Hattie Jane, Part One

Hattie Jane's Story, as told to her great grandson, Dr James Phillips

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                                          Hattie Jane Paul Corley

(This is the earliest picture we have of Grams. It was taken about the time of her first marriage to Harry Stewart. She was 16. The picture is distorted but you can tell that she was a very pretty girl.)

Part of  an of interview in a Chickasaw hearing concerning Sarah Jane Lambert Paul.

Question. Mrs. Paul ,  state how your husband, Sam Paul, during the time you lived with him , was he good to you or not?

Answer,  He was not. 

Question. In what respect was he not good?

Answer. Every way that was barbarous. 

Question. What do you know of his relations with other women during that time?

Answer. He was with them all the time -- he kept them all the time. 

Question. Well state how he kept them and where?

Answer. He kept them in my house. 

Same hearing, but we jump down through many questions and answers after Sarah names illegitimate children that were born to Sam Paul and the different women whom she names, to this point where Sarah is further questioned about Jim Ross and her relationship with him and how Sam Paul treated her.

                    Mattie Paul Ebisch                                             Willie Paul

Sammie Paul

                              Pictures of three of Sam Paul's illegitimate children

Question. Did he ever make any serious threat on you ?

Answer. Yes he tried to shoot me lots of times. 

Question. Describe one instance of what he did and said to you ?

Answer. He came home – he was just like a stranger—came in that time asked if I heard about some men getting killed and I said I did and he just run a pistol up my head   and said he would show me how they were killed, and tried to kill me but I broke away. 

A few questions later she is again asked about testimony Hugh A. Campbell has given on October 24, 1902. Sarah is asked if she knows that Hugh Campbell was present in the Cherokee nation near where she was living with Jim Ross. She says no. 

Question He mentions a man by the name of Jim Ross. Were you ever married to Jim Ross?

Answer. No Sir. 

Question. There is a note in the record that you married Jim Ross and had a child by him; Did you?

Answer. No sir I never had a child by any one but Sam Paul. 

Question. Why Mrs. Paul was it that you continued to remain as the wife of  Sam Paul after he treated you so badly and brought this lewd woman to his house?

Answer. Simply because I had to. He tried to run me off and I returned to my father and asked him to take us. He told me it was better for one to be killed than the whole family.

Question. Was your father afraid of Sam Paul?

Answer. Yes, sir.   

Question. What was the disposition of Sam Paul?  How many men had he killed in his life?

Answer.  I suppose fifteen or sixteen. 

                              Jim and His Daughter Dakotah in Indian Dress

          My Name is Jim Phillips. I am the great great grandson of Samuel Ikard Paul and Sarah Jane Lambert Paul. I will tell this story through the eyes and words of my great grandmother Hattie Jane Paul AKA Hattie Corley. 

          My father Sam Paul was a very powerful and feared man in Indian Territory and what became Oklahoma. He was a lawman and a Senator among the Chickasaw people. He killed a lot of outlaws in early Indian Territory.  My mother was Sarah Jane Lambert Paul. My mother and father fought a lot over everything. Many times according to my mother Sam would come in drunk and threaten to shoot or kill her and she would take off to the hills to hide herself and my brothers till Sam sobered up. She said that he would bring his girlfriends, prostitutes, and lovers home and kick her out of the bedroom and make her sleep in the kitchen on a pallet on the floor or a cot in the corner of the room. Mother said at times she would get so mad at him that she would insult him. Sarah said she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut and would say some stupid thing and he would threaten to kill or shoot her again. One time Sam came home and asked my mother if she had heard about the men he killed and she said, "Yes, did you shoot them in the back?" She said he rolled his big pistol up to her head and asked if she wanted him to show her how he killed them. 

          This all sets the background for my birth. I have two brothers Willie and Buck Paul. My mother and father fought a lot but they had four children. I was the last child born to Sarah and Sam Paul.  

