Victor M. Locke, Jr
3rd Interview

Locke, Victor M. Jr.
Third Interview
Biography form
Works Progress Administration
Indian –Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma

Field Worker’s name: Hazel B. Greene

This report made on (date): March 15, 1938

1. Name: Victor M. Locke, Junior
2. Post Office Address: Antlers, Oklahoma
3. Residence:
4. Date of Birth: Month-March-Day-23-Year-1878
5. Place of Birth: Doaksville, Indian Territory; Choctaw Nation.
6. Name of Father: Victor M. Locke – Place of Birth: Meigs County, TN, at Ten Mile Stand.
7. Name of Mother: Susan Priscilla McKinney-Place of Birth: Skulleyville, Indian Territory.

Interview with Victor M. Locke Jr.
Antlers, Oklahoma.
Recollections of Mr. Locke about Doaksville and the Wilson, or Towson County War.

     My father’s father was a full blood Englishman. He came from England, and owned a general store, dry goods and groceries, at Ten Mile Stand. In fact his was THE  store there. After the Civil War my father got into some sort of trouble with the Reconstructionists. I don’t know just what it was but he fled to the Indian Territory and married my mother who was 5/8 or ¾ Choctaw Indian.
     I was born at Doaksville, and was between five and six years old when we moved to a place east of Antlers where we lived for a number of years before moving to Antlers. We had been there just a little while when Porter Garland, a Choctaw, came up there and told my father that the full blood Indians were making war upon the Wilson family. That was in the early Spring of 1887.
      It was on a Monday that the Indians attacked the Wilsons. By Tuesday morning my father was there with reinforcements. The Wilsons had  fled to the home of Blake Hocks, south of Red River. So my father and his friends carried on operations from there and killed off all that they needed to in order for the Wilson family to return safely home, which they did after a few months.
     I dictated to my stenographer a full account of the Towson county War, and gave it to attorney. Grady Lewis who maintains an office in the Ramsey Tower, Oklahoma City, and so far as I know it has never been published and believe that he would permit it to be copied since he knows that I am willing for it to be. I told all about the part that the women folks took in it. Some of them were real heroines. Selina Kelly was one of them. She was the wife of Dick Kelly, John Wilson’s handy man. Another one was Winnie Sugar, wife of a full blood Indian, Henry LeFlore. The women folks did the spying around for the men and carried the messages. They’d ride from Hocks’ Ferry to Antlers horseback and alone, and at night if necessary. They were brave. Father had a big store at Antlers and of course the women folds had to carry it on in his absence, while he was “Gone to War.” 
     A fellow by the name of Hoppins owned the biggest store in Doaksville when we lived there. I’ll never forget that old stone jail. We kids would try to play in there and could not for so many fleas. I t was never used and I imagine that hogs slept in it.
     Election days were gala affairs at Doaksville. I remember once they had a big barbecue there on election day and had old “Big Lizzie” cooking biscuits in a skillet with a lid and piling them on a table. They looked so good I wanted one of them but cannot recall why I didn’t get one. Big Lizzie was a negress, Lizzie Williams, mother of Silvina and Jennie Thompson. Silvina or Sylvia as we called her, was Richmond Thompson’s wife, and Jennie was nobody’s wife, yet she had twelve children. She was noticeable for an immense goiter on her neck. Every child feared “Aunt Jennie” because of that. When folks tell you that times were “squally” around there they make no mistake.
     The Timm’s looked like white men and acted like full blood Choctaws and talked Choctaw almost altogether. Old Judge E. W. Timms could speak English very well, and always had a store and the post office at Doaksville as far back as I can remember. He always kept a lot of money on hand. He was a sort of a banker for the folks there. The buildings marked 13-14 and 15 on the map of Doaksville, as drawn by Peter Hudson, were the old store buildings occupied by Edward W. Timms. His log home was across the road and north, No. 12. Well, this old store building was a big long one with two big rooms facing the north and two above them upstairs, then two great big ones extending back south of only one story. A shed run alongside the east part of the building and there was a cobblestone sidewalk under that shed for fifty or more feet. Well, the post office and store were in that old building and a lot of it was used for a sort of a warehouse. They freighted goods a long way and kept lots of them stored there, because sometimes they could not get across the rivers for days and weeks at the time.
