Some of these names you may have never heard of before but all were part of the history of the area whether famous or infamous.  Names such as Cyrus Harris, Mazeppa Turner, Nathan Price, Moses Clay, William Taylor, Thomas Howell, Sam Davis and Matt Wolf, all had their imprint on the history of the area.

 

Emily Harris, daughter of Cyrus Harris, first governor of the Chickasaw Nation, died in 1864 and was buried at Old Mill Creek on the eastern Murray County line. The oldest known burial in Murray County with a tombstone is in the Washita Cemetery four miles north of Davis.  A man named John Williams died January 18, 1876.  Polly Wolf was buried in Lowrance cemetery in 1878 and Alice Campbell was buried in Sorghum Flat cemetery in November of 1878.  Now this doesn’t mean by any stretch of the imagination that these were the first burials in the Arbuckles.  Obviously they could not have been since there were many Indian tribes here hundreds of years earlier.  This is simply the earliest tombstone that I have recorded in the registries of the county cemeteries.

 

Cyrus Harris and family were removed some years ago from the Old Mill Creek cemetery when Mill Creek began eroding the banks into the old cemetery exposing some of the coffins.  The family was re-interred in the Drake-Nebo cemetery in a family plot with a nice iron fence.  Cyrus Harris died in 1888 and was also originally buried at Old Mill Creek.

 

In the northwest corner of the Drake-Nebo cemetery is a very large monument for the Williams family.  All five members of the family were killed by a tornado on June 1, 1917.

 

One will find graves in many very old family cemeteries of the Chickasaw and Choctaw in the area that is a large stone structure made of very large flat stones.  These structures are about eight feet long by four feet wide and about three to four feet in height.  Unfortunately there is no way of knowing who is buried there or when they were buried.  However these monoliths are very old and obviously outdate any marble marker I have found.

 

Some time ago we covered the life of William Taylor who was killed by Texas Rangers on Buckhorn Creek south of Sulphur.  Young William was a horse thief and the Rangers killed him on the morning of January 17, 1877 where upon they drug his body to a nearby hilltop and buried him.  His grave can still be seen.

 

Moses Clay was a twenty-two year young black man from the Homer area west of Hennepin.  One Sunday afternoon in September 1884 he went to a camp meeting on Wild Horse Creek where he tied his horse to his brother’s wagon and poured a bucket of corn for his horse to eat.  He walked over to the festivities and later returned to his horse.  He found that another horse was at his horse’s place eating his horse’s corn.  He gave an oath and demanded to know who had changed the horses. 

 

A black outlaw of the region appeared and told Moses he did it and said “he could go for it” if he didn’t like it.  Moses drew his pistol at the same instant the outlaw drew but Moses aim was swift and true.  The outlaw’s bullet missed and the badman was dead when he hit the ground.  At almost the same instant, a third shot was fired from the crowd striking young Moses in the heart killing him instantly.  Dick Glass, the most notorious Creek/Negro outlaw of Indian Territory, fired this second fatal shot.  The light horsemen killed this very dangerous and feared man the next year while trying to smuggle whiskey into the territory across the Red River.  Moses Clay is buried in the Five Mile Cemetery between Ft. Arbuckle and Hennepin.  His gravestone can still be seen and read.

 

Dr. Thomas P. Howell came to the area in the late 1870’s and settled west of Davis.  He was the first doctor in the Arbuckles.  The family cemetery is located at the intersection of S.H. 7 and I-35 on what was once the Howell ranch.  Buried in this family cemetery is Doc Howell’s mother Rhoda Pitchlynn Howell, the sister of Peter P. Pitchlynn the first Principle Chief of the Choctaw Nation.  Also buried here is Nick Butterly, an Irish immigrant who married Howell’s sister Fannie and became a citizen by marriage.  Butterly had the large ranch just west of Turner Falls.

 

Mazeppa Turner came to this area in the 1870’s and settled in the Arbuckles.  He and his adopted son Tom Hayes explored the Arbuckles and found Turner Falls and Honey Creek on their property.  Mazeppa is buried in the Dougherty cemetery not far from the parents of Kay Starr the famous big band singer.  Not as famous is the little girl who died in 1892 and was buried here that had probably the cutest name, Snow Frost.  Her father White Frost built the first mercantile store in Dougherty.

 

Sorghum Flat cemetery is the final resting place of Nathan Price, the man who built a grist and saw mill at a falls on Falls Creek.  The water wheel is still visible at the site now called Prices Falls.

 

Sam Davis the namesake of Davis, Ok is buried at Green Hill Cemetery in Davis. Sam had a store at Sorghum Flat for a while and moved on to Washita where he was in competition with Matt Wolf.  When the Santa Fe RR came through in 1887, Sam moved to the new community that took his name.  Sam is buried in a grove of oaks across the lane from his old competitor Matt Wolf.  Also buried in Green Hill is C. M. Mays who owned a chain of lumberyards throughout southern Oklahoma.

 

One of the strangest cemeteries is the one on Dolese property at Big Canyon.  I have seen the records where these were family members of Dolese employees.  Evidently the Dolese Company took care of their employees whether living or departed.  This cemetery is located between the quarry and the Washita River.

 

There are many stories in these old cemeteries, as many as there are tombstones.  They each had their story and made an impression on the history and people of Murray county.  I have always enjoyed registering the 39 cemeteries in Murray County with more than 20,000 names.  They are a quite, beautiful and peaceful place.  The cemeteries are usually on a hilltop where a nice breeze is usually blowing.  And, to tell you the truth, I would often rather be with those in the cemetery than some of those I know who are still walking around.

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Contributed by Dennis Muncrief September 2002.