Indian Pioneer Papers - Index
Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: January 20, 1938
Name: M. L. Stephens
Post Office:
Residence Address: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma
Date of Birth: August 18, 1875
Place of Birth: Texas
Father: John Stephens
Place of Birth: Missouri
Information on father:
Mother: Lizabeth Combs
Place of birth: Missouri
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson
Interview #9766
I was born in 1875, in Texas.
I came to the Indian Territory with my father and mother in 1890. We
came through in a covered wagon. My father settled on a small farm near
a place called Hennepin, in the Chickasaw Nation. The farm we settled on
was at the foot of the Table Mountains. The first year we raised
fifteen wagon loads of corn. The first cotton we raised was in 1893.
We raised ten bales off of ten acres and had to haul our cotton to Wynnewood.
There were lots of deer in
the mountains and plenty of turkeys. About once a week my father
and I would make a trip up in the mountains and bring home a deer. This
would last a week.
The first year we farmed we
lived off of corn bread, deer and turkey and we only had a small turning plow
and a Georgia stock to farm with. The few people living in that part of
the country were always ready to help each other get started.
There wasn't much money in those days and people would trade corn or anything
they had. My father traded seven wagon loads of corn for several heifer
calves and this was how he got started in the cattle business. We never
did have a large amount of cattle like some of the people did, but from these
seven head of heifers in 1898, my father sold over $500.00 worth of cattle and
we always had several good milk cows. There was no market for
cream at that time and nearly every family had milk cows, so there was no sale
for milk and butter. We lived to far from town to try to sell butter.
We would go to Wynnewood or Pauls Valley about once a month for what few
things we had to buy. People didn't have very much to buy in those days.
When we would go to town to do our trading my mother would bring butter and
eggs and she wouldn't have any trouble selling them.
Everything was cheap at that
time. I have helped neighboring people brand cattle or worked in the
field all day for fifty cents a day.
My father sold what few
cattle he owned and the lease he had on the place in 1898 and moved back to
Texas.
I was married that year and I
moved on a place near where Lindsay is now and farmed until the railroad
started building from Pauls Valley in 1902. I worked on this road and
when the town of Lindsay started building I worked as carpenter and helped
build several stores and dwelling houses. The lumber for most of these
houses was hauled by wagons from Pauls Valley as Pauls Valley was our main
trading point.
When I settled near where
Lindsay is I would have to haul my cotton to Pauls Valley to the gin. It
wasn't any trouble to sell my corn as the cattlemen would buy all the corn I
had to sell. There were several feeding pens along the Washita River
where the cattle buyers would feed out their cattle before starting to the
market with them.
I lived at Lindsay until
after the Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma.
Transcribed for OKGenWeb by
Brenda Choate.