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Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: Nov. 1, 1937
Name: R. E. Braden
Post Office: Pauls Valley, OK
Residence Address:
Date of Birth: 1867
Place of Birth: Arkansas
Father:
Place of Birth:
Information on father:
Mother:
Place of birth:
Information on mother:
Field Worker: Maurice R. Anderson

I was born in 1867 in Arkansas. I came to Indian Territory with my father and mother. We came overland by wagon and ox team.

I was only six years old, but I remember the trip. We stopped at Boggy Depot for a short while on account of bad weather.

Boggy Depot was located on Boggy Creek in the Choctaw nation, and Captain HESTER owned the general merchandise store there. My father worked for Mr. Hester while we were there.

Captain Hester had come to this country with the early Mississippi Choctaws. He was a white man, but had been adopted by the Choctaw tribe. Around Boggy Depot lived some of the best educated people of the Choctaw tribe.

A Mr. THOMPSON was living at Boggy Depot. He was a white man and had come to this country with the Choctaw Indians. He was making salt for the Choctaw Indian people while we lived there.

Forbis LEFLORE, Dave FOLSOM, and their families were of the better class of Choctaw Indians living around Boggy. We lived there until the rainy season was over, about 1873, and then we moved to Smith Paul's Valley, located on the Washita River in the Chickasaw Nation.

My father began farming for Smith Paul. At that time, Smith Paul had about 2000 acres of land under cultivation and had cattle ranging from the south bank of the Washita River at Pauls Valley to the Arbuckle Mountains.

Frank MILLER and a Mr. GREEN were in the general merchandise business. Their store was about a mile south of where the present location of Pauls Valley is today.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Ruth Atterbury-Adams, April 2001.