| Moon, J.W.
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty
Date: July 13, 1937
Interview # 4780
Address: Sulphur, OK
Born: July 4, 1873
Place of Birth: Kentucky
Father: John Moon, born in Tennessee
Mother: Louisa Warner, born in Kentucky
LIFE OF A PIONEER MAN
My father was John Moon, born in 1853,
in Tennessee. He was a farmer.
My mother was Louiza Warner Moon, born in
1855 in Kentucky.
There were five boys in our family. I was born
on the Cumberland River in Kentucky, July 4, 1872. I came to
the Indian Territory, November 15, 1892, and settled between Rush
Springs and Marlow on Barnhardt's cattle ranch.
I came from Kentucky to Gainesville, Texas, on the train and rode
horseback to the Ranch, crossing Red River at Spanish Ford crossing.
(no longer in existence)
The houses on this ranch were made of cottonwood
lumber, and the sheds and wind brakes were of hay. These were
built of posts. Two posts were set side by side in a row as
long as they wanted the walls. Then hay was tramped tightly
between these. Poles were laid across the top and hay put on
top of these for the roof.
I was hired to ride lines, but at harvest time there
were other things to do. They sent me to Rush Springs with a
load off sheaf oats for a livery stable there. My wagon was
piled high and I was driving four small jack mules. Rush
Springs was a camping and watering place. All the freighting
to Fort Sill was done by ox teams and when these freighters drove
into Rush Springs they lifted the yokes from their oxen and turned
them loose to water and graze.
This particular day the whole prairie was covered
with oxen. The mud around these springs was waist deep but
there was no way to get past except to go through it. So I
drove my team in and there we stuck. Those little mules
couldn't get out of that mud hole with this load of oats at all.
I was wondering what to do when I beheld oxen coming from every
direction toward my wagon. They began pulling the sheaves from
the wagon and it wasn't long until the wagon was unloaded. I
drove out with my empty wagon and went to the livery stable, telling
the man my tale of woe. He very kindly wrote a note to Mr.
Barnhardt telling him what had happened. However, Mr.
Barnhardt decided he didn't need my services any longer and I was
discharged because I had lost a load of oats. I really was
rather glad to get away from there for we had nothing to eat all
summer but roasting ears, watermelons and an occasional mess of
dough bread. We did have coffee for breakfast. We drank
gyp water from Roaring Creek and slept on bear hides in the
hay sheds. The foreman had a bed but the hands slept on the
ground.
I then stayed on Mr. Clemon's place
while he and his wife went back to Tennessee on a visit. This
was a pleasant place to be after bearing the hardships of ranch life
for several months.
When the Cherokee Strip opened September 16,
1893, I made the Run from Orlando. The registration period
lasted for ten days prior to the opening. I had a fine little
cow-pony and on the appointed day I drove him up to the line.
There were soldiers stationed a quarter of a mile apart all along
the line which was a hundred miles long on each side. The
strip was fifty two miles wide. At exactly twelve o'clock
these soldiers fired a shot and the race was on. Such a race I
have never seen. People were there in carts, covered wagons,
buggies, surreys, horseback, driving mules, oxen and horses, and
many were walking. I ran for twenty-sic miles straight north.
I noticed in particular a man and woman dressed in riding uniforms
on beautiful race horses. They passed me and disappeared on
the prairie. At the end of ten miles I passed them. One
of their horses had fallen and broken a leg and they were both on
one horse, just creeping along at a snail's pace.
I staked a claim near the present site of Three Sands.
When I arrived at my claim there was only one man in sight. He
rode up on a sorrel pony and staked his claim a half mile east of
me. It was thirty minutes or more before people began to
appear from both sides. Fire was raging everywhere, and
antelope, wolves, and deer were running in every direction trying to
escape the terrible commotion which was taking place in their .
I staked my pony and when night came I put my blanket down for a bed
using my saddle for a pillow. I had to move several times
during the night to escape the fire. The next morning when I
awoke two antelope were standing near gazing at me with horrified
eyes. When I moved they flew like the wind across the
prairies.
