Indian Pioneer History Project of Choctaw County
Jerusha Ashford Nelson

Oral History of Indian Pioneer Jerusha Ashford Nelson
Taken by Hazel B. Greene, Field Worker on June 1, 1937

Jerusha Ashford was born September 7, 1872 in Wolf County of Choctaw Nation near Eagletown. Father was King Ashford and Mother was Elizabeth Griggs. Father died and was buried just over in what was then Arkansas not far from Eagletown.  Mother buried in the Griggs Cemetery, North of Soper, Oklahoma.

Jerusha Ashford Nelson, one-fourth Choctaw Indian, now 65 years old, deaf and palsied, lives alone in an old fashioned frame, four room house in Soper, Oklahoma. Her health is evidently good, because she has two splendidly worked gardens and was plowing one with a garden plow when interviewed.

She was born in Wolf County, Choctaw Nation right close to the line of Arkansas not far from Eagletown.  Following her fathers death, they moved to a place about one mile South of Antlers. (There is a big chicken ranch there now, right on the highway.) Her mother and various husbands raised their children right there.  One of the Ashford children was Jim, the Deputy U.S. Marshall who was killed by Shub Locke.

Jerusha Ashford's mother was Elizabeth Griggs, daughter of Lee (Leroy) Griggs, a white man from Mississippi and Elizabeth Jones, full blood Choctaw Indian .

Her father was King Ashford, a white man, raised in Arkansas and buried there just over the line from the Choctaw Nation, not far from where they lived.  The line was farther West than it is now.

Mrs. Nelson's father died when she was a mere baby and a baby sister was born soon after his death.  (Here is indeed, a coincidence, two women both living in Soper , both interviewed same day lost their respective fathers when babies and had a baby sister born soon thereafter.)  Then Elizabeth Ashford married one John Fowler and had two daughters,  Fannie Hester Fowler (1878) and Caroline D. Fowler (1883). Mr. Fowler died, next married John Perkins, he got up and left the country. She next married C.D. Carter and when she died she was buried as Elizabeth Carter in the Griggs Cemetery, North of Soper.

Isham Nelson was Colonel Cole Nelson's adopted son.  Isham's parents died when he was real small and a brother of his mother and Colonel Cole Nelson gave him away to some "movers" who were passing through the country.  When Cole Nelson found it out he followed and took him away from them and adopted him.  It took him several days to catch up with them.  He had to follow them into
Texas. Isham was a full-blood Choctaw Indian.  No children were born to Isham and Jerusha
Nelson and he died May 15, 1930 at Soper and is buried in the Griggs family cemetery, North of Soper, Oklahoma.  Jerusha Nelson lived until 1949 and is buried in the Griggs family cemetery.  (My dad was one of the men who dug her grave and it was a bitter cold, blowing snow day.) Their old homeplace was located North-West of Soper in the Sugarcreek community, present owner of land is the Clark Holder family.  The home was a two story large frame house with porches which ran all around the top and lower floors.  The steps to front entrance had carved into them, the words, "Faith", "Hope" and "Charity". The huge sandstone rock which was part of the old fireplace mantel of their
home had the words, "EAT HEAP" carved into it.  Another small mortar like piece has the Masonic emblem carved into it.

At one time Uncle Isham and Aunt Jerusha took care of the loggers, etc. of the Frye Lumber Company who came in and logged huge timbers from their property.  Aunt Jerusha left most of the old furniture, etc. to the children of this family.

