Pioneers To Indian Territory 1881

~A 1938 INTERVIEW WITH FANNY SUTTON WALLEN~

From Kentucky, to Texas, to Indian Territory 1881-1938

Mary Frances "Fanny" Sutton was married to my 3rd great uncle, Isaac Newton "Ike" Wallen. Ike and my third great grandfather Jesse B. Wallen were brothers. Fanny was also related by blood through our common ancestors Jonas Sutton, Jr. and his wife Sarah. Jonas's son Micajah is mentioned below. Micajah was married to Eleanor Haggard and he and another of my 3rd great Grandfathers, Uriah Sutton, were brothers.

Ike was probably a practical joker of sorts considering a picture we have of him posing naked.  Now I know where my dad and my brothers got their "Wallen" sense of humor! This picture was probably taken between 1885-1895 in either Cooke Co., Texas or Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory (Oklahoma). 

     The Interview

INDIAN PIONEER PAPERS

Interview 10593

Interviewed by Ethel B. Tackitt, dated 22 April 1938 (8 pages)

Lone Wolf Kiowa County

Mrs Mary Francis Sutton Wallen, Hobart OK

Born 8 December 1856, Pulaski County Kentucky

Father: Andrew Jackson Sutton, born in Kentucky

Mother: Martha Ann Gasteneau, born in Kentucky

        "I was born in Pulaski county Kentucky December 8, 1856.  My father Andrew Jackson Sutton and mother Martha Ann Gasteneau were both natives of Pulaski county Kentucky and member of pioneer Kentucky families.


My Father's Father, Micajah Sutton had established a tan yard for making leather and leather articles at a very early date in the history of Kentucky in a valley 6 miles East of Somerset, Pulaski county Kentucky and here grandfather reared his family teaching each one to work in the tan yard and thereby providing a living as all work was done by the family.


This valley was well watered not by creeks but by wells of wonderfully sweet good water and when I can first remember there were 300 tanning vats and sheds with all the equipment which went with such an extensive plant.  All parts were operated by hand as there was not one bit of machinery in the whole establishment.  


The hides were lowered into these vats which were about 15' deep by 10' square boarded up on the inside with heavy timbers while at each corner was a heavy piece of square timbers called a plug which was raised when it was desired for that the vat be drained and cleaned to make ready for another pack of hides.  These vats were dug into the ground but were so constructed that the stale water would run out at the bottom.

              After the hides were well soaked so that the flesh adhering to the under side and the hair would slip off when the hand operated scraper was used on tem they were ready for the leather making process which was that of the old German kind which was used in Germany and put in practice by my grandfather Micajah Sutton.


            My father purchased 800 acres of land near him just to secure the tan bark off the chestnut, oak and read oak trees as this bark is what they used for tanning.  Lamp black and fish oil were also used on the leather.

             I worked in the tan yard also, when a child and a young woman.  Harness and leather horse collars were also made here by hand.  I have stuffed the wheat straw into many, many horse collars as that was usually my job.  I can think of nothing that stinks like that tan yard and if a person was not accustom to the smell he or she could hardly endure working there, but of course, our family was brought up to do this sort of work.


When the civil war came up my father was not drafted because of his operating this tan yard, neither was it ever destroyed by either army.  I remember on one November 23 during the war that twenty five Union soldiers came to our home, all very ill of dysentery and remained two days and 2 nights until all but one was well enough to travel.  The one was left and we took care of him the best we could, until some Confederate soldiers came and took him away and father feared that the man would be killed but eight months later, we received a letter from him stating he had been freed and sent to his home.

       After the war my Folks hired Negroes to work in the tan yard and there were two who worked there a long time but the most of the work was still done by the family. When I was 24 and had married, my husband and I left Kentucky and came to Texas, there we lived until 1889 and then in 1890 we moved three miles south of Ardmore in the Chicasaw Indian Nation and with us we brought a wagon loaded with hogs and chickens and nothing else and in the other covered wagon we had our bedding, cooking utensils and our clothes. We leased land from the Jackson Brothers who controlled twelve thousand acres of land in Clear Creek bottom. The land was very productive, the corn grew fine, long ears and the cotton was also fine, but prices were low and there was so little market for either corn or cotton that there was no money in the country.

        Having grown up as I have told you about, working in the tan yard and doing all kinds of farm work. I was able to look after my children and to plant a garden to help provide food. I would take the children and go out into the woods and gather post oak grapes, wild plums and currants for we were accustomed to having plenty of fruit and doing with out fruit was a hardship to me. There were very few orchards in the country at that time and those which were growing were on old home places that had belonged to the Indian families.

        I was not very happy for the country was so wild and unsettled that there was nothing for women and children but loneliness and work as the land could not belong to the white people there was no incentive to build more on a place than was required by the lease, which was for so many years, usually five, and then a person would either have to rent it or move to another lease and improve it in the same way.

        Our stock did well as they ran at large but it was several years before the country settled up and we could have a subscription school and that was for only two or four months in the year and for that reason my children were able to get little education which was of great grief to me. I am now 81 years old and 48 of those years have been spent in Oklahoma. My husband has passed on and I am living with my daughter Mrs. Lillie Hulsey, who was born in Oklahoma and has lived here all her life. Some things are better now than when I first came to the country but I think it is harder for people to make a living at this time."

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