OKGenWeb Notice: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material may not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission.
The creator copyrights ALL files on this site. The files may be linked to but may not be reproduced on another site without specific permission from the OKGenWeb Coordinator, [okgenweb@cox.net], and their creator. Although public information is not in and of itself copyrightable, the format in which they are presented, the notes and comments, etc. are. It is, however, permissible to print or save the files to a personal computer for personal use ONLY.


Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 13, 1937
Name: Thomas M. Seals
Post Office: Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Father: James Seals
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother: Tabitha Clemons
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Ethel B. Tackitt

I was eight years old when I came with my parents, James Seals and Tabitha (Clemons) Seals, from Tennessee to the Indian Territory. We came in 1892 and settled near Webbers Falls on the Arkansas River in what is now Muskogee County.

We brought all we had with us in a covered wagon drawn by a team of horses. There were no roads and the trees were cut off along the way short enough for the team to pull the wagon over them.

Father leased some land from an educated Cherokee Indian by the name of Jess SHEMAKE, he cut the timber off built a one roomed log house and planted a crop. The land was very fertile and produced an abundant crop.

All court proceedings at that time had to be taken to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and a Summons was issued for father with some other men to appear as witnesses in a case and as was usual at that time they started out on horseback through the woods for Fort Smith. The timber was so thick and the trees grew so near the road that a large tree fell, catching father and his horse under it and crushing them to the ground. The other men in the party were not caught but hastened to get help and took father on to Fort Smith, placing him in a hospital. There was no way to get word to us unless someone would ride on horseback to tell us of the accident. It was several days before we could reach Fort Smith where father was in the hospital. He remained in the hospital for sometime as his injuries were severe.

Wild hay was out in abundance in this locality and was called blue-stemmed sage. Many persons had a thousand acres under fence for hay and pasture. A man could hold as much land as he could arrange with the Indians to hold.

Frank VOSE, a squaw man, had a pasture more than twenty miles square and he had an enormous herd of cattle, mules and hogs.

There was much large timber of all kinds in the country as it had not been cut out or burned by fire at that time.

There was a little town consisting of a blacksmith shop, a store and grist mill run by steam, about two miles from where we lived. This settlement was on Dirty Creek.

Father and a neighbor took some corn on a wagon drawn by oxen and started to the mill and I went along and we had to cross the river on a ferry boat. They drove the oxen and wagon with me on it onto the boat and when the ferryman started, the oxen began to back the wagon and into the water we went, wagon, corn and oxen and I. Father jumped into the river and pulled me out. The oxan swam to the bank and pulled the wagon out, but the corn was lost.

When the Kiowa country was opened, I came to Lone Wolf and here I have lived on my farm until the present time. Now I work with tractors instead of with oxen and with combines in place of the scythes and there are highways from here to Fort Smith and telephone and radio service everywhere.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by NAME <lwseals@cheerful.com> 02-2000.