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R.L. Fox |
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| Fox, R.L.
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty Date: December 28, 1937 My parents were Dave Fox, born in Tennessee and Caroline Stoneman Fox, born in Virginia. Father was a farmer. There were nine children. I was born in Tennessee, May 2, 1860 and was married in 1881 in Tennessee. We came to the Indian Territory in 1884. We came on the train to Hackett City, Arkansas, about fifteen miles south of Fort Smith. there we purchased a team and wagon and drove across the Arkansas Indian Territory line three miles and there we settled. We bought our groceries and got our mail at Hackett City. We lived in a log house with one door and no window, near the Winding Stair Mountains, southeast of old Sculleyville in the Choctaw Nation. We lived near a lake. The woods were full of wild hogs and when a man turned an old sow or pigs loose in the woods, it gave him the right to kill as many hogs as he wished for his meat supply. The full blood Choctaws never erected houses near public roads nor in close proximity to each other. They always chose secluded spots at the foot of a hill, near water. Here they raised a patch of corn and their hogs, upon which they subsisted. They were very susceptible to consumption, many dying each year from this dread disease. It is thought that their tendency toward this malady is due to intermarriage with kindred. Indians and white people all attended the same religious services in our neighborhood. The sermon was preached by a white man and an Indian interpreted it for his tribesmen. People were very honest in those days. A man's word was his bond, and the gun was the law. If a man did something wrong it was time for him to move, if he valued his life. As long as one attended to his own affairs, and let his neighbor do the same, he had nothing to fear. One day while I was in Old Sculleyville, I saw an Indian lad standing on the street, singing and patting his hands. I said, "Son, you must be happy." He replied, "I am, I have a brother to be shot today." When a member of their family did wrong the Indians wanted him to be punished and they would not aid him in any way to escape punishment. They thought that if they failed to keep their promise they would never reach the 'Happy Hunting Ground'. I have lived in Murray County continuously since 1902. Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief. April 2001.
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