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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: November 11, 1937
Name: G. W. Duggins
Post Office: Cordell, Oklahoma
Residence Address: R. R. 4
Date of Birth: January 26, 1856
Place of Birth: Washington County, Kentucky
Father: Lige Duggins
Place of Birth: Kentucky
Information on father: Farmer
Mother: Rachel Foster
Place of birth: Kentucky
Information on mother: Housewife and the mother of sixteen children
Field Worker: Ida B. Lankford
Interview #:
 
I was born in Washington County, Kentucky, January 26, 1856 on a farm. I moved with my parents to Jessamine County, Kentucky, to a point of fifteen miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio. Then after living there for some time my parents moved to Tuscumba, Missouri, which is forty miles south of Jefferson City, the Capital.

I have always lived on a farm, Father working at his trade as a stone mason, when he could get work.

When I was eighteen, I left my Missouri home and went to live with my father's half-brother, James Stinnett, in Texas.

By the time I was twenty-one I saved enough money from my working for my uncle on the farm and from the cotton I raised on a ten acre patch to pay for eighty acres of good black land in Grayson County, twelve miles west of Sherman, Texas.

After I had been in Grayson County one year, my father left Missouri with his wife, seven boys and seven girls and moved to Grayson County and bought a farm.

I married in Grayson County at the age of twenty-four to Miss Janie DODSON, a neighbor farm girl. When I was thirty-two we left Grayson County, crossing the Red River at the Delaware Bend and settling on the north side of the river in the Chickasaw Nation.

I leased land from Tom PERKINS, a full blood Indian. This place is what is now known as Marshall County near McMillen. After five years there I sold my lease and moved to a point four miles south of Durwood. Tom LEMMONS and I furnished the money to build a schoolhouse. This was the first schoolhouse ever built in the yellow hills. The School was supported by subscription or by patrons paying tuition to the teachers. The first teacher to teach in the new building was Simms STAGGS who now lives at Oklahoma City. Mr. Staggs visited me here at Cordell in 1936. I ran on the free range in Marshall County some one hundred head of cattle, twenty head of horses and seventy-five head of hogs. I did not have much feeding to do. I raised cotton and corn receiving fair price when I sold. I left the Chickasaw Nation in the winter of 1897, taking with me my horses and cattle. I filed on one hundred and sixty acres, five miles west and one half mile south of Cordell and I lived on this land twenty-one years until the children, four boys and three girls, were grown. Mrs. Duggins died on this farm February 22, 1904.

In 1918 I sold this land and bought land three miles west and one and one half north of Cordell, where I lived for five years. I then sold out and now live in Cordell alone.

I am now eighty-two years of age and my children are all married. I have always taken an active interest in the Government as a voter but never sought public office. I have been an active member of the Church of Christ and have during my adult life time studied the scriptures and endeavored to apply the principles not only in formal worship but also in my everyday walk of life.

Our clothes in the olden days were not much nor our food, but by the good will of the Lord, he helped us out through our hardships, trials and temptations.

May God bless everyone.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Donald L. Sullivan <donald.l.sullivan@lmco.com> 07-2000.