CLYDE PARKER

I was born May 11th, 1876 near Denton, Texas.  I came to the Territory in 1887 with an uncle.  There were two wagons.  We drove horses.  We crossed the Red River at Delaware Bend and settled at Prices Falls in Sorghum Flat.  We lived in a double log house with one by twelve foot boards for the floors.  We had a rock chimney and cooked in a skillet with a lid.

I attended school at Sorghum Flat for five years.  Julian Tripp was my first teacher.  We did not have school in the winter and as the weather was warm during the three months term, we had our classes under a brush arbor.

My uncle raised corn and cotton.   He sold his cotton in Ardmore receiving about .06 or .07 cents per pound for it.  Corn sold for .10 per bushel.

There was an old water gin on Prices Creek belonging to Nathan P. Price for whom the creek and falls are named.  There was a grist mill in connection with it.  The creek was dammed up for water to run the mill.  They had a race to run the water into the mill.  The wheel was an overshot.  The gin baled about four or five bales of cotton per day.  We bought our goods from Al Taylor in Sorghum Flat.  He had a general Merchandise Store.

My uncle raised cattle.  They ranged over the Arbuckle Mountains in which there were many wolves.  These animals were a great menace to our calves.

One day when I had been out on the range looking for some cattle and it was just about dark as I was returning home.  A panther suddenly appeared from the brush and came in pursuit of me.  I was very much frightened.  I had a British Bulldog six shooter and I was afraid I could not kill the panther with this and I knew if I missed him he would probably kill me.  So we just galloped along side by side for some distance.  At last the panther suddenly ran into the brush and was gone.

When I was sixteen years old I went to Davis to live with a brother who was teaching school there.  I attended school for two years and then went to work in a drug store.  

After working for two years I became a driver for a livery stable.  When a traveling man wanted to go to the stores and towns away from the railroad, he had to hire a team and buggy.  They seldom wanted to make the trip without a driver, so I drove for them.  For this service we received three dollars per day for the team and driver and the traveling man paid for the feed for the team and the meals and lodging for the driver.

One night a United States Marshal came to Davis from Paris, Texas.  He came to the barn and said he wanted a team and driver by daylight.  It fell to my lot to do the driving.  He was delivering summons for Federal Court to be held in Paris, Texas.  We stayed with farmers at night most of the time during the trip.  We were gone two weeks.  When we got to Tishomingo, the Indian Court was in session.  There were many drunken Indians on the street and they were whooping and yelling as they did at their stomp dances.  We had to take a room on the first floor  and this Deputy Marshal gave me a gun and told me to use it if any of those Indians intruded.  There was no need of the gun though, for they were as harmless as they could be.  But the Deputy Marshal being from Texas thought these Indians were wild as the Comanche whom he had encountered in Texas.

We stayed with a Chickasaw  full blood Indian named Hart at Hart.  For breakfast we had the fattest meat I ever tried to eat, black coffee and black biscuits.  We went as far north as Purcell then back to Fort Arbuckle and then to Davis.

One day a drummer sent me into a store to buy some cigars.  I returned with some cheroots.  This was the only kind of cigar that could be bought in this country at the time.

I worked nine years for the McClusky Dry Goods company in Davis.  We had many full blood Indians as our customers.  They paid for each article as they purchased it.  In those days, we could by a good sack of flour for .75 cents and a good pair of shoes for $1.50 and a good suit of clothes cost $8.00.

Transcribed by Dennis Muncrief, October 3, 2000.

 HOME       IPP Index