DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW '

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1 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW '

2 8 - Portn BIOGRAPHY. FORM '#DRKS PROGRESS ADMXWl'g'l'ibgTON ' Indian~pi»neer History «pr*j.eict fir Oklahoma DAY, LARKING, E. INTERVIEW. I Field Worker*s name Mrs. Nora Lorrin This report made on (date) November 24, Name ^arking E. Day -8. Post Office Address El Heno, Oklahoma 3^ Residence address (or Ueation) 515 North Bickford Avenue 4. DATE CF BIRTH: Month February Day 10, Year 1, place of birth Van Zandt County, Texas 6. Name of Father Larking Isaec Day Place #f birth Alabama, ' Name «f Mother Louisa (Teal) Day Place»f birth Texas, Other information about mother?a& Za-nd't Co - Died in Notes or complete narrative by the fiold.worker dealing with the life and story of the, person interviewed^ Refer to Manual f»r suggested subjects and questions. Continue on blank sheets if necessary and attach firmly tosthis form* Number of sheets attached

3 494 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW Investigator, Mrs. Nora Lorrin, * November 24, Interview with Lerking E. Day, El ^eno, Oklahoma I was born in Van ZandtCounty, Texas, February 10, I stayed in Texas until I was eleven yf rs of age i and,then in the spring of, 1884, I came to the Indian Territory. «e came by train, unloading at Ardmore, and moving to a farm owned by rfiley Johnson,'an Indian, about fifteen or twenty miles from thai town.at the time I came to the Territory there was grass as high as a door. The first school I attended was the "Bio Valley School."* It was a log house, with the seats made of cotton wood logs, hewn flat, with holes bored on the under side and pegs driven into tiiem for legs. It was a subscription school, and a man named'john Baker was our teacher. ' t ' -. The house we moved into was also e log house, just one room with e leen-to kitchen. The log part of it had

4 495 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW ? a puncheon floor, but the kitchen floor was dirt. When I was old enough, I rode the range for Bill Washington on the 'Washington Ranch. I rode the i'cfnge from Red River to Chickasha. Outlaws were pretty thick, as well as cat-. tie rustlers and horse thieves. I have come in sight of cattle thieves skinning a cow that they had no right to, many a time, when the men stood up and waved their rifle at me, indicating for rae to go around them and on about my business. I went without arguing about it. It was the orders of the Boss of, ^ outfit. He told us not to take any chances of being killfed. Whenever av boss wanted to have a beef killed, he would send an old negro out to get one of the unbranded variety and he would seldom, if ever, kill one of his own branded'cattle. There were always stray, unbranded cattle, and they were supposed to belong to whoever got their brand on them first. tfhen we first came to Oklahoma, the streams were full of fiffa the streams. and there were a good many beavers along There were lots of deer, and it was nothing to see ten or fifteen antelope in e bunch. Lots of quail and wild turkeys were thick and prairie chickens by the

5 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW v.,, -3- drove, and snakes. Rattlesnakes were awfully bad down In that part of the country. The cowboys would go hunting for them just for sport. They would kill eight or ten of them, tie them to the end of a lariat rope end drag them into camp, just to show their prowess. I have seen big black wooley tarantulas as b$g as my out-spread hand, and there were lots of them. Prairie dogs were numerous, and I have seen a colony of them migrating, an interesting sight. Coyotes were thick, there were bob cats, and a good many wolves and loafers. In those far off early days, a road was never worked. People would drive along a trail until the rut got so deep, the middle of the road would scrape the running gears of the wagons that passed over it. Then they wduld start a new trail by the side of the old one and sometimes these rutted places would be a.quarter of a mile wide. I used to freight from Waurika to Cornish. (Now called Ringland)..Yheri I was freighting I always took a block and tackle along, as did the other freighters, and usually three or four freigfrte^s would drive along together so they could help each oth^r out. There were no bridges and

6 , ' / / «497 DA.Y, INKING' 'E. INTEPVIEW. * ^e had to ford streams. Sometimes the streams would be /' up and cause us to be delayed, and often we would cross and get bogged down and that is where we had to use the block and tackle, Sometimes we were stuck so bad it would be a half day's hard work to get out again. / The country, around the south part of the vstete where / we settled would raise anything. «e had wonderful gardens and lots of sweet potatoes'. For light we used to have little brass lamps burning coal oil, and lanterns. got the water we used from the creeks and ponds. -Ve There were holes in the creeks that never went dry. There used to be lots of malaria and chills and the doctors were few and far between, and what doctors there were were of the home-made variety. Some of them had practiced for so long, they were given licenses to practice after Oklahoma became a State. These doctors used mostly blue mass, calomel, Dover's powders and quinine. When people died, they were just buried anywhere. I have helped to make hundreds of caskets out of raw native lumber with, no adornment of any kind. Later they covered the caskets with black clotti and, later still, they put a black and

