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1960.6838.01 |
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History of Delaware Told Society 4-2-1967 The Washington County Historical Society held its annual business meeting Wednesday night at Civic Center and devoted the program period of the session to a history of the Delaware Indians. Thirty-five persons of Delaware descent, some members of the society and some visitors, were present. The Delaware program was offered in observance of the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Cherokee-Delaware treaty on April 8, 1867. Dr. George R. Kennedy, Darall G. Hawk and C. E. Cummings were reelected directors for a term of three years. Their names were presented by George P. Bunn, chairman of the nominating committee. During a short session of the board following the program Dr. Kennedy was re-elected president of the society, Hawk, vice president; Martha Hepp, secretary, and J. J. Donaldson, treasurer. Miss Mary Townsend, who served as moderator for a panel discussion on "The Great Heritage of the Delawares, was introduced by Nathan Graham, program chairman of the historical society. The panel was composed of the five members of the official Delaware Business committee which includes H. L. McCracken, chairman, Bruce Townsend, Tulsa, vice chairman, Mary Townsend, secretary, Henry Secondine and John Young. In his presentation Graham said that Miss Townsend was born at Delaware, Okla., in 1920, her parents, being Mr. and Mrs. Jess Townsend. Her father, now deceased was Cherokee and English and a well-known farmer and stockman of Nowata County. Her mother is of Delaware and Shawnee descent and was born near Fish Creek in this county. Miss Townsend was graduated from the high school at Delaware and later attended business college in Tulsa. She has since been employed by the Phillips Petroleum Co., and is presently secretary to two senior scientists. She is active in the Indian Women s Club, the Jane Phillips Sorority and choral group of the organization and has served for a number of years on the Delaware Committee. The invocation in Delaware and English was given by Rev. Edward T. Miller of Tulsa, uncle of Miss Townsend. With Rev. Miller was his sister, Mrs. Charles Lookout also of Tulsa. As the first speaker Miss Townsend presented her brother, Bruce, Tulsa attorney, who was graduated from Bartlesville College High School in 1947 and from Northeastern state in 1951. After 25 months in the USAF he studied law at the University of Oklahoma where he received his LL.B. degree and was admitted to the bar in 1956. In addition to membership in the Tulsa County Bar Association and several other organizations, Miss Townsend noted that he is chairman of the board at the Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa and teacher of the young adult class. History of the Delawares, Bruce Townsend, told his audience, is traceable to the mid-eighteenth century when they were located in New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania and southern New York. Between 1742 and 1751 they migrated to western Pennsylvania. Between 1751 and 1818 they were settled principally in Ohio and Indiana and by the next decade the members of the tribe were settled in Missouri, from where they moved to Kansas about 1831. It was from there that they moved to this area and became citizens of Indian Territory and Oklahoma. Special attention was devoted to an era in the history of the Delawares that was indirectly effected by several European countries represented by the Moravians who converted many of the Delawares to Christianity and the lives of the two peoples were intermingled through a number of years. He gave a glimpse of the life of a noted war chief, named Glikkikan, who was later converted to Christianity and suffered the death of a martyr at the hands of the American militia. He stressed that the Delawares had always been a peaceful people and at each of their several settlements raised crops, farm animals, provided for themselves and shared with others. He spoke particularly of their village of Schoenbrunn in Ohio which was laid out in large lots. It had a meeting house or church which seated 300 people, and a school in which there were 100 pupils in 1775. Trickery was not unknown among the frontiersman and he gave a historical picture of misunderstandings and suspicious which resulted in the massacre of 90 innocentnt Christian Delawares by mounted militia. Victims included 29 men, 27 women, 34 children and six missionary assistant. Indians formerly friendly to the Arneri-cans turned to the weapons of war. A 30-foot monument, a miniature likeness of the Washington monument stands on the site of the massacre. Second speaker was Henry A. Secondine who was born in Nowata I.T. in 1905. He reviewed Delaware history as learned from his family, telling of the westward migration from eastern Pennsylvania and emphasized that the Delawares in even the early days were friendly to the white man. He told of Chief Charles Journeycake, who was chief and spiritual leader as well when the Delawares moved from the Kaw reservation in Kansas into Indian Territory. At that time they purchased their land from the Cherokees and became Cherokee citizens with equal rights. He commented that Chief Journeycake was the father of Mrs. Jacob Bartles and Mrs. Mary Armstrong. He told of Arthur Armstrong, a prosperous Delaware who built the home on North Seneca which still stands, and of the hunting trips to Texas. He spoke especially of his own great-grandfather, Rock-atah-wah, or Second Eye, who was a Delaware war chief and made scouting trips as far away as Wyoming, Oregon, California and Mexico. In conclusion he read a quotation by Chief Journeycake which is engraved on a