Hello Again

Hello, again.

I’ve only posted one blog in the last two years, so no one may notice me starting up again, but I'm going to try anyway.

I’ve finished the book, Wenonah’s Story, that I co-authored with my mother, J. Wenonah Paul Gunning, and it will be released by the Chickasaw Press the first week in October. I hope you will all read it. It’s a lot more polished than my blog, so hopefully it will be worth your while.

My mother was a remarkable woman, born in 1913 into the prominent Paul family just as it was falling on hard times. A sensitive child, Wenonah faced hardship, tragedy, conflict between her parents, and prejudice because of her Indian blood, with determination and humor. The book describes her childhood as an adventurous tomboy, her experiences at Bloomfield, a Chickasaw school for girls, getting a college degree during a time when women were expected to get married out of high school, and creating an exciting life for herself as a working woman, while giving support and encouragement to her mother and to her brothers and sisters.  

Wenonah’s Story is not just the story of my mother’s life, but also a history of the Paul family, from Wenonah’s great grandfather, Smith Paul, who ran away from his home in North Carolina to join the Chickasaw Indians, to her grandfather, Sam Paul, a Chickasaw policeman and senator, to her father William, a delegate to the Sequoya Convention, a successful rancher, and real estate broker, to her brother Homer, who served in the Oklahoma state legislature for 17 years. The book describes the stormy transition of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories into the State of Oklahoma; the prosperity of the 1920’s, and the hardships of living through the Great Depression. It also gives a pretty good picture of what it was like to grow up in a small rural Oklahoma town during the 1920’s.

I haven’t quite decided how to continue this blog, but I guess I’ll just keep telling stories about our family, putting them into the context of the times. If you read the book, the blog will give you more details about the background of the story, and the lives of the characters, and I’ll continue telling more about my dad, who’s just entering the story as the book ends. 

Thanks for reading. It's nice to be back. 

Pauls Valley Beginnings

Pauls Valley is a little town in south central Oklahoma. It was born as a farming community, and later there was a little oil boom there, but for the last 30 or 40 years it's been getting smaller instead of larger. When you drive down Paul Avenue, the main drag, you don't see any new buildings. If people stop there, it's usually just to get gas or a snack on their way to Dallas.

 

Pauls Valley is still a pretty little town though. It's one of those towns where the tree branches form an arch over the streets which are still paved with bricks in some areas. I never lived in Pauls Valley, but I visited my grandmother there every other weekend for most of my childhood, so I feel at home there. The other reason it's special to me is because it was named after my great great grandfather, Smith Paul.

 

I think I've told the story of Smith Paul before, how he ran away from home and joined the Chickasaws, and then came with them from their homeland in what is now Mississippi on their "Trail of Tears" in 1837. In about 1844 he married my great great grandmother, a full blood Indian woman named Ela-teecha.

 

The Chickasaw settlers were threatened by the "wild" Plains Indian tribes who thought of them as invaders, so they lived close to forts for protection. In 1845 they moved next to Fort Washita, and when Fort Arbuckle was built in 1851 they moved close to it. It was in about 1858 or 9 when Smith and Ellen - that's how Ela-teecha was known in the family - moved to the present location of Pauls Valley.

 

Pauls Valley is located where Rush Creek flows into the Washita River, which was large enough in Smith Paul's day to float a pretty large boat. Smith Paul had always wanted to farm on a large scale, and the land in the Valley was the best he had ever seen. The grass on the prairie was so tall it could hide a man on horseback, and Smith's farm yielded 30 to 40 bushels of corn per acre without cultivation. More recent studies have shown that the topsoil there is 17 to 20 feet thick.

 

Smith and Ellen spent the Civil War years in the valley, without much company other than the friendly Indian tribes who would supply them with meat in exchange for corn. After the War others came to the valley and formed a settlement there which became known as Smith Paul's Valley. The main road west went through the town and carried supplies to Fort Cobb and Fort Sill.

 

Ellen Paul had been married before, to a man named Jason McClure who had died in 1843 of hydrophobia, or rabies, and she had two children by McClure: a boy, Tecumseh, and a girl, Kathrine. She and Smith Paul had three children together: a boy Jesse, who died as a young man; a girl, Mississippia, and my great grandfather, Sam. They all remained in the valley after they married and raised their families there.

 

In the early days Smith Pauls Valley was part of the Chickasaw Nation, which had its own government and its own laws. The main issue of the time was over whether or not to allow intermarried white settlers the right to vote. Many of the Chickasaws were not happy with the changes that the whites had brought. They preferred to live as they had always lived, in small family groups, using only what they needed. They saw the desire of the white man for wealth and possessions as a threat to their way of life.

