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Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Date: Aug 30, 1937
Birth Place: Eagletown, Choctaw Nation, I.T.
Father Calvin H. Howell, born in North Carolina
Mother Rhoda Pitchlynn, born in Mississippi
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here for children and spouses.
I was born at Eagletown, Eagle County, in the Choctaw Nation in 1849.
I attended the Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, later
graduating from the Medical Department of the University of Maryland.
I was one of seventeen students selected from the great body of
medical students to act as interns in the University Hospital at
Baltimore. By remaining throughout the summers of the two years I
served in the hospital, I received what amounted to four years of
practical experience. This proved invaluable to me when I returned
to the Indian Territory to take up the work of a general practitioner
in the newly settled country.
I left Washington and came to Memphis by rail and decided I would take
a boat from there. There were many emigrants taking the water way to
the Golden West. I made the acquaintance of many of these seekers.
Like all very young doctors, I had my name and professional title
printed upon my brand new trunk which I brought with me from Washington.
A child belonging to one of the seekers was taken very ill and in
their search for medical aid someone recalled having seen the name
Dr. Howell upon my trunk. I was soon found. The child had pneumonia.
The experience I had gained in similar cases during my period as an
intern enabled me to save the child's life. This was my very first
patient.
On reaching the Territory, I went in partnership with my old friend,
Dr. I.W. Folsom, at Atoka in 1875. I stayed in partnership with him for
one year.
In 1876 I came to Pauls Valley. It was then a cross-roads trading point.
I was the only doctor at Pauls Valley at that time.
Zack Gardner, a Choctaw Indian, had settled on the Washita river east
of where Pauls Valley is now, shortly after the Civil War and was
founder of the first grist mill there. It was a water power mill, the
Washita river furnishing the power. Smith Paul was one of the first
men to locate in this valley and Pauls Valley was named for him. Tom
Waite, Zach Gardner, Jimmie Gardner and several others were large
farmers and they had the contracts to sell their corn to the government
at Fort Sill, for one dollar a bushel.
The life of a country doctor at that time was very hard in this newly
settled country. Pauls Valley was just far enough from the Texas line
to be a rendezvous for outlaws of every description. In the running fights
between outlaws and pursuing officers and law-abiding citizens, many were
wounded and the country doctor had to lend his assistance to the wounded
of either party. There were so few doctors in this country that even the
outlaws couldn't afford to be careless and use them for targets in their
free-for-all shooting scrapes.
There was little money in the country in those days. That was how I
happened to start a ranch. I had to accept cattle as pay for professional
services; it was a choice of cattle or nothing. I started my ranch a few miles
east of Fort Arbuckle in 1876, on Wild Horse Creek. The two room log house I had
build still stands. I had it moved a short distance later and had the
I now live in put on the spot where the log house did stand.
C.J. Grant and myself established the first bank in Pauls Valley. C.J. Grant,
Noah Lael, Perry Froman and myself owned the first bank in Davis. Doctor
Shirley owned a general store at Cherokee Town when I came to Pauls Valley.
After the soldiers were sent to Fort Sill from Fort Arbuckle the government
established a school for Negroes. Mr. Tom Grant bought Fort Arbuckle from
the Chickasaw Governor for $50.00, after the soldiers left there.
My father, Calvin H. Howell, came from North Carolina at an early date and
married Rhoda Pitchlynn, the sister of Colonel Peter P. Pitchlynn, who was the
first governor of the Choctaws. My uncle was a large slave owner, and on account
of the speeches he made trying to keep the Choctaws out of the War, he was forced
to go to Washington to save his life and he lived there the rest of his life.
I still live on my ranch that I started in 1876. Most of it is cut up into farms.
Transcribed by Dennis Muncrief, November 2000.
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