All Things Cherokee: Article - Invisible Indians: Peacheaters, Roots and Glasscocks

© Copyright Carla Toney. All rights reserved. The right of Carla Toney to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this article may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Beothuk Books

'We packed into the Sierras every autumn,' Mama said. 'Some descendents of Tecumseh were living up there - miles from anyone. I used to call the old woman Grandma. I don't think anybody knew that they were there except Daddy.'

The year was 1955. Four years earlier, in the summer of 1951, we'd moved from Santa Ana to Covina, California. I was five years old when we moved.

In Santa Ana, stalks of corn grew in the back garden. We kids played hide and seek in the corn patch, and Mama's Cherokee aunts (Eastern Cherokee rolls) visited the house.

Sundays we attended the Santa Ana Foursquare Gospel Church. The sermon was delivered by a woman in a blue robe with a big white cross.

Mama's father, Elmer Wiley Toney, spoke three Indian languages, Spanish, English and could sign in the intertribal hand language used by peoples from different tribes to communicate. He lived in California, Arizona, Oklahoma. To my knowledge, he was never tribally enrolled.

'I spent half my life in tents as a child,' Mama continued. 'We travelled from the Pacific to the High Sierras - for the salmon and the deer.'

'My first school, between Ajo and Yuma on the Sonora desert, there were eighteen kids between five years and sixteen. When I moved to El Centro, the school principal made me start school over again, in a class with all the younger kids. He said that I couldn't have learned anything - cause my first school was just Indians and Mexicans there.'

So in 1955 at the age of nine, in spite of Senator McCarthy and the Senate Investigating Committee, in spite of 'Better Dead than Red' and the right-wing anti-mood of that time, when Mrs. Wallraven asked our class at Covina Elementary School how many of us were Indian, Elaine and I were the only two who raised our hands. In 1955 there were no 'Wannabes'. Nobody wanted to be an Indian in 1955.

But now the year is 2002, and my grandfather never had an enrollment card. And it seems that I've been relegated to a 'Wannabe'.

When I posted a message on an internet search site to find out something about possible descendents of Tecumseh in California, I was told that I was full of . . . something brown, the color of horse chestnuts without shells in autumn.

So I asked myself, was Mama lying? Or was she telling the truth? Did she really visit descendents of Tecumseh in the High Sierras of California as a girl? Or was she making up horse chestnuts?

My first thought was that tribes had tried to stay together, whether they migrated to Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, California or Mexico, so I focussed my attention on tribal family networks: family names that appear tribally connected either in major historical sources or on tribal rolls and registers.

Turning to Louis J. Rasmussen's San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists Volume II (reprinted 2002), I have found what appear to be previously undocumented tribal migrations. In these migrations, Choctaw names appear together, Potawatomi names appear together, and Cherokee names appear together. It seems that peoples travelling to California in the mid 1800s retained their tribal networks and migrated together in groups.

To look at Cherokee family networks I chose to use Emmet Starr's History of the Cherokee and Their Legends and Folk Lore (Starr 1969) rather than the Dawes rolls. Emmet Starr conscientiously attempted to provide an accurate cultural and genealogical history of the Cherokee tribe, while the Dawes rolls are full of inaccurate listings.

In the rolls, many full-bloods were listed as quarter-bloods so that they would be able to retain control of their own dealings. Men away hunting during roll-taking were refused enrollment (Debo 1970, 130). (See note 1 below.)

Following are some examples of what appear to be Cherokee travelling together.

According to Emmet Starr in History of the Cherokee and Their Legends and Folk Lore, Annie Hendricks married George Peacheater, and later Felix Riley (Starr 1969, 465).

Annie was one of the thirteen children of Susannah and William Hendricks. Her younger sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, married John Terrell and James R. Gourd, while her younger brother, John, married Pretia Tiesky and Mary Jane Brogan (maiden name McLaughlin). Her brother William married Narcissa Crittenden.

And we find those names, or reasonable approximations, on the entry lists of steamers from Panama to California in the 1850s (Rasmussen 1966).

On 23 August 1850, the California, a steamer from Panama arrived in San Francisco. One month later on 22 September 1850 another steamer, the Panama, reached San Francisco via Acapulco and Mazatlan, Mexico, after nineteen and a half days at sea.

D. Peacher (Peacheater), R. Hendrick (Hendricks), P. Latiske (Tiesky), and W. McLaughlin (McLaughlin) were on the Panama, while Mr. Chittenden (Crittenden), Mr. Chittendon (Crittenden), E.L. Turnelle (Terrell), Mr. and Mrs. L.A. Goold (Gourd), and R.W. Goold (Gourd) arrived on the California along with Joshua Ford, T.R. Ward, C. Texas, J.H. Simmons, and ____ Neonbee (no first name given) and Mr. Meanobee, names of possible Choctaw or Chickasaw derivation (see lists below).

Susie and Jennie Buffington were the daughters of Ellis Buffington, his first two children by his second wife, Lydia Snow (nee Wright). Susie married Martin Root, while Jennie married Charles Dougherty.

Again we find their names on entry lists to San Francisco. J. Daughterty and George O'Doherty arrived in San Francisco on the Tennessee on 20 June 1850 along with W.A. Root and ____ Root (no first name given), J. Snow, C.A. Wright, and H. Wright.

Colonel --- Foot (Root?), Starr Foote (Root?), G.W. Jordan, Judge Sanders, J.H. Saunders, G.W. Simmons, Capt. Simmons, E.M. Field, Andrew Hix, J.M.D. Ross, ____ Ross (no first name given), E.W. Downing, I.H. Ford, E. Ford, O.M. Sparr (Starr?), J.B. Houston and W. Boudinot arrived on 20 June on the Tennessee along with them.

W. Boudinot is the sole entry for Boudinot in the second volume of San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists (2002). It appears in connection with these other well-known Cherokee names.

Felix Riley was the second husband of Annie Hendricks, after George Peacheater died. And G. Riley arrived on the Tennessee as well (see lists below). It seems that members of Cherokee family networks travelled and remained together.

Finally, John Houston Ross married Lillian M. Glasgow (Starr 1969, 414). Although in the entry records to San Francisco, there is no entry for Glasgow, W.H. Glascock and Mr. H. Ross arrived eight days after D. Peacher (Peacheater) and R. Hendrick (Hendricks) on 29 August 1850 on the Sarah and Eliza from Panama.

John Houston Ross was the son of John Andrew Ross and Eliza Wilkerson (Starr 1969, 311). His sister, Dannie Hughes Ross, married Bates B. Burnett, and his cousin William Potter Ross married Annie May Balentine.

A steamer, the Northerner, arrived in San Francisco on 22 October 1850 after '15 days, 12 hours, running time from Panama to San Francisco, via El Realejo, Nicaragua and San Diego, California', listed as the 'quickest passage' ever made between Panama and San Francisco (Rasmussen 1966, 57).

M.W. Burnett (Burnett), C.A. Ballon (Balentine?), R. Wilkins (Wilkerson?) arrived on the Northerner with W.C. Proctor.

Like W. Boudinot, W.C. Proctor is the solitary entry for Proctor.

And that brings us back to Tecumseh. Tecumseh was said to have a Cherokee wife and a daughter. His grandchildren were known as the 'fair-skinned' Proctors (Sugden 1999, 420 note 12). (See note 2 below.)

According to the Texas Wesleyan Banner, 4 October 1851, held by the Texas Conference Archives of the United Methodist Church, the Reverend John Toliver Cox (my 3x great grandfather - see It All Hinged On A Bracket on All Things Cherokee) married Asbury Roby and Miss Brathen, both of Williamson County, Texas, shortly before he migrated to California permanently in 1852. Mrs. Roby and W.C. Proctor both arrived in San Francisco on 22 October on the Northerner.