A tall handsome clock about two and a half feet tall stood upon the mantel. The columns down each side look like black wood.  A "Princess Dresser" made in Grand Rapids, Michigan by the Princess Dressing Case Company was indeed a complicated piece of furniture and had graced the home of Colonel Cole Nelson, father of Isham.  Alongside is the handsome old Walnut bedstead and the ornate folding bed.  And it was really a folding bed, not the upright kind but folded back a couple times.  The dressing case had drawers on the left side, and on the right was a compartment that would hold a slop jar", this jar was of granite-ware and had a twisted metal bail, with a wooden handle around it and a wooden handle on the side of the body of the jar, to aid in lifting.  The balloon shaped lower part was topped by a pitcher like spout.  Above this "slop-jar" was a wash bowl with a hole
in the center, to allow water to spill into the jar below and it was covered by the entire top of the dresser which slid over it to conceal it when not in use as a wash stand. On the left side of this sliding top was a kind of cabinet and inside of that was a water tank and when the top was slid around, the spigot of this tank was over the wash bowl below.  Above the water tank cabinet was another small cabinet to hold personal grooming items, comb,  brush and tooth-brush.  Quite nifty, eh?  And yet, Mrs. Nelson said it was to quote her, "no telling how old".

The old clock was a weight clock.  The weights in each side weigh eight pounds each.  The date in the clock reads, March 31, '79. (1879)

In possession of Mrs. Jerusha Ashford Nelson at Soper, is quite a collection of relics of things commonly in use among the Choctaws in pioneer days in the Indian Territory and probably in Mississippi, before they came out here.  She has a Mortar made of a peeled section of a Hickory log with a hole burned in the top in which they pounded Corn to make "Tom Fuller", hominy and meal and other things. The hole or bowl area will hold over a gallon of Corn.  She has two pestles, each about four and a half or five feet long.  One of Hickory wood, the other of Bois d'arc. She has a Hominy pot; it looks like an earthen water pitcher without ears or bail or spout.  It will probably hold one and a half gallons.  She said it was made of Mussel Shells and Red Clay.  She also said that they burned the shells so they would crumble, then mixed them with red clay, molded it into the shape desired and
burned it.  However, it did not look like the ordinary fired pottery as the surface was not glazed.

Next, she showed me a Riddler and Fanner, they were woven of Cane, like baskets.  The Riddler was possibly twelve inches square and four inches deep, woven so openly that about quarter grains of corn would pass through to the vessel below. I guess they must have used the fanner first to fan away the chaff.  It was about fifteen inches wide by about twenty inches long, closely woven like a basket;
one end was brought over hood-like the other was open to pour contents out of. They looked to have been well used, worn and patched.

A Music Box, about twenty inches long, showed that it had been sold by a J. A. Martin, 106 East Side Square, no name of a town but probably Paris, Texas. The price on it was $75.00.  It played ten tunes.  She said she had no idea how old the music box was that is was old when she married into the Nelson family forty-five years ago or more.  And so it was with the pewter syrup pitcher, with
pitcher and saucer like bottom all made together.

She had two, one gallon iron cooking pots and a one gallon pot, and a wash pot all made alike with bulging sides and flared tops, two sets of pot hooks to handle them with.  She said they were heirlooms in the Nelson family.

Her receipe for cooking Hominy was, first, boil ashes and make lye.  Take some pounded Corn and put in cold water with a teaspoonful of Ash-Lye to a gallon of Hominy and cook until tender. (Inasmuch as she was deaf, I thought perhaps I was mistaken when I asked her if they poured the Lye off before eating and she insisted that they did not pour it off, that it was a flavor or seasoning that they wanted.)

Her spoons made of Buffalo Horn and some made of Clay had become misplaced somewhere. Another Cane Basket, for just any purpose was colored yellow, red and green.  She said the yellow and red dyes were made from "Pacoon Root". She had also, rocks that looked like petrified wood and one that looked like the curled backbone of some animal, even the pointed end of the last vertebra.

An old Sword in it's scabbard, a bow made of Bois d'arc with cord, and tin-tipped Arrows, and a pair of Indian Ball Sticks. The Arrows were made of Cane wood and ball sticks were bound with deer hide.
The community of Nelson, located South-West of Antlers and North of Soper was named for Colonel Cole Nelson, a grand old man of the Choctaw Nation, prominent in Tribal Affairs.  He was well educated and was a Minister.

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