     One night the store was broken into and robbed. At first, before they checked up they thought some goods had been stolen but they had not. Only the money was taken, several thousand dollars in gold, which old Judge Timms had hoarded up, as I said, to do his little banking business with. An eighteen year old Indian boy was prowling around that night and saw the robbers and recognized them. They found out that this boy knew who had committed the robbery and a few days later that boy was “piddling around” in a boat at the Scott and Stanley Ferry, on Kiamich River, and he was shot and killed. Shot from the bank of the river. It was never investigated. Then one of the men who was supposed to have taken part in the robbery killed the other one. That was the way things went those days.
     Three young men met in the streets of Doaksville one evening. They were really sworn enemies, but each one, being afraid that the other would “get the drop on him” pretended friendship and repaired to the home of a beautiful woman with whom all three were infatuated. She was about one-eight Negro, the balance Choctaw. They were all talking and watching each other like tigers when she told on of them that he should feed his horse, as he had ridden a long way that day. He went out to feed his horse. Pretty soon the only one of the three who was part Negro, went out also, leaving the other Indian boy with the woman. Then a shot was heard. The Negro returned to the house. That was early in the evening. About ten o’clock the two young men left the house together and then pretended that they discover the body of the other man. They pretended that they thought that he had ridden away instead of going out to feed his horse. Nothing was done about it. His folks just came and buried him. He was a Willis.
     Two brothers, Cub and Sam Stanley, shot each other to death in a quarrel over an illegitimate half-brother of theirs, over whom they had quarreled all of his life. They were part Negro, on the old Carney Mishaya place on Kiamichi River. They were at the table eating when they decided to “settle” the quarrel once and for always, so they fought a duel and killed each other. The one they fought over was Haika Stanley. I wonder that so many killings did not depopulate the country. It was clearly a time of the “survival of the fittest” or perhaps it would be best to say it was the survival of the one who could draw a gun the quickest.
     There was a beautiful Indian-negro woman named Chuppie LeFlore. She was killed by a jealous lover. His name was Crocket Wright, then he in turn was cut all to pieces and killed by somebody else. I’m glad times are different and better.
     We lived at Doaksville about where number 18 is on that map. When my father first came to the Indian Territory he settled up about Lukfata. Then he married my mother and moved to Doaksville. Father and Mother are both buried in the Locke Cemetery in Antlers.
     The Locke Cemetery is in Antlers almost in Clark Wassom’s backyard, and in the backyard of his neighbors. There are 24 graves in this little cemetery; twelve of them marked and twelve unmarked, except by post or small rocks. There are twelve tombstones with epitaphs, the oldest one there made in 1894.

 J. NELSON LOCKE
Affectionately know as “Babe”
Born November 3, 1884
Died January 3, 1913

The next marker says simply,
Nancy Hendrix

JAMES S. LOCKE
Born November 4, 1896
Died January 28, 1898

HUGH
Son of V. M. and S. P. LOCKE
August 21, 1894
Aged 2 years-5 months.

DUDE LOCKE
July 23, 1896
February 23, 1898

Susan P. Locke
Born Nov. 8, 1854
Died May 7, 1898

ELISHA S. LOCKE
Born July 14, 1855
Died July 29, 1913

MARY LOCKE
Born Jan. 16, 1897
Died Nov. 23, 1905

MRS. JANE LOCKE
Jan. 4, 1829
Age 70 years.

 J.T.
Beloved husband of Jennie Sprewell
Born February 29, 1847
Died July 27, 1905