SANDERSSiftings an exchange of Sanders/Saunders family research Number 51 October, 2007 four issues per year • $12 per year subscription • edited by Don E. Schaefer, 1297 Deane Street, Fayetteville, AR 72703-1544 1937-38 Old Timers Interviews by WPA in Have You Heard Oklahoma Are Interesting and Informative Of A Hay Hotel? Do any of you have Sanders or farmer and owns a good comfortable Saunders who were early settlers in home and chicken houses. His children While doing some searches on Indian Territory or the State of are grown and will run the farm while web sites that were connected or Oklahoma? Do you have questions Mr. Saunders and his wife go to Corpus close geographically to Ottenstein, about their American Indian ancestry? Christi for the winter. Germany, the ancestral home of my Perhaps the Western History Collections The place here was owned by the old Schaefers (Schäfers), I came across at The University of Oklahoma might Indian called Old Man Tall Bear; it had Heuhotel Sander in Emmenthal. have some answers. Their website at been allotted to him by the Now, a Heuhotel is a hay hotel. It is <http://digital.libraries.ou.edu/whc/ Government. There are wonderful operated by a family with the sur- pioneer/> has some interesting files cre- springs on this place that have never name of Sander. ated by the WPA in 1937-38. These gone dry. This was the Ceremonial I invite you to check out the web records contain some good genealogical Ground for the Indians before the site: <http://www.heuhotelsander.de/ information and they are excellent Government decided to allot any of it. html> and read about the hay hotel. sources of local history. Mr. Saunders story follows: This is not the kind of accommo- Interviewers hired by the WPA wrote I came here from Ohio in 1892. I dations that most of us are looking down family history and stories from drove a team of horses to a covered for. If you are thinking that a hay old time residents of the state. These wagon. I made the run to get a farm in hotel would have you sleeping on were typed up (by the Cheyenne hay in a barn, you would be correct. manual typewriters and Arapaho The web site will also give you - remember them?) opening. All I English versions of their descrip- and they are filed did was to run tions of the “fun on the hay” and here in 116 vol- as I did not get related activities. The translations umes on this web- any land. There are rather mechanical, but I think site. Sanders and were groups of you will get the idea. Saunders are found men and with They have modern plumbing and in Volume 80. them were mar- they ask you to bring a sleeping bag. They are: Dick shals who gave They serve a full breakfast and will Saunders, Elizabeth Old Government Spring on Dick Saunders place. the signal to go. serve a lunch and dinner, if request- Ballard Sanders, This spring is situated at the foot of a small hill Some of the ed. They are located close to the George Sanders covered with elm and walnut trees. marshals did Weser River, which has a bike path (two of them), Jeff not give the sig- alongside. Saunders, Judie Sander, Mr. & Mrs. Sam nal until the others had a fifteen min- “We offer to you: two cosy Sanders, Mrs. Beulah Sanders, Hardy utes start. lounges, two large gardens with cosy Sanders, Lillie Sanders, Robert S. At that time I had thirteen head of corners, grill space, table tennis, Sanders, J. L. Sanders, W. E. Sanders, cattle and a pony beside my team. I children’s playground, Ponyreiten and Wash Sanders. Some of these were gave $125.00 for five acres, $5.00 com- [pony rides], and led night migra- totally or partially unreadable. They mission, where the Baptist Church stood tions [evening hikes].” appeared to be microfilmed copies that near the ceremonial or camp ground were made into PDF files. Many families in Germany go on just east of where the house stands bicycle treks together. I have seen Following are the ones I could read: today. That was in 1906. I filed on a place in 1892, north of here six miles, them on the path by the Weser River at Dick Sanders Bodenwerder. There are also camp- and lived there for about twenty years. grounds along the river. This would be Interviewed on October 19, 1937 by Then I bought this place in 1929 and great for youth traveling on a shoe- Augusta H. Custer. Dick Saunders was have lived here since that time. string. But, thankfully, I have relatives living on Rural Route, Calumet, Okla. This good spring of water was well to stay with over there. Ⅵ (16 miles southeast of Geary). known in this part of the country and Mr. Dick Saunders told the following