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Indian Pioneer Papers

McKee, J.D.
Interview 13228
pages 175-184

Field Worker’s name: Johnson H. Hampton
Date: March 15, 1938
Name: Mr. J.D. McKee
Address: Soper, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: April 23, 1861
Place of Birth: Missouri
Father’s place of birth: Missouri
Mother’s place of birth: Missouri

An Interview with Mr. J.D. McKee, Soper, Oklahoma

    I was born April 23, 1861, in Missouri, and we came to the Indian Territory in 1876. It took us three months to make the trip, we came over in two covered wagons. We had started to Texas, but when we came to the Indian Territory we stopped at a little village called Banty, and went to work. I don’t know just where it was for I was quite small when we stopped there. We got work there and lived there for a good while, maybe a year or two, then went on into Texas where we lived on a farm and farmed there for several years until my father and mother both took sick and died and were buried there. I then left there and came to Garretts Bluff just across the Red River in Texas, where I lived and worked on odd jobs for awhile, then came across Red River into the Choctaw Nation and found a job with an Indian of the name of Bob Crowder for whom I worked on the ranch for about five years at which time I went to work for another Indian by the name of William Smallwood and I worked for him on the ranch for several years. Later I married his youngest daughter, she is still living and with me. This girl was a Choctaw Indian and I wanted to marry according to the Choctaw laws so I had to get a permit before I could marry her. I went down to the county clerk of Kiamichi County and bought some county scrip as it was called, I bought $100.00 worth for about $25.00 in money so when I got the permit I then was ready to get married to this girl. Her father had already given his consent so I took her to a preacher and got married; I then was a full-fledged Choctaw citizen and was subject to the laws of the Nation and had the rights Privilege just the same as the Indians, including the right to allot land, and got the payments like they did. I know of several white men who married Indian girls without getting the marriage permits, I don’t know whether they just didn’t want to or what the reason was but when enrollment time came all of them had to remarry the girl that they had married years before in order to get on the rolls and to participate in the allotment and payments.

    After I was married I went to work and put in cultivation about fifty acres of land; it was not hard to clear this land for it was mostly on the prairie. I raised corn and everything that I could raise on a farm as I was a white man and knew how to farm and to raise crops; I also raised cattle, hogs and ponies. When I first married and was living there the whole country was wide open, no fences or farms to speak of and very little farming was done. Stock at that time was not worth anything at all, there was no market and we had to keep them until some of them died of old age. The grass on the prairies was as high as the head of a man on a horseback and the cane on the creeks was fine; the stock did not have to be fed, they could live and get fat during the winter seasons.

    I did my trading at Paris, Texas; it was a long ways overland and by horse team and the road was not good. The river would get up and stay up for several days, that would keep us from getting home like we should and the small creeks would get up and stay up for a day or two that would also detain us so I began to trading at Nelson, a country store put up by two Indians, Coleman Nelson and his son-in-law, Charles Vinson. There was a post office there and I began trading with them; sometimes I would go down below where Hugo is now and trade some with Bill Spring who had a store in the Springs settlement. At that time the Indians lived in settlements and down where this store was in the Spring settlement I would go there and trade some with him. The settlement where I lived was called the Crowder settlement, they were all called settlements and it went by the name of some popular Indian who lived in that settlement. Down below the settlement where I lived was one known as the Stonkabee settlement, and it was that way all over the country.

    My mother-in-law had a spinning wheel and a weaver that she used in making pants, shirts, and cloth, that is dress patterns, she would also make mittens and socks. She would spin the cotton and get it into threads and then would put these threads in the weaver and weave them into cloth and make dress patterns. After threads were spun she would get some red oak bark, bois d’arc chips and some kind of a root and boil them down and then she would put the threads into this pot and let them stay in there for awhile then she would take them out and put them up to dry. She would then take them and wash them and let them dry again. After they were dry the second time she would take them and put them into the weaver and weave them into cloth and it looked good, too. This cloth was a little heavy and thick but was good and stout, it was hard to wear out. She would spin cotton and wool for the mittens and socks and after she would get the threads rolled up into a ball she would take her knitting needles and knit socks and mittens, they were good heavy ones. When she would get them finished she would sell them for 50 cents per pair for the mittens and socks; she would get $1.00 per yard for cloth, $5.00 per pair for pants and $1.50 for each shirt. She did not get much money out of the goods she made for the people did not have much money in those days.

    The Choctaw court ground was located between the two Boggys, I don’t remember when it was built but Judge Loran Folsom was the first District Judge who held court there. We used to have a district Judge, prosecuting attorney, sheriff and juries just the same as we have today in the state court. When an Indian was arrested he was put under bond of some kind, it did not amount to much. When the district court met he would stand trial, he had all the protection that the law could give. He would have his lawyer who would be an Indian and we had some pretty good Choctaw lawyers. The person being tried had the right to reject any juror he wanted to, he would be tried by twelve peers as to his guilt or innocence. If he was found guilty the Judge would sentence him to so many lashes on his bare back, most of the penalties were whipping on the bare back, but if any one stole a horse and [was] convicted, stole another horse and was convicted, he was put to death by shooting so the Indians did not steal many horses. Just before statehood this court house was moved to Mayhew, a little village near Boswell. The old court house has been torn down and done away with but I understand the old jail is at Boswell and is being used by the town as a jail.

    There were three ferryboats on Boggy, I don’t know whether they were permitted by the Choctaw Government to run them or not but they did have the boats. One was at the mouth of Muddy Boggy and Clear Boggy, one was farther down the river and was run by an old Indian of the name of Hikumbee and the third was still below him and was run by a Indian of the name of Pitchlyn, I don’t remember what his first name was. The roads that went from the ferry boats ran from there to old Doaksville which was then located north where Fort Towson is now, about a mile and a half.

    When we came here there were lots of deer, turkeys and other wild game, also plenty of fish and Indians lived on these most of the time. The deer and turkeys went in droves in the Spring, you could see them by the hundreds out on the prairies and we used to get out and kill a few of them, it was no trouble to kill a deer or a turkey at any time.

    When I first located in this country there were no white people here, the only white people we saw at that time were those who were going through the country stealing horses or something else. We had more trouble with them in this country than any other people, they would come and camp and stay there awhile and steal the best horses in the country and get away with the, for the Indian did not seem to care for them as they had lots of ponies anyway.

    I have been to the Indian camp meetings and to their ball games, I have played with them in neighborhood games but not in match games. I saw Kiamichi and Jackson County play a match game but I never played in it, I was not good enough to play in match games like they had. I have been to the Indian cries as they were called, it is a very serious occasion when they have those cries but they have not had them for a long while. I think that they have quit having them since the white people began to settle the county and the surrounding country. I am a white man married into the Choctaw tribe and have lived among them for all of my life and I find them to be good people, they are law-abiding people and honest and straight as any people can be.

    I have in my possession a spinning wheel that I would not let anybody have, it is broken but I would not take anything for it. I also have a wagon wheel which came from Mississippi when the Choctaws came from that country and I have a .44 Winchester, one of the first that came out when those guns came out. I am now living where I first made my home after I was married and will live there until my death, you can see how old I am by this sheet and my wife is about seventy years old now and is still living and doing her housework.

Contributed by Janie Watts, transcribed by Ron Henson 9-8-2002