Naturalist Begins in Okay Area

A party of men arrived at Fort Gibson in June of 1849 at the request of Benjamin Marshall. Marshall was the Second Chief of the Creek Indians. He wanted the east and north boundaries between the Creeks and Cherokees surveyed. Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves led the Corps of Topographical Engineers party.

The US government sent additional men with the surveyors. Samuel Washington Woodhouse went along as the naturalist. He was a 27-year-old medical doctor with responsibilities for the physical health of the men. In the field, most of his time was spent in gathering and identifying birds, animals, insects and plants he believed were new to science. His work with the Academy of Natural Sciences prepared him well for this work. Woodhouse and some of the men arrived the first week of June aboard the "Alert No. 2" steamboat.

Another member of the party was William Mayhew. Mayhew brought a camera with him and quickly began learning how to make daguerreotype images. He was unsuccessful in his early efforts. His photographs the following year are believed to be the first taken in the future state of Oklahoma.

The party finally obtained sufficient supplies from the post quartermaster at Fort Gibson to permit the party to begin. In the afternoon of June 20, 1849, the wagons, pack animals and men left the fort and forded the Neosho River.

Their first camp was atop a bluff overlooking the Verdigris River. Nearby, there was a ford across the Verdigris that led to the Creek Agency maintained by the US government. The ford was downstream from the Falls of the Verdigris. It was a natural feature now submerged by the Kerr-McClellan Waterway. Woodhouse described the falls as being caused by a ledge of sandstone running across the riverbed.

The second day, the caravan moved to their second campsite. It was located one mile south of the present town of Okay, Oklahoma. It was on the Texas Road above the ferry. Woodhouse also wrote his observations of Indian life in his journal. He noted that they raised corn, hogs and livestock.

He began immediately making observations of birds and wildlife near present-day Okay, Oklahoma. That is, he did when it was not raining. Out of the next three weeks, it rained thirteen days. The men spent most of the first week in this camp because of the inclement weather. When storm clouds cleared away, Woodhouse searched for natural history specimens. He complained in his journals of his most frequent finds, ticks!

Jacob McToy came down with cholera while the surveyors were still at Fort Gibson. Captain Sitgreaves hired McToy, who was Cherokee, to help the surveyors. Woodhouse, in those medically primitive days, prescribed quinine most often used for malaria. McToy survived, but another member of the party later died from cholera.

The surveyors began their boundary line at the Arkansas River and headed north. All too soon, the surveying progress forced the shifting of the campsite. The move was the next of many moves over the next year.

Woodhouse continued his dual duties as naturalist and physician. Following this expedition, he would go into the American southwest on yet another exploration as a contract naturalist and doctor. His discoveries enriched major collections back east. He had the honor of having a bird and a toad named for his contributions to American natural history. Just think, he began in the Okay area.

Moving to Council Hill

James R. "JR" Barnes left for Indian Territory during the spring or early summer of 1901. The local gossip said a hard-working man could make good money baling hay in Indian Territory. JR wanted to go, but he wanted someone to ride with him into the Indian nations in search of work. In a store in Commerce, Texas one day, William B. "Bud" Gray overheard another man refuse JR's proposal. Bud then asked if he could go.

Bud and JR found work on the Matt Sappington ranch where the future town of Council Hill sprung up a few years later. The two worked well together all summer in Sappington's hay fields. In the process, JR and Bud became fast friends and agreed to return for the 1902 haying season.

JR and Bud returned to Sappington's farm early the next summer. As the baling season ended, Bud and JR decided to return to Texas. Sappington thought they were good workers and offered them a place to stay during the coming winter if the came back. On their way south, the two Texans decided they wanted to move to Indian Territory permanently.

The Barnes family left their home near Parris, Texas heading north in late October. JR drove the wagon pulled by a team of mules. His wife drove the wagon pulled by a pair of chestnut horses. The five other wagons carried Bud and his extended family. Altogether, there were 24 persons with surnames of Barnes, Gray, Coker, Toone and Hicks who made the journey. Forty head of cattle accompanied them on the trip.

When the wagons reached the Red River, they took the ferry across. Everything was going fine until Duff Coker's mules turned balky. They stubbornly refused to get on the ferry. It took three men pulling a mule harness, and another pushing, to get the mules aboard. The mules were so spooked that they almost jumped into the Red River pulling man and wagon with them. The trip across the river was a scary time because the mules would not quiet down.

The families traveled up the west side of the Kiamichi River, fording tributaries as they reached them. Each time, the horses had to be spurred into the creeks and streams. The men and boys herded the cattle as they crossed to prevent them from being washed down stream.

At McAlester, the wagons reached the Texas Road. From that point, they followed a well-beaten path toward Muskogee. It took about two weeks to finally reach Matt Sappington's ranch north of Checotah. Each night during the trip, the travelers camped under the stars or under the wagons. They arrived at Sappington's on November 2, 1902.

The following months were cold ones. The family cattle remained close to the houses that winter. They bawled day and night because they were hungry. The children remembered it as another scary time.