Don Schaefer, editor was walled by Government men over bit of history concerning his experience in Oklahoma. He has been a successful (Continued on page two) SANDERSSiftings No. 51 Oct/2007 Page 2 Daniel Clarke Sanders, Educator and Preacher, Old Timers Was First President of the University of Vermont (Continued from page one) sixty years ago. It has been a noted DANIEL CLARKE SANDERS (May 3, February 1858); his wife was a victim of camp ground. It is located on the NE 4 1768-Oct. 18, 1850), preacher and edu- occasional attacks of insanity; five of his of Sec. 9-31-12. Three miles west was cator, was born at Sturbridge, Mass., the eight children had recently died in an Powder Face Crossing and cattle and fourth child and only son of Michael and epidemic. Now he was without employ- freight trains went from Fort Worth, Azubah (Clarke) Sanders. After the ment and with few resources save a Texas to Kansas City over this crossing. death of his father in 1773, his mother claim on the University for arrears of East, two miles is Caddo Jake’s married Capt. Ebenezer Fisher of salary. Crossing over which freighters went Needham, where the boy was prepared After preaching for a time in New from Fort Worth to Caldwell, Kansas. for college under the direction of Rev. York City he reluctantly accepted a call These crossings were across the South Samuel West. He entered Harvard, grad- (May 1815) to become pastor of the First Canadian River. uating in 1788. Burdened with the for- Congregational Church of Medfield, Old Government Spring on Dick midable debt of one hundred dollars, he Mass., where his parents and grandpar- Saunders’ place. This spring is situated immediately took employment “keeping ents had been born and where he had at the foot of a small hill covered with a common school in Watertown.” Soon preached his first sermon. During the elm and walnut trees. The small house afterward he became preceptor of the fourteen years of his pastorate here he faces the south. grammar school in Cambridge. Here he gained a wide reputation as a thoughtful studied theology under the guidance of and eloquent speaker. A moderate man, Elizabeth Ballard Sanders Rev. Thomas Prentiss of Medfield. averse to theological controversies, he Interviewed January 18, 1938 by Ella Licensed by the Dedham Association in attempted unsuccessfully to guide his Robinson. Elizabeth Ballard Sanders 1790, he preached as a candidate and as church through that stormy period. was living at 423 North J Street, in a supply in various pulpits in After the stricter Calvinists had seceded, Muskogee, Okla. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and he found it impossible to stay with the My grandparents on my mother’s side Vermont. In 1794 he was ordained as thorough-paced Unitarians and resigned were ?right Romine and Betsy Riley. pastor in Vergennes, Vt., where two his pastorate in the spring of 1829, Grandfather was an Irishman who came years earlier he had married Nancy, though he continued to reside in into the old Cherokee Nation in the daughter of Dr. Jabez Fitch. In 1799 he Medfield until his death. early days and married my grandmother, accepted a call to preach in Burlington, The last phase of his career was a half-breed Cherokee. They started where he also kept a private school until devoted to occasional preaching and to westward with the first colony of the organization of the University of public life. He was a delegate to the state Cherokees known as “old settlers” in Vermont. He was made a trustee of that constitutional convention of 1820-21; 1834. As they were crossing the embryo institution in January 1800, and represented the Medfield district in the Mississippi River on a ferry boat my in October became its first president. Massachusetts House, 1833-36; and dur- grandmother died. His duties while directing the new ing the same years was one of the select- My mother was a small child and university during its first fourteen years men of his town, where later he held never had any very distinct recollection were varied and onerous. He managed other minor positions. His last years he of her mother but said she well remem- its lands and finances, supervised in part spent caring for his invalid wife, whose bered after her mother’s death that they the erection of its first building, and for death in 1850 he survived by only two opened a large chest that contained her some years carried the entire burden of months. He published a number of ser- clothes and she saw a lot of gold money instruction, continuing meantime his mons, one of which, A Sermon, Preached in the chest.