Indian Pioner Papers -      O.J. Denson

                                

Submitted by  Brenda Choate  bcchoate@yahoo.com 


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                    Garvin County Indian Pioneer Papers
                                      
O.J. Denson



Interview #1303

Field Worker: John Daugherty

Date: April 23, 1937

Name: Mr. O.J. Denson

Residence: Wynnewood, Oklahoma

Date of Birth: 1859

Place of Birth: Georgetown, Texas

Father: R.K. Denson, born in Alabama in 1824, Stockman and Farmer

Mother: Rebekah Thermond Denson, born in Arkansas in 1827





My  name is O.J. Denson.   I was born in 1859 in Georgetown, Texas.  

My parents were R.K. Denson and Rebekah Thermond Denson.  My father was 

born in Alabama in 1824.  When he was a child his parents moved to 

Mississippi and here he was reared.  Mother was born in Arkansas in 1827.  

I have five brothers and seven sisters.



Father was a farmer and stockman until he moved to Georgetown, Texas.  

Here he ran a hotel.





I was married in 1880 to Sarah Owens who was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 

1861.  I am the father of nine children; three boys and six girls.



I had a brother living near Springer, so I decided to move there too, in 

1894.  We came in covered wagons.  My brother-in-law was in one and I in the other.  

Our families were with us.  It took us thirteen days to make the trip.



Our first home was a log cabin with two rooms.  It had a dirt floor and was 

heated with a fireplace.  We lived one mile south of Springer on Buzzard  

Creek.  We had to haul our water from a dug well a mile away.



I raised cotton and livestock.  I lived here two years and moved close to 

Cumberland Hill on the Washita on Governor Ben Burney's place.  He was a 

full blood Choctaw and one of the finest men I every knew.

 

I hadn't lived here long until I discovered we were in a settlement of 

desperadoes and cattle thieves. I was watched constantly.  I could never 

ride away without being shadowed and they would come to my house at night 

and peek in to see what we were doing.  I later found out that they thought 

that I was a government spy.   One woman asked me if I was there to get her 

husband.  He had committed a crime in the east and moved here to excape 

punishment by law.  I lived here two years during which time I raised 

cattle, hogs and corn. 

 

I had many friends among the full bloods, some of them being Governor Ben 

Burney of the Chickasaws, Thomas and I. Hunter Pickins, John Brown and 

his wife, Frank and Ben Colbert, and George Holland.



One day I was feeling rather discouraged.  The thieves were stealing all 

I had and I was sitting on a log whittling when some one rode up behind me.   

It was a full blood named Pickins. I just set there and so did he for what 

seemed to me many minutes.  At last he got down off his pony and came and 

sat on the log with me.  I spoke to him but he only grunted.  He sat 

there for a long time and a last said, "Mebbe so see cabin over there".  

I nodded. "Mebbe so move there and stay as long as you like".  So I 

moved to Tom Pickin's place, which was a log house with a dirt floor 

and no chimney.  so I built a cat chimney with sticks, dirt, ashes and grass.  

The frame was built by putting four posts, one at each corner of the chimney.  

It was latticed with split sticks from top to bottom.  Then cat tails 

consisting of dirt, grass, ashes mixed with water are hung on to each 

lattice and plastered on the stick inside and out.



I lived here for four years and moved to Pauls Valley where I lived 

until my wife died, and since then I have lived with my son Finis near Sulphur.



My grandfather made an agreement with the United States Government to move 

the Choctaw Indians to Boggy Depot near Durant, over the Trail of Tears, 

in 1838.  I have heard my father tell of the terrible suffering and many 

deaths along the Trail of Tears.



My mother's grandfather named Pennington was reared among the Indians 

of Mississippi.  He was so well thought of among them that they held a 

Choctaw Cry at his grave when he died.