OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator.

Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This
material can not be included in any compilation, publication,
collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files
may be printed or copied for personal use only.
=====================================================================

JOEL H. NAIL
Vol. 3, p. 1335

Now a farmer-stockman at Caddo, [he] was once, in the palmy days of
Indian life, reputed to be the wealthiest man in the Chickasaw
Nation. Whether that was a true estimate or not, his estates and his
honor gave him a standing in the financial world that few natives of
the Indian country possessed. More than fifty miles away, in
picturesque Indian Territory, he conducted a livestock business
through financial connections in Sherman, Texas. Those connections
embraced Col. Tom RANDOLPH, one of the founders of the Merchants and
Planters Bank of Sherman, who in recent years has played a
conspicuous part in financial circles of St. Louis.

Today Joel Nail possesses all of his honor but considerably less
money. He has not been a business failure. The exigencies of
advancing civilization are responsible. These took the wide ranges
and broke them into allotments and homesteads, thereby terminating
the profitable cattle industry which chiefly flourished in the open
range period. On the ranges were built towns and schools and churches
and public highways, and agriculture and a large population succeeded
the grazing industry and its typical conditions. Joel Nail was not a
bad manager. Out from under him slid the foundation that made money-
making on the frontier a game with much competition. Joel Nail is
nearly sixty now, but has established himself on a little ranch in
McGee Valley, starting life over again, and is beginning to grow up
with the country.

His veins carry blood strongly tinged by his Chickasaw ancestors. He
was born not many miles from the Town of Caddo. His father was Major
Jonathan Nail, a native of the Chickasaw Nation, a warrior in the
Choctaw Brigade of the Confederate army. After him was named Nail
Crossing on Blue River, and near this crossing Major Nail installed
one of the first mills in the Chickasaw Nation. The grandfather, Joel
H. Nail, was an early settler of Fort Towson and is buried there. On
his tombstone is the inscription: "Sacred to the Memory of Colonel J.
H. Nail of the Choctaw Nation, who died at his residence near Fort
Towson August 24, 1846, in the fifty-second year of his age. Reader,
'Prepare to meet thy God.' " After the death of Major Nail his widow,
the mother of Joel H. Nail, married David FOLSOM of the Choctaw
Tribe, who also is buried near Fort Towson, and on his tombstone is
the inscription: "To the memory of Col. David Folsom, the first
republican chief of the Choctaw Nation, the promoter of Industry,
Education, Religion and Morality. Was born January 25, 1791, and
departed this life September 24, 1847, aged fifty-six years and eight
months. 'He being dead yet speaketh.' " Former Principal Chief Robert
HARRIS of the Choctaw Nation, was a cousin of Joel Nail.

While attending school in Tennessee, Joel Nail fell in love with
pretty Nettie MERRITT, who is descended from the well-known family of
that name in Tennessee. The Indian of that day was grossly
misunderstood as far east as Tennessee, and however good the
qualities of Joel Nail, the parents of Nettie Merritt derided the
thought of her becoming the wife of an Indian, and more than that,
the thought of her accompanying an Indian husband into the wilds of
Indian Territory. But Nettie Merritt was in love with the young
Indian. He left her one day and started back to his people in the
wild country-. "In case you consent to share life with me among my
people," he said before he left, "send me a message and I'll come
back for you." The message winged west-ward a few days later and
intercepted him on his jour-ney. He returned for Nettie Merritt and
they went together into the West. Joel Nail accumulated wealth and
standing, and his wife, if she missed the society of her girlhood,
never lacked any necessaries or even luxu-ries of life. When she
died, at the age of forty-two, the beauty of her girlhood was only
heightened and ripened by her matronly charms. She became the mother
of five children. Two of them are still living: Mrs. Vivia LOCKE, who
was Vivia Juanita Nail, lives in Antlers; Oscar D. Nail, is a
ranchman near Caddo; Claude, the oldest of the children, who was
educated at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, died at the age of
twenty-six: Ethel, who became Mrs. 0. H. PERKINS of Durant, died a
few years ago; and Ish-tai-yupi (meaning the last) died in 1913.

Mrs. Vivia Locke was educated in the North Texas Female College at
Sherman, completing courses in music and art besides the literary
course. She inherited the beauty of her mother and the business-like
ingenuity of her father. In connection with her education there is a
reflection of the Indian Territory romance. She learned in school
that she possessed unusual beauty, that it was out of the ordinary
for one to be of Indian extraction, and that her father was "the
wealthiest man of the Chickasaw Nation," all of which had no power to
lead her into rapturous dreams of diverting those qualities into a
career of useless fastidiousness. Rather, the discovery put her on
the defensive against deceit, and kindled an ambition for the most
profitable use of her talents. Many a white man has courted an Indian
girl through desire for her worldly possessions alone, for every
Indian girl was given land by the Government. Many a white man
courted pretty Vivia Nail, but Vivia Nail never was deceived by any
of them. She was proud of her Indian blood, proud of her beautiful
mother and her mother's aristocratic ancestors, and proud of her
successful father. These were stronger ties than the proffered or
feigned affections of her suitors. She was only eighteen when her
mother died, and she returned home to become her father's helper. She
was married July 14, 1900, to Albert M. ROBERTSON. By that union she
has a son, Wesley Leroy, aged fourteen. In 1913 she became the wife
of Victor M. LOCKE, Jr., of Antlers, principal chief of the Choctaw
Nation. They have a daughter, Vivia, now one year of age.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Nelda Rowland, November 12, 1998.