| Graves, Gus
Field Worker: John F. Daugherty
Date: November 30, 1937
Interview # 9350
Address: Davis, OK
Born: September 12, 1872
Place of Birth: Arkansas
Father: Ben Graves, born in Arkansas, Farmer
Mother: Georgia Ann Ward, born in Arkansas
My father was Ben Graves, born January 10, 1849, in
Arkansas and my mother was Georgia Ann Ward Graves, born
January 20, 1849, in Arkansas. Father was a farmer.
There were six children in our family. I was born in
Arkansas September 12, 1872. I was married to Lucy Tutor
in 1895 in Arkansas. We are the parents of two boys.
In 1892 I came to the Territory on a visit. I spent four
months near Elmore City, Beef Creek and Erin
Springs in the Chickasaw Nation. There was one store at
each place. In those days one store made a town and these
stores usually had a meager supply of goods consisting of a few
bolts of cottons, a few pairs of shoes and a small supply of
canned goods.
There were no houses between Dripping Springs and Elmore
City, a distance of perhaps fifty miles. One could drive all
day and not see a house.
Grass was shoulder high and there were only trails for roads.
If one was in a wagon it often became necessary to chop his way
through brush and timber with an axe. Nearly everybody
carried axes in their wagons for this purpose.
One day we were driving along near Elmore City when a large
turkey gobbler crossed the trail in front of us. We shot
him, dressed and prepared him to fry. We went to a nearby
creek and got water to make coffee.
I went back to Arkansas and in 1899, since Father and Mother
were in very poor health, I persuaded them to come to the
Territory.
There were four families and we all came in covered wagons.
We crossed the Arkansas line near Wister, came to Calvin,
Stonewall and stopped at Davis. We were on the
road twenty-one days. There were no bridges across the
creeks and we had to wait at several crossings for the high water
to subside. We crossed on a ferry boat across Mountain Fork
Creek between Wister and McAlester. We paid 50 cents per
wagon to the boatman for taking us across.
We settled near Wynnewood on the Washita River and have
lived here continuously since coming to Davis a few years after we
moved to the Territory.
Transcribed by Brenda Choate and Dennis
Muncrief, August 2001.
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