There is yet more conclusive evidence to suggest that my mother was telling the truth.

My mother's grandmothers were Nancy Tennessee English (paternal) and Mary Ellen Blodgett (maternal). Mary Ellen Blodgett's half-brother, Charles, married Rilla Hatch. Nancy Tennessee English's niece, Eileen, married Jack Hubbard. (I knew her and used to call her Aunt Eileen.)

In Tecumseh by John Sugden, we find references to all of the above family names: English (Sugden 1999, 459), Blodgett (Sugden 1999, 454 note 14), Hatch (Sugden 1999, 306), and Hubbard (Sugden 1999, 377).

Gordon Hubbard (Gurdon S. Hubbard) knew Shabeni, a Potawatomi chief and ally of Tecumseh. Shabeni was fighting beside Tecumseh the day Tecumseh died (Sugden 1999, 377).

Finally, there were Mama's Cherokee aunts, who used to visit us in Santa Ana. One of them was Maude Elise Toney, my grandfather's cousin. (See note 3 below.)

Maude Elise Toney's mother was a first cousin of John Rogers Hastings who married Elizabeth Victoria Shelton (born 9 December 1872 at Tahlequah, died 23 January 1916). Elizabeth Shelton's mother was Margarette Proctor (Starr 1969, 626). A Cherokee Proctor. A descendent of Tecumseh, I suspect.

If so, then the Toneys were related to the descendents of Tecumseh through marriage.

And that makes me think that Mama was telling the truth. With so many ties to Tecumseh, Mama did pack into the mountains on horseback with her father to visit the descendents of Tecumseh - hiding in California's High Sierras in the 1920s. Miles from anyone. Miles from anywhere. And nobody even knew that they were there.

Invisible Indians by Carla Toney will be published by Beothuk Books in 2003:

Note 1 The actions of the Dawes Commission resulted in the breakdown of traditional tribal ownership and made Indian land available to white settlers. Indians with more than a quarter-blood were declared incompetent, automatically became wards of court and were appointed guardians. Grafters whose sole purpose was to get hold of Indian land were made the guardians of full-bloods and children (Debo 1970, 326-8).

Note 2 Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Proctor, missionaries from New Hampshire, arrived at Brainard Mission on
12 October 1822 (Starr 1969, 250).

Note 3 Another way to look at it is: Sabrina Stover, born 1823-25, and Louisa Stover, born 8 April 1840 (Starr 1969, 626) were sisters, the daughters of John Henry Stover and Charlotte Ward. Louisa Stover's son, John Rogers Hastings, born 1865, married a Proctor descendent, Elizabeth Victoria Shelton, born 1872 (Starr 1969, 626). Sabrina Stover was my grandfather's aunt. Although information from the Latter Day Saints web site puts Sabrina's birth about 1825 in Warren County, Tennessee, information from my 'cousins' suggests that she was born 27 September 1823 in Habersham County, Georgia. According to Emmet Starr, Sabrina was the first child of John Henry Stover and Charlotte Ward, Louisa was the seventh (Starr 1969, 385). Sabrina's Stover's daughter (Mary Nancy Toney nee Large), her granddaughter (Maude Elise Cox nee Toney), my grandfather (Elmer Wiley Toney), my parents and I all lived in Santa Ana, California. My sister, Nancy, was born there in 1948.

Debo, Angie. A History of the Indians of the United States. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970.

Rasmussen, Louis J. San Francisco Ship Passenger Lists, Volume II. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co. (for Clearfield Company), 2002.

Starr, Emmet. Emmet Starr's History of the Cherokee and Their Legends and Folk Lore. New York: Kraus Reprint Co. 1969.

Sugden, John. Tecumseh: A Life of America's Greatest Indian Leader. London: Pimlico, 1999.

Texas Wesleyan Banner (4 October 1851). Texas Conference Archives of the United Methodist Church.