 

Smith and Ellen's children were split over the issue. Sam Paul was a Progressive, in favor of welcoming the white man, and working toward eventual statehood for the territory with a joint Indian - white government. His older half-brother Tecumseh, on the other hand, was a member of the "Pull-back" Party, and was dead set against allowing whites any more influence.

 

The issue came to a head with the coming of the railroad. Most Indians were against building a railroad across the Territory, because it represented more whites, more businesses, and more towns. They were already outnumbered seven to one by whites in their own country. After the Civil War, the U.S. Government used the fact that most of the Indians had supported the Confederacy as an excuse to demand reparations. It didn't make any difference that the Indians were more or less forced into the War by being occupied by Confederate Troops. One of the concessions demanded of the Chickasaws and Choctaws was that railroad lines be built across their Nations. One line would cross east to west and the other north to south.

 

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell Gibson, P 276 describes the post Civil War treaty , and p 284 gives the dates, names, and locations of the railroads.  

 

The first line, the M.K. & T. was built in 1872. It crossed the southern part of the Nation, and although it brought with it more settlers, laborers, gamblers, prostitutes, and liquor, just as the Indians had feared, it was a long way from Smith Pauls Valley. The real problem came in 1887 when the north - south line was built by the Santa Fe Company. It was to come right through the Valley.

 

Naturally the railroad wanted to locate a depot in Smith Paul's Valley, now a major settlement, but Tecumseh McClure refused to release the land. According to Chickasaw law, a person could not own land, but he could use all the land that he needed, and the place selected for the depot was on land that Tecumseh controlled.

 

When Tecumseh's brother Sam found out about the dilemma, he contacted the railroad and offered to let them use his land for the depot, so the Santa Fe engineers took him up on his offer. Sam Paul's land was three miles south of the town so locating the depot there meant that the town had to be moved. Sam Paul, a true businessmen, immediately began selling town lots. By the time the depot was built, he owned the town. They say that it was the railroad that was responsible for shortening the town's name to Pauls Valley. The name Smith Pauls Valley was too long to go on the sign. 

 

Sam Paul's vision of the future eventually came to pass, even though the rift between him and his brother eventually led to Sam's death. Pauls Valley was a thriving and prosperous town for the next fifty years.  

 

Footnote: Uncle Haskell's notes tell about the conflict between Sam Paul and Tecumseh McClure.

 

 

 

                                      Santa Fe locomotive - Pauls Valley

 

Chickasaw Education, the Golden Age, 1867 - 1898

For information about Chickasaw education during earlier periods see posts of Jan. 16, and Jan. 29, 2012.

        

                                        Mississippia Paul Hull

During the Civil War Chickasaw society was disrupted, and the Nation's schools were closed. The Chickasaw Nation officially supported the Confederacy, but many wanted no part of the white man's war. Soon after the war started, the Confederate army took over Indian Territory and occupied Fort Arbuckle. My great great grandfather Smith Paul had the foresight to move away from the fort before the war started. He moved west, into the vicinity of what is now Paul's Valley. As my great aunt Sippia put it:

Just before the war broke out he had made a trip to the locality and realized that it was a wonderful place for farming. Very soon he had a home built for us, it was of hewed logs. The house was built of single rooms but close together …. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the friendly plains Indians came around the locality where my father had his farm. They were the Comanches, Caddos, Apaches, Cheyenne, Osages, and I think some Delawares. One mixed band located at Cherokee Town, another on my father's farm, a band of Osage across the river, and a band of Caddo Indian under old lady White Bead, five miles up the river. And the government realized that they must do something with and for these Indians, so they appointed my father as an agent, to issue them rations. This was one reason that my father did not have to go to war.  

So Smith Paul was appointed by the Confederacy, as Indian agent supplying rations to the plains Indians living the vacinity of his farm.

My great great grandmother Ela Teecha's older children, Tecumseh McClure and Catherine Waite, along with Ellen's brother Ja-Pawnee, went to Kansas with their families during the Civil War. They stayed with the Sauk and Fox tribe which remained unaffiliated with either North or South.

Aunt Sippia described her life during the war between the states:

During the Civil War we had to spin and weave all of our cloth, to make our clothes, and knit our hose. I was anxious to do what everyone else did and they let me, although I was only about nine years old, I wove enough cloth to make me a dress, even though it looked rather knottie, they made me a dress out of it. The cotton from which we spun the thread had to be picked from the seeds with our fingers, we usually did this work at night. The pecans grew in this locality in great abundance as they do today, and we ate nuts and picked the cotton off the seeds and my mother would tell us Indian legends. We learned by putting the cotton down by the fire and getting it warm, it was much easier to get the seeds out. It was during those early days that a man came through the country with what he called a miniature gin, similar to a cloths ringer of today, and this helped us to get the seeds out faster. Of course people came in to see how it worked and everyone wanted to try and turn the handle and my brother, boy like turned it and broke the handle off. My mother used to make straw hats for the boys out of wheat straw and in the winter they would catch coons and she would make them caps out of the skins. My father would make us shoes out of cow hide, he could do a little of everything, but this was only in war times. How I disliked them, and how glad I was when we could buy shoes ready made.

