An interview with Lincoln Postoak,
at the home of his son, E. A. Postoak,
2930 West 41st St., Red Fork, Okla.
Effie S. Jackson, Journalist,
December 17, 1937.
(vol. 40, page 256)
My father, Taylor Postoak, called "Second Chief" was a full blood Creek. His Creek name was Nokose Yohola, his Cherokeee name was Choskoyoha, the white people called him Taylor Postoak. He belonged to the Bear Clan. My father was born in the "old nation" - he was very old, probably ninety years old when he died in 1891. I have heard him say that he drove miles for the soldiers at the time of the Removal. He settled on Euchee Creek one and one-half miles west of what is today Sand Springs. Then he took up land or as we say "made a field."
He married Marie Fisher, a mixed-blood. She belonged to the Fisher family for whom the town of Fisher is named. Father fought on the Union side during the Civil War and belonged to the Indian Home Guards, served under Lieutenant Adams of the Creek Indian Adams family who settled originally around the Springs of what is today Sand Springs.
After the war he lived near "choska" town, close to what is now Bristow. That is where I was born in 1868. We moved from there to Coweta Town and then to old Broken Arrow Town. This was about 1878, for I was about ten years old. By the way, my father named me "Lincoln" because he always made a hero of Abraham Lincoln.
I remember the old trading store at Broken Arrow Town. It was owned by a man named Thomas. You see it was on a cow trail that went from Texas to Caldwell, Kansas. It was a stopover for the cowboys on the trail. Thomas got his supplies from the Old Agency north of Muskogee. He sold coffee, sugar, tobacco, dry goods and flour.
I went to school at the Tallahasse Mission for about three years. I was there when it burned down in 1880. I remember about the fire -- it was on Sunday afternoon -- and suddenly there seemed to be fire and smoke from every direction. The queer thing was that the teachers were so frightened that they fastened us in our rooms. We had to break out in order to get out. There was no one hurt, but the building burned to the ground. It was in the middle of the winter.
After that Wealaka Mission was built and I went to school there. Before the building of this mission this location was called Fairview and was on the old cow trail that passed through Broken Arrow. It is a quarter of a mile southeast of the site of the old Wealaka Mission. It is in a fair state of preservation, about forty by twenty feet, two stories high, square built up front, facing east and has a large lean-to porch on the south. The upstairs was used for a dwelling. The foundation is almost gone but the building could be made habitable. Doors and windows are boarded up. It stands on a "height" on the northwest corner of what seems to be a section of very productive farmland owned by the Sand Springs Home Interests. It is enclosed by a fence and has heavily padlocked gates.
There was a pole ferry across the Arkansas, just a quarter of a mile down the hill from the mission. It was run by Mr. Dan "Grulie" Childers who was the father-in-law of Mildred McIntosh Childers. I remember when I was a boy, I helped to haul corn from old Broken Arrow to what is now Sand Springs. We followed a wagon trail along the river. There were only a few houses in what is today Tulsa. There were Indian houses along the river. One of them was near the "big buskin" grounds, where Council Tree is today, which belonged to the Partridges. Old Hammock had the ferry across the Arkansas about where the new bridge is today.
Josiah Perryman had the first store in Tulsa. It was where Charles Page's old home is on Third and Olympia Streets today. This was the old river road to what is today Sand Springs. The coming of the railroad brought the Jeff Archer Store and later the H. C. Hall Store at main and the Frisco tracks. We moved to what is now Sand Springs about 1880. Our farm was where the cotton mill is today.
Near us was "The Little Stomp Ground." It was about where the present baseball park is in Sand Springs. It was here that the Indian men and women played ball together. The men had ball sticks and the women could only use their hands. The games were played like the regular Indian ball games without the roughness and cruelty between men. Men's games were all played at the "big buskin" ground. They were played in a sort of series and at the end if the women had one the greater part of the games the men had to go on a hunt and bring in plenty of game which the women prepared. Then there was feasting and dancing.
About 1887, I was married to Lillie Buster, a mixed-blood Creek; her mother was Elizabeth Porter, sister of Chief Pleasant Porter. Lillie attended school at Wealaka Mission.
After we were married I ran the ferry at Ochelata right by Big Bird's house(father of Mary Fuswa Evans). This pole ferry was across Euchee Creek where it flows into the Arkansas River, one mile west of what is now Sand Springs. I ran this ferry for a number of years. Charged five cents for a person walking, twenty-five cents for a person on horse-back and fifty cents to one dollar for a wagon, according to the height of the river. Then we moved up on Salt Creek and farmed until a few years ago, then moved two miles west of Red Fork which is our present home.