*The Rainbow* by Bruce DeBoer |
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Memories Henry Edgar Hulse January 14, 1870 - March 28, 1948 |
Henry Edgar Hulse was born January 14, 1870,
in Dallas, Texas. His father, Abraham
Valentine Hulse,ran a ferry boat there. His mother
was Elizabeth Cemantha Winters Hulse. (In A. V. Hulse's notes he had spelled her name
three different ways, but the one in the family bible was Cemantha. Others were
"Cymantha" and "Symantha.") She was an artist and a teacher. Her
pupils came to her for instruction and she taught them from her own books. She taught Abe
and her two oldest children, Mary Ellen and Walter Scott. She taught them to read, write,
spell, and to do arithmetic and grammar. Unfortunately, she died before she was able to
begin teaching Edgar, Jack and John. Abraham and Cemantha were married December 31, 1863, while he was in the Confederate Army. They came to Oklahoma in December 1871 or January 1872. They came to Tishomingo, Indian Territory, Chickasaw Nation. Tishomingo was the capital of the Chickasaw Nation . Abe farmed, trapped, and hunted on the Washita River. Jeckoniah Rector and John Wesley were born while they lived near Tishomingo. They moved back to Texas in 1875 or 1876. That was the year the grasshoppers fell. Edgar and Ellen remembered that well. The grasshoppers came like a rain cloud and fell everywhere. They ate everything green and even ate the ears of the little pigs. Ellen remembered that she went to the door to throw out the bran from the sieve and they ate the bran before it hit the ground. They left as suddenly as they came. The cotton opened early because there were not any leaves on it. When they moved back to Texas they crossed the (Red) river at Denison. The wagon bogged down in the river and they had to have it pulled back and put on the ferry. They camped down on Iron Oar Creek near Sherman. They stayed a winter and a summer there. Abe cut wood and sold it in Sherman until he lost his team. He went away to try to get another team and left his family camped there. Edgar remembered that his mother borrowed irons from a woman who lived in walking distance of their camp. She heated them in the camp fire and ironed their clothing. After the irons had cooled, Edgar and Walter took them home. The woman gave them some grapes. They were the first grapes they had ever seen. Abe returned with a borrowed team and moved the family to Dr. Mayfield's property on Simon Creek, where the town of Minterville was later established. There Cemantha gave birth to her sixth child, Cory O. Alberta, October 22, 1878. Cory died October 25, and Cemantha died October 28. The following year Abe and the children moved to where Healdton was later established. The prairie north of Healdton was called the Hulse Prairie for many years. Abe and his five children spent the winter on Walnut Bayou hunting and trapping. When summer came there was nothing to do so they went to visit his father, John Rector Hulse, down on the Washita. While they were there Abe peddled groceries. Later he left Ellen with Mr. and Mrs. Eli Powers, Edgar with his Uncle Isaac Hulse, and Walter with his grandfather. He took Johnnie and Jack with him and went back to Healdton and broke land for people. Edgar ran away from his uncle's. Charlie Darrow picked him up and took him to his grandfather's. He ran away from his uncle's because he was afraid he would be punished for killing all the chickens. He had climbed a tree and found a bottle of poison which Uncle Isaac kept to put out to kill wild animals. To keep it out of reach of the children he had put it in the hollow of the tree. Edgar didn't know what it was so he threw it into a puddle of water left by a recent rain. The chickens drank the water and all died. From his grandfather's he went home with the Chris Fornies because they wanted him. There he learned to plow and to do other farm work, although he was only ten years old. In 1880 Abe gathered his children together and moved to the Hill place and made a crop. Edgar remembered that his father plowed the ground and Ellen dropped the cotton seed by hand. Charlie Darrow came to live with them. The squirrels came through and ate up everything. The summer was so hot and dry that the Washita river went dry. They started west to hunt but decided to try public work. They stopped, put in a crop and sold out. They went to help rebuild McAlester after a storm had struck. As they were returning from McAlester, Johnnie became very ill. They camped under a tree near a house on Mill Creek. They built a fire to heat water to take care of Johnnie, but he died almost immediately. The woman at the house saw that they were in trouble and came to see about them. She had them come to her house and they stayed until after the funeral, which was at her house. They buried