Chronicles of Oklahoma Volume 3, No. 2 June, 1925 Early Trails Through Oklahoma Grant Foreman 99 Journal of the General Council of the Indian Territory 120 Report of the Committee on Agriculture 137 Pioneers and Pioneering in Woods County Jesse J. Dunn 141 Diary of Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury W. B. Morrison 152 Keeping the Record Straight Paul Nesbitt 158 Quarterly Meeting 167 Contributors 169 EARLY TRAILS THROUGH OKLAHOMA Grant Foreman Page 99 Between Oklahoma City and Canadian River, ninety years ago last August, Colonel Henry Dodge and his company, of two hundred fifty dragoons from Fort Gibson camped among the tens of thousands of buffaloes that thundered over the prairies, where Washington Irving had hunted these animals two years before. Here Dodge remained five days in the hope that some of the desperately sick men of his command would improve, while the able-bodied could kill and cure enough buffalo meat to last there to Fort Gibson. And it was while camped here that he received word of the death of General Henry Leavenworth on the Washita where he had been compelled to drop behind in a sick camp of more than one hundred men.1 Under orders from the Secretary of War this tragic expedition left Fort Gibson in June, five hundred strong under the command of General Leavenworth to attempt an interview with the Comanche, Kiowa and Wichita Indians then living in what are now Comanche and Kiowa counties. Of that little command over one hundred and fifty lives were sacrificed to the fevers brought on by the awful heat, putrid water and other hardships of travel to which these unseasoned men were exposed. Travel in those days in this country was an experience to challenge the stoutest hearts and constitutions. Roads were unknown—the Surveyor had not been here. Oklahoma was an uncharted sea. The stars and a few physical features were the only guides. The Cross Timbers was the meridian of Greenwich to the navigator of the plains. If we consider the opulence in which we live and practice profession as contrasted with conditions here a few generations ago; if we think of the comfort and luxury in which we came to this meeting as compared with the toil and 1American State Papers, "Military Affairs" Vol. V, pp 373-382. Page 100 hardship of travel of only a few years back the contrast is a sharp one. When we think that as we came here we slept in serene comfort while covering in a night’s travel the same route that the hardy adventurer of a few years ago gave up ten days or two weeks of toil and peril to compass, we are reminded of the amazing changes that have taken place in our state in a short space of time. The rivers—the Arkansas, Cimarron, Canadian, Red, and Washita were first employed by the trader and trapper for navigation and for guide. Up these streams they came in their canoes and keel boats as far as water would carry them, and then continued overland. Their trails were designed first to take them to their destination in the most direct route, but there were other things to consider; they must find water for themselves and their horses and grass for the latter; the route must provide good camping places and game for food; hostile Indians must be avoided and for facility and comfort of travel they sought out the relatively level courses on the divides between water-sheds. The first known trail of which any record is available within what is now Oklahoma, was a Spanish trail running from Natchitoches and Nacogdoches to Santa Fe. During the Spanish possession of the Louisiana Purchase it was employed by the priests, traders, and trappers of that nationality and took them through what are now Tillman, Beckham, and Greer counties. In the trial of the celebrated case of United States against Texas,2 involving the question whether Greer County belonged to Texas or to the United States, the printed record of over fourteen hundred pages is a store house of historical material relating to the Southwest. One of the witnesses was Simon N. Cockrell, a brother of Senator Cockrell of Missouri. Mr. Cockrell was over ninety years old when he testified in 1894.3 He stated that in 1833 he was in the employ of Colville, Coffee and French of Fort Smith, and that he went with a company of their men on upper Red River to establish a trading post just above the mouth of Pease River, Texas, and below the junction of the two main branches of Red River within what is now Tillman County, Oklahoma. He remained there until 1836, killing game for food for the men at the post, and then he left to 3Ibid, Record, vol. ii, 134. 