I decided I didn't like this location as it was too close to
Kansas. I wanted to make a run in the Comanche and Kiowa
Country and I knew if I exercised my stead right here I couldn't
get a place later. A man came along and offered me twenty
dollars for my claim. I told him he could have it at that and
when he went to pay me he just had five dollars. We agreed
that he could pay the fifteen dollars later and I rode away leaving
the claim for him. I never heard of him again and the claim
was his for five dollars.
In 1895 when the Comanche and Kiowa Country was opened for
settlement it was a draw instead of a run. There were claims
for only twenty-five thousand, and the numbers higher than that
didn't get a claim. I went to Old Ft. Sill to register.
There were thousands of people there. Many people turned their
cattle and mules loose to graze. Here is where the saying,
"Oh Joe, here's your mules" originated. That could
be heard for miles, one after the other taking it up and carrying it
along. When anyone was looking for his mules this was sung far
and near. I didn't receive a claim here. My number was
above twenty-five thousand.
I have gone to the Red Store at Ft. Sill many times for
supplies while Geronimo and his band were held captives
there. The Comanche were stationed there also. They
lived in teepees made of weeds, and some had canvas but most of them
were of weeds with a piece of canvas around the top to turn the
water. They put weeds on the floor and covered them with
blankets for their beds. They stayed in groups of fifty or
seventy-five and were governed by a local chief who was governed by
a high Chief, Quanah Parker. When these camps became
dirty they moved rather than clean up. They usually moved
about every two or three months. The Government issued food
and cattle to them about every fifteen days. The beef was cut
into small chunks, dried and carried away in small sacks.
Their blankets were issued by the Government also. When
an Indian decided he wanted some money or whiskey these blankets
could be bought from them for fifty cents.
Their saddles were made of two forked sticks with boards fastened
to each side to which the stirrups were fastened.
It was against the law to hunt on this Indian reservation.
Anybody caught with a gun was arrested.
One day I was going on a freight wagon to Ft. Sill and when the
wagon stopped for the night on Beaver Creek, I saw a bunch of cattle
milling as if a wolf were among them. I took my gun and
slipped along to the edge of the creek to see what the trouble was.
I crawled along the bank and about the time I got near enough to see
among the cattle I heard a clatter and bang and looking up I saw a
bunch of these Comanche Indians coming toward me. Their
canteens were rattling as they galloped. I fell down in the
timber and hid. They passed by without seeing me. When
they were out of sight, I decided I'd better get back to the wagon.
As I approached I saw this bunch of Indians sitting in a circle
around our camp waiting to have coffee served to them.
Freighters always gave them what they asked for so they wouldn't
steal their oxen nor harm them as they drove through their
reservation.
Each night when they camped they would turn the oxen loose to
graze. There was always a pony tied to the chuck wagon which
they used to round up the cattle the next morning when they got
ready to travel on. There was often a train of wagons
consisting of two freight wagons and the chuck wagon all fastened
together and pulled by eight yoke of oxen. Ten miles a day was
about as far as they could travel.
I well remember the Chisholm Trail. It was as plain
as the highways are today. It was about one hundred yards
wide and the cattle trails were cut into ditches. It crossed
Red River east of Ryan at Ringgold, Texas. It followed what is
now Highway 81 and the Rock Island Railroad, east of Marlow and
Duncan east of Chickasha, going on north without a turn, running
west of Perry and straight into Kansas. This was the only
cattle trail across Oklahoma from Texas into Kansas at that time.
It was laid out by Mr. Chisholm, a Texas cowman.
I married Mittie Monroe in Texas in 1898 and we have four
children. We returned to Madill in a covered wagon and we
lived there until four years ago when we moved to Sulphur. I
engaged in the stone business, both monuments and building stones.
I was appointed by Governor Haskell as a member of the
election board to hold the county election in Bryan County.
When Durant was made the county seat, Blue, Durant, and Bennington
were the contestants.
Transcribed by Brenda Choate & Dennis
Muncrief, June 2001.
|