Hazel B. Green
Journalist
January 28, 1938
My mother’s mother was Selina Yakhombi
before she was married to my grandfather. He was called “Captain” Barney
Davenport. He was not quite a full blood Chickasaw Indian and grandmother was
not quite a full blood Choctaw Indian. She came from Mississippi when she was
sixteen years old, with her father’s family and their slaves. They settled at
Doaksville, where she resumed her education which had been interrupted when the
left Mississippi. She attended Pine Ridge Academy. My mother was born in
Doaksville, and I don’t know how old she was when they moved up on Big Cedar
Creek, above where Finley is now. I have seen some of the old Yakhombi slaves
and they talked like my grandmother’s folks were quite well off and said that
they had a very nice home at Doaksville.
When my mother was about ten years old my
grandfather was building a new house right where Finley is now, and two or more
miles from the cabin they had lived in on Big Cedar Creek. He had a left
Grandmother and a little baby she was raising and my mother and a Choctaw woman
by the name of Mary, all there together, while he and his son George worked on
the new house. Grandmother and the rest of us were to take care of the chickens,
pigs, cows, and everything. Grandmother’s sister had died and left a little
baby girl and Grandmother was raising it. That Choctaw woman named Mary had a
little baby too. They awoke one morning and looked out the door. There was a
perfect flood. Big Cedar was around the house and just about in the door. Being
women folks alone and afraid, when night came they had brought the axe in the
house, so when they saw that the water was coming in the house they took some
cold food, which was left from supper the night before, some quilts, and the axe
and climbed up through the scuttle hole and into the attic. Then they got afraid
up in there so they cut a hole and climbed out on the roof. They saw chickens,
cows, pigs and six of their calves floating down stream. Soon after they got on
the roof they could tell that the house was floating. A big tree stood at one
corner of the house. The Choctaw woman, Mary had her baby tied onto her back
with a shawl: she decided to get into that tree, so she reached for a limb, and
when she did that her baby fell into the water. It just gave one cry and floated
away; they never saw it again. I
never heard of anybody ever looking for it. They didn’t know anything about
Mary, who she was or where she came from. Grandmother said they reckoned she
came from over the mountain somewhere. They just didn’t ask her and she
didn’t tell them anything about herself but she just came to Grandmother’s
house seeking shelter, and stayed to help with the chores. After Mary got in the
tree the house floated away with my mother. her mother and the baby on it. About
two miles down stream the cabin lodged against a big tree. They could feel it
rocking from side to side; then when the water began going down they could fell
the house settling. They sat on it all day and far into the night, before the
water receded enough for them to get down. Finally they could and did climb
down. Grandma decided to go back to the home place. It was a pretty moonlit
night in august and they were not chilled and could see their way well. They got
there and looked in the tree for Mary. She was not there. They thought she had
followed the baby and she, too, had drowned, but days later they learned that
Mary had gone to another Indian cabin about two miles away across the creek and
they never knew how she crossed that creek. There was one old cow left at the
old home place and she was just a-bawling, her calf was gone and the other cows
too, and she was frightened nearly to death. Grandma got a tine can or bucket of
some sort and had a hard time getting to that cow to get a little milk for the
baby. After a long time, hours, they heard the sounds of horses’ hoofs and
they were afraid, but there was nowhere to hide, so they just waited. It was
George Davenports, my mother’s half brother who had come looking for them.
George was riding an extra big old pied
horse, George said that no horse but “Old Pied “ could have swum old Big
Cedar, as high as it was. He had come to see about them just as soon as he could
get across. He put Mamma and the baby on the horse and he and Grandma walked to
the crossing on the creek, then he got in the saddle and swum across again with
Mamma and the baby, then returned for Grandma. It was two miles or more to
another house; they all went there and spent the balance of the night and then
went on to Grandfather’s house next day. Then they returned to the cabin and
took everything out of it and left the cabin there. It was just a one
room cabin and Grandfather was building a bigger house and a store and
blacksmith shop. They said that he made a lot of money and kept lots of it
buried. He had a store and lots of stock I know. That flood came in about 1876.
Twenty years later, my mother, stepfather and I went to see if that cabin was
still lodged against that tree. It was all grown over with vines and briars. One
could hardly see the door. There were no windows. It was funny that there was
never another rise on that creek big enough to dislodge that cabin. Old timers
remember that as the Big Flood.
My mother was sent to Rock Academy at or
near Wapanucka. While there she met Julius Hampton. I am not sure whether he was
Chickasaw or Choctaw. I know I am enrolled as a Choctaw Indian just because I
lived down here in the Choctaw Nation. My mother had to leave school and go home
on account of trouble with her eyes. Then Grandmother sent her up to Caddo to
see an old doctor woman and get treatment for her eyes. Mother again met Julius
Hampton and he came down to her home and married her.
