Abner WILSON

                   ancestry.com   sajohn47  Arline Johnson  February 2007

   AP and Ada Pugh
Added by sajohn47 on 23 Feb 2007

My grandfather, Alvin Pearl (AP) Pugh used to sit on the porch of his home and tell me stories about his earlier years. I have taken some of what I remember and coupled it with facts I found in Henry L. Peck's "Our Proud Heritage Of LeFlore County" (Oklahoma).
The Henry Tillman Pugh family moved to what was then Wade County, Indian Territory, Choctaw Nation in 1897. They came here from near Arkadelphia Clark County Arkansas. AP Pugh was born in Clark County Arkansas January of 1881.
The Pugh family settled in an area that today is known as Muse, LeFlore County, Oklahoma. Tillman Pugh built a store about 2 miles from the Muse post office and called that area "Pugh Town". Later it became the relocated Muse when the post office was moved to Pugh Town.
It seems that Tillman was quite a fellow as he also opened the first sawmill at Muse and the family was instrumental in developing an old military road into what is now hwy 62 from Talihina Oklahoma to Mena Arkansas. South East Oklahoma is one mountain after another with beautiful scenery and lots of timber. It must have been a very difficult task to blaze a road all that distance.
Ada Pugh's parents were Abner Wilson and Rosanna Willis. Abner is a mystery of sorts. Ada wrote in my baby book that Abner's father's name was Jimmy and his mother's maiden name was Cowan, first name unknown. I have since located Mary Elizabeth Cowan, daughter of William M. Cowan living in Sebastian County Arkansas, the wife of Andrew Gist and son Abner living with them. I was very fortunate to find a biography for Andrew Gist written in 1898. It gave me many clues so I could sort through a few mysteries. I can not isolate a Jimmy/James Wilson who I can positively identify as Abner's father.
According to a story relayed to me by an elderly uncle, Abner was killed about 1888 by his father-in-law Robert (Bob) Willis. He was told not to step onto Bob's property but Abner insisted that all he wanted was his saddle and proceeded to cross the boundary. Bob shot him dead. Abner left Rosanna with a small toddler named Ada and a yet unborn Mary Jane without a father.
Rosanna went on to marry Allen Thompson, a half Choctaw Indian to which one child was born, Robert Thompson. A few years later she married Edward Killingworth a full-blood Choctaw and they had 2 children that lived, Allene and Louis Killingsworth. They were over half Choctaw so were required to have guardians over their finacial dealings. Allene died leaving a small fortune in real estate holdings and oil royalties to be divided up among many descendents. She had no children.

Rosanna's father Robert is a mystery as I haven't found him except with his wife Sarah and family. I don't know when or where he was born and I don't know when he died or where he is buried. Sarah Woods Willis was the daughter of Horace Woods and Nowatima a full-blood Choctaw. Horace came from Massachusetts to Texas and on his way back to Massachusetts stopped in Indian Territory to replenish his funds when he met and married Nowatima. They had several children and many of them are well known in the area. Benjamin Woods was a well educated minister in Wade County. I believe it was Josephine Woods who married Gilbert Dukes a Choctaw Governor.

AP and Ada were the best grandparents a young girl could imagine. They were strict in some ways but it didn't matter. I remember spending a week or two with them in the summer and our transportation to church was a child's dream. We went by horse-drawn wagon This was in the 50's. The church was down the road probably not even a mile and the wagon was pulled by old "Toots" my mother's horse from when she was a girl at home. When we got to church Grandma would play the piano and sing. It was beautiful and sometimes she sang in Choctaw. Grandpa was an ordained Free Will Baptist minister. I don't remember him preaching but I heard plenty of sermons delivered specially to me. At home Grandma would let me play her pump organ. Sometimes she would fix my brother and I a picnic basket with fresh cold milk and Vanilla Wafers and a checkered table cloth. Off we would go into the corn patch far far from the house. We couldn't see a thing because the corn was so high and thick. When we felt we had gone as far as we should, we would sit down under the corn stalks and spread our table cloth and have our snack so we could manage the long trek back to civilization. In recent years I've returned to that old farm place and discoverd the out house was in the backyard, not a mile from the house as I remembered and the corn fields were not large at all. There were two wells on their property. Both had nice roofs over them and lots of beautiful flowers, honeysuckle, elephant ears, iris, you name it and Grandma grew it. There was a common dipper hanging on one of the corner posts and everyone would use it to dip from the bucket of ice cold water. That was the most refreshing water I've ever drank. The aroma of honeysuckle filled the air. Toys at their house consisted of a lard can lid with a nail in the middle hammered into the end of a stick and stuck into the ground. Then we sat on the lard bucket and had small rocks at our feet for pedals. We could drive that vehicle anywhere our minds would take us. Grandma cooked on a wood stove and washed her clothes in a big cast iron kettle sitting on a fire. Her old treddle sewing machine made all my baby clothes.
Before I came along, Grandma had the Big Cedar OK post office on their front porch. I don't know for how many years, but she was Big Cedar's first post mistress. Grandpa was the blacksmith, preacher and farmer. A cousin of mine said he hated to see peanut harvest time roll around because it meant he would be sent off with the mail carrier to spend the day with Grandpa harvesting peanuts. I remember that until Grandma died in 1962 that Grandpa would hook old Toots up to the plow and HAW and GEE and make the most beautiful straight rows a garden could have. I loved to stand on the fence and watch while he plowed.
To be continued............


1900 United States Federal Census
about Ada Wilson
Name: 	Ada Wilson
Home in 1900: 	Township 2, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory
Age: 	13
Birthplace: 	Indian Territory, Oklahoma
Race: 	Indian (Native American)
Relationship to head-of-house: 	Stepdaughter
Household Members:
Name 	Age
Edward Killingsworth 	35
Rosanna Killingsworth 	32
Ada Wilson 	13
Jane Wilson 	12
Robert Thompson 	8
Serena B Killingsworth 	1
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