This is the kind of practical education Aunt Sippia got during the war. I wish she we could hear some of the stories her mother told her.

After the Civil War, the Chickasaw government was reorganized, and under the leadership of Governor Cyrus Harris a new constitution was written outlawing slavery. In 1867, with $65,700 released by the federal government from the Chickasaw trust fund, the Chickasaw Nation established 11 neighborhood schools. In 1876 that number was increased to 23, and also four academies, Bloomfield for girls, Wapanucka coed, Chickasaw Male Academy, and the Lebanon Orphan school were opened. These schools were operated by Chickasaw citizens, and most of the teachers were Chickasaw. The Chickasaw government provided $3 per student per month for the neighborhood schools, $200 per student annually for students at the academies, and $350 per student per year for 60 to 100 students selected to pursue higher education in the states.

This period of Chickasaw independence has been referred to as the "Golden Age" of Chickasaw education. At this time the Chickasaw educational system surpassed that of all the other tribes, and that of the whites in neighboring states. By 1880 60% of Chickasaws could read and write. Bloomfield Academy was known as the Bryn Mawr of the West.

There were also missionary schools at this time. The Pierce Institute in White Bead, and Hargrove College in Ardmore were operated by the Methodists, and St. Elizabeth's Academy for girls was opened by the Catholic Church near Purcell.

Footnote: The Chickasaws, Arrell Gibson. P 280. 

In addition to the Chickasaw government schools and the mission schools, some Chickasaw communities hired their own teachers. Aunt Sippia told about her father hiring a teacher for her and her brothers after the war:

For quite a while after the war, we were the only settlers in this section of the country. My father hired us a private teacher. It was not easy to get teachers to come and live on this frontier, so our education was quite limited.

It was during this time that the federal government was forcing the plains tribes onto reservations. Ulysses S. Grant, the first President after the Civil War, was approached by representatives of the Quaker church asking him to let them establish missions on these reservations so they could convert the Indians. President Grant's response was:

If you can make Quakers out of these Indians it will take the fight out of them. Let us have peace.

Grant appointed many Quakers as Indian agents, and also missionaries from other denominations. The Quaker Laurie Tatum was appointed agent to the Comanches and Kiowas near Fort Sill, and my great aunt Sippia attended his school. Here is her description:

At the early age of sixteen I was married to Jim Arnold, a Texan, and one little girl was born to us, named Tamsie. After five years I was left a widow. Knowing they had a school for Indians at Fort Sill, I decided to go up there to school. I boarded with a Mexican woman who had been ransomed and married and raised a family. She was ransomed by a soldier by the name of Chandler who afterwards married her. I took my little girl along with me and Mrs. Chandler took care of her while I attended school. While I was there I met William Hull, an Englishman, who was employed to work for the government to work under the Indian agent Tatum. After he met me he decided to come down and live near my father. He was a professional blacksmith. This was on the main travel road of the freighters to Fort Sill and Fort Cobb. He accumulated quite a fortune at that business. Then we were married.

The practice by some of the plains tribes of taking hostages deserves some explanation. The Comanche, Wichita, Cheyenne and others would raid farms in what is now Texas - then Mexico - and take horses and hostages. They traded both among themselves, and often asked for ransoms for the hostages, usually children. Chickasaw hunters played a role in ransoming some of the hostages in those early days after the Removal. Some of the hostages were treated like slaves and some were accepted as members of the tribe. The mother of the famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker had originally been a hostage. When given a chance to rejoin her white family, she chose to remain with the Comanche. See my post of 2/12/2011, Nadua, Cynthia Ann Parker

Back to Aunt Sippia's story:

The school I attended in Fort Sill was under the supervision of the Quakers. Of course I attended their church, it all seemed strange to me, for when they went in the church they usually sang a song first, then they sat and waited for the spirit to move them. Sometimes someone would pray or talk and then again there were times when no one would either talk or pray, they would sit quietly for a while and then leave.

While my father was not such a religious man he realized that we must have the uplifting influence of having the gospel preached. So he hired a preacher by the year by the name of E. Couch from Texas, to preach to us regularly every Sunday, he made his home with us. By that time there were more people living in this part of the country but miles and miles apart, but they would come to this service and my father and mother always arranged to have a splendid meal for the entire congregation, as that was one of the pleasant occasions that we looked forward to. Then later my father built a frame church himself, having the lumber freighted from Atoka. J.M. Hamill, Superintendent of Colbert School and pastor at Ft. Arbuckle also preached to us.

The Colbert School was one of the original Chickasaw Academies. It was a boys' school.

