Joseph S. Dillingham. When
the Chickasaw Nation was young and white men were few within its
borders, the natives gave names of their own choosing and suiting
their own fancies to many spots that since have become of historic
interest. The region was dotted with prairies, some but a few miles
in circumference, while others were of much greater area, but
timbered lands covered the major portion of the Nation and the
prairies were but breathing places and lookout points. Each prairie,
therefore, was of some consequence in the scheme of development and
each was given a name. It is an interesting thing in this day, as one
travels over the old Nation, to hear men
say that such and such a man lives on, near or beyond some particular
prairie. Prairies are the guide-posts to travelers and, being
numerous, they are an excellent substitute, to pioneers, for section
lines’and range and township numbers. Thirty to forty years ago, when
white immigration to the Indian country began in earnest, cattlemen
contracted as rapidly as possible for leases on prairie lands, and
these became centers of the cattle industry.
Between Madill and
Lebanon, both of which are now in Marshall County, there lay one of
the most picturesque and fertile prairie spots of the Chickasaw
Nation. On the edge of this prairie flowed some sparkling perennial
springs of water, and in the rocky hills near them the Indians for a
generation had killed innumerable rattlesnakes, so that the name of
Rattlesnake Springs was given to the watering-place, and by that name
it is known today and by that name the prairie is designated. At
these springs in 1886, Joseph S. Dillingham, a young man from Grayson
County, Texas, seeking a location for a cattle ranch in the Indian
country, built a ranch house and for many years thereafter conducted
the Rattlesnake Springs Ranch. Since he has retired from the cattle
business the property has passed into the hands of Samuel McKenzie,
who was a pioneer settler of Cooke County, Texas, and of the
Chickasaw country, and it is now known as the Sam McKenzie Ranch. But
the pretty legends and fascinating tales of the Indian period that
marked the springs with interest are not forgotten, and neither has
the name been erased from the memory of the men who here planted the
seeds of progress.
The year of the
establishment of this ranch by Mr. Dillingham, Sam and Ed Noble also
embarked in the cattle business here, establishing a ranch on another
section of the prairie, and these two ranches rank among the pioneers
of this section of the prairie. Other ranchmen of the same prairie
have been Holmes Willis, in his day one of the wealthiest and most
influential men of the Chickasaw Nation; George Holford, whose name
is almost a household word in the homes of hundreds of early
settlers, and E. H. and J. H. Bounds, brothers, ambitious young
Texans who early migrated to the Indian country.
At the time of the
settlement of Joseph S. Dillingham, there were two stores at the Town
of Lebanon, one conducted by Mack Dorchester, who came to the
Chickasaw Nation from Sherman, Texas, and one by Sam Evans, who
probably was the pioneer merchant of the town. The principal trading
and shipping point for this region was Sherman, Texas, forty-five
miles away, although a postoffice and log schoolhouse had been
established at Oakland, a few miles north, and Tishomingo, the
Chickasaw capital, then an inland town, was twenty-five miles to the
east. That year the Santa Fe Railroad was being built through the
Chickasaw country and the towns of Marietta and Ardmore came into
being. Settlements were widely scattered, cattle ranges reached to
the horizon beyond the prairies, and the days of roundups and long
trail drives were in their greatest era of prosperity. Before that
the Chisholm Trail had been established and over it tens of thousands
of cattle were driven to the Kansas and Missouri markets. Men of
desperate character were to be found in every part of the country,
thieving, plundering and killing, and this was the period of the
United States marshal, who, operating out
of the famous court of Judge Parker, at Fort Smith, was in the heyday
of his usefulness. It was the year, in fact, when Andy Roff, a
ranchman, well known all over the Southwest, was killed by the
notorious Lee boys, rival cattlemen, and this murder and the
subsequent death of the Lee boys after a long and rigorous chase gave
the late Heck Thomas, a noted United States marshal, a reputation
which extended to the farthest habitations of keepers of the peace in
this country.
Joseph S. Dillingham
was born at Kentuckytown, Grayson County, Texas, in 1865, a son of
James H. Dillingham,
a native of Kentucky, who with other men of his state settled in
Grayson County, Texas, in 1855, was one of the first to engage in
agricultural pursuits in that county, and was one of the founders of
Keutuckytown, which was located near his home. Mr. Dillingham is a
veteran of the Civil war, in which he fought as a Confederate
soldier, and is now living in peaceful retirement at Oakland,
Oklahoma, aged eighty-four years. There were five children in the
family: Joseph S., of this notice; J. E., who is engaged in the
general merchandise business at Madill; Mrs. Nina Cornelison, who is
the wife of a cotton gin operator at Oakland; Fay, who is engaged in
the decorating business at Fort Worth, Texas; and Leo, who is a
resident of Manila, Philippine Islands.
Joseph S. Dillingham
followed ranching until the establishment of the Town of Madill, in
1901, shortly after which he became engaged in the real estate and
farm loan business. In this line he has continued to be engaged with
well-merited success, and has various other connections, one being
with the Juanita Oil and Gas Company of Madill, of which he is
president, and which has a flowing well in what is known as the
Arbuckle field of Marshall County. Mr. Dillingham is a member of the
Christian Church and of the Masonic lodge. He was one of the early
members of the Blue Lodge at Oakland and has several times been
master of the lodge. His Consistory membership is at McAlester. In
politics a democrat, Mr. Dillingham has accepted two offices at the
hands of his party, those of city clerk and city treasurer of Madill.
Mr. Dillingham was
married in 1888 in Cooke County, Texas, to Miss Novia Blount, and
they have eight children, among whom are: Monte, who is engaged in
the gentlemen’s furnishing business at Ardmore, Oklahoma; Cecil, who
is employed in the First National Bank of Madill; and Mrs. Charles
Lynn, who is the wife of a stockman and farmer of Oakland.