Interview # 8789
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: September 29, 1937
Name: Mr. Fred Scott
Residence: Maysville, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: August 10, 1885
Place of Birth: Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory
Father: J.C. Scott, born in Tennessee
Mother: Marion Munley, born in Arkansas
I was born on the Sam Garvin farm west of Whitebead in the Chickasaw
Nation in 1885. My father came from Arkansas in 1883 and settled on this farm of Mr.
Garvin's. Mr. Garvin owned a large ranch and had lots of cattle.
In the early days my father raised corn, oats and wheat. The first
cotton I remember seeing was in the early 90's , for people in this part of the country
didn't raise cotton in the early days.
This part of the country where I was born was more of a cattle country.
T here was a good deal of corn, but it was very cheap and the big cattlemen fed
their beef cattle with it and that was why Maysville in the early day was called Beef
Creek, as there were thousands and thousands of head of cattle fed along this creek.
I have heard my father say that he used to haul freight from Miller and
Green's store at Pauls Valley to Fort Sill in 1884 and he worked from five to six yoke of
steers and most of the time the freighters would use two wagons and one wagon was called
the trail wagon.
My first school was the Randolph Chapel, in the early days. T his
was a one room log school house, but by the time I was old enough to go to school, they
had built a frame school house, the lumber for which had been hauled from Texas.
Before the railroad came through Pauls valley, I have heard my father say
that the Engram Brothers operated a stage line through here and one of their stops was at
our home on Beef Creek, where Maysville is now. This was a four horse stage line and
they came from Caddo to Fort Sill. After the railroad was built through Pauls
Valley, the stages only went from Pauls Valley to Fort Sill, and the freight lines stopped
coming from Caddo, as the freight was shipped to Pauls Valley on the railroad and
freighted from there to different places.
In the early 90's a cotton gin was built about four miles south of Beef
Creek.
I remember when I was a small boy that my father had a large wheat field
and there was so many geese one year that they had to be herded off of the wheat field
just like cattle. I was very small, but I rode herd on the wheat field with my
father. We didn't have anything but the old muzzle-loading shotguns then to use and
riding herd on the geese we used sticks instead of guns, and I know I have killed a
hundred or more in one day.
We would pile them up and in the evening take the wagon and haul them
home, then the feather-picking job would begin. My mother made several feather beds
that year.
Joe Wilson, Bob Love, Joe Myers, Sam Muncrese(Muncrief?), Bill
Story, Joe Criner, and Dave Mays were large cattle owners. In the early
days my father dealt in cattle and hogs, as there was more money to be made in cattle and
hogs than there was in farming.
The town of Maysville started building in 1902 and the branch railroad was
built from Pauls Valley to Lindsay in 1902.
