In the spring of 1865
Jesse Chisholm laid out a trail from the present site of Wichita
Kansas to the Wichita-Caddo Agency, where Anadarko is now
located. It soon became known as the Chisholm Trail and afforded
a wagon route to Southwestern Oklahoma. It was also used for a
time by the Texas cattle drovers.
Jesse Chisholm was born in
Tennessee about 1806. His father was of Scotch descent, and his
mother was a Cherokee woman, whose sister Talihina Rogers married
General Sam Houston. Jesse Chisholm, it is said, could speak
fourteen different Indian languages and was frequently called upon to
act as interpreter between the army officers of Fort Gibson and the
members of the tribes of the Plains.
He began the manufacture
of salt within the present limits of Blaine county many years before
the Civil War. He also established a ranch and trading post at
Council Grove, on the North Canadian (ie, about six miles west of the
site upon which Oklahoma City was afterwards built) and obtained great
influence among the tribes of the Southwest, by whom he was recognized
not merely as a friend, but also as a counselor, arbiter and brother
as well.
His death, which occurred
in March, 1868, was felt to be a serious loss to these tribes. He was buried near the North Canadian River in Blaine County.
Source: A
History of Oklahoma by Joseph B. Throburn and Isaac M.
Holcomb, Doub and Company San Francisco 1908.
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