| Ross, Tom
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty
Date: July 15, 1937
Interview # 4806
Address: Sulphur, OK
Born: May 15, 1873
Place of Birth: Dallas County, Texas
Father: Tom Ross, born in Mississippi, Farmer
Mother: Dosia Stamps
My father was Tom Ross, born in Mississippi. Mother Dosia
Stamps Ross. (Dates of births unknown).
I was born in Dallas County, Texas, May 15, 1873. I left
home when I was fifteen years old to make my way in this new
country. I walked to Robber's Roost in 1888 and there I found
Aunt Julie Kemp, a full-blood Chickasaw, with whom I made my
home for many years. Her husband, Uncle Rob Kemp, was
in the penitentiary for the killing of a mail carrier. Aunt
Julie's grandson killed the man, but he had tuberculosis and Aunt
Julie and Uncle Rob did not want the boy to go to prison. Aunt
Julie testified that Uncle Rob had done the killing and he was sent
for life. Judge Ben Colbert secured a pardon for Uncle
Rob at the end of twenty years.
It was during the time that Uncle Rob was imprisoned that I
stayed with Aunt Julie. She needed someone to do her chores,
collect her rents and run errands for her, and I needed a home, so I
stayed with her. She lived in a double log house with a cat
chimney in each end. The doors were hung on wooden hinges and
opened on the outside.
Game was plentiful. Many times when I went to hunt the
horses, I would return with a sack full of turkeys or prairie
chickens.
Robber's Roost was a noted rendezvous for outlaws.
Many men disappeared and nobody heard of them again. They were
hiding in Robber's Roost. "Red" Bates was a
noted outlaw and cattle thief in this part of the territory.
One day he came to our house and asked if we would like to have a
quarter of beef. I thought he wanted to sell it, but he said
he wanted to give it to us. He hung it up in the hall and
said we needn't pay it back. He rode to a neighbors and did
the same thing. The neighbor told a marshal about it, and U.S.
Marshal Markham came to arrest "Red".
"Red" heard about the marshal coming to arrest him, and
rushed out, killed a big red heifer, hung her hide on the fence and,
of course, this was proof that he killed his own cattle, for the
heifer's hide had his brand on it.
Tandy Walker brought Henry Meeks, a neighbor whom
he had arrested, to my house to spend the night. He asked me
to help keep him a prisoner. I told him they could stay there,
but I wouldn't help keep him a prisoner. He tied him with a
plow line to a battling bench, and there he stayed until morning,
when they again took up their journey toward Paris, Texas.
Aunt Julie decided to build a house out of lumber and she sent me
to the saw mill after the lumber. I got lost and the oxen got
hungry and thirsty. We drove up to a full-blood Indian's house
and I asked him for corn to feed my oxen. He just grunted at
me and walked away. I crawled into his Tom Fuller patch, got a
few ears of corn and was feeding the oxen when he approached with a
rifle. I handed him a half dollar. This pleased him so
much that his anger faded, and he invited me to his house to eat.
His wife put on the skillet and lid and cooked me a meal.
A man moved into our neighborhood from Arkansas with fourteen
small heifers. They wandered away and he could find no trace
of them. One day a stranger came by and stopped to talk with
the man. He began to tell his tale of woe and said, "I
believe Thornt Young stole those heifers". The
stranger replied, "You're talking to Thornt Young. I
wouldn't bother small bunches of cattle like yours. I steal
out of large heards". And then Thornt drove away leaving
the man much perplexed.
One night a white woman drove up to Aunt Julie's and asked if she
might camp there for the night in our pasture which was fenced.
She was afraid to stay down at the camp ground as she was all alone.
She was going to the western part of the Territory. One of
her horses was sick when she camped and it died during the night.
Aunt Julie told me to catch a pony for this woman next morning so
that she could continue her trip. Aunt Julie gave the pony to
this woman.
Indians were very generous and kind to people whom they liked.
Very few of them were thieves until the white man taught them to be
dishonest.
One day I went to Byrd's Mill with a load of wheat to have
it ground into floor. I met a man there who wanted to trade a
span of small mules for the oxen I was driving. I traded with
him and we traveled much faster after that. Aunt Julie was
delighted to have a span of mules.
She built the Rock Hotel in Durant and put my wife and me
in charge of it. We served meals but had no lodging
accommodations. She raised practically all the food we served
on her farms. All the meat, beef, pork and mutton came from
her farms. We served meals family style for fifteen cents a
meal. Business was good. We usually had more people
that we could feed. We hired four or five cooks all the time.
I married Dosia Herring in 1897. We went to Paris,
Texas, for our license. We moved to Sulphur in 1906, and have
resided here continuously since.
Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis Muncrief,
June 2001.
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