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Fifth Generation
171. 14 Jan 1920 to 2 Apr 1930 Sherman ACKLEY4
was Farmer at Cimarron, Pawnee , Oklahoma.227,228 He was born on 28 Feb 1860
in Greene , Pennsylvania.4,14,36,38,93,227,228,229 LDS also lists parent as Jehue birth date as stated
and place as Philadelphia, Philidelphia Co., PA
Adolphus W Ackley Jr has birth place as Cameron, Marshall , West Virginia
Gordon Fralick has birth date as 6 Jul 1860 He appeared in the census in 1870
in Kansas. He was living in 1910 in Pawnee, Pawnee , Oklahoma.229 He was living between 1920
and 1930 in Cimarron, Pawnee , Oklahoma.227,228 He died on 10 Nov 1945 in Keystone,
Pawnee , Oklahoma.4,38 He was buried in Sinnett Memorial Cemetery, Tulsa ,
Oklahoma.4,95 He appeared in the census 1910, 1920 & 1930 in Oklahoma.
He. Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: February 25, 1937
Name: Sherman Ackley
Post Office: Keystone, Oklahoma
Residence Address: Three miles north of Keystone on Highway 64
Date of Birth: February 28, 1860
Place of Birth: Greene County, Pennsylvania
Information on father:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Effie S. Jackson
Supervisor: Thomas F. Meagher
Interview #:
Volume I, Pages 102, 103 - Microfiche #6016866
What An Old Pioneer Told: Sherman Ackley
I was born in the Alleghany Mountains, Greene County, Pennsylvania. To be exact:
February 28, 1860. When I was seven years old, my parents loaded us on a boat
at Wheeling, West Virginia. The "go west" fever had them. My father
knew there was plenty of land for the taking if we went to the new frontier.
So down the Ohio to the Mississippi, up the Mississippi to St. Louis by steamboat,
then by train across Missouri to Kansas City, a small trading post in those days.
There was no bridge across the Missouri, so we ferried across in a "bus."
We waited for our possessions (just bedding and clothing) to arrive.
Then began our slow trip through Kansas, ten years to make it: 1868 - 1878. We
would stop in some likely spot for a couple years, make a crop, move on, get
mired down, stay there another year or two. We had our wagons and three yoke
of oxen. We slowly paid our way by breaking prairie: three yoke of oxen and a
large prairie plow, breaking virgin soil. For this we received $3.00 an acre.
Always there was the lure of the Indian land across the Kansas line. I had five
brothers and two sisters and we planned to take our father's advice: You boys
go down into the territory, marry a squaw and get all the land you want; you
girls find you a buck. But nary one of us married an injun.
Our first stopping place in the territory was at Chouteau, 1878. Sparsely settled,
one store occupied, one unoccupied, two dwellings, a blacksmith shop and a small
depot -- very few farm houses in the whole district. Land was held up by the
Cherokee Indians in common and they in turn leased it to the whites if they would
break so much ground (usually 20 acres) and add simple improvements. These leases
were usually for ten years. I ranched ten miles north of Muskogee for ten years,
then in 1889 I took a ten year lease from a Creek Indian, Alice PAYNE. All the
land I wanted on condition I improve twenty acres.
This land was just across the river east of Keystone. There we lived (I had married)
for five years. I ran a ferry boat across the Cimarron at its mouth. We charged
according to the stage of the water, from 50 cents to $2.50 per wagon. Then in
1893 I took up this 80 and have lived here ever since. I gave that plot of land
adjoining me to the old timers for a cemetery -- all whites.
I remember the opening of the strip here. It was amusing. You know where that
little stone filling station is now right at the bend of the hill as you come
west into Keystone? Well, that was neutral ground. So two old maids, Frances
and Salina COX, took up their stand there and at the stroke of the hour they
ran for a claim (all of three hundred feet west) and that gave them most of what
is today Keystone (that is the land on the south side of the road) and their
descendents still own most of it.
In the meantime Dr. Philander REEDER (Dr. Charlie's daddy) and Frank CHESLEY
bought out a claim and put up the first store and doctors office in 1893 in Keystone.
The most exciting time was the war of saloons between Keystone south of the Cimarron
and the ghost town of Appalachia across the swinging bridge, north of the Cimarron.
But that's another story.
NOTE BY INTERVIEWER: I found Sherman ACKLEY and his sprightly wife very hospitable
and loquacious. Mr. ACKLEY, very hale and hearty, was taking a little time off
at noon to hear a very up to date radio talk telling arguments pro and con as
to what should be done with the "nine old men." His memory was keen,
descriptions good and manner gracious. His home is on U.S. 64, three miles north
of Keystone and as he said, "It is easy to find me, just watch for the cemetery
Sherman had donated 18 acres of land for the Sinnett Cemetery which is located
on 41st Street in Pawnee County near Cleveland, OK. A gathering of pioneer descendants
is held at the Cemetery annually. Sherman ACKLEY and Martha Jane GAROUTTE were
married on 1 Jan 1893 in Tulsa , Oklahoma.4,14,227,228 LDS spells her last name Garoutte
Martha Jane GAROUTTE (daughter of David GAROUTTE
and Jane SMART) was born on 5 Oct 1873 in Barry , Missouri.4,227,228,229 She
died on 21 Jul 1964 in Keystone, Pawnee , Oklahoma.4,209 She was
buried in Sinnett Memorial Cemetery, Tulsa , Oklahoma.4 She appeared in the census 1910, 1920 & 1930 in Oklahoma.
Sherman ACKLEY and Martha Jane GAROUTTE had the following children:
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