Chickasaw Education in the Old Country

In the old days the Chickasaws, had a culture, long of history and rich in tradition and practical knowledge about their world, and there was much for a young boy or girl to learn. A girl had to learn which season was best to plant and harvest the three sisters - corn, squash and beans. They had to learn how to store the corn in corn cribs and the fruit in hay stacks, how to cure the meat in smoke houses for the winter, and how to season their cooking with spices and bear oil to cook the food for which they were renowned. The boys had to develop the toughness, the tracking skills and stealth which made Chickasaw warriors feared by the other tribes in battle. They had to learn to hunt, to recognize the signs of the deer and the bear in the forest. Some developed the wisdom and judgment to become leaders, and others were chosen to become healers. 

The Chickasaw lived in clans. There was the Minko clan from which the king or Minko was chosen, the Imosaktca or fish clan, to which my great great grandmother belonged, whose men were known as great fighters. The Tcukilissa or timber people who lived in the forest, hunting and fishing, and stayed to themselves. There were also the wildcat, bird, deer, raccoon, wolf, alligator, and skunk clans, each with its own place in the hierarchy, and each with its own special characteristics, but all were united as Chickasaws.  

The Chickasaw had legends about their origins west of the Mississippi River, and how the Great Spirit, Ababinili, had brought them to their home in the east, guiding them with a staff which he caused to lean in the direction they should go. There were legends about the origin of corn and tobacco, and about how the rattlesnake got its rattles. There were funny legends about how the rabbit fooled the alligator or the coyote. There were legends that taught lessons, like the story of a great hunter Ubiahuntatok, who challenged the great forest creature, Ihoff, who hung him up in a tree to teach him a lesson about humility. 

                           Ihoff and Ubiahuntatok, an illustration by Freda deOdis Flatt

                        from The Hunter Who Was Not So Great, A Chickasaw Legend

                                                    as told by Dorothy Milligan

To the Chickasaw there was no division between the spirit world and the physical world. There were good spirits and evil ones, spirits of the forest, and the spirits of the departed. Dogs were always kept nearby because they could see and warn the family when spirits were near. Special charms and ceremonies protected the Chickasaw from evil spirits and enlisted the aid of friendly ones. 

Since Chickasaw villages were distinguished according to clan, they were essentially extended family groups. Families were close, and lineage was traced through the mother. The mother's family, especially the aunts and uncles, were responsible for the care and education of children.  

In addition to traditional education, the Chickasaw benefitted by their intermarriage with several British and Scottish traders during the mid-eighteenth century. These white men taught their families to speak and understand English, and several of their sons became tribal leaders, advising and translating for the Chickasaw Council in treaty negotiations. This enabled the Chickasaw to negotiate more effectively with the US government than the tribes who had to communicate through interpreters. 

There was one treaty in which the Chickasaw were especially shrewd, the Treaty of Chickasaw Bluffs signed in 1801 for the construction of the Natchez Trace, a 400 mile road from Nashville Tennessee to the Mississippi River at Natchez, Mississippi. The road crossed both the Chickasaw and Choctaw Domains. At the insistence of the Chickasaw, the treaty stipulated that all businesses in the Chickasaw Domain be operated by Chickasaws. The Natchez Trace later became the most heavily traveled road in the southwest, and all the ferries, roadhouses, and trading posts were operated by Chickasaws.  

                                                  Map showing Natchez Trace

The Natchez Trace brought prosperity to the Chickasaw, who had seen the game in their hunting grounds dwindle over the years. The Council also requested that the rations paid by the US government to tribal members be paid in specie instead of in goods. Thereby the Chickasaw learned to use money in purchasing supplies and trading their produce. In 1829 the Chickasaw created a code of written laws.  

In 1819 the US Congress passed the "Indian Civilization Act" which subsidized Christian missionaries in establishing schools among the Indian tribes. When missionaries came to enlighten the Chickasaw they were treated with courtesy, but the Chickasaw showed little interest in their religion. The Chickasaw Council contributed money for schools, but later complained that the missionaries spent more time preaching than teaching.  

My great great grandmother Ela-teecha was born in about 1796, and she married a Scotsman named Jason McClure in about 1828 or 9. She had two children by him, Tecumseh in 1830, and Catherine in 1831. Ela-teecha was of the Imosaktca or fish clan, and she almost certainly lived with McClure in an Imosaktca village. She is said to have spoken English fluently, but since she was taught by her husband she spoke it with a Scottish brogue. Ela-teecha had a brother, Ja-pawnee, and four sisters. I only know the name of one sister, Kaliteyo, because my aunt was named for her. Little Tecumseh and Catherine were seven and six at the time of the Removal, so I'm sure some of their education was conducted according to tradition.  

