Seminole Indian Territory for Producer Part II

Seminole Indian Territory [IT] Ghost Towns and History

Second Installment for Seminole Producer

My wife, now late, Marsha Ann nee Mills Matthews, and I began this quest for a multiplicity of reasons. Marsha suffered the dreaded COPD, Stage 3/4. She also had asthma. She was affected by a PPG plant explosion in S Louisiana. Marsha was on oxygen 24/ 7/ 365. Marsha grew up here in Seminole, as I did. She was one block north of me and a half block west. I was in that neighborhood fairly often as she was in mine. She was 8 years younger but be assured, we knew each other.

I had been looking into all things Seminole Indian Territory [IT] for some time, due to my own family history. I learned that Seminole County had a ton of ghost towns, ghost schools, ghost churches, etc. From various sources, I developed a partial list of known ghost towns. I say partial because I find evidence of others from various means to date. I read each of the 85 Years Ago columns in The Seminole Producer. On many occasions I find reference to another ghost town that is not listed and remains unknown. In some cases, a general description is provided but little else. I have to believe that my partial list of ghost towns only scratches the surface. I have contacted a number of local historians and tried to contact others who might provide more insight to our very beginnings. It is like pulling teeth in most cases.

Marsha and I decided we were going to make this a project. I would find some old ghost towns, schools, churches etc. and map them on Google Desktop Maps. We would develop a plan and set about a trek that took us to every corner of this county. Marsha was purely a city girl. She did not see the parts of this county that I had over the years. She marveled at the raw beauty of this county as we drove around it. It was not the easiest thing to get her ready for each venture. I had to pack all of our things for lunch, her oxygen bottles, First Aid kit, plenty of water, etc. I loved surprising Marsha with some of the things I packed. We would often schedule our trips to land at one of the lakes around the county for a packed lunch. If Wewoka Lake was our destination for a picnic lunch, I would swing by this gas/ convenience station in Wewoka for some “California Perch”. That was her favorite. I would also get beer and/ or soft drinks. This was following that morning of scouting around to these long-forgotten places, taking photos [I have many] etc. We would take the back way to the lake, find a picnic table and set up. On occasion, I would pull out of my ice chest the accoutrements for Marsha’s Martini. She would light up like the New Year’s celebration on the 4^th of July. It was more than worth the effort. We would take our time with lunch and enjoy our surroundings. Then, after lunch, I would pack it up and we would go about the second half of the trek we had plotted, often returning just before dark. We learned a lot, we saw a lot and we lived a lot. We saw every part of this county by the time she had the surgery that finally ended her life. It was a treasure trove of memories.

This brings me to a place where my previous column left off. We will skip back and forth to our history and our prehistory, before written records were kept. I mentioned the DNA in the previous column. Now we are going to track it back to its known beginning to the places it had begun. As I mentioned, I have been at this since 1986. My family history and DNA took me to many places in the Old World. Place names in all parts of the globe remain stuck in my memory bank. In looking at my list of ghost towns and places, some of these places popped out at me. Let’s take one for instance:

ECONTUCHKA

Extreme northwestern part of Seminole county. A post office form September 15, 1881 to November 30, 1907. On October 19, 1899, the post office was established slightly to the west at a new site in the Pottawatomie Nation. The is the Seminole/Creek word “meaning a surveyed line”. Sect. ? 11N 5E On 1915 Map

SEE: Tuchka in Russia-- Tuchka, prodovolstvennyy magazin, ulitsa, Internatsionalnaya, Nizhnevartovsk, Russia

Econtuchka is one of the original Seminole IT Townships. Tuchka aka Tushka knocked me over backwards. I have seen this in a number of places. As I mentioned previously, there were 3 Tribes that were located on the Island of Sakhalin, now claimed by Russia. Part of one of those 3 tribes [Ainu, Nivkh and Uilta aka Oroks], the Ainu, went south to the Island of Hokkaido. At the SE tip of the Island of Sakhalin, is the place name of Tuchka. This is just above the Island of Hokkaido, an island claimed by Japan, located in the Sea of Japan. It was in around Tuchka where the 3 Tribes were located. Sakhalin is located in the Sea of Japan as well and just on their east is the Gulf of Patience, in the Sea of Okhotsk. From Hokkaido, one can hop the land bridge of the Aleutians, bordered on the north by the Bering Sea, which takes one to Bristol Bay, present day Alaska. The other crossing point was of course the Bering Strait, from the Autonomous Region in E Russia to Alaska.

The last ice age occurred between 15,000 BC and ending in about 10,000 BC. This would be about the time of the great migration from parts of what is now Russia, across the strait to what is now Alaska.

Let’s take another place name:  ARBEKA

In extreme northeastern corner of Seminole County. A post office from September 10, 1883, to December 14, 1907. Taken from Abi' h' ka, meaning 'peace town' or 'a place where justice was received.' The topo map shows Arbeka Church in the NE corner of that section at 35 26 58 lat. N And 96 27 33 long. W  DOT list places it in 9-11 N 6E.

SEE: Arbeka, Vytauto gatvė, Vilnius, Lithuania

Arbeka is one of the original townships of Seminole IT. It is in the NE corner of present-day Seminole County. I will tell you that a place exists there, without being specific, where lies a cave of sorts, where those waiting for the wagon or stagecoach kept out of the elements. The wagon wheel tracks remain visible to this day.

I have a stickpin in my Google Desktop Maps in Arbeka, Vilnius, Lithuania. Arbeka is just to the NW of Minsk, Belarus. Just to the NW is the Baltic Sea and just across are Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark. As I have previously mentioned, some of the Q DNA went west but the bulk of it traversed east to what is now Alaska.

Here is another place name in Seminole IT:  HELISWA

Five miles northwest of Seminole. A post office from January 10, 1891 to November 27, 1895. The name is from the Creek word heleswv, meaning “medicine”. Sect ? [24?] 10N 6E

This is also a place name in Hungary. It is north of Szentlorinc. In Seminole County, it is located SW of the old Haney Church. It is bordered between NS 358 and 359 and EW 116 and 117. It is right in the middle of that section.

Let’s do one more for now:  EMAHAKA

On the line between Seminole and Hughes counties, 5 miles south of Wewoka.
A post office from January 23, 1895, to July 16, 1906. Site of Emahaka Academy, established in 1893 by the Seminole Nation as a school for girls. The word is a Seminole word, meaning literally, "girls" school. Sect 7 7N 8E

It is also seen as E ‘Mahaka in some documentation.

With a little “Wordsmithing”, I came to Mojahar on the SE coast of Spain. In my research of Old S Wales and previous to that around the Lake of the Van or Nairi Sea in E Anatolia, wordsmithing was crucial in locating such place names. In the old languages there were letters that were interchangeable. B and V are but one example. Another is F and W. C and S are another. I have a dictionary/ encyclopedia that gives me the ancient Welsh language. It took me a very long time to utilize this resource, but it was a boon in my research. I will explain some of this and other place names in my next column.

As I have stated previously, all of these place names are on maps on our website, if you care to look.