Field Worker:
Volume 15
I was born in Alabama, March 27, 1875, and on March 7, 1881, my father, Bud Guthrie, and my mother and the children arrived at Fort Smith, Arkansas. When I say "the children" I am including a shy, slender boy of seven whose name was William. We were met at the depot by an uncle who lived in the Choctaw Nation, and he was loud in praise of the new country west of us. "Best place I ever lived in", he told us. "A man has plenty of room to turn around in; good land, too, for raising stuff."
We had brought along a big wagon drawn by two large horses, and we piled into this wagon and crossed the border into the Territory. We had brought along some few pieces of furniture from Alabama, but it has been so long ago I can't remember what. He also bought a lot of supplies before leaving Fort Smith.
Uncle had already arranged for a house and some land for us. He was renting from an Indian. Our new house was a quarter of a mile east of my uncle's place, four miles south of the present town of Cameron in LeFlore County. It was a two room log house, with window openings, but no glass: there was a wooden affair, like a small door, that swung on leather hinges
at each window. There was a fireplace, too, but we had brought along a cookstove; very few people in the Choctaw Nation then had stoves. Most of the cooking was done at fireplaces or over outdoor fires.
We got our water from a well that had been dug by hand; the sort that is about four feet square, and is lined with stone. A lot of people then got water from springs, or out of the creeks.
We stayed there two years, raising cotton and corn. We bought our supplies at a little place called Cully; it had about four stores and a post office, and you could get flour, coffee, soda, salt, sugar, and the like, and clothing, kerosene and farming tools. In the fall of the year we always went to Fort Smith with our cotton, and we would stock up with supplies there.
Then we moved to a place six miles east of Poteau and were there two years renting from an Indian. That was in the Poteau River bottoms; we made good corn, but our cotton wasn't so good.
While living here we got acquainted with a deputy United States Marshal named RATTEREE. Everyone called him "Coon", but I believe his true name was Bob. He used to come to our house and stay all night. He would sit up by the fire until late in the night talking to my father, telling stories about his experiences.
I heard his tell once about arresting a boy for possesion of whiskey in the Territory. It was against the law then to take any sort of liquor into the Territory; officers were very strict about enforcing that law, because the United States Government didn't want the Indians to get hold of any alcoholic drinks.
Ratteree said he saw the boy buy a quart of whiskey in Fort Smith, and when the boys started home Ratteree followed him ; marshals often did that way. Ratteree caught up with the boy about a mile across the Territory line, and he rode up and said, "Well, sonny, hand over your whiskey and come with me"
Ratteree told us he hated to arrest the young fellow, said he looked to be about eighteen. But he was sort of hard-boiled, too, having been an officer for years. And he got so much bounty for each man he caught in the Territory with liquor.
Well, Ratteree and the boy started back to Fort Smith; the boy going along quietly, but looking rather sick, because he knew he faced a big fine and maybe a year in the "pen". All of a sudden the boy said. "I've got another quart; you might as well take that, too".
So the boy reached into a saddle-pocket and brought out a huge old-fashioned horse pistol; the kind that shoots just once at a time, and is loaded through the muzzle. But Ratteree said he figured once would be enough, so he let the boy get away.
The officers would watch people buy a pint or a quart of liquor in Fort Smith, they they would follow these people into the Territory and arrest them. And I have heard that the officers would go in a crowd; if they saw a man driving along in a wagon they would stop him and search his goods. If they didn't find any whiskey one of them would slip a pint into his wagon, then they'd find that and take the poor fellow back to trial.
Judge Parker at Fort Smith certainly did not seem to mind sticking a fellow; he sentenced so many men to death that he was called the "Hanging Judge". I have heard he sentenced, first and last, more than eighty men to be hanged.
Our fifth year in the "Nation" we moved two miles further east, renting from a white man this time, and man named Jess MITCHELL. Althogether, we had control of a hundred acres. We still raised cotton and corn, but we now had some cattle and hogs, too.