          My father had been arrested for killing two outlaws and both of them were white men. Judge Parker hated my father and thought that he killed too many outlaws instead of bringing them to court, especially white outlaws. My father Sam Paul had been arrested just after my mother got pregnant with me. She felt that this time Parker would hang my father and she would be free of him at last. One time while Sam was on a rampage Mother went back home to her father and mother Hiram and Emily Lambert and begged them to take her in. But Grandpa Hiram bolted the door and told Sarah that she had made her decisions and that it would be better that only one would be killed rather than the whole family killed.. 

          My father Sam Paul was arrested in July 1882 and he was taken to Fort Smith Arkansas before Judge Parker. He was in jail there with Jim Ross. When Jim Ross got out on bail my mother Sarah looked Jim Ross up and made a deal with him to testify against Sam in court to say he shot down that white boy in cold blooded murder. Mother had promised to pay Jim Ross a lot of money to hide her in the Cherokee nation while she had her baby so that no would know about she had Sam’s last child and no one would take me from her. She also had him promise to take Buck and Willie and hide them too. Mother knew that if Sam died or was hung that it was possible for his family to take his children from her because they were powerful politicians among the Chickasaws. My mother was not romantically interested in Jim Ross at all but he was her road out of a very bad situation. 

          After I was born my mother gave me to her sister Juliana Lambert Corley to hide and to raise as her child.. I would get to be with my mother and aunt all the time, no matter what happened to Buck and Willie my brothers. 

          My father Sam Paul did get out of prison by a presidential pardon. My mother moved in with her family and Sam divorced her and got custody of my two brothers Buck and Willie Paul. 

          Over the years I got to be around my father a lot but I don’t think he ever knew who I really was. I always knew that he was my father as long as I can remember.  He thought I was his niece and not his daughter. He treated me real good and I wasn’t afraid of him as my mother was. I went to the Paul mansion many times and my father and grandpa Smith Paul would give me a gold or silver coin out of this great big strongbox full of a lot of gold and silver coins.  

          I watched my father give speeches many times and people would shoot at him and he would keep on speaking just like it didn’t happen. He was a very handsome man with steel gray eyes just like mine.  

          I saw him in a carnival on the forth of July gathering and he used to stand like a statue real still. He did not blink an eye and you couldn’t even see him breath. He was so handsome standing there dressed in his nice suits. The girls would come by and look at him real close to see if he was real or a statue. He would just stand there, as I watched him from a distance. One girl and her boyfriend came by several times and she looked at him real close. She finally reached out and touched him and he said "Boo!" She screamed real load and fainted and fell on the ground. Everybody laughed and  they  had to revive her. That was my father.

                                              Sam Paul, about 1890

To be continued

Sam Paul, Part Six

With this post I'm going to try and finish the story of my great grandmother's divorce from my great grandfather, Sam Paul. It's not a pleasant story, and not one I'm proud of. Anyone interested in more details can read the book: Shadow of an Indian Star, by Bill and Cindy Paul, who did and continue to do a huge amount of research into our family's history. They have discovered more details since the book came out, but it covers most of the stories about Sam Paul, with some drama added. See shadowofanindianstar.com for pictures, excerpts, and book orders.

Like I said in my post of September 10, Sam Paul divorced his wife Sarah when he got out of prison because she had run off with his codefendant, Jim Ross. It must have been a frightening time for Sarah. Several years before, when she had fled to her parents' house to escape her husband's wrath, her father, Hiram Lambert, had turned her away, saying "it is better for one to be killed than the whole family." Sarah's father had died in 1883 though, so when Sam returned to the Chickasaw Nation she was staying with her mother. 

This was Sarah's testimony before the Dawes Commission:

Q: Where were you when he (Sam Paul) came back?

A: At my mother's

Q: He did not come to see you?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: Did you ask him to live with you?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: Did you propose to go back to live with him?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: What did he say to that?

A: He said no, he wanted a divorce.