It is remarkable to me how these people, with their own culture and traditions, so recently uprooted from their homeland and having to rebuild their society on the frontier, had the desire and the foresight to see the value of education in preparing their children to compete in white society. Aunt Sippia sent her oldest daughter Tamsie to Liverpoole, England. to school. I don't know much about the education that Tecumseh McClure provided for his children, but his sister Catherine went to great lengths to educate hers. Fred Waite, her oldest son was sent to finishing school in Bentonville Ark.. He later attended Illinois Industrial University in Champaign, Illinois, and Mound City Commercial College in St Louis, Mo. Fred Waite later became Attorney General of the Chickasaw Nation. Fred's younger brother Amos was also educated in the East, and he returned home to start the first subscription school in Pauls Valley in about 1890. Subscription schools were private schools for which parents paid a fee for their children to attend. Catherine Waite also educated her daughters. After her husband's death in 1874 she moved with her younger daughters to Oberlin, Ohio, so that they could attend college there.

        

                   Thomas and Catherine Waite and Three of Their Daughters

Chickasaw Education After the Removal

After the Removal, the Chickasaws were despondent. Many had died and were continuing to die from exposure, malnutrition, and disease. In the new land the people lived clustered around government supply depots, instead in clan based villages as before. In the Removal treaty Chickasaw district had been included in the Choctaw Nation, a situation which the individual Chickasaw could never accept. In addition, the Choctaw had located the Chickasaw district far to the west of the Choctaw settlements, to create a buffer between them and the hostile plains tribes, who considered the eastern tribes as intruders, and repeatedly raided their settlements. The Chickasaw's only protection was Fort Towson, which was a full 70 miles east of their border. 

As a result, the Chickasaw were unable to even move into their district until 1844, when Fort Washita was built on its eastern border. Still most of the tribe waited until 1851, when Fort Arbuckle was built further to the west. It was only then that the Chickasaw began to establish their own farms and schools. In the meantime many of the Chickasaw lived in Choctaw settlements where there were some schools. Others remained in the vicinity of the old government supply depots, living off periodic annuity payments.  

     

       Map of Indian Territory: Note Ft. Towson in southeast corner, 

                 Ft. Washita just inside Chickasaw border,

            and Ft. Arbuckle in middle of Chickasaw Nation.

In spite of these handicaps, the Chickasaw did have some opportunities to educate their young people during the postremoval period. One of them was the Choctaw Academy in Blue Springs, Kentucky. The Choctaw Academy had been established in 1824 by the Baptist Church. Its superintendant was Richard Mentor Johnson, who had been vice president under James Van Buren. Johnson had first achieved notoriety as a Colonel in the war of 1812 when he allegedly shot and killed the great Shawnee Chief, Tecumseh. He used the following jingle during his campaign for vice president: "Rumsey Dumsey, Rumsey Dumsey, Col Johnson killed Tecumseh." 

In spite of Col. Johnson's notoriety as an Indian fighter, he did apparently have sympathetic feelings for the Indians and also for other victims of prejudice and oppression. Like Thomas Jefferson, he had a Negro mistress, and for many years he devoted himself to the education on Indian youths. The US government originally sent 25 students per year to the Choctaw Academy, and the number was later raised to 45. The Chickasaw removal treaty provided $3000 annually for ten years to send 10 young men to the Choctaw Academy, and several of the graduates later became leaders of the tribe. After the ten year period the Chickasaw made a contract with Plainview Academy in Connecticut to provide higher education to Chickasaw youths.

Footnote: Wikipedia under Richard Mentor Johnson, and Oklahoma, by Arrell Gibson, P 161.

The Choctaw also developed neighborhood primary schools and academies, equivalent to high schools, and some Chickasaws took advantage of these schools.

In about 1843 or 4 my great great grandmother Ela-Teecha's first husband, Jason McClure, was fatally stricken with hydrophobia, better known as rabies. My great great grandfather, Smith Paul, who had been working for McClure, then married Ela-Teecha. By the way, I don't believe this implies a scandalous affair by my great great grandmother while she was  married to McClure, as has been suggested by some. Smith Paul and Jason McClure were both Scotsmen, and they were friends. It was a difficult time. Ela Teecha was left alone by McClure's death to care for two small children. She was thirteen years older than Smith Paul, but she needed a husband, and so they were married. It was a practical and a compassionate arrangement.  

                                                            

                                Smith and Ela-Teecha (Ellen) Paul                            

Ellen's older son, Tecumseh, was fourteen at that time, and Smith sent him to Boggy Depot where the Choctaw had a school. He stayed with William Guy, one of the conductors for the Chickasaw Removal who had married a Chickasaw woman and had remained in Indian Territory. Tecumseh was later a student at Post Oak Grove, in the Chickasaw Nation. After his education Tecumseh moved back in with the family, and later married a full blood Chickasaw named Mary McKenzie. Tecumseh McClure became a respected leader among the Chickasaw. He served in the Chickasaw senate and later became governor.  

