Indian Pioneer Papers - Index
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: July 31, 1937
Name: Mr. Henry Downing
Post Office: Nowata, Oklahoma
Residence Address:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Father:
Information on Father:
Mother:
Information on Mother:
Field Worker: Alfred F. Hicks
How Indians Made Salt in Early Days
There is a place near Salina that has salt springs, I well
remember when I was a small boy, my parents and some of the
neighbors would go there every year to make salt for their year's
supply. They had three large kettles, four feet across the top
and about three feet deep. They would build up a large fire under
each of these kettles and full [sic] them up with this salt water
and boil it until the water was all boiled away. Then they would
take out the salt that was left in the kettles. As near as I can
remember we got about three or four gallons of salt at a cooking,
and the part I played in making this salt was to keep the fires
burning for there had to be just so much fire burning all the
time under each kettle and it was up to us boys to keep that fire
just so.
After the old people would get the kettles all filled with
water they would all gather around and smoke their pipes until
the water was all boiled away and the salt ready to take out. We
would get about five cooking off in a day's work. There would be
as many as twenty-five families at a time gather to make their
year's supply of salt.
I remember there were three springs very close together. Two
of the springs had water that was clear, cool and good to drink.
The other spring was where we got our water for the salt.
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: None Given
Name: Henry Downing
Post Office: Nowata, Oklahoma
Residence address:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Father:
Information on Father:
Mother:
Information on Mother:
Field Worker: Alfred F. Hicks
Vol. 26 Microfiche 6016891 #207
The Proctor and Beck Fight
In the Going Snake District
This fight was, as near as I can remember, in the
year of 1980, and it all started because PROCTOR killed an aunt of the BECK boys
by the name of Polly HILDERBRAND. But Proctor claimed that he killed her
accidently, that he was after a man by the name of KESTERSON, and this woman
(Polly Hilderbrand) run in between them and he shot her instead of the man. Now
this was Proctor’s story.
How the Beck boys claimed he intended to kill the
woman because he was angry at her. She was the cause of Proctor being put out as
Sheriff of the Going Snake District just before this happened and he (Proctor)
was angry at her. The Proctor trial was going on at the time the fight started.
The Beck boys knew that Proctor was going to come clear, so they went there to
kill him. The trial was held in the Court House in the Going Snake District on a
small Creek by the name of Baron Fork, near what is now Christie, Oklahoma, on
the Frisco Rail Road.
White Sut Beck went to the door of the Court House
and had a Double Barrel Shot Gun of an old fashioned type loaded with Buck Shot.
He put the gun right against Zeke Proctor’s breast and said to him: "Now,
old man, I have got you". Mr. Proctor was standing near the door at the
time that Beck put the gun on him, and his brother, Johnson Proctor was setting
on a seat near his brother Zeke, and he grabbed the gun and pushed it down; then
Sut Beck pulled it up, and the shot went off and hit Zeke Proctor in the lower
parts of the legs. Johnson Proctor, Zeke’s brother still held on to the gun,
and Sut Beck said he hated to have to shoot him, but he had to, to get him lose
from the gun; so he pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot him dead. After
all this happened, Beck turned around to see where all the boys were that were
with him when the fight started and he saw most all of them were killed, so he
took out his knife and made a run for his horse. When he got to where his horse
was tied he did not wait to untie him; he just cut the rope and jumped on him
and made a run to get away. He, Mr. Beck, was never hit in all the shooting,
until he was a long ways from the shooting, and a bullet hit him, but he was far
enough away that the shot did not have enough force to hurt him. This is what
they called a spent bullet.
These men did not meet again until Joel B. MAYES was
elected Chief of the Cherokees at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, when both men were there,
and their friends got them to make up, and shake hands, which they did, and they
walked along about twenty or thirty feet, and parted, and that was the end of
the Proctor and Beck Fight.
There were eleven men killed in the fight at the
Court House, I did not know four of them. Two of them were United States
Marshals, and the other two were Indians. The seven I knew were: George
Selvedge, Willie Hicks, Johnson Proctor, Andy Pelone, Sam Beck, Bill Beck, and
Black Sut Beck. This story I learned when I was a small boy from my parents as
both the Beck’s and the Proctor’s were relatives of mine. And many a time I
was made to sit in a corner in a room at our home and listen to the story.
This story was never written before.
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: None Given
Name: Mr. Henry Downing
Post Office: Nowata, Oklahoma
Residence address:
Date of Birth: April 23, 1874
Place of Birth: Cherokee Nation
Father:
Information on Father:
Mother:
Information on Mother:
Field Worker: Alfred E. Hicks
Vol. 26 Microfiche 6016891 #207
I was born in the Going Snake District in the
Cherokee Nation, three miles North of what is now Westville, Oklahoma, Adair
County, and ten miles from old For Wayne, on April 23, 1874.
I attended school at the old Baptist Mission which
was founded by two men by the name of UPHAM and JONES for the Baptist Church.
The main building was burned down during the Civil War, but the building that
was used for a school, was a big log building and was left there after all the
other buildings were burned. It was a log building with two rooms, but the logs
were taken out and made into one building. It was also used for a printing
office. I well remember the seats, one of them was a log taken out of the walls
of the log building and the other one was a slab sawed out of a log and holes
bored in it and legs put on it.
My teacher’s name was Carry. E. QUARLES, maiden
name was BUSHYHEAD, and she was one of the first graduates of the old Female
Seminary, and she was also a sister of Chief D. W. Bushyhead. Mr. Bushyhead is a
grandfather of Dennis Bushyhead, the present State Senator from Claremore,
Oklahoma.
I was in the eighth grade when I left this school and
I then attended the Male Seminary at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, for one term. After I
left school I went home to Westville, and went to work for the K. C. & S.
Railroad. Worked for them five years as a section hand, and in 1903 I was made
Section Foreman for the Frisco Rail Road at Morris, Oklahoma, and worked there
six months, then went to the Santa Fe Rail Road as a section hand. Worked there
six months and was made Foreman and sent to Owasso, Oklahoma, I was there two
years and was sent to Independence, Kansas and run the station there twenty
days.
I was then sent to Bartlesville, Oklahoma. From there
to the K. O. & C. Rail Road at Salina, Oklahoma, as Section Foreman, and was
there six months. I then went to the Verdigris Switch for the Frisco Rail Road
as Section Foreman. Was then transferred to the Central Division for the same
Company located at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, where I remained for seven years. In
1926 I quit the Company and went to work for the Victor Gasoline Company at
Seminole, Oklahoma. Was with this Company until I had a stroke on July 3rd,
1927. I then moved to my present home, here in Nowata, in 1928. I am a relative
of the old Chief, Louis DOWNING, founder of the Downing Party and the first
Chief of the Cherokees after the Civil War. I married Miss Mary V. RAGSDALE of
Westville, Oklahoma, and have two children.
During the Cherokee Government I lined up with the
Downing Party and cast my first vote for Joel B. MAYES, for Principal Chief of
the Cherokee Nation. I stayed with the party until Statehood and then cast my
vote with the Democratic Party, where I intend to remain, until some Republican
starts growing a set of wings. Back in Georgia, these two parties were known as
the Riggs and Ross parties.
The Fort I spoke of (Fort Wayne) was inhabited by
Southern soldiers in the early part of the Civil War, but was recaptured by the
Union Army.
Mr. Downing is a full blood Cherokee Indian.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by
Donald L. Sullivan <donald.l.sullivan@lmco.com>
September 2000.