Biography of Rev. Joseph Franklin Thompson

Rev. Joseph Franklin Thompson, librarian of the Carnegie Library at Tahlequah and superannuated minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, having been retired since 1906, was born May 21, 1841, near Maysville, Arkansas, in what was then the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory. His parents, both of whom are deceased, were James Allen and Martha (Lynch) Thompson, the former a native of South Carolina and the latter a native of Virginia and a member of an old Cherokee family there. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson were married in Georgia and came to Beattie’s Prairie in 1838, with a detachment of Cherokees under … Read more

Biography of J. Edgar Buffington

J. Edgar Buffington, a representative of an honored pioneer family of Oklahoma, figures prominently in financial circles of northeastern Oklahoma as President of the Vinita National Bank, in which connection he is controlling one of the most substantial moneyed institutions in this part of the state. He was born in that portion of Indian Territory known as the Cherokee Nation, on the 13th of March, 1881, of the union of Ezekiel and Anna (Scarcewater) Buffington and when but an infant lost both of his parents. His boyhood was spent as an inmate of the Cherokee Orphans’ Home at Salina, in … Read more

Biography of Joseph Tolover Hairston

One of the prominent citizens of Salina is Joseph Tolover Hairston, who was born on the 10th of March, 1862, at Saltillo, Mississippi. The Hairston family is of Scotch descent, its progenitor in this country having migrated from Scotland to Virginia at an early day. His sons, William, John and Peter, removed to South Carolina during the Revolutionary war, and William and John have many descendants in the southern states. The grandfather of Joseph Tolover was William Hairston, who died in his eightieth year. His son, Little Tolover Hairston, fought in the Civil war and was killed at Chickamauga at … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Mrs. J. B. Moore

(See Grant, Daniel, Adair and Gusoduesga)-Cherokee Cornelia, daughter of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Delilah (McNair) Adair, was born at Salina, January 11, 1881. Graduated from the Cherokee Female Seminary. She married Jan. 10, 1904 James Brutus, son of Alexander Moore, born Nov. 8, 1874. They are the parents of: William Adair, born Dec. 25, 1904; James, B. born March 15, 1907; Lawrence, born June 9, 1910; Mary Eleanor, born May 1, 1913 and Cherokee Adair Moore, born June 1, 1915. On account of a love affair, to which his father objected, Joseph the son of William Martin, a wealthy merchant … Read more

Governor Houston at His Trading Post on the Verdigris

Surrender of Santa Anna

In February, 1828, the vanguard of Creek immigrants arrived at the Creek Agency on the Verdigris, in charge of Colonel Brearley, and they and the following members of the McIntosh party were located on a section of land that the Government promised in the treaty of 1826 to purchase for them. By the treaty of May 6, 1828, the Government assigned the Cherokee a great tract of land, to which they at once began to remove from their homes in Arkansas. The movement had been under way for some months when there appeared among the Indians the remarkable figure of Samuel Houston. The biographers of Houston have told the world next to nothing of his sojourn of three or four years in the Indian country, an interesting period when he was changing the entire course of his life and preparing for the part he was to play in the drama of Texas.