Footnote: Leaders and Leading Men of the Indian Territory: Choctaws and Chickasaws, by Harry F. O'Beirne, 1891. P 308 

Ela-Teecha's daughter Catherine stayed with the family, and in about 1848 or 1850 she married Tom Waite, a farmer from Illinois. I'm not sure how much education she had, but as you will learn later, her dedication to providing education for her children was remarkable.  

With the building of Fort Washita in 1844, Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian missionaries began to establish churches, and when Fort Arbuckle was built in 1851, the Chickasaw provided the churches with funds to create schools in the new Chickasaw communities. Four academies were established: the Colbert and Burney Institutes for boys, and the Bloomfield and Wapanucka Academies for girls, as well as six neighborhood schools with an enrollment of 180 students. The Chickasaw achieved their independence from the Choctaw in 1854, and by 1856 they had written a constitution and had established their own government. Unfortunately the Civil War erupted in 1861, and again disrupted Chickasaw society in its attempts at nation building.

Map of Chickasaw Nation: Note Colbert Institute, Wapanucka Academy,

                Burney Institute and Bloomfield Acadamy

In 1851, when Fort Arbuckle was built, Smith Paul started farming in the area adjacent to the fort and soon he had won a contract to supply corn to the government for the soldiers there and also for the many Indian tribes which came to the fort for rations. This situation provided a unique education for Smith and Ellen's children: Sam, Jesse, and Mississippia, or 'Sippia,' who were 16, 14, and 6 when the Civil War began. According to my great uncle Buck, his father Sam was able to communicate in the languages of all the Five Civilized Tribes, as well as those of the Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita. He once hosted and served as interpreter at a meeting of the Intertribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes.  

 Map of Ft. Arbuckle Area (from Advancing the Frontier, by Grant Foreman)

Note six lines extending from left side of map pointing to: 1. Road to Wichita Mts, 2. Smith Paul's farm, 3. Area Reserved for Indian Purposes (campground for visiting tribes), 4. Road to Ft. Belknap, 5. Spring, 6. Ft. Arbuckle.

Uncle Buck also said that his father Sam completed the third reader in primary school and that he attended military school for two years. I have no further information about the 'military school.' It might have been provided by the officers of Ft. Arbuckle, but it was also common for Indian children to be sent east to school. Sam Paul obviously continued his education informally, because in addition to serving in the Chickasaw legislature, he also edited two newspapers and worked as an attorney in the Chickasaw court system. Sam's younger brother Jesse's education was probably similar to Sam's, but he suffered an untimely death, probably in the late 1860's, and little is known of him. Aunt Sippia left a description of her education after the Civil War which I'll include in my next post.

                                                          Sam Paul

  

Three Killings in the Family

                                                       Joe Paul

Sam Paul and his oldest son Joe had never been close. Joe spent much of his childhood with his Uncle Tecumseh, and his Aunt Mary. Joe was close to his two younger brothers, Bill and Buck though, and my grandfather Bill said that if it weren't for Joe they would have starved while their father was in prison.  

I had only heard part of this story myself until recent years, because it was considered a scandal in the family. It wasn't spoken about. But now, the people involved and those that knew them are long gone, so it probably doesn't matter so much anymore. 

I've added to what my mother told me about these events by reading accounts written by Mike Tower, in his book, Outlaw Statesman, about Sam's nephew Fred Waite; by Moman Pruiett in his memoirs, Moman Pruiett, Criminal Lawyer; and by Bill and Cindy Paul in Shadow of an Indian Star, which is written as fiction but from what I can gather is taken mostly from historical research.   

When Sam Paul got out of prison in 1884 he sent his son Joe to college and then went about the business of rebuilding his life. By the time Joe returned, Sam had remarried and had regained his prominence in the community. When Joe began drinking and getting into trouble, he had several run ins with his father, even to the point of gun fire. Finally Joe left Pauls Valley and joined his grandfather Smith Paul in California. The reason is unclear, but there was a rumor that Joe had an affair with his father's wife, Jennie, and that Sam had threatened to kill him.  

Anyway, Joe stayed in California long enough to get married and have a child. I actually met one of his great grandchildren last year at a Chickasaw gathering. I'm not sure of the details, but from what my distant cousin told me, Joe was only married a short time before he deserted his California wife. Smith Paul also decided to leave his California family about that time, about 1890, and so they returned to Indian Territory together.  

When Joe returned the feud between father and son didn't start up again for a while, but when Joe continued to drink and to get into fights, his father warned him to control himself. Joe responded by going around town boasting that the next time he saw his father he was going to kill him, so they both got ready for a show down. There were at least two encounters between the two, and in one Joe was shot in the chest. It took several months for him to recover from this injury, but soon afterwards, he walked into a café where his father was eating and shot him twice in the back with a Winchester rifle.  