Footnote 1: There are some who think Jason McClure came to live with the Chickasaws as a missionary, but in an interview with him reported in A Traveler in Indian Territory, the Journal of Ethan Allen Hitchcock, he's not described as a missionary, and there's no mention of him doing missionary work.   

                                    Jason, Ela-Teecha, and Tecumseh McClure

In 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed, and the mission schools were closed in order to put pressure on the Indians to cooperate with the Removal to Indian Territory, the future state of Oklahoma. The Chickasaw held out until 1837, when they finally agreed to join their close relatives the Choctaw in Indian Territory. The Removal was a great tragedy for the Chickasaw people. Many lives were lost, and they found themselves in a strange land, surrounded by hostile tribes. But what was possibly as bad was the separation from their homeland and the spirits that protected them there, and the breaking up of the clans, which changed forever their way of life.

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.

Hitchcock and the Chickasaws

                                              

                                             Indian Territory, 1842

I apologise for this map. Skip it if you like. You can't read much of the printing as it is, but if you magnify it, you can see the names pretty well. A few comments for orientation:
Ft. Smith located where Arkansas River crosses Arkansas border. This is where Hitchcock entered Indian Territory.
Ft. Gibson located further up the Arkansas where it is joined by the Verdigris and Grand rivers. This was Hitchcock's home base while visiting the Cherokee, Seminole and Creek tribes.
Edwards Trading Post on the Canadian River almost in the map's center. Met with some of Creek leaders there.  
Note Boundary between Chickasaw and Choctaw districts marked by broken line, runs north and south.  
Ft. Washita just west of above boundary on Washita River.
Boggy Depot , just east of above boundary on Clear Boggy Creek.
Blue River - not labeled - runs between Boggy Creek and Washita River. Jason McClure lived on Blue River, barely within the Chickasaw district, about 4 miles northeast of Ft. Washita.

When I started out to write about Ethan Allen Hitchcock's journal, my main purpose was to point out his reference to Jason McClure, my great great grandmother's first husband (See blog post 12/22/2010 for article about Jason McClure and 1/1/2011 for article about Ethan Allen Hitchcock).

As I reread the book however I was reminded of what a thorough description Hitchcock gives of life in Indian Territory in 1842. He discusses the important issues of the time; he gives his impression of prominent Indian leaders; he quotes what people say; he describes the country; he describes Indian traditions as they are explained to him, and he does it with a noncritical good natured attitude. I can't read the journal for you, but I'd like to try to give you the flavor of Hitchcock's description of his visit with the Chickasaws. 

It took Hitchcock five weeks to travel from Washington D.C. to Indian Territory. He arrived on November 22, 1837 at Ft. Gibson. He spent the next two months among the Cherokees, Seminoles and Creeks who were located near the fort. Not content to have the Indians come to him, Hitchcock rode out into the territory on horseback, visiting and staying in the homes of the Indians themselves. (See my previous post for more information about this part of the Hitchcock's visit.)

At the end of January, Hitchcock started south through the rest of the Creek and Seminole districts. One of the places he stayed was Edwards' trading post. I learned a little about this place when I read Grant Foreman's book, Advancing the Frontier, several years ago. By the time of the Removal, the Comanches, Wichitas, Kiowas and other plains tribes had developed a lucrative trade in horses stolen from Texas. Also it was an old Indian practice to take hostages when raiding other tribes, and they did the same thing when they raided white settlements. When the Indians discovered they could get more by ransoming a woman or a child than by selling a horse, they began trading in people. The kidnappers were reluctant to come too close to a fort, and Edwards' Trading Post was centrally located, so it became a favorite location for the ransom of hostages.  

The Chickasaws sometimes hunted with the Wichitas and the Comanches, and they were able to arrange for the ransom of several prisoners. My great aunt Sippia once stayed with a woman who had been a kidnapped by a band of Comanches. One of the soldiers at Ft. Cobb had paid her ransom and then married her. 

While staying with the Edwards, Hitchcock witnessed a stickball game between the Creek men and women. Stickball was a very rough game back then, and  serious injuries or even deaths occurred. Anyway, from Hitchcock's description, the women were holding their own against the men.

