Recollections of Joe T. Roff

Early Days in the Chickasaw Nation

This is the story of Joe T. Roff, the namesake of Roff, OK.  This is a synopsis of the story he wrote for the “Chronicles of Oklahoma” in March of 1935 on the celebration of Mr. Roff’s 87^th birthday.  

This is very interesting and informative having the names of many of the early Indian Territory pioneers.  Hope you enjoy this one.

Joe T. Roff was born in Grundy County, Missouri April 13, 1848, and the son of Major C.L. Roff who was in the mercantile business in Chillicothe, MO.

 Major and Mrs. Roff had several children who were instrumental in the settlement of Cooke County, TX and the Chickasaw Nation.  It is doubtful if a population could be found anywhere that were more honorable in their dealings with their fellow man than were the early pioneers in the Chickasaw Nation, this includes the Chickasaw people themselves.

Among the early white settlers of the Chickasaw Nation was the Roff Family.   They opened up many farms and ranches, built homes, built stores and post offices, started towns and turned the prairie into one of the richest agricultural regions of America.

Not only did the Roff family make contributions in the material greatness of the area but also they made contributions to the educational, moral and religious interest of the region.

Joe Roff had been generous to a fault but felt the effects of the Great Depression in his old age and said that he had no regrets as he had been amply rewarded with a good life in the Chickasaw Nation.

While the most settlers were the type spoken of earlier, there were many renegades that preyed on the helpless of the territory.  The citizenry of the region being frustrated with the lack of law began taking the lawless to task with natures law.

Cooke County, Texas – 1858

In the spring of that year, the Roff family moved from Missouri to the area north of Gainesville in the region of Delaware Bend.  The boundless empty prairie had but few white settlers sparsely settled.  The Comanche were Kings of the Prairie and feared by all those who homesteaded in their domain.

The closest Federal troops to this area were stationed at Ft. Washita and Ft. Arbuckle in the Indian Territory and Ft. Belknap in west Texas.  This provided little protection against Indian raids and authorities, except to track down the perpetrators, could do little.

Early in the winter of 1862, a war party of Comanche came to the ranch of a white man named Jim White.  The family had moved to this are from Grayson County the previous spring and consisted of a wife and children and stepchildren.

On the morning the war party made their raid, Jim White, along with his stepson Porter Parker and his son Charley, had started out early to Grayson County to kill some hogs he had left there to fatten.  Jim White had heard that the Indians were raiding in the area of Fish Creek, near his home.

Shortly after they had left the ranch house, another stepson named Ed Parker who was home on furlough from the Army, and a man named Anderson, went several hundred yards from the house to kill a beef.

On a nearby hill they noticed five riders huddled together.  Anderson thought they may be Indians and wanted to go back to the ranch house.  Ed Parker thought they looked like white men and said there was nothing to worry about.  Ed threw up his hand and waved to the riders sitting on the hill.  The Indians did the same and at that moment, Ed saw their bows and quivers full of arrows.

Hastily turning his horse, Ed began a rapid retreat toward the ranch house with Anderson close behind.  Anderson’s horse was faster and he soon passed Ed Parker.  The superior Indian ponies quickly caught up with Ed.  With one Indian on each side of him now, Parker who was unarmed, reached out to grab one of the Indians by his long hair and jerk him off his horse when the second Indian shot him in the back with an arrow.

Finally reaching the house, Parker tumbled from his pony and scrambled into the house.  Anderson found an old gun and went outside and waved it at the Indians who kept their distance not knowing the relative uselessness of the weapon.  The Indians finally withdrew.

Mrs. White tried to remove the arrow from her son’s back but it wouldn’t budge.  She gave it a second jerk and the shaft separated from the head leaving the arrowhead buried deep in the boy’s back.  Ed Parker was taken to Gainesville where he died two days later.

In the meantime, Mr. White and the two boys were several miles from the ranch house.  Suddenly they heard a volley of rifle fire from the direction of Fish Creek.  Knowing that the Comanche were in the area, Mr. White turned his pony toward his ranch house and telling the boys to follow with the ox team, rode away hard in the direction of the shots.

Upon reaching the hill above the their ranch house, the two boys saw that a band of Indians were in pursuit of someone.  The boys turned the team back over the hill and drove to a small brushy creek that ran along the house.

Crawling along the creek bottom the boys finally reached the safety of the ranch house only to find that Mr. White had not arrived.  Scanning the prairie several hundred yards from the house, they saw the body of Mr. White lying on the ground.  Upon examination they found that he had been scalped, both ears, one hand had been cut off and he had been cut open.