I kind of doubt that Sarah begged Sam to take her back, but that's what she said anyway. It's pretty clear though, from the evidence that her attorney, Owen Patchell, presented at her citizenship hearing, that her life with Sam Paul had been a living Hell. As he said in his brief: "the plaintiff had been so uniformly brutal and had led her such a dog's life for the ten years that she did live with him that she looked upon a permanent separation as a mercy of God."

After making the point that Sam Paul had multiple affairs during their marriage and had several illegitimate children, Patchell asked Sarah:

Q: Did he make any pretense of keeping these matters secret to you?

A: No, sir, told me I could leave if I did not want to stay.

Q: How did he treat you in other respects?

A: He tried to starve us out.

At this time, Sam Paul's oldest boy, Joe, was living on his own, and he helped Sarah and his two younger brothers. My grandfather, Bill, whom his mother called Willie, said that there were times when they would have starved had it not been for Joe.

              
                               Joe Paul, second from left

Mr. Patchell went on with his questions:

Q: Did he ever make any serious threat on you?

A: Yes, he tried to shoot me lots of times.

Q: Describe one instance of what he did and said to you?

A: He came home --- he was just like a stranger --- came in that time and asked me if I heard about some men getting killed and I said I did and he just run a pistol up my head, and said he would show me how they were killed, and tried to kill me but I broke away.

Q: Was anybody present when that occurred?

A: Yes, Frank Beckly and his wife.

Sam's libertine behavior, and his cruel treatment of his wife Sarah was certainly not typical of Chickasaw men. For example, Sam's brother Tecumseh was happily married to the same woman all of his life. Sam did follow Chickasaw tradition however in taking responsibility for his children and for their mothers. He apparently even paid one man to marry Fanny Briley, with whom he had a daughter pictured below. You'll remember that Fanny had been Sam's partner in the saloon business. 

                        Daughter of Sam Paul and Fanny Briley

Sam Paul certainly was a brilliant man, as I'll try to show later, but he was also volatile, and at times violent. At one point in her testimony Sarah estimated that during his life he had killed fifteen or sixteen men.

If my mother had known her grandmother Sarah at an earlier time, she might not have thought of her as being so timid, since she was able to stay with Sam Paul, and occasionally she even stood up to him.

But what of this trip to the Cherokee Nation? Was it just simply a brief love affair interrupted by Sam's release from prison? "That just doesn't quite ring true. Well, the answer took a long time in coming, at least to Sam's descendents in Oklahoma, and it came from California, from a Baptist Preacher named Dr. Jim Phillips, who read the book, Shadow of an Indian Star, and realized that he had been hearing stories about the characters in the book all of his life. He contacted the authors, Bill and Cindy Paul, and the two branches of our family were finally joined.

Dr. Jim Phillips and great aunt Mable Stewart, Hattie Jane's daughter.

Jim was raised by his great grandmother, Hattie Jane Stewart. Nobody paid much attention to Hattie Jane's stories, partly because she was an old woman, but also because the family was of Indian descent on both sides, and didn't want to be labeled as such by the largely prejudiced community. Jim loved his great grandmother's stories though, and gradually as he grew older he pieced together the story of her life.

                           Hattie Jane Stewart

Hattie was the daughter of Sam and Sarah Paul. When Sam was taken to prison at Fort Smith, Sarah was pregnant, and when he was sent to the federal penitentiary in Detroit, she went to the Cherokee Nation to have her baby, secretly. About that time Sarah's sister Juliana was also pregnant, but she lost her baby, so Sarah asked her to raise her daughter, whom she named Hattie Jane, as her own daughter. Sarah was afraid that if Sam were to be released from jail he would take custody of his children. She knew that she would lose her two boys, but she didn't want to lose her daughter also. So the switch was made. Hattie Jane was raised by her Aunt Juliana, and Sarah denied that she had ever given birth to her.
 

For the next couple of posts, My cousin, Dr. Jim Phillips has kindly agreed to write the story of his great grandmother, Hattie Jane Stewart, as she told it to him.