Indian Pioner Papers - Jesse Chipman



Submitted by Brenda Choate   bcchoate@yahoo.com

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                    Garvin County Indian Pioneer Papers
                                      
                             Jesse Chipman



Interview #8293

Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson

Date: August 17, 1937

Name: Mr.  Jesse Chipman

Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma

Date of Birth: 1845

Place of Birth: North Carolina

Father: J.M. Chipman, born in North Carolina

Mother: Mary Armfield, born in North Carolina





In 1863 I joined the Confederate Army and was assigned to Captain 

Jim Shannon's company.  We were stationed along Red River to keep 

the Indians from coming over into Texas and killing and stealing cattle.  

I was with Captain Shannon's company for about a year.   We would cross 

Red River and make a circle through the Indian Territory on the border 

of the Comanche Country on the lookout for Indians.  But during my stay 

with Captain Shannon we never did get into any trouble with the Indians 

although we chased a crowd of them for three days once, but never did 

overtake them.



After the War my father got the contract to haul corn and oats from 

Texas to Fort Arbuckle.  I drove one wagon for him.  we only had steers 

to work then.   This was in 1886.  I remember we crossed Red River near 

where the Washita River empties into Red River.  This was a cattle trail 

we were coming over and we followed t his trail until we got to about 

where Sulphur is now, and from there on we cut our own trail.



We camped one night at a store west of where Davis is now, on the Washita River.  

This store was owned by a white man who had an Indian wife.  Just up the 

river a short ways from where we crossed there was a camp of Indians.  

We crossed the river at the ford where the government stage crossed on 

its way to Fort Arbuckle.   This government stage and mail route came 

from Caddo to Fort Arbuckle and from Fort Arbuckle to Fort Sill.



I believe there was a company of soldiers at Fort Arbuckle in 1866.   

That was the year that we haled corn and oats to Fort Arbuckle.  My 

next trip to the Indian Territory was in 1882 and I settled near where 

the town of Ryan is now.   There was no town there then.  I bought a 

lease and farmed or tried to farm but the Comanche Indians were so bad 

about stealing cattle and horses that I was forced to move.  I only had 

a small herd of cattle at that time.  I moved to where Ardmore is now in 

the Spring of 1883.



There had been a ranch there called the 700 Ranch but according to an 

old settler living a few miles south of this ranch the Indians had made 

a raid on this ranch and had driven off most of the cattle and the man 

who owned the ranch took what few cattle he had left and moved.



I settled on this place and built tow log houses and these two log houses 

are still there about a hundred yards south of where the depot is now.



I had the largest part of the land that Ardmore now stands on in corn one 

year and when the railroad came through there, I sold my lease and moved to 

what was called at that time, Kickapoo Flats.  This was about five miles west 

of Whitebead Hill.



I farmed there two years and then I came to Whitebead Hill and began buying 

cattle for Mr. S.J. Garvin.  Mr. Garvin owned the general store at Whitebead, 

where there was a drug store, a hotel, blacksmith shop, stage barn, church 

house and a school building.  This school was a boarding school before the 

railroad was built from Pauls Valley to Lindsay.  After the railroad was 

built the stage line was stopped.  The stage went from Caddo to Fort Sill.  

It came by Mill Crkke, Cherokee Town, Pauls Valley, White Bead Hill, Beef 

Creek, now Maysville, Rush Springs and Fort Sill.

After the court was established at Pauls Valley, I moved there and went 

to farming and I still live in Pauls Valley.