My father's name was Jeff ARY, and he was
born in Hempstead County, Tennessee. My father is now dead and is buried at
LeFlore, Oklahoma.
My mother's name was Nancy Jane SEYMORE
Ary. She is now dead and is buried at LeFlore, Oklahoma.
My father and mother left Tennessee and
moved to the state of Missouri, where I was born. Later they moved to Indian
Territory in the country now known as Latimer County. I have been living here
for 62 years.
I was 19 years old when I married. We
traveled by horseback to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to be married. We came back to
the Territory and picked us a small place where there was not much clearing of
the timber to do, went to the woods and cut logs and hewed them with my ax and
built us a home. This was located in the southeast part of the country and
consisted of about 20 acres. The settlers in this country did not raise cotton
because it was too far to haul it to a gin. You had to make a trip to Fort
Smith with cotton and that was around 65 miles and that was too far. We raised
corn and feed stuff to make our meal and feed our team. You had to take your
corn to a grist mill on horseback. There were no roads in the country in those
days so we just rode straight through the country hills and timber the nearest
way.
We did lots of hunting in those days--game
of all kinds was really plentiful. We carried deer and wild turkeys and hides
of fur bearing animals to Fort Smith and traded those things for flour and
sugar and household necessities. Everyone in the territory raised their own
hogs--they just ran wild in the woods--and it was easy to manage for meat and
lard.
Along in the early years of this County
the Frisco was building their road through my part of the country and when my
crop was laid by I went into the timber and cut cross ties for this road.
Along before the railroad was building
through here, there were lots of cattle running and ranging all over the
country in the creek bottoms through the winter and, although with no feed at
all, they came through in good shape.
But there was lots of trouble with out-law
men ranging all over the country. Other than these men, the country was
reasonably peaceable. This was along about 1865 to 1870. I have seen the STAR
Gang, the YOUNGERS, Cole and Bob FORD. They would come into the territory here
and round up lots of cattle and drive them away and dispose of them. Lots of
these cattle were carried to the Cherokee Nation and disposed of. Those
fellows would just camp around in the hills when they were gathering those
cattle up.
We did not have any officers of the white
race through this country in those days. The officers would have to be sent
from Fort Smith, to look for someone; and you very seldom ever saw one of
them.
The Choctaw Indian tribe controlled their
people very well and they were reasonably peaceable.
[SUBMITTERS COMMENT: There is a gross
error here. Nancy Jane Seymore Ary was Lee's wife--not his mother--and she is
buried in Latimer County, OK. There was apparently a misunderstanding of some
sort or a mistaken transcription.]