Sam Paul, Part One

Sam Paul, my great grandfather, was an enigma. He lived a long time ago and the people who knew him are long gone, so it's impossible to know what it would have been like to know him. He was intelligent but seemed to have a total disregard for the law. He was cruel and ruthless, but apparently he was also well liked and even respected. He was an alcoholic who made a shambles of his personal life, but at the same time he was a far sighted statesman, who saw, perhaps better than anyone else of his time the future of Indian Territory.

There are a lot of stories about Sam Paul, and there's probably as much fiction as fact in them, but I'll try to tell his story as best I can.

To start from the beginning Sam Paul was born in Indian Territory on the frontier, to a full blood Chickasaw woman, Ela Teecha, or Ellen, as she was known in the family, and a white man, Smith Paul, who had been lived among the Chickasaws for many years. Although Indian himself, Sam grew up under the threat of attack by hostile plains Indian tribes, and under the protection of the US military. Since his father supplied food to the friendly plains Indians, Sam Paul became familiar with their customs, and he was reportedly able to speak the languages of at least 8 different tribes.

Sam was about 16 at the outbreak of the Civil War, and he stayed in Indian Territory during the War with his father and mother, while his half brother and sister, Tecumseh McClure and Kathrine Waite, children of his mother by her first husband Jason McClure, went to neutral ground in Kansas, where they lived with the Sauk and Fox Indians. (They were 31 and 30 years of age, respectively.)

During the War, Sam began living with Lucy McKinsey, his sister in law - her sister Mary was married to Sam's half brother Tecumseh. Actually neither Sam nor Tecumseh was legally married until 1869 when their brother, Jesse Paul, filed a lawsuit in Chickasaw court to force them to tie the knot.

This rather remarkable action requires some explanation. According to Chickasaw custom, marriages were rather informal. Since their society was matriarchal and since the mother's clan took responsibility for caring for children, fathers often left their wives, and they sometimes had several wives. Usually, though, a Chickasaw father visited and provided for his children even if he became separated from their mother. 

At the time of Sam Paul's marriage, these customs were changing. First of all, the Chickasaws were trying to conform somewhat to white customs, especially those who had intermarried with whites. Secondly the Chickasaw Nation was beginning to experience an influx of white settlers who wanted to farm the rich Chickasaw land. One way to do this was by claiming to be married to a Chickasaw citizen. To control this problem the Chickasaw government started charging non-citizens fees to live on Indian land, fees to marry an Indian citizen, and also requiring that all marriages be legally filed with the court.  

Sam and Tecumseh both complied with the law and married their Indian spouses, but after that, their marriages followed totally different paths. Tecumseh and Mary McClure, on the one hand, had a long and happy marriage, whereas Sam Paul and Mary's sister Lucy had trouble almost from the start. Their first child Hogan died in his first year of life, which wasn't unusual in those days, but afterwards Sam volunteered as a scout for the army. I don't know what prompted this action. He certainly didn't need the money. His father was well off and, as a Chickasaw citizen he was free to use as much land himself as he chose. I suspect that he was restless, being confined to the farm, and possibly also unhappy in his marriage.

The scouting expedition didn't turn out so well. Sam came down with small pox and would have died if his father hadn't ridden out to where he was and nursed him back to health. Anyway Smith Paul brought his son back home, and with him, according to Aunt Sippia, (See Aunt Sippia, Part II) he brought an epidemic of small pox as well, in which many died, especially among the friendly Indians that Sam had grown up with.

After this tragedy Lucy became pregnant again, and the next year she bore another son, Joe. About this time Sam's mother Ellen died. I don't know if there was a connection, but it was shortly after Ellen's death that Sam's marriage broke up again.

According to family wisdom, Ellen was the only person who was ever able to influence Sam, so maybe it was only to please his mother that Sam stayed with Lucy as long as he did.  

My uncle Haskell, who got most of his information from Sam's son Buck, described Sam in this way:

Sam Paul, her first born child by Smith Paul, was entirely amenable by his mother --- not always by his father. When a boy he was very impetuous and as a man, more than ordinarily zealous. But Sam's ardour was always completely subdued before his mother.

It sounds like even Uncle Haskell, who was rarely at a loss for words, had trouble finding the right words to describe his grandfather.

After Sam and Lucy's divorce, you wouldn't expect that things could have gotten worse, but they did. Lucy's brother Gibson McKinsey started spreading the word that Sam had abused his sister, and threatening to call him to account. When McKinsey's drunken tirades disturbed a neighbor, Harrison Lane, whose wife was ill, Sam went with Lane to a saloon frequented by McKinsey and confronted him. When McKinsey repeated his threats, Sam and his friend shot him, not just once but eight times. It was an execution!

Since all the parties involved were Chickasaw Citizens, the matter was handled by the Chickasaw court. Sam Paul and his neighbor were not charged. The court apparently considered Gibson McKinsey's drunken threats sufficient provocation for the murder - I don't know what else to call it.

I'm not sure what happened to Lucy after her brother's death. Uncle Haskell only said that she died and was buried in the Old Cemetery, next to her son Hogan. Sam Paul, his "ardour" undiminished, was soon remarried, and beginning a new pursuit, bootlegging.