Reverend Jason McClure

                              
                                            Reverend Jason McClure

          Well, I am home again, invigorated by visiting with my grandchildren. We had a great time, and they even tolerated my not so tall tales about their ancestors. My son in law has applied for a job working for the Chickasaw tribal government too, so that is exciting. During my down time I took a break from Chickasaw History to read Mark Twain's autobiography. Now there was a story teller.

          I've decided to begin my stories again by telling about my great great grandmother's first husband, the Reverend Jason McClure. Reverend McClure was a Scottish missionary who joined the Chickasaws sometime near the turn of the 18th century. My great great grandmother, Ela-Teecha (also spelled Ah-la-tack and Allatateche) Brown of the Imo-suck-cha clan of Chickasaws, married McClure sometime during the early 1800's. They lived together in the Chickasaw homeland in Mississippi until 1837 or 1838 when they moved to Indian Territory with the rest of the Chickasaws on the Trail of Tears. Ela-Teecha, later called Ellen by the family, bore two children by McClure: Tecumseh in 1830 and Catherine in 1831. They say that Ellen spoke English with a Scottish brogue because she learned the language from McClure.  

          Rev. McClure died from rabies, or hydrophobia as it was called back then, after being bitten by a mad dog. My mother was told that McClure had become a veterinarian, so he must have been consulted about a sick dog - the Chickasaws loved their dogs and their horses. I saw a case of rabies once when I was in training. It's a terrible way to die. There's no cure if you don't get the vaccine right away, and there was no vaccine in those days. The infection causes a painful spasm of the salivary glands which is set off by seeing water, hence the nickname, hydrophobia. The victim soon becomes agitated and delirious which is why affected dogs are called "mad." Eventually rabies leads to convulsions, paralysis and death.

          According to family lore, my great great grandfather Smith Paul was working for McClure at the time of the Removal, and he may have been living with the family for some time. He and McClure were both Scottish, and it's easy to imagine Smith taking up with the McClures when he came to live with the Chickasaws 17 years before. After McClure's death, Smith Paul and Ela-Teecha were married. She was 13 years his senior, but it was common then for a widow to marry one of her husband's family, and Smith Paul was probably the closest thing to family that McClure had.

          I know a little about Tecumseh and Catherine, Ellen and Jason's older children, and their families. Tecumseh was a leader of the Chickasaw "Pullback" political party, who opposed the Progressives, led by his brother, my great grandfather, Sam Paul. In spite of this they were still friends, and their children were close also. Catherine married a white man named Waite and sent her children east to be educated. One of her sons, Fred, went to New Mexico to go into the ranching business, and ended up allied with Billy the Kid in the Lincoln County Range War.  

          My mother knew some of her McClure and Waite cousins, but I had no information about Reverend McClure himself until I stumbled on his name in a book called A Traveler in Indian Territory, a transcription by Grant Foreman of the Journal of Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock, written in 1842 during a trip through Indian Territory. Hitchcock had been sent by the federal government to investigate claims by the Five Civilized Tribes that their funds were mismanaged by contractors hired to move them west.

          I was delighted to discover that Hitchcock had stayed with the McClures for several days in their house at Boggy Depot. Boggy Depot was on the Clear Boggy River just a few miles north of the Red River. It was a supply depot and much of the Chickasaw Tribe lived nearby until Fort Washita was built further west to protect them from raids by the Comanches, Wichitas and other plains tribes. Hitchcock was curious about Indian customs, and he and McClure discussed everything from the Chickasaw pashofa ceremony to McClure's fondness for bear meat.

          Unfortunately Major Hitchcock didn't record anything about McClure's family, but from the timing of his visit you can conclude that McClure was still alive in 1842, five years after the removal. He must have died shortly after Hitchcock's visit, to allow for a period of grieving - the Chickasaws traditionally observed a grieving period of several months to a year- and for Ela-Teecha to marry my great great grandfather, Smith Paul, and to have their first child together, my great grandfather, Sam Paul, by May of 1845.

To be continued: