Who Were the Men on the Wall During the Dawes Enrollment?

 From the Category of Wild Speculation

I was doing some research in newspaper files and throwing in names of people I am familiar with to see if there were any stories associated with them of any note. What got me started on this latest quest was something I came across when I inserted the name of my paternal great grandfather Hadley Ligon.

What popped out was a column that listed some names of my ancestors that involved some foreclosures and mortgage liens in 1935. This is another story that needs more research but suffice it to say as descendants of freedmen who received land in Indian Territory/Oklahoma there is an inordinate amount of people that lost their land to “foreclosure.”

And it is curious to see that in 1935 when the list of people included in the foreclosures were deceased it begs for more inquiry as to how these mortgages during the depression years were so prolific. But I digress.

I decided to search other names like the plaintiff in the foreclosures and why was he prominent in securing judgments against so many people and so much land? Another name I inquired about was Charles Cohee, I had done some research on him before but I was just making another attempt to see if I missed something and that’s when I found a little article about Cohee and several other freedmen who were appointed as a committee to help enroll Chickasaw and Choctaw freedmen for their land allotments.

As I was looking at the names it occurred to me that this list of men could be the names of the men in the photo that is familiar to most Chickasaw and Choctaw freedmen researchers and could that list contain the names of those three men we see along the wall in Tishomingo peering into the camera to preserve their image for us to identify  more than one hundred-twenty years later?

We have a photo of Charles Cohee and none of the men appear to resemble him. I suspect Cohee and the commission divided the committee up and when they needed them in Tishomingo the group of men may have been lesser known but have become “infamous” because they have been captured for posterity?

Photo Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society

The newspaper article listed six members of the “Colored Committee” with Charles Cohee as their chairman. The others who were paid for their service at a rate of three dollars per day were:

• Henry Gaines
• Mack Stevenson
• Solomon McGilbrey
• Peter Wolf
• Sam Jones

 As a process of elimination we can exclude Mack Stevenson as one of these men because he was listed as 77 years of age and none of the men appear to be that age. 

There was a Peter Wolf age 75 who enrolled and lived in Tishomingo but died in 1900 which should exclude him as one of the men on the wall?

I could not locate any information on Sam Jones or Solomon McGilbrey and Henry Gaines was enrolled but died in December of 1900 at the age about 59 years of age.

Charles Cohee was approximately 50 years old when he was enrolled and I suspect these men were at least his contemporaries and around the same age. So is it the two men that can’t be readily identified; Solomon McGilbry and Sam Jones along with Henry Gaines the men seated along the wall in the 1899 photograph?

The search continues…