Vol. 24 No. 1 Pioneer Beginnings at Emmanuel, Shawnee by The
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Vol. 24 No. 1 Pioneer Beginnings at Emmanuel, Shawnee by the Reverend Franklin C. Smith -- 2 Mrs. Howard Searcy by Howard Searcy -------------------------------------------------- 15 Jane Heard Clinton by Angie Debo -------------------------------------------------------- 20 Mary C. Greenleaf by Carolyn Thomas Foreman --------------------------------------- 26 Memories of George W. Mayes by Harold Keith --------------------------------------- 40 The Hawkins’ Negroes Go to Mexico by Kenneth Wiggins Porter ------------------ 55 Oklahoma War Memorial – World War II by Muriel H. Wright ---------------------- 59 An Eighty-Niner Who Pioneered the Cherokee Strip by Lew F. Carroll ------------- 87 Notes and Documents ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 102 Book Reviews -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 108 Necrologies Cornelius Emmet Foley by Robert L. Williams -------------------------------- 112 William Leonard Blessing by Robert L. Williams ----------------------------- 113 Charles Arthur Coakley by Robert L. Williams -------------------------------- 114 James Buchanan Tosht by Rober L. Williams ---------------------------------- 115 William L. Curtis by D.B. Collums ---------------------------------------------- 116 Earl Gilson by Lt. Don Dale ------------------------------------------------------- 117 William Marshal Dunn by Muriel H. Wright ----------------------------------- 119 Minutes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 121 2 Chroni.cks of Okl,ahoma PIONEER BEGINNINGS AT EMMANUEL, SHAWNEE , By tke Reverend Frankiin C. Smith• After a lapse of a half-century it is perhaps unusual that my recollections of Shawnee, the town, the church and the people, should be so comparatively clear. I 1ttribute this to the fact that it was my first church wherein I labored with progress and set-backs, made my mistakes and achieved modest successes, and so it left its imprint upon my mind. Facts and figures, of course, are furnished by the old records of parish and diocese in my library. I can justly make the claim of being an Oklahoma pioneer and certainly one of the pioneer clergy of wliat is now t1'e Diocese of Oklahoma. There are living today but three cler1; who were of the early days : the Reverend A. C. Fliedner, retired, who was for a brief term in the D.istrict before 1897; the Reverend F. R. Jones, retired, who was a Candidate for Holy Orders and worked in the District as such from 1895 to 1897 and returned to the District after his ordination in 1900; and myself, who came to the district in 1896 and remained until 1901. As regal"cts my claim to be an Oklahoma pioneer, the Territory it.self was bu~ seven years old when I came to it, the Cherokee Outlet country but three years old, and the Kiowa-Comanche opening was in my time in 1901. Shawnee it.self had attained the ripe age of five years when I first visited it. It is not of the dramatic event of the opening and the "Run" that I am going to speak, known as the beginnings of Oklahoma Terri tory history, save to say tha!: if you had stood on the southern border of Kansas on the morning of April 22, 1889, you would have wit nessed one of the strangest spectacles in all the story of the settle ment of the great West. I am referring to the '' Big Run,'' a &igantic horse race for homes. New England had it.s birth in the psalms of the Pilgrim Fathers ; Kansas in the border warfare of Free Soller; Utah in Brigh&m Young's "This is the place"; Texas in the smoke and flame of the Alamo. Oklahoma, one of the young est of the commonwealths, had it.s birth in the crack of a cavalry man's carbine on that fateful morning. I came to the Territory in May, 1896, as a Candidate for Holy Orders and Bishop Brooke sent me to El Reno in charge of Christ Church. I held my first st-rvice in Shawnee sometime in 1896 and was appointed in charge in 1897. I am founder of Emmanuel Shawnee. We came into its residence in the summer of 1898. ' •The Reverend Franklin C. Smith is Canon Residentiary, St. Mark's Cathedral, Grand Rapids, Mi~gan. Bia interesting history of early daya in Shawnee pabliahed ha thia number of Tiu, CAronicla was deliYered u an addreee at the Semi-Centemiial oelebration of Emmanuel Church (Episcopal), Shawnee, Oklahoma.-Ed. I My first impression of Shawnee was good and the physical aspects of the town seemed attractive. After a residence at EI Beno where the only trees were those along the river and the creeks, Shawnee seemed well wooded and restful to the eye after the barren rolling prairies. Moreover, though the town was only five years old in 1896, it had the settled appearance of a town much older and it was far from a "shack" town. There were no cement side walks, it is true, and the streets were sandy, nor were there any public utilities. We burned kerosene oil and wood for cooking and heating. There were many neat frame cottages though some people were still living in tents. Log buildings were few. Main street had some substantial brick buildings though most of the structures were the traditional false front. The population in 1896 was variously estimated, probably around 2,500. It was reported araund six hundred in 1895 but in 1896 it seemed very much larger than that figure. The church stood, as you know, on the corner of Broadway and Tenth Street in a residential district. It cost $380. This modest sum was due to the fact that the builder, Mr. Houghton, built it at cost. Next to the church on a twenty-five foot lot stood the telephone office, its back yard a sizeable stand of oak trees. I could have bought this lot for $25 in 1896 but before I left in 1901 it sold for $400. Next to the telephone office was a substantial two-story residence with a fence, the home of Mr. Carr; next to it the home of the owner of the telephone system Doctor Wingfried. He was an M. D. from Arkansas and his dwelling was a large and sightly two-story frame house with wide verandas. Next to it was the Singer Sewing Machine agency, with false front, wooden awning over the sidewalk and the only piece of board sidewalk in the block. Next to it on the corner was a feed yard for movers, with a frame shack. This was a source of unending interest for me. Day after day a procession of movers came into and through town. Covered wagon with Pa driving and Ma on the front seat, the tow-headed children herding a bunch of horses and lean stock in the rear. At night the feed yard was lively with a social gathering of the moven, Pa with his pipe and Ma with her snuff stick, with odors of frying pork in the air. These people who thronged into the Territory in the early day were seldom permanent. The real settlers of Okla homa, many of whom I knew, were a substantial and hard working class of intelligent farmers. Going back to the church, across the street, west was a substan tial dwelling on a large lot, on one half of which the owner kept a fine stallion. AcrOiS the street, north was Judge Brown's ho111e and some tiny shacks. Looking farther one saw the park, in which later a brick school was built. Broadway (north f) was lined with dwellings but one arrived at the outskirts of the town in that direc- CAronicla oJ 0/Jalwma tion in a few blocks. Thomas Potts built his house on upper Broad way later and was not crowded by neighbors. Farther afield in ~e (northwestern f} section of _the to~ ~ere street after ~treet '!"th some attractive homes. Th18 descr1pt1on, I am aware, JS confmed mainly to the immediate vicinity of the. church since the lmrl:t.s of a brief address will hardly allow for wider scope and our mterest is in the church and its beginnings a half-century ago. I need not describe the exterior of the church for it is entirely familiar to you. I am not sure just when it was built, but it must have been in 1896-97 for my faint recollection is of holding service in it in the fall or winter of 1896 when it was yet incompleted. However when I took charge in the spring of 1897 and held regular services it was entirely finished. It was seated with kitchen chairs with a wood stove in the west end and lighted with two large kero sene lamps. A reed organ stood by the chancel. Chancel furnish ings consisted of a leeturn and a prayer desk of home manufacture. The altar was merely foul" posts with a top covered with white cheesecloth. There was no altar cross, vases nor candlesticks nor altar hangings. The siding on the chancel end of the church ran to the ceiling and a door opened into the vestry room. This was the full width of the church. The Bishop had furnished it with a bed, a table and a stove ar.d this arrangement had certain advan tages in the early day. Such prophet's chamber obviated the necessity of going to the hotels where bed and board were some times of doubtful quality, and it was the Bishop's plan to have a commodious furnished vestry room in each church on the score of economy and convenience. There was an outside entrance on the north end. This was the original Emmanuel. The rectory, still standing, was built in 1898 at a cost of $325, likewise the contribution of Mr. Houghton, and was a marvel of neatness and economy, and like the church of substantial construc tion and honest workmanship. In this connection I would like to pay a tribute to George A.