Indians lived all around us-sometimes they lived in small settlements, as at Skullyville, but mostly they lived in scattered farmhouses, raising a few vegetables and corn. The men hunted all the time and kept plenty of fresh meat on their tables. It wasn't hard for them to make a living; game was plentiful. You could get all the deer, turkey, prairie chickens, squirrels, and wild hogs you wanted. There were wolves, panther and bears, too.
The Indians built their log huts along the creeks, and they took life easy. You'd never catch one of them doing much work. But they were strong and muscular, and they could run awfully fast when they wanted to.
For instance, they showed plenty of pep and motion at their ball games. I saw one of their games once, right after we moved to the Territory, where feeling ran so high that a man was shot. The game came off just south of Cully. There were around three hundred people present. The game itself was awfully rough; the players would hit each other over the heads with their sticks. And the women would get right out on the playing ground and cheer for their men; they'd whip the men, too, sometimes, slashing them with quirts or "blacksnakes" to make them play harder.
I saw the man get killed. I don't know what the argument was over, though I heard it was something about the game, or a bet. One Indian shot another off of a horse with a .44 Winchester. If they arrested the killer I did not see it done, though the Choctaws had their own government, laws, and officers.
The Choctaw Nation at that time had only a small number of white settlers; around us, for instance, there were only five families. One family was named BERRY and there was another white man living close named ANDERSON, who had a lot of cattle and was sort of a rancher. I forgot the names of the other families.
Our next move was up close to Wister; two and one-half miles northeast. The Frisco Railway grad was just coming through. We rented forty acres from a Choctaw named Bob MORRIS. There was a place close to us called Cavanal; a post office and a general store. After the railroad came through two brothers named Will and Joe STACEY put in a stove two and one-half miles southwest of us, and the place was called Wister.
I went to my first school while we lived there, a subscription school called Ellis Chapel, and my first teacher, if I remember right, was Jerry ELLIS.
While living there near Wister I saw my first Choctaw cry, held about four miles west of Wister. There was a crowd of Indians camping near a graveyard; they stayed there three or four days. I was told that the Indians held these crys every year; one year after an Indian died his people came to his grave and cried over it. They had preaching and praying and singing, and they brought food along with them and had a feast. I've seen them fall across a grave and just lie there and cry.
After we had been there near Wister for seven years my father decided to move near the coal mines in what is now Pittsburg County, as he felt that business would be better, and prices for farm produce higher. He came ahead and rented land and built a house, a two-room structure. Father bought the lumber at a sawmill sever miles north of Wister, and brought it
to the new homesite. If I remember rightly, lumber was $10.00 a thousand then. That was in 1890.
We moved to the new place in 1892. It was about two miles north of Hartshorne. The town was just starting; the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad hadn't been built through here more than a couple of years, wasn't yet to Shawnee. Coal had been discovered at Hartshorne, and work and money were plentiful.
Our house is still standing; it is in the northwest quarter of Section 29, Range 17 East Township 5 North. I live right in town now; don't even know who owns the old place, but I often go by and look at it.
My father never worked in the mines; he farmed all his life. He did pretty well, too. Besides the old standbys, cottom and corn, he got to raising cattle for milk and beef, and some garden truck. You could always find a ready market among the miners for anything to eat like that. Sometimes Father would take his team and plow, and break up a small garden
plot for a miner. He made good money this way, sometimes getting $3.00 or $4.00 for a job that only took him half a day.
There was still of game around Hartshorne in those early days. You could get bass, crappie, buffalo and perch out of Brushey Creek, Gaines Creek, Buffalo Creek or any of the streams around here and you could get squirrels, wild turkeys, and even some deer; there are deer in the Kiamichi Mountains right now. I have seen panthers around here as late at 1896.
I've already told you Father's name; Bud Guthrie. He was born in Alabama in 1833, and died in Oklahoma in 1912; is buried at the cemetery here at Hartshorne. Mother was Elizabeth Guthrie, nee BETHUNE. She was an Alabama woman, born in 1844. She died in 1902, and she, too, is buried at the cemetery here.
Submitted to OKGenWeb by
Larry J. Guthrie, Rt. 1 Box 505, Sulphur, OK 73086-9787 <lguthrie@brightok.net> 02-2000.