The story of a singing river was told by an old man by
the name of Holly Thomas who use to live three or four miles southeast
of Eufaula, but he has been dead for some years. His father and
mother had come over to the new country from the eastern home during
the removal and so the story had been told to Holly of the sorrows at
the time of the removal and what the conditions were at that time. He
was a small child during that time but he was told all stories about
the times when he had become a young man. Those old folks never could
cease from talking about and telling of the hardships they experienced
along their trip often known as the Trail of Tears.
This story of the singing river was told to Holly by
his father. It is not exactly known whether the incident connected
with this story happened in the Mississippi River or the Tennessee
River but it was the Creek Indians that it was told about. This was
told as it actually happened but it was a very strange incident. As
some of the Indians had been brought to the river to be put aboard the
ships that were to carry them part of the way by a water route, some
began to form ideas that they did not fully want to leave their old
homes and further, some resolved never to set foot on the ships so
that they couldn’t be forced to suffer any more hardships.
They thought it would be best to end all relations with
their superior officers so that they began to fight them. In the
attempts to check the rebellion the officers had to use weapons and
some of the Indians were killed as they tried to run off into the
woods. Seeing the rebellious attitude of the Indians the white
officers grabbed any Indian and pushed or forced them into the ships.
The officers readily killed any Indian on board the ships that seemed
to be in a rebellious attitude, but there were some Indians who did
not take part in the uprising but they were the eye witnesses to those
Indians who were killed on board the ships and thrown overboard into
the waters of the river. Some of them that were left unharmed said,
“Even we will die here but not by guns.” With this, they took hold of
one another’s hands and stepped off into a large suck hole that was in
the river and went to their deaths singing a song. It is told that
many years later, the words of the song which had been sung by those
Indians could be heard at certain times so that many people from
foreign countries and people from different places in this country
have made trips to this vicinity in attempts to record the tune and
words of the song, but no one has ever been successful.
