Family Stories from the Trail of Tears (taken from the Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Grant Foreman, editor)

I was born in Niles, Michigan in 1849 and while I was still a boy we moved to Illinois and later to Iowa. I was living in Iowa when I heard that the government needed men to help move the Indians out of Kansas, so I sent in my application, and was accepted. I went to Lincoln County and went to work in 1869 when I was twenty-one years old.

I went to the new Sac and Fox Agency in the Indian Territory in March of 1870. The Sac and Foxes had been moved to their new reservation in the fall of 1869. Through a mistake, they had located too far east and were really in the Creek country. The Creeks protested and asked for a new survey, in the spring of 1870.

The Sac and Foxes moved further west and the agency was located in a big horse-shoe bend of the Deep Fork River about six miles south of the present town of Stroud.

Miller, who was the Indian agent and Dr. Cook, the government doctor for the Indians, and I lived in a long log house and kept "batch" that first year.

One time while we were eating, an Indian by the name of Chuck-a-ho (Shack-a-ho) came along. I had learned enough Sauk to talk a little with the Indian, and Miller told me to invite him to eat with us. While we were eating Miller asked Chuck-a-ho why he didn't wear pants? I did the interpreting. Chuck-a-ho asked Miller if he would give him some pants, and Miller said that he would. So Miller told me to go down to John Whistler's store and buy a pair of pants for Chuck-a-ho. The next time we saw him, he was wearing the pants, but he had cut the seat and the crotch out and was wearing then like leggins. When asked why he had done that, he said that they choked his seat.

That first year the Government provided the Sac and Foxes with rations which were issued every other day. They were given Salt Pork, Flour, Lard, green coffee, and tobacco. I remember being a dinner guest at an Indian camp one time, and as a special delicacy they melted a cup of Lard and gave it to me to drink.

There was a company of soldiers stationed at the Sac and Fox Agency, about one hundred, I believe. They were given rations every other day, but on the alternate days for the Indians.

When I first went to the Agency we hauled supplies from Kansas City. We had a great big wagon with six mules to the wagon. I remember one time we went after potatoes. The weather was cold. We took some hay with us but that didn't last so after that we cut down cottonwood trees and let the mules eat the tiny branches. However, we did have grain for them. We loaded up six wagons with potatoes and started toward home. When we were near Ottawa, Kansas, the weather turned extremely cold and all of the potatoes froze. We hauled them along and they began to rot. When we got to Honey Falls we dumped them the whole load.

Sometimes we would be six weeks making a trip. Later the Government made an arrangement to buy supplies by contract in Arkansas and they were delivered by the seller.

There was a great deal of sickness among the Sac and Foxes that first year. I believe there was about seven hundred died between the first payment and the second payment. Dr. Cook was the first doctor for the Sac and Foxes and was succeeded by Dr. Williams.

One of my duties at the agency was to drive the Ambulance. It was not the same as an ambulance these days. But was somewhat like an old stage coach or a hack. the drivers' seat was raised above the others. The seats for passengers were a long ways of the coach and faced each other. We usually hitched four mules to it.

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13. Guernsey, Charles