HILL, FIELDEN SALYisH INTiKVI^W 6779

Transcription

1 HILL, FIELDEN SALYisH INTiKVI^W 6779

2 HILL, FIELDEN SALYER. INTERVIEW Field Worker', Wylie Thornton, July 19, Interview with. Fielden Salyer Hill, ' Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Bom December 24, 1870, Patric, or Combs, Arkansas. Parents Arch t. Hill, Combs, Ark. Fought last six months in Civil War. Rodie Jane Saiyers. I left Combs, Arkansas, in the fall of 1889 for the Cherokee Naiion in the Indian Territory, with*my father and mother and we all settled down for several years at what is now Gideon, Oklahoma. The exact location is one hundred yards north of where the Gideon graveyard is located. I am sure that only two or three were buried before my family began to bury some of our people there. Now 4 I have quite a number of my family buried there. My father and mother, two brothers, and one sister,a.daughter, four nieces and nephews and five grand-children.

3 327 HILL, FIKLDEN SALYJLR. INTERVIEW My parents lived at his place for three years, but I was married after living there with them for only two years. I married Miss Anna Jane Willis and we have had ehild-ren born to us. Four are_ boys and there are girls. I.iy oldest daughter died and was buried at this Gideon Cemetery. I left my parents in the fall of 1902, and took my in Ouster County for one year. After realizing I couldn't stay away from my parents very long I moved back in^to the same coniuunity "> where I had formerly lived. I can remanber the first church life of that community. I remember that we had four different denominations represented at the church services. The fi-rst Sunday of each month the Presbyterian minister preached for us. His name was ivans Robinson and he was the father of Doose Robinson, the lawyer who lives at Hulbert new. Then on the second Sunday the North Methodist preacher whose name was William Sullivan preached. The third Sunday was the Baptist minister's

4 -, 328 HILL, FIELDEN SALTER. INTERVIEW., day to preach and his name was Bill Thompson. fourth Sunday was Bill Bidding's daw 'to preach. The He was a minister of the South Methodist $hurch. Schools. There wasn't any school for us vhite folks away back there. All schools were for Indians and if we wanted any school we white folks had to build a log hut some place and then hire somebody to teach it. The way we did was to get a paper and stert out getting the white people who had children old enough to go to school to sign up for how much they were willing to pay to send their children to school. V.Taen we got all around we knew how much we could pay the teacher. You can see /rom that we didn't have much school away back there. When plovying and crop time came along everybody took their children out of school to help make a crop. the names of sons of the Indian teachere. I remember One was Aunt Carrie Gourd, and the others were S^ott Donning, Mrs. Green Parris and Polley Wall is. These teachers were paid by the Government as I understood it, and after about 190O we could send our children to the Indian schools by paying one dollar a month tuition.

5 HILL, FIELDEN SALYER. INTERVIEW Court. The best I can remember is that the Cherokee laws were in full force in those days. I never saw but two men hanged in my life and they were two brothers v/ho were sentenced by a Federal Court, I believe, for killing a man down near Stilwell in Indian '.erritory. These men were Indians and were hanged the same minute. They had prepared a double trap and the hangman who sprung the trap was Mr. Z.eke Parris, who died not long ago, away from here, but whose body was sent back for burial. That did one thing for me that won't ever leave me~as long as I live and that was this. I wouldn't sit on a jury where a man was being tried for his life, after witnessing that hanging. In 1890 the road we called the Saline Road left Tahlequah northwest and came by the Triplett Spring and by the Grease Spring, then on by Jess Locust's place on Fourteen ilile Creek. Then it went up the Jess Locust Mountain, on to Peggs Prairie, then down Spring Creek and crossed the creek somewhere near whore the bridge is now.

6 ^ -330 HILL, FEELDEN SilYEP. INTERVIEW It then wound on to Salina and by the old orphan school near Salina and further on in this same direction. There was another road we called the Mayesville Road, leading right out of Tahlequah due north through Moody and on through Laura's Prairie, 'xhen it went through "Oafces and Kansas, Indian Territory, then crossed the Arkansas line and on into Mayesville, Arkansas, From there it went into Southwest City, Missouri. The stores in Tahlequah along about 1900 were the Ballerd Store, Lawrence and Buck Richard, 'I. J..-Adair, id Hicks, and Billie Johnson, and the '.Vard Store. There was (L hotel run by Mrs. Alberty right where the Thompson Hotel is located now, and Bob Fuller ran a hotel just east of where the '.Yilson Vi'ashington Kotor Company is located. It was a two story, log building, the best I remember. Doctor Fite ran a hotel and it was about where the Roger's Drug Store is now. John. Price had a brick building and the Indian councilmfin steyed at this hotel when they met every fall, about the first of September. -

7 331 HILL, FIELDEK SALYLR. INTERVIEW He boarded them also for twenty-five cents a meal. Their beds cost twenty-five cents a nigit. Laybe you don't think v/e farmers were glad when that Council met and the Seminary started school again. Before this all started up in September we sold our stuff very cheaply. " e sold butter for fifteen cer.t3 u pound, chid:ens for ten cents apiece, and dressed hogs for three cents a ound, and nilk for nine cents a gallon. lien the schools and the Council met and a lot of people came to tovai^i sold hogs for eight cents a pound, and eggs for forty centa a dozen, instead of five cents a dozen, butter sold from twenty to twenty-five cents a pound, and chickens sold by the head then, and not by the pound. They went up to twenty-five cents apiece. I voted for statehood all right,but if I had my way about it now I mould like to have it back as a territory as it was. I made money a lot easier then, than I can now-, I tell you I v.ould be willing to leave here and go anywhere > K * if I could find any place today' where things are as they v;ere in those days.

8 332 HILL, FIELDEN SALYnR. INTERVIEW OUTLAYS. I knew plenty of outlaws away back there. I never will forget when Ellis Gourd led a posse after the old Cook gang who was reported staying one day in & log cabin on the banks of Fourteen I ile Creek near Kulbt-rt. This log hut was on the west bank of the creek near where the new bridge is located, Willis Gourd rounded up a brave bunch of boys here in lahlequah to go get the bad boys. It was just about noon in the year of 1894, and he surrounded the log cabin and yelled at the boy3 to give up. Cherokee Bill called, back to him. "we'll never do it, but we'll swap out with you." About then, Zim Cook raised a Winchester and at the blaze of the gun Sequoyah Houston fell dead. The fight was on, and the Cook gang ran into the log hut and began knocking out mud daubing for holes to poke their guns through. They fought from about noon until dark. Several men v,ere badly hurt but no more were killed. After dark the Cook gang came out of the hut shooting and running at the same time and they all got away again. Koads in those ds.ys were pretty sorry,.re always took a good axe along so that we could cut limbs out of the way.

9 ILL, FIEL'DM SALYER. INTERVIEW If a tree had blovzn dovai in the rosd v;e just cut a new road around it and al&o around any bad mud holes.