him in a cemetery west of where Mill Creek is now. They were on their way to McAlester to join Paine in his attempt to settle the country when Johnnie died. They went back to Oil Prairie. Paine was also sent back with his settlers. Oil Prairie was pretty well settled by that time. That summer was so dry and hot that the grouse all left. Edgar went to live with Mr. Combs and went to work for him. Abe made a crop, and when he laid the crop by he had Edgar come home to stay with the other children while he moved some people. One day while they were away from the house a man came and stole the flour that was in the barrel. He carried it away in a sack with a hole in it. Edgar went to borrow flour from Mr. Combs and told him what had happened. Mr. Combs came back with him and followed the trail made by the leaky sack and made the man go to Holdenville and buy the children a sack of flour. The next winter, 1882, they moved to Dresden. Dresden later became Berwyn. They left there in 1883 or 1884 and Edgar went to work for Marshall Carr through the summer (farm work), but went back to pick cotton with his family in the fall. In 1885, Abe rented a farm from Charlie Henderson. There was no house on it so he had to build a house. Edgar and Marshall Adair worked for Charlie Henderson. They went over among the Chickasaw Indians and mowed hay. They stayed at night with the people they worked for. Dinner was served in the field. One place where they worked the mother, Malinda, and her daughter, Ann, brought a delicious dinner to the field at noon. When the men went to the house for supper two Negro men came in and sat down across the table from them. Edgar and Marshall left the table and went and bought a cooking outfit and did their own cooking for the rest of the harvest. They went back home and picked cotton in the fall. Edgar and Marshall worked on the Henderson and Fryback ranch in 1886. They helped herd cattle. They drove 400 head of cattle through to Atoka, where they were loaded onto the train. They herded with Indian Joe on this trip. In 1888, Edgar worked for Bob Henderson. He had the whooping cough while he worked there. The railroad had been surveyed and they started grading in the winter of 1888. When Edgar started home for the winter he came to the Evans camp. He went up the right-of-way and worked till dinner. Negroes were at the table, so he walked on to camp Jones and Carry, the headquarters camp, and asked for a job. The boss asked, "Can you skin mules?" Edgar asked, "How many do you have dead?" The boss said, "You'll do." He put him to work driving mules [hitched] to a scraper. He drove the mules, and two men handled the scraper. On payday he lined up to get his money. They gave them all a check. He had never seen a check before. He went to Bob Henderson's store where he owed for work clothes and told Mr. Henderson that they had a payday but he didn't get any money, just a piece of paper. Mr. Henderson explained to him what it was and gave him the money for it. When that job was over he started home, but saw another camp over by the Negro college. He stopped there and got another job -- skinning mules. That railroad was from Gainesville, Texas to Purcell, Oklahoma. There was a tent town there called Bank's Summit. When the railroad came through, the depot was located eight miles away at Berwyn. This killed Dresden and Bank's Summit. Mr. Henderson moved his store to Berwyn and Edgar ran his farm. In December 1888, Edgar borrowed a yoke of oxen from Mr. Sutterfield and started to help his father move to where Davis is now. Price was the post office then at Price's Falls. Abe had married Mattie Morris Walker at that time. Edgar was climbing a mountain with a load of timber when a piece fell off the wagon, hit him and broke his leg. He lay several hours under a tree and fought off wild cattle. To scare them he fired shots until he ran out of bullets, and then threw his gun at them. His father Abe, who had taken a different road, decided to go over the mountain instead. He found him and took him on to the place where they were to camp. The doctor and some men came and set his leg, and he lay flat of his back from December 15, 1888 to February 11, 1889. His break was a compound fracture, and had been poorly set. He limped the rest of his life, and that break was probably one of the contributing factors to his death in 1948. While Edgar lay in bed, people brought him books to read to help pass the time. He didn't tell them that he hadn't learned to read, but he was determined to learn when he got up. George Faulk had a subscription school there. He told Edgar to come on to school and he could pay him when he got able to go back to work. He went for two months and learned to read, write, and do arithmetic from beginning to decimal fractions in Ray's part three. He was always