Lula Neighbors Interview

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Lula Neighbors

INTERVIEW # 12678

James Russell GRAY
Investigator
1939

An interview with Lula NEIGHBORS (Mrs. Frank Neighbors)
Hartshorne, Oklahoma

"I was born and raised in the Indian Territory right where the town of Calhoun is now, in Leflore County. The place was called Brazil then, when I was born in 1878, though when my father, Charles MABRY first moved there nearly ten years earlier there was only one home in the vicinity.

Father was from Georgia, a state man and he had a fair education. When he saw that the Civil War was over he decided to come west where colored people were given a better chance to make a living. He came to the Choctaw Nation and married my mother, a freedwoman.

Father bought out the improvements on a plot of land south of Brazil Creek; an Indian named "DEAD PINE" had been living on the claim. Father setled on the place and improved it still more; he fenced on hundred acres and put in corn and foodstuff, and by 1881 he was raising some cotton. You see Mother had a right to 40 acres, being a freedwoman, and since this land was rather poor she was allowed seventy acres.

....some info left out...

There was a church for colored people, Methodist, six miles north of us, and an Indian church about half way between these two churches also Methodist. Our Pastor was named DIKES, and our bishop was name TURNER. One of the Indian preachers was named Simon WALKER.

....impertinent info left out...

We had some Choctaw neighbors named JAMES; two brothers Noah and Daniel JAMES. One of Daniel's children died and they buried it under the house; took up the floor, buried the baby and then put the floor back. And Noah had his family cemetery in front of his house, outside the yard; it is there yet.

....it goes on to say...

The famous stagecoach road, the one over which mail was carried from Ft. Smith to Texas ran across our claim, up by the general store run by Robert WELCH at Brazil.

And once when I was ten, Green MCCURTAIN, the Choctaw Chief, stopped with us for dinner. There were two men with him; they had been to Tuskahoma, the Choctaw capital, about some government business, and were on their way to San Bois Creek where MCCURTAIN had his home. They were traveling in a two seated hack without a top; something was broken about it and my brother Louis took them to San Bois Creek in father's wagon. Green MCCURTAIN was a big man, a typical Indian as to face, eyes and expression but he wore expensive clothes. He had on a big white cowboy hat, a white shirt, vest, dark trousers and shoes. I guess he could afford to dress well for people said he was rich.

We bought most of our supplies at Brazil. A man named Robert WELCH had a general store there. He was a white man, but he was married to a Choctaw woman named Phoebe WALKER, one of their sons, Zeke, lives at Red Oak now.

Jane MCCURTAIN, widow of Jack MCCURTAIN, put in a motel. The mine operated for about seven years and the the company sank another mine. About this time the name of the town was changed to Calhoun; the name was changed right after I got married and that was in 1907.

For some reason my parents never did get any revenue from the coal; there was something about the coal belonging to the Choctaw government.

The forty acres where I live now was given to me after statehood; it is my claim. I have a "right" from Mother's being a freedwoman. It is good land, and there is a good well of water and it is convenient, being only half a mile east of the Coles Chapel Colored School.

Before statehood they's were lots of United States Marshals, but I only knew two: Bass REEVES and Bob FORTUNE. Both were Negroes. REEVES lived at Ft. Smith and FORTUNE lived at Wilburton.

I knew of only one ferry; it was across Brazil Creek about four miles from our house. It was operated by a man named Henry OUTSHALOW, a negro. He wasn't a native of the Territory but he had married a freedwoman.

I have seen hundreds of Indians in my life, but right now I don't suppose I could give you half a dozen names. I remember Green MCCURTAIN, Dick LOCKE, Jacob JACKSON, Buck SHATUBBI, Noah and Daniel JAMES, Polk MACAVVAIN, Willie TREAD, and Billy SOCKEY.

Submitted by Ruthie KING
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