Family Stories from the Trail of Tears
edited by Lorrie Montiero

Waterkiller, Ellis

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INTERVIEW WITH MR. ELLIS WATERKILLER

            Mr. Waterkiller was born in the Cookson Hills of Eastern Oklahoma, near White Oak School, in Cherokee County, Oklahoma and now lives six miles east of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, near the present Perkins School in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, on highway #62.

            He is a full blood Cherokee Indian and 73 years old.

            All of his known relatives were buried in the Cookson Hills of eastern Oklahoma, near the White Oak School.  No markers mark their graves.

FATHER - Waterkiller - Born North Carolina (year unknown) Died 1870.

MOTHER - Nancy Parsons Waterkiller, born Cookson Hills 1873 and died 1890.

GRANDFATHER - (First name unknown) last name, Parsons.  Born North Carolina, (date unknown)  Died 1840.

GRANDMOTHER -  Sallie Parsons, born North Carolina (date unknown)  Died 1885.

 MIGRATION

            Don’t know much about Father’s people.  Grandma (Parsons) tell me lot, like I tell you.

            Grandpa and Grandma leave North Carolina, in old country, come Georgia, that old country too, stay there year.  . . . 1837, soldiers drive um West. . . .  Grandpa and Grandma no want come.  Soldiers say go or kill you.  Stick bayonet in you.  They get things one night, skillet, pot, dishes, clothes, bedclothes too.  . . . got dish grandma bring.  I eat beans out em, I boy.  It was an old piece of pottery, highly polished.  Bowl was fashioned with handles, handles broken off, but designs on it were beautiful.  See bowl, is over hundred years old.  Next day soldiers drive um out.  Easy first day.  Make soldiers feel good.  Every day worse.  Just drive um like cattle.  Grandma say she walk, grandpa walk too or soldiers run bayonets through um.  They walk, wade creeks to chin, lots mud some places.  Cross rivers in canoes.  Soldiers save canoes, sometimes hollow logs, made um boats, go cross river.  Yuh, soldiers have wagons.  Feed um two times some days, sometimes feed um one time.  Soldiers eat all time, take care horses better than my grandma-grandpa.  Yuh-they bring skillet some things grandma had.  Yuh - lots die, lots sick, lots die, two week walk, they die, bury em where they die, any place.  Yuh - clothes bad, tore em, dirty too, clothes all gone when get here.  Throw lot way on road, no good.

            They get here, lots timber, land no good in hills, all right in valley Yuh - Grandma hate white man.  Give all land, good land, in old country meaning North Carolina and Georgia.  . . . white man say “Trail Tears”, she say: “Trail Death”.  . . . grandpa die next year, mother born.  (meaning his grandmother died one year after the birth of his mother.)

LIFE AND CUSTOMS AFTER MIGRATION

            Grandma say, her and grandpa come in hills.  Soldiers say live, work, die.

            Soldiers give em, ax, saw, big eye hoe, flint makin firs, corn, cotton, beans, mellon seed.  Some soldiers give em nothin.  (He had in his mind that some of the emigrants received nothing after their arrival, but was promised they would get theirs later).  My folks lucky.  Others never get nothin. .......

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