Indian Pioner Papers - J.F. Jackson

Submitted by Brenda Choate   bcchoate@yahoo.com

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J.F. Jackson



Interview #10105

Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson

Date: February 22, 1938

Name:   Mr. J.F. Jackson

Residence: Pauls Valley, Oklahoma

Date of Birth:  February 24, 1858

Place of Birth: North Carolina

Father: J.W. Jackson, born in Virginia

Mother: Matilda Belton, born in North Carolina  





I was born in 1858, in North Carolina.  I came from Texas 

to the Indian Territory in 1887 and I leased a farm from 

ohn Need, a Choctaw Indian.  When I settled on this farm 

near Connerville, in the Choctaw Nation, that part of the 

country was very thinly settled.  John Need gave us a five 

year lease on the place and all I made off of it, for 

clearing the place up and putting it in cultivation.  

The nearest post office was Connerville.



There was no cotton gin there at that time.  The nearest gin 

was about twenty-five miles, at a place called Pontotoc 

and after getting the cotton ginned there, I would have 

to haul it to Denison, Texas, to market it.  I would 

usually make two trips a year to Denison to sell my cotton 

and bring back what provisions I wold nee.   We bought salt 

and sugar by the barrel.  Frank Byrd owned a grist mill and 

flour mill then.  I would take corn and wheat to his mill. 

 

That was the only mill I knew of in the country.  He was a 

brother to William Byrd, who was at one time Governor of 

the Chickasaw Nation.  



I was assistant postmaster at Connerville for three years.  

I was appointed in 1888.



When I settled in that part of the country there were 

plenty of deer turkey and wild hogs.  I raised and bought 

cattle and I believe I owned the first farm dairy in that 

part of the country.  I owned several milk cows and about 

one hundred chickens and I sold all the milk, eggs and 

butter I had to spare.  I have heard old timers say, who 

lived in that part of the country, when I did that they 

believed I sold enough milk, butter and eggs to geed the 

United States Army.  Well, I know besides doing my farm 

work, I did sell quite a lot of each.



In 1900 when the new town of Ada started to build, I was 

able to sell all the milk and butter my cows could make.

  

I sold out in 1904 and went back to Texas and at the sale 

I had twenty-five good milk cows, which sold from $15.00 

to $20.00 each.   Today they would be worth $50.00 each.

  

I moved from Texas to the farm I now live on in 1908, nine 

miles west of Pauls Valley.