Indian Pioneer Papers - Index
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June 2,
1937
Name: Mr. William E.
Anderson
Post Office: Medford, Oklahoma (Grant
Co.)
Residence Address:
Date of
Birth: June 24,
1861
Place of Birth: Lamont, Iowa, Jackson
Co.
Father: Archie Anderson
Information on
Father: born in
Scotland
Mother: Ellen Heastey
Information on
Mother: born in Iowa
Field Worker: Elizabeth L. Duncan
Interview
#4316
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
William E. Anderson made the run in the
opening of the Cherokee Strip, Sept.16, 1893, from Caldwell, Kansas, on
horseback, but was unsuccessful. He did not return to Kansas but kept on
looking for a farm. He would go out of a morning and drive all day to see if
he could buy somebody's right to a farm. Mrs. Anderson would accompany him on
these trips, driving all day long over the prairies. On one of these trips,
they encountered Mrs. Anderson's brother, Mr. CUMMINGS, near the Kansas line.
He learned from her that they had failed to find a place, so he had them come
to his place until they could find one. He also tried to help them locate a
place. During the month of December, 1893, Mr. Anderson learned through a man
passing by that he knew of a place belonging to a Mr. BOAUGARDIS, Mr Anderson
could buy the rights; so he looked up Mr. Boaugardis and bought his rights.
This farm was located four miles east of Medford, which is now designated as
Highway No.11. Mr. Cummings located one mile south of the Boaugardis farm.
They built a frame house 16 x 24, and a 12
foot "L", built later. The house still stands.
The rest of the winter was a hard one for
them as they had brought no supplies, but in the spring, they borrowed a plow
and a team of horses and broke some sod. In the summer, Mr. Anderson went back
to Kansas and brought to Oklahoma, one cow, and fourteen spans of horses and
mules; but the chickens, which they had left in Kansas, were all stolen.
Their first crop was kaffir corn which was
pretty fair but it seemed as though the first two years were too dry to grow
crops.
In February of 1894, the blizzard struck.
Mr. Anderson said they had turned over their wagon box and propped it up and
the snow drifted up against the wagon box, covering it. They were afraid the
chickens would smother, so they went out and gathered them up and put them in
the house, thus saving them. Mr. Anderson went out the next day to see if the
hogs were all dead. He began to dig and before long discovered a wet place in
the snow. Proceeding to dig there, he found the pigs all alive and warm.
The first three years of crops were very
poor. It was so dry and the rainfall was very scarce in Kansas, as well as
here; feed was a scarcity and had to be hauled in from Kansas, a distance of
some forty miles north of Medford. Returning from one of those trips during
the following winter of 1894, Mr. Anderson and one of the neighbor men ran
into a blizzard. The wind was so strong that it almost turned the hay rack
over more than once. They tried very hard to keep the horses on their feet so
that no damage would be done. As they were nearing a farm house, they made
straight for the barn seeking shelter to keep from blowing away what little
hay they had left; but they had no sooner gotten the rack drawn up beside the
barn than the owner came out and demanded that they leave at once. They were
afraid to go on as the tongues of the hay rack was broken, barely being held
together with a few slivers of wood. They asked the man if he could loan them
a wagon in which to haul what hay they had left. Finally, he decided to grant
their request. They unhitched the four horses, leaving one team there and
hitching the other team to the wagon, transferred what hay they had left and continued
on their journey toward home. By the time they reached home, they were almost
frozen.
The third year, Mr. Anderson planted
wheat. He obtained the seed wheat from Mr. MCCLAIN who owned a feed store and
let Mr. Anderson have forty bushels of wheat on the condition that when it was
harvested, he, McClain, was to get one-fourth of the crop. This wheat yielded
thirty bushels to the acre. His first plow was a walking plow with a jabber
planter attached to it.
As the Church was very much needed here,
the first Christian Church was established in the Hay building, where the old
commercial Hotel is now. The charter members attended here until the Christian
Church was erected, at the place the Christian Church stands today. Mr.
Anderson hauled the first rock from Kansas to build the foundation.