7 498 DAY, I^RKING E. INTERYIEW. ' V w&ite frin&e around them; that \a to say, they would put a row of wh\lte fringe around the casket and over top of it put a row* of black fringe. The white fringe would show through a little. In the early days, the Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians had a peculiar custom at their burials, ^"hey would put nien on ponies and send them out from the camp where the funeral was in progress, carrying lighted torches in all directions to scare the evil spirits away from the vicinity for the protection of the departed spirit. I have seen many of the Indian war dances and pow wows, often someone was killed at these gatherings. If some of than were at outs with each other, they would choose one of these gatherings to settle their disputes in the open and one or the other would be killed. I had a few personal friends among the Indians; among them were -Viley Johnson, Villie Bates, Henry Grinsled^end the Colberts. I got married in 1892 and we farmed in the Chickasaw Nation. I did not\ own the farms, but leased land from the Indians. cost much. Indian land was easy to obtain and did not One time I leased a farm from an Indian by the name of "Old Foot Billard" who later became rich from

8 DAY, LARKING B. INTERVIEW the oil found on his allotment. Outr main food was bacon, corn bread and vegetables. The ground was rich^and anything would grow and we had lots of sweet potatoes. People would work a small patch of land with one,.horse and a walking plow. y y I raised cotton, corn and.-small patches of oats. There were lots of log houses then that were old, floors and sides rot'.ed until the roof sagged in scallops, and corners settled until the house would be all out of line but people lived in them anyway. '«got our supplies from Ardraore and Waurika, and sold our cotton at.i'aurika. ^There was plenty of timber and they used wood for fuel. I attended and sang at a six-weeks camp meeting at "Fussy in People came from everywhere and every.direction, in covered wagons, driving oxen,./hen we got there w# lbftde camp, put bells on our oxen and turned / V them loose on the range to look after themselves until we were ready to u-e them again. Everybody knew their own bell by the sound of it..ve would listen and locate our oxen by the sound of the bell and although there were ;nany oxen and a good many bells, we knew the sound of our own bell well enough thet it was no trouble locating our own

9 500 DAY, LADING K. I:ITST>VIS;; >oxen. Most people could also tell from a distance whether t bell was on the neck of an ozen or a mule by the sound. r, an ox, when fending, moves his heed slowly and the strokes are long, and a mule bobs his head up and down a little more energttically, making a choppy sound, more or less,easy to tell the difference. ^nce it was.»e held the meeting under an arbor me^e of, poles and brush end of course it w&s held in the summer time. There used to be a well at 3aum, Oklahoma, that was said to be haunted. I stayed at the place a Week one time, hoping to hear or see the phenomena, but did not get to see it. The well, a dug well with two wooden buckets on a rope over a wheel or pulley, was said by the people who lived there to be haunted. The empty bucket would fall down in the well and bring the other bucket to the top brimming full of water without the help of mortal hands. I was riding herd for Dill Vashington; their herds of cattle often were driven along a trail that is now designated as the Chishcl^n Trail, but et that time was called "The Old Washington Trail." The largest herd of cattle I have ever seen at one time contained about

10 501 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW , -3- eight thousand heed of catlle. I have also seen cattle stampede when they were frightened, a good many times. El Reno is the farthest north I have ever lived. I have ridden range, fermed, been a mechanic, carpenter and contractor, helped to build the aviation field a-t - v ort Sill, V and I was also a Deputy United States Marshal for eight. years from 1906 until Since 1910, I have been a preacher of the Church of Christ. Among the outlaws, whom I arrested, was Osa Jones, a notorious horse thief and cattle rustler from Lone Grove. He would steal from homes and then set fire to the house to cover up his cieviltry. I knew the Pruitts, some of whom were outlaws. Clint Pruitt, a horse thief, was killed in a gambling dive at Cornish. Henry Pruitt was supposed to be e good man but he was a "-onder." He was a nice appearing fellow and when the bad ones got into trouble he would help to find alibis for them and get -them out on bond. Perry Earls was another "bonder." the Shipman gang and the Bonners. There was the Poles gang, John Bonner, a bootlegger and cattle rustler, in the south part of the State, would cry himself out of trouble. John Conner has gotten out of

11 502 DAY, I4RKING E. INTERVIEW trouble that Hay lots of times. John would be arrested and brought up^tor trial and then he would just cry and \J cry until they felt so sorry for him they would let him go. i"old Heck Thomas," was a United States Marshal and lived at Yukon. Heck Thomas was responsible for the demise of a/good many outlaws. He killed one notorious horse and cattle thief named Bantum and he killed him on the "Bio" down below Lone Grove. I believe thnt at least a fifth of the people who came here in the real early days were outlaws coming here under assumed names, seeking safety from offences committed elsewhere and finding safe refuge in the Indian Ter- J ritory. Many of them reformed, married and became good citizens, and many f them were killed and made into "good citizens." I was robbed at a picnic one. night when a half dozen United States Marshals were present. I was at a picnic once and was stuck up by a rough customer, who took my money. The fellow got only #4.10 and I kidded him and asked him why he didn't take everything. I told him that I still had 10tf worth of Battle Ax tobacco. The thief growled "Give it here, git goin and don't look back." I

12 503 DAY, LARKING E. INTERVIEW told him if he was-going to shoot me for looking back, he might as wall begin shooting then. I looked back all and saw the fellow as he slid into the brush. The man.was oever-caught. &BQ.ng $he United States Marshals that i Heck Thomas, loss Hart, Johnson, and Jones. knew were Lots of the old time marshals were as crooked as the men they were sent out to capture. The early dey vehicles were the common ox wagon and eventually buggies. I remember the first cultivator I ever saw and elso the first automobile used in my part of the country, which was a Ford and was used to carry the mail from Cornish to ir'aurika.