After leaving the Edwards', Hitchcock rode down to Chickasaw territory where he stayed with the McClures. He and his negro guide Sambo camped along the way on the Boggy River about 30 miles south of Edwards'. There Hitchcock admired the beauty of the woodlands, even though it was cold enough to freeze water in the cup sitting next to his palette. Mrs Edwards had given Hitchcock some biscuits and buffalo tongue which he and Sambo ate on the second day's ride. Hitchcock said the buffalo tongue was so rich that it gave him a headache, and he barely managed to stay on his horse for the remaining 20 miles of the journey. Buffalo tongue was considered a delicacy in the 1800's which was one reason the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction. 

Hitchcock was accompanied by Negro guides during most of his travels, and much of what he learned about Indian culture he heard from them. Many Negros moved west with the Five Civilized Tribes, some as free members of the tribes, and others as slaves. The Indian slaves enjoyed more freedom than their white plantation counterparts, living more like sharecroppers than slaves. These Negros were valuable to the Indians as interpreters since many of the Indians couldn't speak English, and some achieved positions of influence among the Indians.  

As Hitchcock and his guide rode further south, they entered the Arbuckle mountain range. Hitchcock learned from Sambo that during this season the Indians sometimes started fires in the mountains to drive the bears out of their dens so they could be hunted.

Sambo also told Hitchcock that the Comanches always patted their chests and sang a song on awakening. He said the Osages did the same thing. He told Hitchcock that the Osages and Comanches were very close, and had even talked of joining together as one tribe.

The Osages were actually from Kansas. They had been persuaded to migrate down into the Arkansas River valley in the late 1700's by a fur trader named A P Chouteau, who was interested in finding hunters to provide him with furs. The government ignored the presence of the Osages when they promised the Arkansas River Valley land to the Creeks and Cherokees. As a result the Osages considered the immigrants intruders and they raided their settlements and stole their stock. The government punished the Osages by withholding their annuity, and many were starving at the time of Hitchcock's visit. 

The Chickasaw District was considered part of the Choctaw Nation, and the Chickasaws were considered Choctaw citizens, a situation that was unacceptable to the Chickasaws from the start. In the Treaty of Doaksville of 1837, the Choctaws sold the western part of their domain to the Chickasaws for $530,000. The Choctaws had chosen to sell this region for a reason. It was already occupied by Wichitas, Kickapoos, and Comanches. Those tribes hunted along the Washita River valley and some had villages there. In 1839, 12 Chickasaw families moved west into the Blue River valley just inside their district, and the Kickapoos immediately began raiding them. Soldiers from Ft. Gibson were sent down to evict the Kickapoos, but they returned immediately after the soldiers left. By the time of Hitchcock's visit the army was constructing a fort on the Washita River about 12 miles north of the Red River to protect these early Chickasaw settlers.

By Hitchcock's description, Jason McClure lived on the Blue River just about four miles east of the site of the new fort. His house was a double log cabin with a "dog trot" (breezeway) between the two halves. Hitchcock wasn't too happy about his accommodations there. He wrote: "The weather for two days has been excessively boisterous, and today is turning very cold. McClure is building a new house and has neglected his old one, which is open at all points - bottom, top, sides and chimney truncated." From the fact that McClure's house was already in disrepair by 1842, I think it's reasonable to conclude that his family was among this first group of Chickasaws to move into their district. 

After a good night's sleep Hitchcock felt better, and he had an interesting conversation with Jason McClure. McClure told him that the Choctaws had mainly given up the old practice of polygamy, but that many of the Chickasaws still practiced it. He gave as an example one of the tribal leaders, Captain (Jonas?) Wolf, who had three wives. McClure told Hitchcock that he had seen the wives "sitting all together like so many sisters."

Major Hitchcock spent three days at the McClure home as he waited for the Chickasaw leaders to come together to meet with him. During some of his stops he described his interactions with the wives and children of the men he met, but unfortunately Hitchcock made no mention of McClure's family. At that time McClure had a wife, Ela Teecha, my great great grandmother, and two children, Tecumseh age 12, and Catherine age 11. He mentions a Mr Brooks who was living with the family, but not my great great grandfather Smith Paul.

