this place and tell about
different raids they had made. The interpreter didn’t have long to wait, as General
Sherman arrived ahead of the Indians in Fort Sill. The interpreter heard Big Tree, Chief
Satank and others telling about the raid. General Sherman had his soldiers ready for any
trouble so when the interpreter reported what he had head, General Sherman ordered the
soldiers to round up the Indians. When the Indians saw the soldiers coming the fight
started; in this fight several were killed, soldiers and Indians, but Chief Big Tree,
Satank and a chief of the Kiowas were arrested, handcuffed and loaded in a wagon and
brought to Jacksboro for trial, as court at that time was held at Jacksboro. One of the
chiefs was killed before the soldiers had gone but a few miles; this Oklahoma Chief had a
knife on him that the soldiers had overlooked. He cut his hands down so that he could
slide the handcuffs over his hand and made a run at one of the soldiers and before he
could reach the soldier he was shot down and left there. Chief Big Tree and Satank were
brought on to Jacksboro for trial. I was deputized as one of the guards to watch these two
Indians while their trial lasted. Court was held two days and when they were found guilty,
Chief Satank only sat and grunted but Big Tree made quite a fuss about it; the Judge
sentenced them to hang within thirty days. When the interpreter told them what the Judge
had said, Satank only grunted but Big Tree said, that an Indian wouldn’t do a dog
that way, hang it by its neck and let it choke to death, he wanted to be shot and within
three days. That night about two hundred citizens got up a petition asking the governor to
commute the death sentence to life imprisonment, saying it would be for the best for as
long as the two chiefs were in prison maybe their people wouldn’t do anymore killing,
they would be waiting for their chiefs to return to them; but if they learned that their
chiefs were dead a new chief would be elected and new raids and killings would begin over
again. So the governor of Texas reduced their sentence to life in prison but in a short
time Texas made a treaty with the Indians that if they would stay out of Texas they would
send their chiefs back to them. The treaty was agreed on and Big Tree and Satank were
returned to their tribe.
Texas organized a state troop in 1873 to patrol the frontier; I joined the troops and
served until February 1874. In 1874 I remember two white women were killed by a band of
Indians and the company I belonged to rode all one day and one night without unsaddling
their horses trying to overtake the Indians but they crossed Red River into the Indian
Territory just ahead of us, as we were state troops and could not cross the river. In this
way many an outlaw made his escape by crossing Red River into the Indian Territory. Then
it was up to the U.S. Marshall to get him.
I was married in 1876; my wife is still living. We now live with our daughter in Pauls
Valley.
Submitted by: Alta Massegee TheDeweys@cottoninternet.net
