Posted on 05/24/2022 9:36:09 AM PDT by COBOL2Java
“Zeke” had walked the Trail of Tears from Georgia to the Indian Territory when he was a seven-year-old boy in 1838. He clung to the Cherokee language, culture and customs. He dealt with White folks, but he didn’t have much use for them.
In 1872, the prosperous farmer and local lawman had a beef with one specific White man: his former brother-in-law, Jim Kesterson. Stories circulated of bad blood between them, a situation made worse when Kesterson abandoned Proctor’s sister and kids for another woman.
Proctor confronted Kesterson at the Hildebrand Mill, just west of Siloam Springs, Arkansas. He pulled a gun and opened up, but Kesterson’s new woman, Polly Beck, got in the way and was killed.
The shooting would bring Proctor into another confrontation: with the U.S. Marshals Service.
Between then and 1872, 11 other officers would die in the line of duty.
But the Indian Territory was bad ground for the U.S. marshals. Officially, between 1872 and Oklahoma statehood in 1907, a shocking 93 officers were killed there. Shocking because, to date, the U.S. Marshals Service has lost a total of 287 officers nationwide, meaning that nearly one-third of those killed lost their lives in the Indian Territory. The statistic is unmatched by any other place or any other period for line-of-duty deaths in American history.
(Excerpt) Read more at truewestmagazine.com ...
Indian Territory was pretty lawless back in the day. It’s one of the reasons bad guys would beat feet for “The Territories” to escape justice.
Zeke Proctor’s
Showdown.
Finger on the trigger is wrong.
“Finger on the trigger is wrong.”
But he didn’t kill the film director!
WOW! Just a few miles from here where I live!
Ten years in the old west produced as many victims as one year in Chicago today.
I had cousins who married Cherokee women when they were still in Georgia, and went with them to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. I find some of their descendants later in census records--some of them spoke only Cherokee. More recently I got in touch with one of their descendants who showed up as one of my DNA matches. She failed to avail herself of the opportunity to become a member of the Harvard Law School faculty.
Interesting! Thanks for posting.
It worked for Matt Dillon. Lol
Indian territory is where Rooster Cogburn chased Ned Beatty in the tale (and movie) True Grit as a US Marshall.
Not when you are actually shooting!🙂
Union Government just can’t learn to leave people alone...from Indian Territory to Randy Weaver.
Cherokee County has always been pretty woolly.
My Mother and Father are both from Tahlequah.
My Grandfather told me about the time he was standing outside a hardware store in Tahlequah talking to the sheriff.
He said a car pulled up and a man got out and went into the store.
He came back out ,got in the car and they drove away.
Grandfather asked sheriff if he knew who the man was.
Sheriff answered yes he knew, and there were 3 men in the car with guns pointed at him and my Grandfather.
The man was Pretty Boy Floyd.
The most famous Squaw in History is now a Senator from Massachusetts - she makes plenty of wam pum from the Great White Father
Ned Beatty was not in True Grit. John Wayne’s character Rooster Cogburn was chasing Ned Pepper, played by Robert Duvall.
The territory is also where eastwood went chasing outlaws in Hang em High as a U S Marshall. He also went there hiding from Red Legs in Josey Wales before heading to Texas.
‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ and ‘Silverado’ are among my favorite westerns along with just about any John Wayne movie.
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