Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: April 19, 1938
Name: Jane Cubit
Post Office: Eagletown, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: 1854
Place of Birth: On Howell's farm
Father: George Richard Pitchlyn
Place of Birth: Don't know
Information on father:
Mother: Millie Pitchlyn
Place of birth: Don't know
Information on mother: She was Mrs. Howell's cook
Field Worker: Levina R. Beavers
Interview # 13687
Jackson Hudson was born near Eagletown, Indian Territory, now McCurtain County in 1842. His father, James Hudson was born and raised in Mississippi and came here in 1832 and his mother, Pisahoma Hudson, came to this country in 1832 from Mississippi.
Jackson Hudson attended the local school of his tribe and in later years went to Spencer Academy and in 1857 he went to an Eastern state to finish his college education. On his return home he married Miss. Ishtimonahoke MCCOY an uneducated Choctaw Indian girl, who was a very industrious young woman.
Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hudson moved to themselves and Jackson began clearing up and putting in cultivation [of] a farm. This farm is one hundred and thirty acres down on Mountain Fork River two and a half miles from his home.
During the time of the Choctaw Government Jackson Hudson served his people in many public capacities and in later years was elected County Judge and served in that capacity for twelve consecutive years but in the thirteenth year he was defeated. He owned three or four hundred head of cattle and many hogs and he began to ride after cattle and hogs while his busy wife was at home cutting and drying her fruit, peaches, apples, and pears. She gathered her beans and peas and put them away in the cellar for winter.
The Indians did not know any thing about canning fruit in those days so they dried the fruit and put it in sacks. They killed their beef, dried it in the sun and sacked it and killed their hogs, smoked them and put away their lard.
I saw Jackson Hudson gathering his steers; he had twenty-five head of five year olds to sell to get money to let his brother-in-law have to pay on a debt on a sawmill which he had. Daniel Hudson and John P. HOLMAN drove the cattle to old Goodland to sell to some one up there in 1897. He had many more head of one, two, three and four year old left. I never saw such a bunch of steers that age at one time in this country.
In 1900 Jackson Hudson became delirious; he got up out of his bed one frosty morning in February and built a good fire in a living room and went out side; his wife was up about that time and so was a little girl of sixteen years, the niece of Mrs. Hudson. All at once Mr. Hudson came running into the house without any clothes or shoes on. He ran, jumped in the bed and covered up. His wife sent this little girl up to ask Mr. Hudson's sister Harriet AMOS, and others to come down there so they came and he just lay there in the bed, not saying a word.
His sister and the others went to hunt his clothes and found them away around the orchard where he had pulled them off and thrown them everywhere and he had thrown away what money he had in his pocket and when he saw them bringing his clothes and shoes he told them not to bring them into the house for he was through with them and did not want them any more and he told his sister just to pray for that was all she could do. From then on Jackson Hudson stayed in bed all of the time and he forgot that he ever had any cattle.
In later years, the girl married Roer Hudson and left the old folks to themselves. She lived a mile and a half from there.
In her old age Mrs. Hudson's eyesight began to fail and one evening while she was out side a little way from the house picking up some kindling for the next morning, the house caught on fire from the fire which Mrs. Hudson had built in the kitchen before she left the house and it was in a big way when she discovered what it was that was roaring so. She was so nearly blind that she could not go very fast and when she got to the house Uncle Jackson was out by the gate trembling. Mrs. Hudson went right in and grabbed some bedding, threw it out on the edge of the porch and snatched the wall pocket she had her money in, threw it out side and about that time the fire was coming into the room so she ran out and the bedding and money pocket which she had thrown out were in such a hot place she couldn't reach them so she let them go, and she ran away out without them. Besides this Uncle Jackson had all his money, several hundred dollars, under his pillow all the time and it all went to ashes.
His nephew Roer Hudson and wife, Alice, came over with a wagon, took the old folks home and they made their home with Roar and Alice the rest of the time they lived.
Mrs. Hudson turned all the farm, cattle, hogs, horses and everything over to Roer Hudson to manage. Mrs. Hudson lost her eyesight completely and both she and Jackson stayed in their room all the time until she died in 1917. Then Jackson lived on until he was taken sick with the "flu" and died in a few days in 1926 and both are buried at the Eagletown burial ground.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by
Sharon Olive DeLoache
<deloache@intellex.com>
04-2000.