My parents moved to Caddo to live, but
Mamma was never satisfied away from her father’s home and would return every
chance she got and stay as long as she could. I was the second child and when
she was expecting me, she came to her mother’s home for the event and said
that she would never return to Caddo. When I was about six years old, Mamma was
married to Elisha Locke, a white man, and old bachelor from Tennessee. He was a
brother to V.M.Locke Sr. and Dr. Frank Locke, my husband’s father.
When my grandfather built a house at Finley
there was nothing there but an old log church house called Cedar County Church.
My grandmother was teaching school there when I was born. She taught some more,
than I remember she brought a camping outfit down at the Long Creek school and
camped in one of the camp houses there and taught school a couple of terms. My
husband went to school to her. She taught at the Old Long Creek School building
that was at the old long Creek Cemetery. I don’t know whether the old building
is still standing.
When I was about eight years old my
stepfather and my uncles had a shooting scrape; they shot all into our house. It
was peppered with bullets. I was in a rocking chair holding the baby when the
shooting begun. I crawled under the chair, and a bullet entered the wall just
behind the place where my head had been. At the first opportunity I slipped out
to the kitchen and hid. Then we moved away down by where the village of Ethal is
now, about five miles east of Antlers. Then I was sent to Antlers to the convent
to school. Sometimes I would get to stay for two or three months, then they
would send for me to come home because some of the children would be sick or
something and they would be a long time sending me back; consequently I never go
to go to school for very long at the time. It’s a wonder they didn’t send me
all of the time. All in the world that the Indians had to furnish was
transportation to school. I should have had a good education.
My mother and Elisha Locke had five
children, three of whom are living here in Hugo, Miss Birdie Locke, and Jeff and
Archie Locke. None of us could ever get to go to school for long at a time, our
parents kept moving around so much. They moved to Goodland about three times,
then would move back to Cedar County. My stepfather and Mamma’s folks could
not get along. When they had that shooting scrape that I mentioned before, a
horse was shot from under my uncle George Davenport, and he suffered injuries
from which he died months later. I kept wishing we could move to Texas, because
they said they didn’t have such shooting scrapes over in Texas. I saw a man
killed at a camp meeting. He was a full blood Indian, perhaps Choctaw, named
Camp Battiest and he was an officer too. He was standing in the door of one of
the camp cabins when Isaac Reubens, another full blood Indian, maybe Choctaw,
rode up and began shooting him. He fell, Reubens kept shooting down at the man
on the ground, whose clothing was in flames from the bullets, and everybody else
but poor silly me, hiding, scared to death. I didn’t have sense enough to be
afraid. I wanted to see it. Reubens rode off, and folks came out and poured
water on Battiest’s burning clothing, but he was already dead. Reubens was
sent to the penitentiary and died there. Now that was at church. They would let
me go to church but to no parties, they were afraid somebody might get rough. In
the summer they made brush arbors under which they had church.
My grandfather Hampton was a white man.
Grandmother Hampton was born Phoebe Anderson. I believe she was a Chickasaw
Indian. She has a brother, Wesley Anderson at Tuskahoma, unless he has died
recently. My father has a brother Ben Hampton at Chickasha. He is about
eighty-five years old. He was one of the twelve Chickasaws who met with the
Dawes Commission in 1898 to allot the lands of the Choctaws and Chickasaws. He
is the only one of the twelve who are living. He lived on the small farm at the
edge of Chickasha, which is a part of the tract that he received by terms of the
Atoka Treaty in the making of which he had such an important part. I had a
letter form him just before Christmas in which he said that he was born near
what is now Tuskahoma on the Kiamichi River in 1853 and that he is coming to
Hugo to visit us.
My mother used to tell us a story of a
woman who was left alone with her little baby in her Indian cabin, one night,
who heard a panther screaming as it came down the mountain. This woman heard the
panther mount on the roof, and advance to the big wide chimney; the fireplace
was also big. Her fire was low and she had burned all of her wood. She thought
of the hay bed she was sleeping upon, so ripped it open and threw some of the
hay on the live coals. It made a tremendous smoke and soon flamed and the
panther ran off of the house, then it would get brae and return. This woman kept
throwing handfuls of hay on the fire every time the panther returned until
daylight, then it ran away for good. Next night the panther returned but the
woman’s husband was there with his gun and he killed it. This woman said they
had some fresh meat in the cabin, which was no doubt, what the panther was
after, but it probably would have killed the woman and baby had it gotten into
the cabin. At Finley is the cemetery that was started first by the Davenport
family burying there; it is called the Davenport Cemetery but everybody buries
there. I never knew why my grandfather was called “Captain” Davenport.
Editor’s Note: While the date of Julius Hampton’s
death is not given in this manuscript written by his daughter, it is presumed
that it occurred prior to the marriage of Janie Davenport Hampton to Elisha
Locke. [i]
