Updates

As you can see, the site is back up. I have removed some information that had caused the problems which led me to take the site down for the time being.

I had played around with different ways of bringing information to you, with a minimal amount of hassle, but none of them were efficient enough. Most required you to have a special log-in username and password, but from previous experience with that type of system, those are usually lost or forgotten, especially if you don't visit all that often.

So, from here on out, all information on here will be concerning people from several generations ago.

Anyway.........

Welcome back to the site, and I hope you like what you see.

Some Old Family Photos

The time has come to share some old family photos again. These 5 photos can be found on the internet and all of them are descendants of James Logan Colbert.

As always, all images are copyrighted by their respective owners. If I have the wrong owner of the photo's mentioned, please let me know, so I can correct the error

The first photo is of my wife's 4th Great Grandfather Cyrus Harris. Cyrus was the first Governor of the Chickasaw Nation. He was born on August 22, 1817 in Pontotoc, Mississippi. It is currently unknown who his father was, as it appears that the father abandoned his family when Cyrus was a baby. However, Cyrus' mother was part Chickasaw (through her mother, Molly Colbert) and part Cherokee (through her father Christopher Phillip Oxberry). The image is copyright by Oklahoma State University.




The next photo is of a gentleman by the name of Harry Harvel White. Harry was a grandson of the above mentioned Cyrus Harris. He lived between the years of 1875-1958. In the photo, you can clearly see the Native American features in his face. This image is copyrighted by D.B. Mathes from this website.




This next photo is a bit older. It appears to have been an artists drawing of Rhoda Gunn (1818-1876) and her husband, Joseph Brevard Potts (1820-1862). I am not sure who owns the Copyright on this. But, it might be Oklahoma State.




And this last photo is from about 1896. It is a picture of the Staff of Bloomfield Academy in Indian Territory. Of note is the gentleman in the back row center. His name is Douglas Henry Johnston. Douglas, in addition to being the Superintendant of the Bloomfield Academy, was also a 3 term Governor of the Chickasaw Nation. His wife, Nellie Bynum (not pictured) was a Great Great Grand Daughter of James Logan Colbert. Douglas Henry Johnston was born on October 16, 1856 within the Choctaw Nation, while his wife Nellie was born on October 20, 1859 within the Choctaw Nation. The photo is copyrighted by Oklahoma State University.

Loren Thomas (Buck) Harris

One of my wife's Great Great Uncles was named Loren Thomas Harris. Loren Thomas (who went by the nickname of "Buck") was brother to my wife's Great Grandfather, Hindman Harris Sr.

The other day, when doing research on Buck, I ran across an article in a newspaper called "The Daily Ardmoreite", from Ardmore, Oklahoma. The following was written in celebration of Buck's impending 100th birthday on July 31, 2001. The photo is also from that article. The original article was published by The Daily Ardmoreite on June 24, 2001

Buck was born on July 31, 1901 in Tishomingo, Indian Territory (Oklahoma did not officially become a State until November, of 1907) and passed away on October 23, 2002 at age 101.





"Soon-to-be centenarian Buck Harris qualifies as more than a senior resident approaching 100 years old. He's a page of Chickasaw history.

Officially named Loren Thomas, Buck has the distinction of being one of 52 original Chickasaw enrollees with the Dawes Commission still living. He's also a great-grandson of Cyrus Harris who was elected in 1856 as the first governor of the Chickasaw tribe. Cyrus served as tribal governor five terms during a pre-statehood era when the headquarters was located in Tishomingo.

Tribal history, though, was secondary Saturday at Elmbrook Nursing Home when relatives, Chickasaw leaders and several friends gathered to recognize Harris who will turn 100 on July 31. In addition to the family gathering and fellowship, the reception centered on the presentation of a silver medal by Kennedy Brown, special assistant to Gov. Bill Anoatubby. The medal was struck as a tribute to original enrollees and has 2654, Harris' enrollment number, engraved on the back side. He was enrolled on May 21, 1906, in Tishomingo, Indian Territory.

Sharing the ceremony were granddaughters LaVanda Rhynes, Pat Fowler and Deborah Kraus of Moore and Nela Hickey of Oklahoma City. Third- and fourth-generation family members from the six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren also attended. Beverly Tallbird from the tribal headquarters emceed the brief program.

Harris' life in and around Tishomingo was the primary focal point as he shared a busy day with family and friends. Interviewed about approaching his centennial birthday, Harris was slightly impish in a fun-loving way.

Recalling life in and around Tishomingo, he "didn't do much" as a young man, other than "farmed a little." One has to learn from other sources that he owned upwards of 800 original allotment acres at one time.

He married Mae Hatton and raised a step-son, Neal Everett. Both are deceased.

While he lived near Milburn, less than a mile from his Johnston County birthplace, Harris had a variety of jobs, primarily as a truck driver. He talks about working the oilfields in Oklahoma and Kansas. In work, as well as retirement, his primary goal was "to keep busy."

"Raising gardens" became his primary interest during retirement, according to Fowler. Harris and his gardening were featured in a 1991 newspaper article talking about a 91-year-old resident who worked almost daily with a rototiller and used a tire mounted with a bicycle "to prepare the ground for the garden, which surrounds his house and runs into the nearby woods."
He was innovative -- designing a homemade irrigation system. He pulled water by hand from a well and poured it into a large barrel to feed a hose flowing to terraces. Variety was another garden feature -- sweet corn, peas, beans, onions, tomatoes and cabbage, plus other fruits and vegetables.

"I ain't satisfied just sittin' in a rockin' chair," he said. "People do that, and pretty soon they can't get up."

Life may continue at a more casual pace for Harris today, but be alert for his subtle wit."

James Harris Guy

In my recent searching, I ran across a gentleman by the name of James Harris Guy. Now, Jim Guy, as he was known, was a descendant of James Logan Colbert.

James Guy was a Deputy U.S. Marshall in what was known as the Indian Territory of Oklahoma back in the late 1800's. It was in his line of duty, that he was brutally gunned down by members of "The Lee Gang" on May 1, 1885.

Now, James Guy was also an accomplished poet within the Chickasaw Nation. In fact, he was considered the leading poet of the Chickasaw Nation. You can find some of his writings in a few books that can still be bought through Amazon.

The purpose of this post is to share with all of you, one of his poems concerning an old Fort in Indian Territory called Fort Arbuckle.

Here is the poem. It is believe to have been written just previous to James Guy's death in 1885.

Ft. Arbuckle: by James Harris Guy

The day has been long and dreary;
I halt with the sitting sun
To gaze on the open world
And the work the years have done;
And a vision rises before me,
Of the past as it hath been,
And all the rolling hills have heard,
And the bright-eyed stars have seen.

Full many a thrilling story
Could the echoing rocks repeat,
And methinks I hear in the forest
The tramp of hurrying feet.
The yells of the great Comanche
Ring once more in my ear
And files of the ghostly warrior
Appear and disappear.

I see the dusky phantoms
Rise from their graves to-day,
With the war paint still upon them
As they started for the frey;
They scorned the white man’s promise
And refused to be his slaves,
But their ranks were few and feeble,
And the sun sets on their graves.

Once more from the hills above me
The painted warriors ride,
And fall upon Ft. Arbuckle
Like rocks from the mountain side;
But now the bow and the quiver
Give place to the plodding plow,
A bible, a hut, a handful of corn
And a Christian’s broken vow.

Oh, Mystical Ft. Arbuckle
The sun is falling aslant,
And a friend stands out in his doorway;
God speed thee Thomas Grant;
For thou hast ever a seat at thy board
And thy heart a place,
For him who would sing the wide world o’er
The songs of a ruined race.

The Colbert Family

While I was on my forced vacation (due to a fractured foot), I started working more on the family tree. I had decided that if I was ever going to get this thing done to my satisfaction, I had to quit bouncing between one family and the next, and just focus on one family until it reached completion. Then, I could move on to the next.

The family tree has several families in it that are quite large. They include the Incardonas, The Van Keurens, The Freers, The Deyos and the Colberts.

So, I started in earnest in piecing the Colbert Family together from all my notes and contacts with various descendants of that family, that I have been in contact with. A big thanks goes out to Kerry Armstrong, who provided the foundation for my work with his own thorough research.

In the last 3 months, I have been able to put together the descendants from 4 of James Logan Colbert's children. While I do still have a ways to go, it is a huge step in gathering the right information from the best sources possible in order to paint an accurate picture of this important family within the Chickasaw Nation.

Once, I have all the names and dates in my software program, I will go back through it again, to fill in the missing information, such as personal biographies along with pictures of many of the people involved.