good at arithmetic. He learned decimals and square root after his children were in high school. While Edgar was still unable to work, he dug a well in solid rock on his father's farm near where Davis is now. Men would let him down into the well on a platform, go to work in the field until noon or night, and then come in and draw him up. He would fill the bucket with rocks and they would draw them up first. He would then fasten the ropes to his platform so they could draw him up. He didn't really know how far down he was, but he looked up once and saw stars shining. He thought that they had forgotten him and left him all night. In the early 1930's he took Hattie and three of his girls to see that well. It was still in use and furnishing an abundant supply of water. In July 1889, Edgar went south of Davis and mowed hay. Then he went to Dougherty and worked for Mr. Bass who paid him thirteen dollars a month. He paid his doctor bill of twenty-five dollars and his school tuition of four dollars. Mr. Bass went to Stratford and Edgar went with him. When Mr. Bass was no longer able to pay the thirteen dollars Edgar went to work for Mr. Jackson. In 1890 or 1891 he worked for Mr. McKensy and then went back to Davis. Edgar made the "run" for land with a group from Davis. He ran through to Violet Springs by where the Wanette cemetery is now and on to Pond Creek, a place south and east of Chapel Hill. He stopped on 120 acres, but left it to look for something better. He wasn't interested in the land but just wanted to see the country. He remembered that two men fought over a piece of land and shot each other. The land had already been allotted to an Indian. In 1892 Edgar made a share crop for Mr. Canny, and in the next year he worked for Mr. Goodson for eighteen dollars a month. He went to Davis to visit his father and found that his father had moved to Stella. He had left his meat supply and his cattle. Edgar shipped the meat to him, and in the spring of 1893 he rounded up what was left of his father's cattle. He drove them to a box canyon where Whiskey Creek crosses Turner Creek. He had trouble with one cow. A friend told him to kill her and dress her out and eat the meat. He did that and had no more trouble with the cattle. He kept them near Dresden until his father could get help to come and drive them through to Stella. Edgar landed in Stella with 190 dollars in his pocket. He bought a team of oxen and plowed and broke land for four dollars an acre. They plowed under everything that the ox yoke could push down. Land could be plowed the next year if plowed in the same direction, but it was several years before it could be cross-plowed. They cut holes in the sod and dropped corn by hand and covered it with their feet. Sometimes one would drop corn in every third furrow as they plowed. When the land could be cross-plowed, they harrowed it and picked up the roots. Roots were used for firewood, but were often stacked to dry and burned like a bonfire. Plowing was usually done in the spring, and people who didn't have the money to pay for the plowing would give one year's crop on the land. Edgar broke a piece of land for Mr. Farthing one summer. He thought he would get the next year's crop, but Mr. Farthing insisted that he make a fall crop. He asked his father what to plant for a fall crop. They decided on turnips because they didn't know anything else that would grow in the fall. They made a bumper crop of turnips. His step-mother, Mattie, picked out what she could use for the winter food supply and hilled them. They used the rest for cattle feed. To hill turnips for winter they chose a high place, covered it with straw, piled the turnips on it, and covered them with straw and then covered the whole pile with dirt. For plowing, Edgar drove a six-yoke team (12 oxen). He plowed one piece of ground that was so tough that he had to borrow three extra yokes. That made 18 oxen on the plow. They plowed under stumps and saplings. When the plow would hang on something they dug on the land side until it slipped through. The plow had a beam sixteen feet long and eight inches across where the upright bolted on. It was four feet from the point of the plow to the top of the plowshare. It cut a 20 inch furrow. There was a big wheel, like a wagon wheel, that ran in the furrow. This made it necessary to plow up one side and down the other, thus leaving a dead furrow in the middle. Edgar broke land around Stella from 1893 to 1896. When he was working for Bob Webb he started to move his cattle (oxen) to better grass. He came upon Carry Webb and Hattie Barton, who were out for a walk. He popped his ox whip to scare them, and the popper came off and hit Hattie on the neck. He went to her to apologize, and got acquainted and asked her for a date to a dance on Saturday night. That started a friendship between them. In 1895 he contested a Negro's claim and filed on the land. The Negro had built a half dugout on the land and then had left and never returned. Mr. Jones and Mr. Farthing went with him to the land office. He had to live on the land to hold it, so he moved in and stayed a week and then spent the night there often enough to call it living there. He had rented some land from Sam Barton and made a crop. He sold his oxen and bought a team of horses. On May 3, 1896 he married Hattie Barton, and they moved into the half dugout and lived there until 1900. They spent most of the first year with Sam and Jocie Barton until they finished the crop Sam and Edgar were making together. When they moved into the dugout to stay, the neighbors gave them a shower. Each neighbor came on different days and brought a hen. The last to come was Mrs. Williams, a widow, who brought a setting hen and sixteen eggs. Edgar built a shed for the hens, put up nests and roosts for them. For the setting hen he put a c keg in a tree, put some straw in it, and placed the eggs in the straw. The hen accepted her new nest and hatched fifteen chickens and raised them all. They were in the chicken business with twelve hens and fifteen chickens. In 1897 James was born. He was not born on the claim, even though they were living there. He was born at his grandparents' home near Newalla. That was June 17, 1897. Edgar built a room in front of the dugout and joined it to the dugout, which was located near Slusher. Emma was born there on October 23, 1898. She was delivered by Mr. Jones, since he and his wife were with them when she was born. In 1900 they moved to the Fred Fehrle place. In 1902 they moved to Stella. They lived in his father's rent house and Edgar hauled freight to and from Norman. The house at Stella was the original school house there. They had built a larger school house and Abe Hulse had bought the old one, moved it across the street from his and built a sideroom on it. There, their third child, Mittie, was born on September 26, 1902. In January 1903 they moved to Jumper Springs, a place in southern Pottawatomie County near Eason. They leased the place from Aaron McDaniels. They built a house and fenced the place for a two year lease. When the lease was up they bought the farm, and two years later they bought the 40 acres north of it. Lora was born in the house next to Jumper Springs on November 30, 1904. They built a two room house on the east side next to the road for Hattie's parents, Joe and Sarah Barton. After their youngest daughter married, they broke up housekeeping and lived about with their children. Edgar moved the big room of the house next to the springs a few feet west of the new house. He dug a cellar and a well and joined the cellar to the house on the West with a covered stairway. The cellar was a shelter from storms and a storage place for food, such as a barrel of kraut, a barrel of pickles, a barrel of molasses, and some fruit. Most fruits were dried and kept in the house. Meat was kept in a small building away from the house. It was salted down for a while and then washed and smoked with hickory wood. It was very good and kept well. Henry was born there on March 11, 1907. The family moved to a farm one mile north of the Jumper schoolhouse in 1910. Edgar traded a team to Jerry Harmon for the down payment on it. It had a two room house and a half dugout. The dugout was beginning to cave in and soon had to be filled in. There was no well, so he had to haul water for all purposes. He built a sideroom on the east of the north room to use for a kitchen. The second year he had a well dug that furnished an abundance of water. Leland Alva was born there June 24, 1911, and died June 25. He is buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery, in the Rose Hill community. In 1912, Edgar traded his equity in that farm for 40 acres north and west of it (NE 1/4 of SE 1/4 section 31 T 7 R2E). In 1917 or the first part of 1918, Edgar bought a farm 1 mile south of the Lone Oak school near Wanette. He was trying to get close to the school so that his invalid daughter, Lora, could attend. The mile proved to be too much for her to walk, so he traded his equity in it for a house in Wanette. He continued to farm for two more years, then went to public work. He worked as a carpenter, he built bridges, and worked at the gin for several years. He served as Justice of the Peace and as city judge in Wanette. He worked as water commissioner until his retirement in 1936. He died March 28, 1948 after a long illness. Hattie died suddenly September 6, 1953. They are buried in the Wanette cemetery. |
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All maps on this page are pieces of the Chickasaw Indian Nations map from the Livingston County, MI web site and are copied with permission. |