According to the story I was told by my mother, Tecumseh McClure, Sam's older brother,  instigated the killing. She said that she was told by her father that Tecumseh had Joe worked up into a frenzy over the threat his father posed to traditional Chickasaw customs, so the murder was actually politically motivated. Of course Joe may not have needed much encouragement.  

My mother also said that her father didn't blame his brother Joe for what he had done because of the mistreatment and neglect he had suffered because of their father. Our family and Joe's were always friends. It was actually a conflict between Joe and Tecumseh that led to the next family killing.  

After Sam Paul's murder Joe was arrested and sent to Paris, Texas, for trial, but because he and Sam were both Indians, the court decided it did not have jurisdiction, therefore Joe returned home a free man. The Chickasaw courts didn't take up the matter either, further evidence that the murder was politically motivated. Joe Paul was even appointed as a judge in the Chickasaw court.

During the next three years Joe led for him a respectable life, he got married to a full blood Chickasaw lady named Maulsey Stewart, and performed his duties as judge, but the quick temper that he had inherited from his father caught up with him. One night he got into an argument with one of his drinking buddies that ended in a gun fight. Joe was arrested and he spent the night in jail. The next day his uncle Tecumseh bailed him out and lectured him about his disgraceful behavior. Joe then slapped Tecumseh in the face and walked off. Two months later Tecumseh's son Jennison killed Joe in the same café where Joe had killed his father Sam. 

                                 Jennison, Tecumseh, and Imon McClure

The Pull-backs were still in control of the Chickasaw government - in 1884 Tecumseh McClure had even served as governor - so Jennison was acquitted of Joe Paul's murder, but he wouldn't remain free for long. Three months after the trial he was found dead on the railroad tracks, run over by a train.  

Moman Pruiett described the incident in his book, Moman Pruiett, Criminal Lawyer. He wrote that he was playing poker with Jennison McClure until late the night of Jennison's death. At one point in the evening:  

a squatty half breed sidled in. He stood beside the table for several minutes, watching the play indifferently, before he spoke.

"Bill Paul in town; I just seen him," the half breed said.

The players exchanged significant glances and continued their play. When the hand was finished Jennison McClure pushed his stack of chips toward Weaver, who was banking, and arched his eyebrows.

"You quittin'?"

"I go home now," he said.

"It's almost daylight, Mac," Pruiett suggested. "Hadn't you better play a couple more before you leave?" (Pruiett refers to himself in the third person in his book)

"I go home now," he repeated.

"Look here, now, Jennison," Weaver said. "It ain't hardly safe to be runnin' around here in the dark, without knowin' where he is. Why don't you stick around a little longer. You know damn well he ain't comin' up here."

"I go home now," McClure said, without changing tone or expression.

"Pay him off," said Pruiett. "He says he go home."

The squatty informer was already dozing in a chair. New hands were dealt and McClure walked carelessly out the side door.

"It's getting light, now, as sure as hell," Pruiett observed. "let's go an' get some breakfast after this hand. How long's Jennison been gone?"

"Listen!"

"That was a shot!" Pruiett whispered.

There was a short silence, than two more shots. The players glanced toward the little half-breed Indian, who slouched low in his chair with his dirty hands folded peacefully across his pot belly. His eyes opened wide and understandingly. With a significant shrug of his shoulders he closed them again and began to nod.

"Damn it," Pruiett gritted. "I'm out. If you two fellows want to play any more it's all right, but I'm quittin'. What the hell's that?" He jumped and started.

"You're all upset," Weaver laughed. "It's just a train whistle. It's the mornin' Santa Fe. I'm out too."

"Come on, Shorty; coffee." Pruiett called to the little Indian. He was close at the heels of the quartet as it reached the bottom of the staircase which ran up the side of the stone building. A woman hurried up Paul Avenue from the east, from the direction of the Santa Fe Depot. "Is Doc Young up here?" she inquired, breathlessly.

"No, he ain't," one of the men said. "What's wrong?"

"The mornin' train just ran over a man," she said. "You want Doc for professional service, or official service?" Pruiett asked. Young was the mayor and chief magistrate, as well as the principal M.D.

"It ain't for treatment," she answered. "He's mince meat. We just want him there for the identification, an' to watch the pickin' up." 

Pruiett describes walking over to the tracks, seeing the body, and recognizing the shirt

Jennison had been wearing. Then Jennison's father Tecumseh arrived: 

Ex-Governor Tecumseh McClure of the Chickasaw Nation, who was the father of Jennison McClure who had just been killed, appeared upon the scene, looked all around and said, "Jennison he's cut up bad. Well, he's all right. He, Fred Waite, Sam and Joe Paul, all now in Injun's Happy Hunting Ground."  

