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L.A. Lynn |
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| Lynn, L.A.
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty Date: February 9, 1938 My parents were E.A. Lynn, born in Alabama and Frances Woodward Lynn, born in Mississippi. There were ten children in our family. Father was a farmer. I was born in Arkansas, January 27, 1871, and we moved to the Indian Territory in 1893, settling near Thackerville in the Chickasaw Nation. Father came here to obtain grass for his cattle. He leased a place, plowed around it and built a log house and we moved in. We had no door at first. Mother hung up an old quilt in the doorway. This kept out the wind and rain, unless the rain fell too fast. Then it soaked through and ran down inside. We had only a dirt floor though, so it mattered not if the rain did come in. As we came into the Territory we met an Indian on Little River in the Choctaw Nation between Tuskahoma and Antlers who had killed a deer. He gave us a quarter of it. The weather was very warm and we traveled most of the day before cooking the venison. When we camped that night on Cedar Creek, east of Antlers, Mother got the meat to prepare it for our supper and it was spoiled. She threw it away and before long some wild hogs appeared to eat the meat. During the night a bear came into camp and got one of the hogs. There was plenty of excitement for a while. The hog squealed and the others fled. We were terribly frightened for fear the bear would attack us, but it was only after some of the meat which had been thrown away. None of us slept. The mosquitoes were so numerous and we feared the return of the bear. The next day we drive past Bert Owen's sawmill about twelve miles from Antlers. We stopped here and watched them saw large cedar logs into very thin boards. They had a double saw and only cedar was sawed. They shipped this cedar to a pencil factory in Pennsylvania from Clayton and Tuskahoma. They hauled cedar logs with eighteen yoke of oxen. While we were there a man came in with a new wagon with the brake on the rear and four yoke of oxen which were sleek and fat. The horns of the oxen were polished and tipped with brass knobs. Their yokes were new and that ox wagon and those steers were the prettiest I ever saw. Those oxen fed on holly and this kept them sleek and fat through the winter. The second year we were here we moved to Pontotoc County in the Chickasaw Nation, four miles north of Roff. We built a small church and organized a Baptist Church. We also put up a small log building for a school house. In those days there were no educational requirements for teachers, preachers nor doctors. Anybody could join the ranks of any of these professions. We secured an 'old nester' to teach us. It was very hard for people to get the $1.00 a month to pay for a months tuition to send their child to school, so many of the pioneer children received no scholastic training at all. Those children who did attend, went only about three or four months out of the year. We broke the sod with a yoke of steers. Mother has spun thread and woven cloth for our clothing before we moved here and that was the only clothing we had for three or four years after moving here. Mother had a scouring mop made of a piece of hewed timber about eighteen inches long and twelve inches wide. Two inch holes were bored at intervals in this with a auger and a handle was put into the middle of one side slantwise. Corn shucks were pulled through these holes. When the shucks wore out they were replaced by others. This mop did a splendid job of scouring. Mother's floors were always shining with cleanliness. The Federal Court convened at Pauls Valley when we first moved to Roff. Then it moved to Center and from there to Roff. Finally it was established at Ada after a judge was whipped at Roff. A white man and a Negro had a fight at Roff. The white men tried to mob the Negro and he was removed to Ardmore. The white man was brought into Court when he was drunk and the leaders of the mob took the judge out and whipped him for trying the case when the white man was not able to tell what happened. This white man took his lawyers and went to Ada where the case was tried. Thus Roff lost the county seat of Pontotoc County to Ada. In Choctaw politics it was unlawful to carry firearms to an election. During Cherokee elections the voting place was usually under the shade of a tree and a rope was stretched around the voting place at a distance of fifty feet. A guard walked around this rope all day and nobody was allowed inside the rope except as he went in to vote and only one man at a time was permitted to enter. Father was in the Confederate Army for four years and six months of that time was spent in the Indian Territory on the Joe Nail Crossing on Blue River in the Choctaw Nation. Father helped to build the winding breast work at this crossing which is still there. It was used as a protection behind which to fight outlaws and whiskey peddlers later. I married Ella Butler at Roff in 1894. We are the parents of four children. Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief, April 2001.
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