When completed, I don't want this family tree to be viewed as being anything like all the others out there. While a few researchers stand out from the crowd (such as Kerry Armstrong), most are only interested in downloading someone else's research (without making sure the info is correct in the first place) and importing it into their own family tree. To me, it seems as though most people on the genealogy sites are more interested in collecting names, rather than providing correct information. This can be easily seen on various sites, when someone has a family tree that contains 500,000 names. I know very well, that there is no possible way for all of that information to be correct, as it does take quite a while ( if researched by yourself) to input the information into your family tree.

As it stands right now, after starting the tree in 2000, I have about 10,000 people in there. In 8 years, that is as far as I have progressed. Can you imagine how long it would take to put in 500,000 names and dates, if done correctly? That is impossible without taking someone else's research and importing into your own tree, sight unseen.

When I started the research back in 2000, I was fortunate enough to run across people who took the research seriously. People who were more interested in gathering the best information possible, rather than just names. Those people have helped me along this path, and I am forever in their debt for all they have taught me about how and where to find the records I am looking for. So, a big thanks goes out to Cousin Lee Eckert (for help with the Eckert line), Cousin Paul Incardona (for the advice, and the nudge in the right direction in finding old Sicilian records on the Incardona family), Cousin D.G. Van Curen (for his research and book on the Van Keuren Family) and once again, Kerry Armstrong, for all his work on the Chickasaw Colbert's.

So for now, all the updates you will see on here, will be about various descendants of the Chickasaw Colbert's

R.I.P. Lee Eckert (1927-2008)

Eight years ago, when I first started working on my families genealogy, I had posted what little information I had, on a genealogy website, in the hopes that someone would see it, and contact me, thereby making a connection with other family that I never knew of. That information just sat on the site for about a year, until I got an e-mail from a gentleman by the name of Lee Eckert.

My dad's mother was part of the Eckert clan, which originally immigrated from Germany in the late 1600's, and evetually settled in Ulster County, New York. As it turned out, Lee was my grandmothers first cousin.

Over the years since I first met Lee, we had bounced ideas on that family back and forth between each other, in our mutual pursuit of learning about them. Lee, was what would be desribed as "old school" when it came to his research, meaning that everything he did, was done with a pencil and paper. For the life of me, I could never fathom working on the genealogy in that way, as the Eckert family is much too large to keep track of, with anything other than a computer program. Once Lee had realized how big the family was (through another distant cousin that we found), he had asked me about the software, and which one was the best, so that he could keep better track of things, and not have to worry about losing a sheet of paper with inportant information on it.

Lee was a really sweet man, who was there for me through the death of my mother, as well as the birth of my daughter. Over the years, we had traded photos of our families, and he watched my daughter grow up through them, and at times, was even the recipient of some of my daughters art work on Christmas cards. Yet, sadly, Lee was quiet about his own health. He never once mentioned that he had been diagnosed with cancer about 5 years ago. He had gone through treatment for it at the time, and it appeared (from what his daughter Kim has since told me) to have gone away.

This past October, Lee's cancer came back; metastizied melanoma was the term the doctors used. Lee had been in the hospital since Christmas Eve day, after the combination of chemo and medications made him very ill. He had started the road to recovery from that, and was doing better, when he decided that he did not want to go through more treatments, as they did not hold much hope that it would do any good, since the cancer was completely taking over his body.

I knew nothing of this until I got an e-mail from Lee's daughter Kim a few weeks ago, explaining the situation. I have since talked to both of Lee's daughters trying to find a good time when I could go out and visit him in the hospital he was in, in the Bay Area. I also got a chance to speak with Lee last weekend very briefly, as he was worn out, but as always, it was nice to talk to him all the same. I had told him that we would like to come out this weekend after my cast came off, and as always, he took the spotlight off of him, and was more concerned about my broken foot, rather than his declining health. But, that was Lee; always concerned about those around him, and always willing to lend a helping hand (or ear) when needed.

Sadly, I will not have that chance. Lee passed away in his sleep, around 4 a.m. this morning. My heart goes out to his daughters Kim and Julie, as well as their own families at this difficult time. I know all to well what they are going though, and my thoughts and prayers are with them at this time. Lee was a great research partner with me, as well as a very beautiful, kind-hearted individual, who will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him.



In Memory of: Leland Etienne Eckert ( December 18, 1927-January 24, 2008)