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An interview with
JOHN W. HARRISON
Antlers, Oklahoma
An Interview with JOHN W. HARRISON
Post Office: Antlers, Oklahoma
January 25, 1938 by Johnson H. Hampton, Field Worker
Transcribed and
Submitted by Teresa Young
I was born in Lafayette County, Missouri in
1873 and was about sixteen years old when we came through the Indian
Territory. My father and mother decided that they would move to Texas, so we
left Belton, Missouri and came by wagon through the Indian territory and on
to Texas; we stopped at Denison, Texas, then went on to Paris, Texas; where
we found JOHN GORDEN, one of our old friends who had come from Missouri,
living on a farm. He had conditionally rented a farm for us before we got
there; he later moved to the Indian Territory to Antlers.
We made one
crop in Texas, five miles east of Paris in the year 1888, we made a failure.
The landlord wanted my father to stay for another year but Father would not
stay, he had enough of Texas; he wanted to go back to Missouri but was not
financially able to make the trip back home. One of our Missouri friends,
Uncle BILLY PAYNE, lived near Kosoma, hauling lumber, so Father went up
there to look around and when he came back, he said that the roads were
awfully bad but they wanted teams and that there was lots of lumber to haul.
They had just begun to run sawmills in that country and the railroad had not
been built over four or five years; the Frisco Railroad which ran from
Paris, Texas, to Fort Smith, Arkansas, had just been completed when the
sawmills came into the country.
There was lots of Yellow Pine timber
and it was good timber, this was the first cutting that was done. I think
Short & Picking and Ash & Ferguson were the only big companies who had
sawmills in there at that time. Father decided to move to Kosoma, and haul
lumber for four or five months and then move back to Missouri; at one time
he was very prosperous in Missouri, he had some very good real estate.
We
moved to Kosoma, Indian Territory, in February 1889, and I have been in the
Choctaw Nation for forty-nine years the first of next month. I lived at
Kosoma for twenty-seven years and near there the balance of the time.
We had two good teams, mules and horses. Our friend, Jim Cave, moved
with us; he had two mule teams. My father left his family in Paris, Texas,
and JIM CAVE, moved with us; he had two mule teams. My father left his
family in Paris, Texas and JIM CAVE did too; they were to stay there until
the winter broke. We had to camp out and I can well remember we had some
awfully cold weather in February. Our house was our wagon bed, with sheets
and bows; camping out wasn't so bad but batching was awful, Father and Mr.
CAVE and the two negros we brought with us from Paris. There were no other
negros at Kosoma, and I am quite sure that these were the only negros that
ever lived there; they lived with us for several years then finally left on
their own accord because no other negroes were allowed at this village.
While they were there, they drove a team all the time for my father and Mr.
CAVE. My father was the campboy most all the time; our lumber hauling
developed into years instead of four or five months.
We had good
teams but our wagons were worn out and we broke down so much it was all we
could do to make a living out of our lumber hauling. About the first of
March Mr. CAVE sent for his family, he had built a small sawmill shack and
he moved his family to this shack and Father and I boarded with him and his
family. Prior to this time, I had thought that no woman could cook better
than my Mother but after eating Mrs. CAVE’s cooking I told her that she was
the best cook in the world. I tell you we had some good eating; we kept
venison all the time but we never hunted, we bought from the Indians. We
paid 25 cents for venison hams, all we wanted at any time and they sold
turkeys at a very low price, in fact, there was too much game for it to be
worth much. I have seen dear in droves, fifteen or twenty of them in one
bunch and turkeys were as thick as blackbirds.
There was a family of
bachelors who lived at Kosoma of the name of HARVILL, an old man and his two
sons. They were white people and the boys were hunters; they would kill lots
of deer and turkeys and a few bears and they would bring us bear meat once
in awhile. One time, I remember, they captured two cubs and kept them until
they got unruly, they had to keep them chained and finally sold them. Very
frequently you would see pet fawn, they were easy to capture after you
killed their mother and they were very easy to make a pet of.
