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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Name: Davis, L.L. 
Date:  August 17, 1937
Address: Sulphur, OK
Born: October 26, 1876
Place of Birth: Grayson County, Texas 
Father: Matt Davis, born in Kentucky, Farmer
Mother: Mahala  Boyeter, born in Alabama
Field Worker:  John F. Daugherty 
Interview # 8286

I came to the Territory from Texas, with my parents, when I was eleven years old.   We located at Willis Ferry in the Chickasaw Nation, March 25, 1887.  We lived in a log house with one door which swung on the outside when opened.  Father paid his yearly permit of five dollars for grazing land to the Chickasaw Government.  We traded at Denison because groceries were some cheaper there than on this side of Red River.

In 1894, Father bought a place near Avoco (no longer in existence) north of the present site of Asher, on the South Canadian River.  The man from whom he bought this place had staked the claim, and he became dissatisfied so he furnished a relinquishment and Father filed on the place in Guthrie.

This place was almost four miles from the Corner saloon, which was located on the north bank of the South Canadian River in Old Oklahoma, at the junction of the Seminole Nation on the east and the Chickasaw Nation on the south.  This made it a rendezvous for the bad men of Old Oklahoma and of both the Seminole and Chickasaw Nations.  There were many men killed at this Corner saloon.

We lived near Young's Crossing on the Canadian River.  This river was treacherous to ford, but that was the only method of getting across it at this point.  There was not enough water to run a ferry most of the time and the quicksand was bad, especially after a rise.  There was a man with a hack stationed at the crossing place who would pilot people across when the river bed was in a dangerous condition.  This man charged from fifteen cents to a dollar a wagon, depending upon how dangerous the trip was.   At night he had a lantern on each bank to guide him.

When the river bed was 'quicky' it was like riding over rocks, and one dared not stop the team or down they went.  When it was especially dangerous a man would ride a horse in front of the team, and two men would ride across on horseback, one at each side of the wagon.

I remember when a wagon, team and a family sank at Old Johnsonville, in a 'suck' hole when the river was up.

The first year we lived there we drove our cattle to the river for water.

One day one of the cows wandered over to a puddle of water and before she could get out, the water was all gone and she was rapidly sinking in the sand.  She sank to her shoulders and we had to build a scaffold above her and dig her out.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Brenda Choate,  September 2003.