Moman Pruiett tended to dramatize things. Indian's didn't really talk like that, and they didn't refer to the after life as the "Happy Hunting Ground" either, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was true that my grandfather and his brother killed Jennison McClure. My grandmother always denied it, saying that Bill and Buck were in school at the time in Sherman, Texas, but it would have been possible for them to ride down one day, kill their cousin, and ride back the next. They were loyal to their brother Joe, and revenge was a strong tradition among the Chickasaw.

                     Body of Jennison McClure on Railroad Tracks, 1897

Hattie Jane, Part Two

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

                                            James and His Wife Marilyn 
            My name is Jim Phillips, great great grandson of Sam Paul and Sarah Jane Lambert. 

            I had always lived near my great grandmother Hattie Jane. I called her Grams. My grandmother Dottie Opal Stewart Wilburn I called Momma. Grams was like my grandmother, and my grandmother Dottie was like my mother. My father was killed when I was two years old, and I had always slept in the bed with my Grandmother Dottie and grandfather Charlie Wilburn. My grandfather was Cherokee, tall about 6’2”, but a bent man because of sickness. He weighed about 140 Lbs. His lungs were greatly damaged in WWI, and even though he was only in his forties by his fifties he was an old man.

                                             Dottie and Charlie Wilburn

             My grandmother Dottie always watched after her mother Hattie. When she was sick she took care of her, and even when my grandmother was a young child she took care of all of her brothers and sisters and her mother.

            Dottie only went to school one year and that was the third grade. She only knew how to write in cursive. She taught me how to write in cursive before I ever went to school. Dottie was a great musician and vocalist. She could play a lot of musical instruments and the piano. If she heard a song one time she could sing and play it on and instrument.

            My grandparents taught me honesty. We lived a hard life but their word was iron. Their word meant everything to them. They would not lie for any reason, not for life or death. They would have died before they cheated a man out of a payment that they owed or break their given word.  

            In Oklahoma my grandfather was a bootlegger. That may sound funny these days being a bootlegger and honest. These people were Indians and they knew that just not everything this white government did was on the up and up. Every family heirloom I have handed down to me was bought with whiskey. A Remington 22 rifle, a 7 jewel Elgin pocket watch, and a steel skillet are the priceless family heirlooms. The watch is now lost. My grandfather was too sick to work but my grandmother worked in the fields as a field hand, for the railroad as an oiler, and did painting and household repair. She also cleaned houses and did laundry and ironing.

            My grandma and grandfather were very frugal. When they came to California they lived in tents in an Okie village they called Little Oklahoma, A lot of the country and western singers that would become stars lived in that village also.   

          It wasn’t long till my grandfather and mother had bought an acre of ground and built a little shack on it we called home. Our little shack did not even have a door, just a tarp flap over where a door should have been. We couldn’t find a piece of wood large enough for a door. The shack was about 10 ft by 12 ft put together out of wood that someone had thrown into the canal behind our shack. We had a wood stove to cook on to the right side of the shack a little closet built onto the right rear of the room and a bed to the left rear. A little table with a couple of boxes worked for chairs. We did not have electricity or running water. Our running water was in the canal ditch that ran by our house.

        This is me at about age ten with my pet chicken, Hoppy, in front of our shack

          Because we did not have an ice box we had no way to keep our beans cold or store them. When we came in from work in the summer time near Bakersfield, California where it gets above 110 degrees every day, the bean pot would just be boiling with fermentation. Grandma had to build a fire under the bean pot and make the beansboil for at least a half hour before we could eat them. Grandma Dottie would always throw in a pinch of baking soda. Grandma said that would keep us from getting a belly ache. (food Poisoning). We could only afford to eat beans, and we could not take the time to cook a fresh pot of beans everyday. It took too long and we had to work too many hours.  

          Of course we had two hole out house, which served for a garbage pit and restroom (Nowadays people dig up old out houses to find all kinds of treasures that fell down the hole). It was a major job to dig a new hole and to move the outhouse about every six months. 

After we had our shack and outhouse built, Grams (Hattie) came with her second husband Roscoe, and moved on the front of the property in a little blue and silver trailer.

                                                  Grams and Roscoe Russell

I spent a lot of time with Grams and Roscoe, Roscoe was my step great grandfather, He was good to me and I loved him, but I just never did call him grandpa.  The Russells, Corleys, Lamberts, and Pauls were all related, and Grams told me they were all part Indian. The Russells were Chickahomony from Virginia, and the Corleys were from Virginia also (there are some Corleys on the Chickasaw rolls). I don’t know exactly what kind of Indian the Lamberts were, but Grams said they were Indian also. They could have been Chickasaw, but I don’t know for sure. Some things are foggy after all these years.