About
the first of April my father sent after his family and we moved into a small
house at a sulfur spring, about half a mile north of Kosoma. There was good
water at this spring which is still there and as good as it ever was.
When I first landed at Kosoma there were no schools, church nor Sunday
School. My mother was an educated lady and Christian, she belonged to the
Church of Christ and my father formerly belonged to the Baptist church but
some few years later become a member of the Church of Christ. Mother was a
lady who always had influence in the advancement of education and
Christianity and when we moved here the first step she took was to have
Sunday school; about a month after she came or hardly so long she started a
Sunday School at the Sulphur Spring in front of our house under a big tree.
A few women and children came the first Sunday; there were twelve or fifteen
men sitting on a cliff of rocks southwest of the house about sixty yards. A
United States Marshal, BERT BROWN, came along and asked these men if they
were taking in the Sunday School. One of them swore and said, "We came down
here to break it up, we are going to give them a war whoop", but the marshal
told them they had better not disturb the Sunday School for they would be
disturbing public worship it would get them in bad trouble. The next Sunday
some of the same bunch came to Sunday School and helped with the singing and
it wasn't but a very short time until we had a good Sunday School.
The next step my mother made for advancement was for a day school; she went
around and got signers to start a subscription school. She opened the school
in the summer and she taught the summer school and the next year, and the
following year my oldest sister, EVA, taught, the next year my sister,
MINNIE, taught and the next year my youngest sister, EMMA, taught. By that
time the school business was under a pretty good headway for after the
school got started it seemed that everybody wanted the school to go on.
Later they got a regular teacher and my mother and sister did not teach
anymore.
My mother is also responsible for first preaching at Kosoma;
she had a Baptist preacher to come from Paris, Texas, and hold church twice
a month; he came for several months. We had been at Kosoma probably about a
year when she got the preaching started.
I want to tell you the white
people were the ones to civilize, not the Indians. I have always found the
Indians more law-abiding citizens than the whites. While we will have to
admit that they most all drink and like whisky, that is about the only time
the Indians would ever get loud in their talking and we all know who is
responsible for that. I have noticed that the Indians hardly ever got loud
with a white man unless the white man started it; when they were drinking
their troubles were among themselves, very seldom was a white man ever
implicated in their troubles.
There were thousands and thousands of
acres of find grass almost waist high in the timber and the mountains here.
I think that the Indian agent charged the cattleman 25 cents per head, a
limit for so many head, but the white man had a way to beat that; he would
get some Indian to hold his cattle as theirs.
There was lots of
whisky and dancing at Kosoma, I never danced nor would mingle with them on
their big drunks but I remember I was one dance at Kosoma when they danced
with their spurs on and big six-shooter buckled on. There was a water bucket
full of whisky with about six tin cups in the bucket and everybody who
wanted to drink but I don't remember seeing anyone down drunk; the dance
went on without any trouble. They used to get their whisky from Paris, Texas
and from Fort Smith; hardly ever would an Indian get to those dances.
In a very short time here in the southeast part of Indian Territory
sawmills ware scattered promiscuously over the country cutting millions and
millions of feet of Yellow pine timber. At first, the Indians realized very
little out of the timber, they got 25 cents per thousand feet, taking the
log scale at the mills and the mill man beat the Indians out of thousand and
thousands of feet of timber. The sawmill operators they would not turn in a
report on all timber out so the Indians went to the railroad agent and tried
to get the number of cars that were shipped out at that station, still that
was not satisfactory for the agents would not make a full report. The third
and last plan of the Indians was to scale the stumpage; take their estimate
from that and they proceeded with this scale until the allotment was made,
still, the sawmill business went on. Oh my, how they did slaughter the fine
pine timber, all the best timber along the railroad was cut out. I am sure
that I never took anything from the Indians, though I was a lumber hauler
and hauled on wagons with mules and horses for twenty years, I lost very
little time. When I quit hauling lumber, I began to check lumber; I checked
for five years straight time. Very little lumber hauling was done with oxen
but most all the logging was done with oxen for several years; they made
good money hauling logs for the grass was good so they did not have to feed
their teams except in the wintertime. Most all the men who used to log are
dead. I know of only two who are still living, BILLY GARDENER, who lives at
Tuskahoma, and ANDY POE who lives at Stanley.