stone in the chapel at Bacone college. In it he tells of the six times his people were driven mercilessly from homes they had established by hard labor but ends by saying ''We try to forget these things, but we would not forget that the white man brought us the blessed gospel of Christ, the Christian's hope. This more than pays for all we have suffered. Charles Journeycake, Chief of the Delawares, April 1886. Nathan H. Young, the next speaker, a member of the Delaware Business Committee since 1958 is serving ap-proximately fifty years after his grandfather, John Young served on the same committee. He is a native of Washington County and is associated with the Phillips Petroleum Co., in the engineering department. He spoke on the life and times of his grandfather, John Young, who was born Kos-kike-hic-cum-cere in Leavenworth, Kan., in 1845. A disciple of Chief Journeycake. He had selected his 160 acres in the forks of the Big and Little Caney Rivers southwest of Copan and Young's lake is named in his honor. John Young had traveled extensively, his grandson said, having been in Washington, D. C., New York, Mexico and California, largely in the interests of his tribesmen. He was among the representatives of the Delawares in the negotiations with the Cherokee in 1867. He had met presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft on visits to Washington. He was a familiar figure over this area driving a black horse to a black buggy. He died here in 1924. Miss Townsend told of her Delaware grandfather, Stephen A. Miller, who was a farmer and oilman of Nowata County and after the death of Journeycake served as acting chief for a time. He was born in Wyandotte County, Kan., in 1863. His father, Andrew, born in Ohio was one of the first Delawares to come to Indian Territory settling at Coodys Bluff just east of Nowata. He was quite successful in raising cattle. Stephen attended Bacone University and later married Miss Catherine Armstrong, daughter of William and Marie Simon Armstrong. They located on a farm in the Fish Creek area but later with their three children, one of whom was Mrs. Ida Townsend, moved to what is now Delaware in Nowata County. It was then just a railroad switch known as Ka-ma-mah switch. Miss Townsend said that her grandfather once made a trip to Washington in the interest of the Delawares and recorded Delaware songs while there. She remembers he enjoyed singing and had a morning song which he called his "Daylight Song" after which he would pray, thanking God for bringing him to another dawn. He had acquired seven languages including the Indian sign language during his active years. Last speaker was the committee chairman, H. L. McCracken who limited his remarks largely to progress of Delaware claims in which he has maintained active interest. At the time of his retirement from Phillips Petroleum Co. McCracken was manager of the tax section of the Comptrollers Department. He attended the University of Oklahoma is a member of Beta Theta Pi, the Bartlesville Masonic lodge, Tulsa consistory and shrine. Two Delaware claims have been settled, McCracken said and the judgment is favorable. The money for one claim has been appropriated and he said it was hoped that it would be paid before long. There are approximately 4,000 Delawares of some degrees on the rolls he said. By request Rev. Ed Miller sang a hymn in the Delaware language to close the program. There were 102 persons present at the meeting. W.W.Keeler Is Indian-Oil Chief In Oklahoma William Wayne Keeler is the chief, whether he's squatting beside an Indian tribal camp fire or presiding over the operations of one of the nation's giant oil companies. Since 1949, W. W. (Bill) Keeler has been principal chief of the Cherokee Indian Nation. As chairman of Phillips Petroleum Co.'s executive committee he is first in line to succeed president Stanley Learned who retires in November. "Some easterners don't know much about this part of the country," Keeler said. 'When I meet them they often say, 'You mean you live in Oklahoma. Aren't you afraid of those Indians?' "When I say I'm one of them they seem almost aghast. Keeler said. "I run into that all the time." Keeler, whose white grandfathers married Indian women, guesses he is about one quarter Indian with both Cherokee and Chickasaw ancestry. He was first appointed Cherokee chief by President Truman. He submitted his resignation in 1957 but it was not accepted. Later this year, he said, Cherokee tribal rolls, expected to include some 85,000 persons in all parts of the world, will be officially completed and it will be possible to hold an election for a new chief. "I have given it an awful lot of time, but not as much as I should and that's why I feel we need a full-time chief," he said. Despite his worldwide travels on behalf of Phillips, Keeler, 58, has worked hard for his tribe and the American Indian in general. He has been twice honored with the Ail-American Indian Award and has been appointed by the federal government to numerous committees studying the Indians' problems. "The only people who can cure their problems are the Indians themselves,'' Keeler said. "But they are going to have to have the government's help. For too long the government made decisions for the Indians but never consulted them. I think this is beginning to change." A member of the Cherokee s Oong Hair Clan, Keeler translates his Indian name to mean, "The worker, the man who doesn't sit down." It is a name that could also have been bestowed on him by the petroleum industry. He is director of the National Association of Manufacturers and in 1965 was appointed by President Johnson as a member of the National Advisory Committee on the War on Poverty. W. W. KEELER |
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