GUTHRIii, vyilliam. INTJsRVlJi 1 // 13081 425
426 GUTHRIE, Y/ILELSH INTERVIEW 13081 * James Russell Gray, Investigator, "February.21,. 1938. Interview with William Guthrie, 508 North 11th Street, Hartshorns, Oklahoma. I was born in Alabama, March 27, 1875, and on karch 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. n A»n has plenty of room to turn around in; good land, too, for raising stuff." He had brought along a big wagon drawn by two large i horses, and we piled into this wagon and crossed the border into the Territory. We had brought along some few i pieces of furniture with us from Alabama, but it has been so long ago I can't remember what. 7»e also bought a lot of suppires~be-fore leavi rip Fort Smith. Uncle had already arranged for a~house and sane land for us; he was renting from an Indian. Our new house was
" 427 GUTHRIE, WILLIM INTERVIEW 13081-3- 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; ihere 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 Choc taw Nation then had stoves, l^ost 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 esst of Poteau and were there two years, renting from an Indian. That was in
428 GUTHRIE, WILLIAM INTERVIEW 13081-3- the Poteau River bottoms; we made good corn, tut 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 1 believe his true name was Bob. He used to coins 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 him tell once about arresting a boy for possession 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 vhiskey in Fort Smith, and when tiie boy 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;
429 GOTHRIE, WILLIAM f INTERVIEW 13081-4- said he looked to be only about eighteen. But he was sort of hard-boiled, too, having been an officer for years. And" he got so much bounty for each *r\ 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 3aid, "I've got another quart; you might as well take that, too". So the boy reecned into a saddle-pocket and brought out a hug.e old-fashioned horse pistol; the kind that shoots just p once at a tine, and is loaded through "fiie muzzle. But Ratteree said he figured once would be enough, so he let 1iie boy get away. The officers would watch people buy a pint or a quart of liquor in Fort Smith, then 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 clidn*t find any ifciskey one of them would slip a pint into his
430 GUTHRIE, WILLIAM INTERVIEW 13081-5- 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 mai 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, a man named Jess Mitchell. Althoga-ttier, we had control of a hundred acres. We still raised cotton and corn, but re 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 mai 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, BralTie chickens, squirrels, and wild hogs you waated. There were wolves, panthers and bears, too. The Indians built their log huts along the creeks, and tiiey took life easy. You'd never catch one of them doing
431 GOTHBES, WILLIAM INTERVIEW» 13081-6- much work. But they rare strong and muscular, and they oould run awfully fast when they wanted to Far instance, they showed plenty of pep aad action at their ball ernes. I saw one of their games once, right after we m6ved to the Territory, where feeling ran so high I that a manjeas s h o t. 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 ifae 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 T«hat 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. not see it done, though If they arrested the killer I did the Choc taws had their own government, laws, and officers. The Choc taw Nation at that time had only a small aumber of white settlers; around us, for instance, fliere were only five families. One fanily was named Berry and there was
f "* 432 GOTHRIE, WILLIAM INTERVIEW 13081 another white,man living close named Anderson, who had a lot/of cattle and was sort of a rancher. I forget the names of,the other families. Our next aove was up close to Wlater; two and onehalf miles northeast. The Frisco Railway grade was just coming through. named Bob Morris. We rented forty acres from a Choctaw 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 store two and one-half miles' southwest of us, and the place was called Wister. I went to my first school Kb ile 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 cur miles west of Y.'ister. There was a crowd of Indians canping near a graveyard; they stayed there three or four days^- I was told^fiiaiijthe Indiana held these crys every year; one year after an Indian died his people came to his grave and cried over it. They had -v preaching and praying and singing, and they brought food *
43** GUTHRIE, WILLIAM \ ' INTERVIEW 13081 f. -8- ^alongwith 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 Pfttsburg 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 seven miles north of V.ister, and brought it to the new homesite. If I ranember rightly, lumber was $10.00 a thousand then. That was in 1890. fte moved to the new place in 1892. I t was about two miles north of Hartshorne. The towi 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 bad 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 1?. East, Township 5 North. live right in town now; don't even know who owns the old place but I often go by and look at it. I v
GUTHRIE, WILLIAM INTERVIEW 13081 434-9- My father never worked in the mines;' he farmed all ^ his life. He did pretty well, too. Besides the old standbys, cotton and oorn, he got to raising cattle for milk and beef, and some garden truck. You could always find a ready market among the miners for enything to eat like that. Sometimes Father would take his team and plow, and break.up a r anall 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 a lot of gane around Hartshorne in those early days. You could get bass, clippie, buffalo and perch-.ou.t_of Brushey Creek, Gaines Creek, Buffalo Creek,or any of the streams around here and you cou] get squirrels/,,' / / wild turkeys, and even some deer; there are deer i[n the Kiamichi Mountains right now. I have seep, panther/s around here as late as 1898. I've already told you Father's nam ; Bud Cru/thrie. He was born in Alabama in 1833, and died in uklahoaa in 1912; is buried at the cemetery here at HarVshorne. /Mother was Elizabeth Guthrie, nee Bethune. She ^ras an AJ/abama woman, born in 1844.'She died in 1903, and?h.e, too,/is buried at the Cemetery here.