© Tammie Chada

Portrait

Garvin County, Oklahoma

© Mallory R. Harvey

Adolphus Jackson, known as "Dol", was an enterprising citizen of McGee, I.T. He was born in Virginia in 1847. Not much is known of his early childhood except that he was orphaned at an early age and was educated in Texas. Sarah Hyden, or "Sallie", was born in Tennessee, in 1850, child of Samuel and Nancy Hyden, and the family moved to Missouri. After the Civil War, around 1865, her family left Missouri when she was 16 and settled in Texas. Dol and Sallie were married in Falls County, Texas, in 1870, just before her twentieth birthday. Over the next 18 years, they had seven children. The first six were born in Texas and the seventh at Jimtown, I.T. Their children were Nancy (Mrs. Henry Pruitt), 1872; Samuel, 1874; Maud (Mrs. Cecil Smith), 1877; Oscar E., 1879; William David, 1881; Albert Marion, 1883; and Bessie (Mrs. Augustin Shi, 1888.) The Jackson family migrated to Indian Territory around 1881. It is believed that they may have moved from Jimtown to Ardmore sometime prior to 1896, then to McGee, and finally to Stratford.

They settled a half mile east of McGee where Dol acquired a large fifteen hundred acre ranch and grazing rights to four thousand additional acres. Dol was extensively and successfully engaged in general farming and cattle raising and was a breeder of Durham and Hereford cattle. He kept very high grades of stock and did much to improve the grade of stock raised in that portion of the territory. They apparently purchased their land outright; although Sallie was 1/8 Choctaw, she never received an allotment, unlike some of her siblings.

The Jacksons were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and according to an article written prior to 1900, the family was prominent in the community. Even after his 73rd birthday, Dol continued to ride long distances checking his ranch daily. The family urged him to stay home and let others do the work, but he declared that he would "rather wear out than rust out." His horse brought him in slumped over the saddle one evening. He only lived a few days, dying on April 7, 1921. Sarah died a year afterwards on July 28, 1922. Both were buried at McGee Cemetery in Stratford.

Mallory R. Harvey is the great granddaughter of Adolphus Muer and Sarah (Hyden) Jackson through their daughter, Bessie Mabel (Jackson) Shi.