2"United States v. Texas" 168 U. S. Supreme Court Reports 1. Page 101 join Houston’s army in Texas. He testified that going to the place where they were to establish this post, they followed a well defined trail that crossed Red River there and continued on to E1 Paso. But at the place they set up the trading post their trail was intersected by the old Spanish trail, running up Red River from Natchitoches to Santa Fe. This was an ancient trail deeply cut and rutted by heavy Mexican cart wheels. This old Spanish Trail was described by a number of witnesses in that case and this testimony was offered to show that Spain had exercised dominion over the country then called Greer County, Texas. With the establishment of Fort Gibson and Fort Towson, in 1824, military roads were built. In 1825 Congress authorized the marking of the Santa Fe Trail and at the same time provided 4 for laying out a military road from Fort Gibson to Little Rock. That part of the road from Fort Gibson to Fort Smith was built under the direction of Captain Pierce M. Butler, later governor of South Carolina. A road was built also from Fort Smith to Fort Towson and it was connected with Fort Coffee on Arkansas River. In a few year there came to Indian Territory the pioneer of that brave band of trail markers and explorers, the surveyor who first gave us our bearings through forest and over the prairies. He came in the person of the Reverend Isaac McCoy of whose valuable service here so little is known. In April, 1831, the Secretary of War commissioned Mr. McCoy 5 to survey the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, meandering the Arkansas and Canadian rivers and running the line north from Fort Smith and west so as to include within those limits the 7,000,000 acres guaranteed to the Cherokees by the treaty of 1828. The Secretary appointed as an assistant to Mr. McCoy, John Donelson the nephew of the recently deceased Mrs. Jackson, wife of the President. Reverend McCoy met young Donelson at Fort Gibson in June and, with a force of about twenty men, the survey was made in the summer and fall. The next year Mr. McCoy was directed to survey the boundaries of the Seneca, Ottawa, and Shawnee Indian reservations. Between times, Mr. McCoy was zealous in his labors as a missionary and September 4United States Statutes at Large, Vol. iv, 135. 5U. S. Senate Documents, 23d congress, first session, No. 512, Vol. ii, 276. Page 102 9, 1833, ten miles north of where Muskogee was to be, he established Ebeneezer,6the first Baptist church in India Territory with a membership consisting of a minister, a Creek missionary and his wife, and three Creek slaves. That year Captain Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, surveyed the A boundary line between the Creek and Cherokee nations. In 1834, when General Leavenworth took command of the military forces in the southwest and organized the celebrated expedition to the wild prairie Indians, he directed the construction of a road for the movement of his five hundred dragoons. The road proceeded southwest from Fort Gibson and crossed Canadian River just below the mouth of Little River, southeast of where is now Holdenville, Here on the, north side of the Canadian River a post was established that was named Camp Holmes after Lieutenant T. H. Holmes under whose direction it was built. From here the road proceeded southwest past where Allen now is, to a point on Washita River near where Fort Washita was afterward located. Here they were joined by some of the troops from Fort Towson. A large number of sick were left at Camp Holmes and at the Washita and half the command proceeded northwest on the divide between the Red and Washita rivers to about where Fort Sill now is, to see the Comanche; and then sixty miles farther west to the Kiowa and Wichita Indians.7 When the government made the treaty at Doaksville January 17, 1837,8 with the Choctaw and Chickasaw by which a tract of the Choctaw domain was set apart to the Chickasaw, General Leavenworth’s road from Fort Gibson to the Washita was employed as part of the eastern boundary line of that grant. Years later, a dispute arose between the two tribes as to the exact location of this trail and another treaty was negotiated at Doaksville November 4, 1854,9 in which other terms were substituted for the old trail as a boundary. The Chickasaw were apprehensive that the Leanvenworth trail boundary would throw their new Wapanucka Female Institute in the Choctaw Nation. Approximately Leavenworth’s route from Fort Gibson to Fort Washita was followed, in 1855, by the famous Second 6McCoy, Isaac.