Part 6: Building a Community
Oklahoma Land Rush — public domain photo via Wikipedia
At the time of the opening and for several years afterwards there was not a railroad in the county. Outside the small villages, Lexington, in Cleveland County, and Purcell, in the Chickasaw country, were the nearest trading centers for those who lived in the southern part of the country. On account of the long distances and poor roads, few trips were made to these towns. Wagons and horseback were the only means of transportation, and the trip usually required two days. Families made about one trip a year to these towns, and that in the fall of the year to buy their winter supplies; the night was usually spent in the wagon yard of which every town had one or more.
It was not long after the opening until cotton gins were erected at different points, but we had to take our cotton to Lexington or Purcell to sell it. I have hauled many a load of cotton seed to the oil mill at Tecumseh also, a distance of more than twenty miles. In the early days while I was clearing out my land I hauled wood by ox team to Lexington and Purcell and sold it for from $1 to $1.50 a load. I would start at four o’clock in the morning and would be late in the night getting back home if I did not stay over night in town. Today that seems a pitiable sum to work two or three days for, but commodities were cheap then and that was the best we could do. Of course we could not afford any luxuries, only the bare necessities.
Many of the settlers who came here during the run or soon afterwards became discouraged and drifted on, but through floods and droughts and other misfortunes those of stamina stayed, some from hope, some too dogged to give up, some because they had no means with which to go, or could see no prospect elsewhere. It was a case of necessity that they got by on their meagre incomes; they knew how to depend on themselves, and they carried on with all the tenacity they had, all for the sake of a home — the castle of their hopes, the shire of their unconquerable spirits.
I might mention here that in the grazing in the early days my wife would saddle her horse and drive our cattle each morning to Greenhead prairie, two miles away, leaving our small children to take care of themselves while she was away.
When we first settled in Pottawatomie County our post office was Moral, three miles to the northeast. A Mr. Walker was the postmaster. The building was a little double log cabin with a hallway between. The family live in one room and kept a store and the post office in the other. Later old Moral was moved one-half mile east where it grew into one of the largest villages in the south part of the county before the coming of the railroads, having a population of about 100 in 1902.
Soon after settlers had built homes and began to improve their claims they began to think about the cultural side of life, and it was not long until schools and churches were established, In the summer of 1893 we organized a school district and built a school house. As there was very little tax money then, and the practice of voting bonds had not yet come into vogue, the district borrowed money from W.C. Paine to buy the material for the school house. Most of the work in erecting the building was donated by the patrons. Timbers for the sills and sleepers were cut in the forest nearby and ‘snaked” to the building site with ox teams. The lumber was hauled from Lexington, eighteen miles away. As was the custom in those days the school house was used for church services and all community activities.
To be continued…
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