Aldena Powell's father was the youngest child on the wagon train. As an adult, he had a keen wit and enjoyed storytelling. It was from him that Aldena learned how her family came to the Council Hill area. She is working on her family history. It will include more stories about the Council Hill area.

Early Days at Fort Gibson Post

The United States established the military post at Fort Gibson in the spring of 1824. The officers and men stationed there immediately began constructions of quarters while also sending out patrols to become familiar with the surrounding countryside. The post sprang up on the western flank of the Boston Mountains where the American plains begin.

White families following the leading edge of the American frontier were establishing homes in the area without any government. Upon riding up to a lone cabin, the officer leading a patrol asked for the head of the household. If the family father did not hear the troops ride up, a young child ran to fetch him. The houses were all small, one-room log homes with dirt floors.

If the household claimed Indian kinship, they were allowed to remain. Otherwise, the officer instructed the family to return to the United States. After 1828 when Arkansas' western boundary was surveyed, that meant the settlers went to Arkansas Territory.

Army patrols were often away from Fort Gibson for many days on end. Patrols found most intruders living in the eastern area just west of the territorial line. At this time, the northwest corner of Arkansas was attracting large numbers of immigrants seeking new homes. As new families settled in a clearing, they often had no knowledge they were in the newly established Indian Territory.

Soldiers on patrol, however, had instructions to remove settlers by force if they did not move willingly. When an intruder and his family refused to move, soldiers went into the fields and cut down corn plants. Soldiers also drove livestock away.

In many cases, fathers followed their livestock. As soon as the military felt they were far enough away, the intruder's animals were abandoned. Of course, the intruder herded the animals back home as soon as the soldiers were out of sight. After days of living in the field, officers and enlisted men relished returning to Fort Gibson post.

Col. Henry Dodge was preparing to depart with a unit of US dragoons to survey southwestern Indians. Also at the post was an English portrait artist named George Catlin. He accompanied Col. Dodge on the expedition. Catlin drew sketches and painted portraits of individual Indians and their homes. His 1841 publication of his drawings in London, England established Catlin's reputation.

As a footnote, it should be noted that the following summer was the hottest in decades. Beginning in the 1830's, medical officers recorded climatic conditions in their post reports sent to the War Department in Washington. While reports for Fort Gibson are spotty, there is a record for August 15, 1834. That day the temperature rose to 116 degrees in the shade.

The soldiers at Fort Gibson fell out into formation at the end of day on August 15th as usual. After the lowering of the American flag, soldiers removed their woolen tunics immediately afterwards.

How Briartown Got Its Depot

Briartown is located in the southeast corner of Muskogee County about six miles south of Porum. It was a recognized community even before the outbreak of hostilities of the Civil War. The US Post Office established a branch there in 1882.

When the Midland Valley Railroad Company expanded rail service south, Briartown residents looked forward to lower shipping costs and quicker passenger service. There were reasons for resident optimism.

In 1910, the town had a population of about seventy souls. There were two stores, a gristmill and a blacksmith shop. The farms in the Canadian River bottoms were less than three miles distant. Average farms were of eighty acres in size.

Wagon roads stretched in every direction. Via such a network, larger communities in the area such as Hoyt and Whitefield were expected to make use of the railroad connection established at Briartown.

Yet, the extension of the Midland Valley railroad to Briartown did not mean the train company built and staffed a depot with an agent. At a meeting promoting the establishment of the railroad, the company's general manager said that Briartown would be a "regular stop" on the line.

Instead, the railroad company built switching facilities and a loading dock with a flagpole. The rail line used the dock for off loading incoming freight. The cotton gin at Hoyt, about five miles away, could stack 500-pound bales of cotton on the dock for shipment to larger markets.

Passengers wanting to take the train raised a flag on the flagpole to signal the railroad engineer to stop in Briartown. They purchased their tickets from the local postmaster about a hundred feet from the train stop.

Dr. George Gulledge, a Tennessean, thought the railroad company should build a full depot in Briartown for handling railroad business. Otherwise, freight and passengers remained on the dock regardless of the weather conditions. After not getting the approval of railroad officials, Dr. Gulledge filed a claim with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission in Oklahoma City.

Midland Valley Railroad Company countered that Hoyt and Whitefield shippers were south of the Canadian River and were thus unlikely to ship out of the Briartown station. Furthermore, Porum, just eight miles north, served the Briartown area adequately. The area south of the Canadian River would be adequately served by the Stigler railroad station claimed the company.

The last two months in 1910 saw the Briartown postmaster selling passenger tickets worth a total of $275 and $396 respectively. Inbound freight according the company amounted to less than $500 for the previous year. During the same period, outbound freight amounted less than $400 according to the company record keeper. Briartown passengers numbered about two a day.

Midland Valley reported building a depot would cost about $1500. This, they believed, was more than the traffic would support. Despite the company's argument, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission ordered the construction of a railroad depot in Briartown. The commission also ordered the depot to be completed by the middle of September 1911. Thus, Briartown gained its railroad station.