My mother moved into a house next door with my Dad, but I lived with my grandparents even when my father was still alive. My great uncles and aunts all threw up little dwellings here and there. We had a regular old time Indian village erected in no time at all. 

My mother worked with my father James Phillips in used car lots and fruit stands and a gas station that they ran. I lived with Grandma and Grams.

Faye and James Phillips, my parents, in front of their service station and fruit stand, early '40's

Grams dipped Garrett snuff and always told me when I grew up that if I should use a little snuff I would never get worms or hemorrhoids. She was really serious about that. I took all the old Indian remedies whether I was sick or not, just like in the old days they used to say.

In this setting I got to hear all kinds of stories from Grams. My grandmother and Grams always did their laundry on a rub board and heated their water outside. Grams and Grandma would talk Chickasaw when no one else was around. They would just jabber away and I couldn’t understand a word that they were saying. I asked my grandmother what language that she was speaking and she would say Indian. She would not teach me how to speak Indian because my grandpa Charlie and Roscoe did not approve of it.

When one of us had something to eat everybody ate. Gram’s was a great cook cooking all types of Indian foods from the old days as they said. We ate rabbits, fish an occasional deer or bear, and crawdads that my uncles caught or killed. Grams always cooked outside when she lived in her trailer. Later she moved in next door and she had a regular stove and she cooked some things in the oven. In those days they threw away sheep heads and cow heads goat heads and hog heads, it seems that she always had one of them in the oven. She cooked chicken heads and chicken feet and chitlins from chickens and all the animal guts she could get.

When I stayed with grams she would tell me stories of her family when Roscoe was not around. Roscoe called Grams a black footed gut eater. Her sons would talk down to her in the same way and call her The Indian Sqaw or Jim Crow because she had some black brothers and sisters from Sam Paul’s Illegitimate Negro girlfriends. Grams had a picture of one of them which I now have.

Sam Paul's Negro children, Willie and baby (name unknown)

Grams, in spite of all of this degradation because of being Sam Paul’s daughter and an Indian, loved and cared for her children. I never saw her have a single conversation with anyone in the family but my grandmother Dottie and myself.

I will begin to tell you some of these stories in her words and through her eyes.

Hattie Jane's memories:

                                                 Jason and Ellen McClure

A few times in the early days of my life a dog would come up in the yard foaming at the mouth and Grams would take me in her little trailer and tell me about mad dogs with hydrophobia.  

She would say:   

Jimmy, my grandma’s first husband died of hydrophobia. You’ve got to stay away from them mad dogs and shoot 'um if you can and burn 'um plum up to kill the disease. My grandma's first husband was bit by a mad dog and he sent for his friend (This must have been Smith Paul, her grandfather), to look for a madstone to save his life. A mad stone could not be found anywhere. Our people had to leave our country back east so fast that many important medicines were left behind or lost on the trail on the way to Indian Territory.  

A madstone was the only known  cure for rabies in the early history of man. American Indians used them and passed this knowledge down to many old time white doctors that used folk medicines. Even in Europe and the Middle East madstones were used to cure rabid bites from animals and snake bites. To learn more about madstones go to Google and look up the “Lee Penny a madstone” you can learn much about the use of madstones for medical cures and their legitimate place in documented cures for hundreds of years in ancient medicine.  

Back to Hattie's story:  

My Grandpa Smith (Paul) was then told by Rev. Mc Clure to take him way out in the woods away from his family and friends. Jimmy, they took a length of strong chain and some locks. Rev. Mc Clure had them gather up a lot of dry wood and brush and stack it in a big pile. Rev. McClure said that grandpa could not bury him because the dogs and wolves might dig him up and carry on the hydrophobia, and more people would have to die. After they got everything ready, Rev. McClure put the chain around his neck and locked the lock tight so he couldn’t get loose and hurt anyone. Mc Clure was a good man from everything I have heard about him, and his son Tecumseh is a real good man too. He is my Uncle. I was always proud of Tecumseh the other Indians always liked him more that they did my father Sam Paul. Smith and Rev. Mc Clure laid out a pallet for him to lay on under this big tree and chained the other end of the chain to the tree trunk. The Reverend got real bad and Grandpa Smith could not bring himself to shoot him and to put him out of his miseries. The Reverend finally died, and grandpa Smith  put Mc Clure and all his personal effects upon the brush and wood pile and burned them completely up. Later grandpa Smith kept his promise to him to watch after his wife and children. Grandmother had three children by the Reverend Mc Clure: Catherine, Tecumseh and a baby that died.

Grams told me this story several times.

 

To be continued:

`

For more about Hattie Jane's grandmother, Ellen or Ela-Teecha, see the post of February 28, 2011, Indian Territory, 1845.

For more about Jason McClure, Ellen's first husband, see post of December 29, 2010, Jason McClure.

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.