Upon the death of Mr. White and his stepson, Joe Roff was given the task of moving Mrs. White and the remainder of the family back to Grayson County.  Roff drove a wagon and yoke of oxen carrying the family’s belongings with the trip lasting many days in freezing weather.  Being almost barefooted, Roff’s feet froze and this caused him trouble for the rest of his life.  Joe Roff was only fourteen years old at the time.

Mrs. White lived only a few days after arriving in Grayson County.  The nervous strain and the loss of her loved ones were too much for her to bear.  She left six children behind with no relatives in the area.  The people of the community rallied to support the children and other families took all in.  Roff’s parents took one of the girls in and raised her.

During the Civil War the depredations of the Comanche were not abated.  The strained manpower of the Texas troops did not allow for regular Indian patrols.  The withdrawal of Federal troops from the area left the settlers virtually unprotected.

One funny story related by Roff occurred during this time.  A group of Texas troops numbering twenty men under Captain Jim White were on the warm trail of a band of Comanche raiders.  Soon the troop overtook a small party of Indians.  Believing that this was the entire party the troop attacked the raiders.

It was an old Comanche trick.  They had lured the troops within striking distance by their small numbers while the main party of 150 to 200 Comanches was hidden over the hill.  When the troops attacked, the remainder of the raiders topped the hill and attacked the troops.  Realizing that it was an ambush, the troops retreated.

An old man named Henry McGuire and his son Berry were part of the troop.  When the main body of Indians attacked, the troops made a hasty retreat with Henry and Berry riding hell bent for leather.  The old man was riding a small yellow pony that could not keep up with his son’s horse.  Several times the son had to fall back to assist his father.  Every time he fell behind the old man would yell, “Wait for your old Papa, Berry”.  Finally the son yelled to his father “Rid up, Pap, Rid up” to which the old man yelled back “By Gad, do you think I’m a riding jockey”.

In the winter of 1866, the Comanche made a major raid into Cooke County.  Ed Shegog, his wife and children, lived in the path of the raiders.  At the time of the raid, Mr. Shegog was away from home and Tom Manasco, Mrs. Shegog’s father, who lived in the area, heard the Indians were coming.  He hurried to his daughter’s house and took the daughter and her children to his ranch for safety.

Before they could reach the safety of the ranch, the raiders attacked the party killing Mr. Manasco and capturing the woman and her four children.  The night was very cold and she could hear her baby crying in the darkness at the head of the party.  Eventually the baby stopped crying.

The night was so cold that Mrs. Shegog, numbed by the cold, fell from her horse on to the frozen ground.  A Comanche rode back to her and threw a buffalo robe and said “Papoose gone to Heaven” and rode away.  Evidently the baby had frozen to death.  Mrs. Shegog made it to a nearby house and safety.

Joe Roff moved to the Chickasaw Nation in 1871.  Whites only thinly settled the land.  The Indians generally lived in small settlements while the whites were scattered all over.  Some of the more enterprising mixed-bloods rented farms to these white farmers.

Allowing the whites to move into the Nation would bring certain ruin the Chickasaws.  As in Mississippi, the whites moved in and eventually demanded ownership of the land.  This would bring on the allotment of the Chickasaw Nation and the sale of the surplus land to whites with statehood only a few years later.  The tribal laws and courts were abolished. 

Originally the white settlers could live in the Nation for an annual permit fee of twenty-five cents.  This was later raised to one dollar and then to five dollars.  The land was held in common by the tribe and the right of occupancy depended on improvements made such as farms or buildings.  There were no property lines and so no trespass laws.  The only regulation in the Chickasaw Nation was that no one could build or live within one-quarter miles of another.

Many of the Chickasaw began leasing their holdings with terms of five to ten years.  With this lease system, the land began to settle up very quickly.  The fertile prairie with plenty of grass and water began to attract Texas ranchers.  The Texas ranchers were charged an annual fee of twenty-five cents per head as a grazing fee.

It should be noted that the full bloods were always against the intrusions of the white man and wanted to continue the old tribal ways.  The mixed-bloods were the major driving force in bringing the whites into the Nation.

Roff remembered one conference between Dr. Washington, the county clerk of Pickens County and an intermarried citizen.  Dr. Washington was trying to convince the full bloods that the wild game would soon be gone and the Chickasaws were going to have to change their customs.  The Indians listened attentively to his presentation and then replied “Tom Fuller mighty good, Doc, Tom Fuller mighty good”.  This meant they had rather eat their corn mush than have the white man in their country and were unwilling to change their tribal ways.

As the large Texas ranches extended into the Chickasaw Nation, the more enterprising mixed-bloods began leasing huge tracts of pastureland to the whites.  This was accomplished by holding the land and cattle in the name of the Indian.  There was also a grazing permit for the cattle that crossed the Chickasaw Nation.  The permit was twenty-five cents per head.  The average herd on the Chisholm Trail was usually about twenty-five hundred head.  This would be a cost of $625 to cross Indian land.  Giving some bogus bill of sale to and Indian who would meet the herd at the Red River and occupy it to the Canadian River skirted this fee.  At the Canadian the Indian would be paid off for the agreed sum and the herd proceeded into Oklahoma Territory.

During Governor Overton James administration the annual permit fee was raised to twenty five dollars.  There was plenty of grumbling among the whites when the fee was raised from one dollar to five dollars.  This fee increase caused a major tempest among whites.  Most refused to pay and the governor called out the light horsemen and a squad of U.S. soldiers to collect the fees and remove those that refused to pay.  These strong measures eventually worked and the whites paid up with those refusing being packed up and moved across the Red River.

The Texas cattlemen continued coming into the Nation and soon began fencing large parcels of land measuring many thousand of acres in the western part of the Nation.  This problem eventually had to be dealt with and the legislature passed a law that prohibited fencing more that one section, six hundred and forty acres. 

W. E. Washington was one of these ranchers who ran a spread south of Ardmore.  Washington had twenty-five miles of fence and when he refused to remove it the light horsemen cut the fence to pieces.  Upon hearing what they had done, Washington became enraged and tracked sown the militia’s camp.  That night he took his Winchester and killed twenty horses as they were picketed.  Realizing he was in serious trouble, Washington beat a hasty path to Tishomingo where he paid a hefty fine and paid for the horses.

In the early days of the Indian Territory and the Chickasaw Nation the whites that inhabited the area could not be considered good citizens.  The sparsely settled condition and miles of remote country brought the scouters on the run from the law.  The United States Criminal Court in Ft. Smith was the only law in the Territory. 

A few United States Deputy Marshals were the only law.  The Indian courts tried criminal cases involving Indians.  Only the Ft. Smith court could prosecute a white man.  The 70,000 square miles of Indian Territory was just too large an area for the few Deputy Marshals to be very effective.

It was against U.S. federal law to import liquor into the Indian country.  This by no means stopped the importation.  The light horsemen and Deputy Marshals spent most of their time chasing bootleggers.

Among the more notorious whiskey peddlers were the Wade brothers, Dick Glass and George Mack.  Their headquarters were in the Seminole Nation but the whiskey came from Texas.  We have discussed earlier that Ed Stine and Frank Pierce at Delaware Bend on the Red River in Texas were major providers of this illicit brew.  Other bad actors were Manuel Patterson at Cherokee Town (near Wynnewood) and Bud Stevens at Sorghum Flats. 

Bud Stevens was on the lam since he had killed Deputy Sheriff in Grayson County, Texas.  Sorghum Flat was the perfect hiding place in the remote Arbuckles on the Washita River.  But, a posse from Texas finally tracked him down and Stevens took off to a Negro community north of Berwyn.  Here he took up with another character of the same bolt of cloth named Bully July. 

July and Stevens formed a partnership and began importing whiskey into the Territory.  One day July killed Stevens in the Arbuckles and stole his property.  He then went to Steven’s wife and told her that her husband was hurt in the Arbuckles and was calling for her to come help.  July killed Mrs. Stevens and threw her body into a cave.

Some time later, July was at a Negro picnic  and told a friend of the killings.  This friend told others and July killed him for talking.  The law finally got wind of the killings and a posse was formed to search for Mrs. Steven’s body.  They found her body and her carpetbag in a cave in the Arbuckles.  July was arrested, taken to Ft. Smith for trial and hanged.

Jim, Andy and Alva Roff, brothers of Joe, had a ranch in the area of Caddo Creek two miles west of Berwyn (Gene Autry).  At this time, the Lee brothers Jim, Pink and Tom along with their brother-in-law Ed Stine and Frank Pierce (Franklin Pierce Roberts) were operating  two ranches, one on the Texas side of Delaware Bend and one on the Territory side of Delaware bend.

Frank Pierce was considered a very bad man whose principle business was bootlegging.  After he was acquitted of killing a Chickasaw man named Chubb Moore in Johnsonville he took up residence at Ed Stine’s store at Delaware Bend.  The Lee Brothers also had a small ranch on Caddo Creek which was a “hold” for all the bad men passing through the country.

One day while Jim Roff was up in the Arbuckles checking cattle he noticed a group of men driving a small herd of cattle.  He took trail toward the men to see what they were doing.  When they noticed him coming they rode away in a hurry.  Jim Roff checked the cattle brands and found that some were his and others were from smaller ranches.  Roff then went and hid in a ravine and watched the rustlers return and continue driving the herd south.

Roff went to the ranchers that owned the cattle in the herd and told them of the incident.  A posse was formed and the cattle were trailed to Ed Stine’s store and to the ranch of the Lee brothers on the Texas side of the Red River.  After several failed attempts to trap the rustlers it was finally decided to make an assault on the outlaws at Stine’s store.

A plan was adopted and it was decided to go to Stein's Store and arrest the outlaws.  Sheriff Hill and a Deputy Ware, who were unknown to the outlaws, were to go to the store on pretense of buying something and the posse was to wait on the Indian Territory side for word from the sheriff.  On the given day and time, the posse, which included John Washington, Andy Roff and four or five Chickasaws were in position on the north side of Red River.  Sheriff Hill and his deputy went to Stein's store.  Frank Pierce met them in front with a Winchester in his hands and covered them.  The officers never made it into the store.  Instead they asked directions to Dexter and rode off.  When the posse never heard from the sheriff they sent a local man who traded  at the Stein store to go and check it out.  When he arrived at the store Frank Pierce told him to get in the store and stay there.  When the spy never returned, the posse decided it was time to go  see what was happening for themselves.  

On arrival at the store, Washington took position behind the building behind a rail fence.  Frank Pierce came out of the back door and walked across the lot.  Washington told him to "hold up" and Pierce told Washington "Hold up yourself" where he drew his pistol and fired at Washington, striking the rail fence and showering Washington with splinters.  Pierce quickly mounted his already saddled horse and rode toward the Red River.  Every member of the posse was firing at Pierce as he crossed the river and Pierce was firing back all the way.  On reaching the sand bar on the north side of the river, Pierce fell off his horse and collapsed, literally shot to pieces.

The posse recovered a number of cattle and returned them to the Chickasaw Nation and to their rightful owners.  The Lee Brothers were not at the store when Frank Pierce was killed.  When they heard of Pierce's death they were incensed and gathered a number of bad men at the Lee ranch on Cold Branch and rode to their hideout in the Yellow Hills east of Ardmore.

On the first day of  May in 1885, a desperate gun battle occurred southeast of the present day site of Ardmore.  This action cost the lives of four men early one morning and others eventually were added to the list when lawmen tried to arrest a gang of barricaded killers.  Sergeant Jim Guy, Chickasaw Indian Police and brother of Governor William Guy of the Chickasaw Nation, had a warrant for the arrest of Jim and Pink Lee as well as Dallas Humby a Negro/Creek,  for the killing of his wife.  The Lee's along with Frank Pierce were wanted for stealing stock in the vicinity of the Arbuckle Mountains in the Chickasaw Nation and running them to the Lee Ranch and on into Texas near Stein's Store where they had ranch in Delaware Bend.  

Pierce was shot and killed a few days before in the gun battle at Stein's Store as he was attempting to flee across the Red River back into the Chickasaw Nation.  Andy Roff, one of the victims, advised against going after the Lee's since they were very violent and were not disposed to surrender peaceable.  Persuaded to go with Jim Guy were his brother Jim Roff, Billy Kirksey, "Windy" Johnson, and Emerson Folsom.

On the morning of May 1, 1885, Guy and his posse assembled at Henderson's Ferry on the Washita River about six miles south of Dougherty and about ten miles north of the Lee Ranch.  Here the posse was joined by Bob Scivally, a young rancher from Springer, to make the total of the posse about a dozen men.  They arrived at the Lee ranch at sunrise.  The ranch house was a two room log hut.  The house had been arranged so as to best repel an attack as it had port holes from which to shoot in every direction from the house.  A short distance from the house was a boggy branch creek where the posse found they could not cross with only Jim Roff's horse able to cross.  

The posse agreed to leave their horses there and approach on foot.  Johnson and Scivally were left as horse holders while the rest of the posse went onward.  Guy told the posse men that if the Lee's refused to surrender, they would withdraw.  As the posse approached the northeast corner of the house, Ed Steine, brother-in-law of the Lee's, opened the shutter and asked the posse what they wanted. Guy told Steine that he was a lawman and had a warrant for Jim and Pink Lee and for Della Humby.  He also had a warrant from Governor Wolfe of the Chickasaw Nation to cut the drift fence that the Lee's had illegally put around their ranch.  Guy advised the men inside the house to come out and surrender.

Steine told them to come to the front of the house and they would talk about it.  Guy and Folsom walked to the front of the house where Guy leaned his rifle against a large oak tree.  A second later a shot was fired from the house striking Guy and killing him instantly.  Supposedly, this shot was fired by Humby.  (It should be noted here that Jim Guy had arrested Humby a few weeks earlier at Humby's brother's house.  Humby was very sick and Guy decided to leave Humby at his brother's house until he got better.  Guy told the brother to call for him when Humby got better and he would come and get him. The brother never did and Humby escaped.  This is possibly the reason for Humby firing the first shot at Guy.)  

A few moments later a volley of fired rained upon the rest of the posse men with Jim Roff being killed instantly in the first volley.  Billy Kirksey died instantly with Jim Roff.  A severely wounded Andy Roff managed to crawl some distance to the safety of a large oak tree.  The posse scattered with some going to the tree line for shelter while others took cover in the creek bed.  Andy Roff was last seen alive in the shelter of the oak tree. After the shoot out, it was discovered that he was sitting against the tree and there were two more bullet holes in him, apparently execution shots by the Lee gang.  Andy Roff had powder burns around two bullet holes in his shirt.

Heck Thomas and Jim Taylor both fearless deputy marshals got on the trail of the Lee Brothers after the shoot out in which Jim Guy, Billy Kirksey and the Roff Brothers were killed.  The $7,000 reward put up by Alva Roff brought many people to bear against the Lees.  In this time period, U.S. Deputy Marshals were not paid a salary.  They received $3 a summons or warrant served and six cents a mile travel expenses.  The only rewards they could recover were those posted by private individuals, companies, the Nations or States.  They could not receive any federal rewards since they already worked for the government.  

The story of the end of the Lee brothers goes something like this.   Jim  and  Pink  had  a  brother ( could this have been their brother-in-law Ed Steine?) that lived in the area of Delaware bend.  This may have been the ranch of Tom or possibly another brother. This is where Heck Thomas and Jim Taylor set up their base camp.  Jim and Pink knew that Heck Thomas was on their trial.   They decided to head south from the Yellow Hills to Delaware Bend to their brother's place and find the two lawmen where they would shoot it out with them.  As was the custom of the time, Thomas and Taylor stopped at the farm of Strather Brown to eat dinner.  They were informed that the Lee brothers had passed just a short time earlier.  Thomas, Taylor and Jack Brown started in pursuit of the Lees in hopes they could catch them before they made it to Steine's Store.  From a high bluff above the John Washington Ranch, they spotted the Lee brothers in the  pasture below.  Entering the deep gully that concealed them from the Lee boys, they approached within a short distance of the outlaws and ordered them to surrender.  Knowing that Judge Parker was waiting for them, the outlaws preferred to shoot it out then and there.  When the firing ceased, Pink Lee was dead, shot through the head, and Jim  Lee was badly wounded continuing to fight to the last fatal shot.  None of the officers were wounded.

Heck loaded the bodies of the Lee brothers into a borrowed wagon and headed for Gainesville.  Stopping in front of the sheriff's office, Heck saw a man sitting in front of the office.  He asked "Are you the Sheriff of Cook County?"  Sheriff Ware admitted he was.  Then he asked " is this the Cook County Jail?" Sheriff Ware said it was.  Thomas then introduced himself.  "I'm Heck Thomas, deputy United States Marshal operating on a roving commission out of the United States Court at Paris, Texas.  My partner is Jim Taylor of Indian Territory who rides the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations as deputy United States Marshal for the Paris Court."

The sheriff said "Well I'm glad to meet you gentlemen, but who are your friends there?"  "Them" said Heck "is what is left of Jim and Pink Lee, bad hombres from the Indian Territory.  Smokey Joe is still laying back there at Seville's Bend.  He ain't going nowhere."  Heck then said "What I now want is a receipt from you for the delivery of the bodies of Jim and Pink Lee, delivered here to the front door of the Cook County Jail."  The sheriff did not know the Lee brothers by sight and had to call others who did recognize them as being Jim and Pink Lee.  The Sheriff gave Heck Thomas the receipt for the bodies and Heck and Jim collected their reward.  And that is the end of the story of Jim and Pink Lee.

 Many years have come and gone and the actors who participated in this sad episode have long been sleeping in some quite grave. The world has changed and the old outlaws have been all but forgotten.  The old Tribal lands and laws have passed  and Oklahoma became a sovereign state.  Roff touched on the darker side as well as the brighter side of life in the Chickasaw Nation.  There was light among the shadows, sunshine and roses as well as crime and bloodshed.

Contributed by Dennis Muncrief - June 12, 2003