At any rate, Hitchcock relates conversations with McClure, and also with several visitors, including Captain Wolf, mentioned above, and a Mr Hume. I suspect the latter was an ancestor of the Hume family which has been prominent in the Chickasaw tribe during my lifetime. Rev. Jesse Humes coauthored a Chickasaw dictionary with his wife Vinnie May, published in 1973. Vinnie May was the mother of Overton James, a Chickasaw Governor. Overton's sister, Chenina Roach, was a good friend of my mother.

One topic of conversation during Hitchcock's stay was bear meat. Hitchcock wrote that "McClure prefers the meat of the bear to any other meat." McClure told him "Indians try up the whole of the meat and oil comes from the fat of every part and leaves nothing but crisp. He says there is no lean about a bear except its legs and that the oil is better than lard for any culinary purpose. Indians take the skins from young does entire, and "bag" the oil in them." He claimed that it was common to get 15 to 20 gallons of oil from a bear.

They also talked of the recent raids by the "wild tribes" into Texas, and the subsequent raids into Indian Territory by Texans who, not finding the guilty parties raided the farms of peaceful Chickasaws. McClure also told Hitchcock about a woman hostage who had recently been ransomed.
Mr Humes told Hitchcock that the commissioners of the Chickasaw "incompetent" fund had recently been meeting at Mr Guy's house, over at Boggy Depot, the farthest west of the supply depots set up after the Removal. He related to Hitchcock that the commissioners were "treated with every luxury the country affords free of charge, whiskey, etc.; and thus induced to recommend the payment of that fund to Saffran and Lewis," the proprietors of the store at Boggy Depot where the annuity was distributed.

The next day Major Hitchcock rode over to the site of construction of the new Fort Washita, four miles west. He spent the next night at Mr Humphrey's home where he was to meet with the Chickasaw leaders. Hitchcock mentions "Humphreys gave me a good bed last night in a room by myself, with clean neat bed clothes, white pillow cases, ruffled, etc., etc. So upon a good supper I should have slept well, if I had not had dreams, but my dreams were pleasant, peaceful and I waked from time to time and my thoughts were in harmony. In the night, however, Mr. Humphreys sleeping in the next room got up and stumbled over a chair which brought forth a severe anathema; and then a cat got into my room and tried to climb up the logs of which the house is built to my provision sack in which I have some buffalo tongue and which I had purposely hung up, etc."

Hitchcock spent only two weeks with the Chickasaws and Choctaws, actually most of that time with the Chickasaws. During his whirlwind tour of the Chickasaw - Choctaw domain, he came to a remarkably complete understanding of the issues facing the two tribes: the threats from the "wild" tribes to the west and the Texans to the South; the distrust by the Chickasaws of the commissioners of their "incompetent" fund; the unrest of the Chickasaws at being under the government of the Choctaws, and the general malaise of the tribe, facilitated by their annuity which was three times that of the Choctaws, and enough for a thrifty family to live on for a year.

Hitchcock came to the conclusion that changes needed to be made in the administration of the incompetent fund, and that there would be unrest as long as the Chickasaws remained a part of the Choctaw tribe. He thought that the Chickasaws would need another fort farther west, in addition to the one under construction on the Washita River, to protect them from raids by roving bands of plains Indians. He felt that the ambitious mixed blood Chickasaws would eventually lead the tribe out of it's current lethargy.  

Hitchcock's summary was prophetic. On completion of Ft. Washita more Chickasaws moved into their domain, and in 1851 another fort, Ft. Arbuckle, was built further up the Washita. Then most of the Chickasaws moved into their own district. The year after Hitchcock's visit, the Chickasaws sent a delegation down to meet with representatives from the Republic of Texas, and the raids by Texas settlers stopped.

What Hitchcock didn't know, was that one of the Chickasaws' chief problems was a leadership vacuum. The strong mixed blood leaders who had negotiated the favorable removal treaty for the Chickasaws, Levi and George Colbert, had passed away, and the power of the nation rested in the hands of the Chickasaw commissioners, first in charge of the incompetent fund and later the entire  annual annuity. In 1845, Isaac Alberson, elected chief of the Chickasaw District, along with his elected council, acquired the authority to administer the Chickasaw fund. Gradually, the Chickasaws regained their old pride and spirit of independence, and in 1856 they signed a treaty with the Choctaws for complete independence, and drafted their own constitution.

As for Jason McClure, he passed away soon after Hitchcock's visit, and after a suitable period of mourning, his widow, Ela Teecha, married Smith Paul, my great great grandfather. When Ft. Arbuckle was built in 1851, they moved west and started farming in the rich bottom land just outside the gates of the fort.  

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: