OKGenWeb Project

The Indian Pioneer Papers Collection

About | Interviews | Cemeteries | Microfiche Reference

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date:   April 19, 1938
Name:  Leander Smith Jones 
Post Office:  Cordell, Oklahoma
Residence Address:  502 North Grant Street
Date of Birth:  July 19, 1852
Place of Birth:  Indiana, Scott County
Father:  William Jones
Place of Birth:  Tennessee
Information on father:  Farmer
Mother:  Shabata Smith
Place of birth:  Tennessee
Information on mother:  
Field Worker:  Ida B. Lankford
Interview #10474

I came from Scottsburg, Scott County, Indiana, December 25, 1899. We came on the train; charted a car and brought everything we had. My son-in-law (Bill FISHER) had a farm here; he had come back to Indiana and married my daughter (Charlotte) and nothing would do but he would have us come too; so we moved onto his farm and I built a house, then, went to work in the spring of 1900.

I raised corn, cotton and wheat, and I made good crops of cotton but when my corn go in silks and tassels, the hot wind struck it and it burned up, so I didn't make a bit. I got 7 cents a pound for cotton. For our fuel, we cut wood off the banks of the creek that ran through our farm and we had plenty of wood. I made a few crops on my son-in-law's farm then, taking one horse, I moved to Cordell. I went to work plowing lots for the town people. I was plowing one day and Doctor BUNGARDT came to me and wanted me to go to work in his hospital where I had the job of firing the boilers. I worked there twenty-seven years through the winter and during the summer months I would stay with my daughter (Nora MCCOSKEY-LAMPKIN) at Sand Springs. My wife (Sichey Phelene Beach COMER) has been dead for twenty years and I have lived with my daughters and worked at anything.

Submitter's Commets: Leander was my great great grandfather, he died Jan 29, 1940 and I have pictures of him taken in 1934 when my dad was in Oklahoma visiting. I also have pictures of Charlotte and Bill Fisher. My great great grandmother, Sichey was the daughter of Isaac Comer and Martha Patsy RICHEY, pioneers of Scott Co. Indiana which is across the river from Louisville, Kentucky. Martha lost family members in the Pigeon Roost settlement in Scott Co. to an Shawnee massacre that was provoked by her mother's people the Collings. The Jones's in Tennesse are also pioneering families.

Shabata Smith, shows up as Charlotte on census.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Judith Jones < ceffyl@uswest.net > September 2000.