At one time Kosoma was
one of the best lumber points on the Frisco railroad. I was checking lumber
there at the time we had over two million feet of lumber in the yards at one
time; I was checker for seven or eight different mills. My father finally
took a contract to haul lumber for so much and to keep up the roads and was
allowed for a while to sell feed and groceries, we made good money then for
groceries and feed were high.
I was married to Mr. T. A. WILSON's
daughter at Kosoma December 24, 1906, but I still lived at home with my
father and we worked to each other's interests just the same.
When an
Indian died the other Indians did not cry and grieve like we did, that was
not their way of doing. They didn't seem to be the least bit excited. They
almost always buried their loved ones at home in the back yard or in the
garden, sometimes in front of the house. However, I do know of several
cemeteries where they buried their dead, but they did not erect tombstones;
instead, they almost always built a little house over the grave. The Indians
set a time to meet and cry at the place where the deceased was buried. I
don't remember how long they cried but I was at one cry and stayed a few
minutes and I do know they seemed to be sincere.
I have also been to
their preachings; they preach in their own language, I have been to their
meeting where they used an interpreter.
I don't believe that I ever
was at an Indian dance. The Indians were not much interested in amusements
of any kind. I have been to their ball games. They used two wooden sticks
that looked like dippers to catch the ball. There were a good many who would
go after the ball at the same time; it is a rough game, almost as rough as
we play football now.
About 1898, a Federal courthouse was built for
this country that was the first court that the white people had in this
country where they could be tried instead of going to Paris, Texas, or to
Fort Smith, Arkansas. After statehood, the Federal Court was done away with
and now we have a good County Court House in the place of the Federal Court
House.
After statehood, at the first election, while we were still
living at Kosoma, a friend of my father's had Father's name put on the
ticket as a candidate for commissioner for the Second District, A. 0. BRYANT
was a candidate for commissioner of the Third District and for the First
District a man of the name of EVANS had his name put on the ticket. WILLIAM
ELLIS was a candidate for Sheriff, A. J. ARNETT for County Attorney, W.
D.PARKS for County Clerk, Mr. TRIGG for District Court Clerk, MALCOM E.
ROSSER for District Judge. L.P. DAVENPORT for County Judge and F. L.
ANDERSON for Township Assessor; all of these candidates were elected. My
father was elected for the third term as County Commissioner for his
district but he passed away before taking his seat for the third term and
Mr. TUCKER was appointed in his place.
At that time the County
Commissioners got very little pay, I think that he got $33.00 for the first
year, then in his second term, it had been increased to $37.00 per month.
My father was well liked by the citizens of Pushmataha County, he not
only looked after his district but he looked after the whole County and the
interest of the County. He was seventy-three years old when he passed away
but I am sure that he will be remembered by the good citizens for all time
to come and his name will be honored by the younger generation.
There
has been a great advancement made since 1889, it only seems a short time
back when we had no autos, very little machinery, not even a phone, you
might say no roads. It will seem odd to the younger generation in after
years how we got along and how we got by, but as for me, give me back the
old Indian Territory times. I love Oklahoma but my mind still wanders back
to the Indian Territory times.
I have lived here for a long time and
know most of the full blood Indians in this county, they are good people,
are all good friends of mine and I never did have any trouble with any of
them. They are the best and quietest people that you can find and they are
honest and dependable at all times.
Transcribed & Submitted by Teresa Young
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