Chapter 2: The Rush & Chapman Families Settle in Oklahoma

(Note: Much of the following history is also found in a previous article by the author, The Rush and Chapman Families in Early Day Oklahoma, https://goingrogue.blog/2020/09/03/early-rush-chapman-families-in-oklahoma/)

The forlorn Frisco Cemetery outside of the small south central Oklahoma town of Stonewall contains the graves of the very first generation of the Rush family ancestors in present-day Oklahoma. Following the Civil War, these ancestors migrated from Illinois, to post-Civil War Kansas, and finally at the dawn of the 20th Century — Indian Territory, soon to become the 47th state. 

Meanwhile, another family, the Chapmans, also found their way to Oklahoma from the opposite direction, migrating from Alabama, through Texas, before arriving in Indian Territory at almost the same time in history. Both clans appear to have been looking for a fresh start in the lands which had only recently been opened to white settlement. It is here near the town of Stonewall that the story of two aging widowers and Civil War veterans — one Union, one Confederate — intersect. 

William A. and Malvina Chapman

William A. Chapman, was born in 1845 in Coosa County, Ala. and entered the military at age 19 near the close of the Civil War. It is not clear if he volunteered or was conscripted, but nevertheless, he served as a Private in Company I, 63rd Alabama Infantry of the Confederate States of America and was held for an undetermined time as a prisoner of war (POW) at the close of hostilities.

At this late stage in the bloody war between the states, Chapman’s company was populated entirely by teenagers. Mercifully, they were not thrust into battle amid what was clearly a lost cause by that time. According to military records, he and his comrades were held back as a rear guard until the end of the war. It is unclear whether his company was captured, surrendered, or simply held for a time before being processed from CSA forces back to civilian life at the end of the war. Chapman’s detainment drew the distinction of being recognized as a prisoner of war, or POW, and is so noted on his modest U.S. military-issued grave marker.

Chapman, and his first wife, Malvina A. Mapp Chapman (a great-great grandmother) initially made their home in Coosa County Alabama, circa 1870, then later Cooke County, Texas, circa 1880, where a daughter, Sally, was born in 1883. Malvina was already a Civil War widow after her first husband died early in the conflict. She would die in 1899 at the age of only 57 while the family  made  their new home in what would eventually become Pontotoc County in south central Oklahoma.

The 1900 U.S. Census lists the Chapman residence as Township 2, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. Chapman would eventually marry Eliza Jackson on August 11, 1901. The last census in which Chapman was included was 1910, age 65, and listed his address in Stonewall. He died the next year at the age of 66 and is buried next to Malvina in the Frisco Cemetery. Like many other men at this time without inherited family wealth or property, he was listed as a farmer or farm laborer on census reports. Like many others, the family migrated from the impoverished and war-shattered South to the new lands being offered in Indian Territory.

Jesse and Louisa Anna Rush

At about the same time the Chapman family migrated to present-day Oklahoma, a Midwesterner and Civil War veteran named Jesse Rush migrated with his own family from Indiana/Illinois, then for a time to Kansas, before finally settling in Stonewall.

Oklahoma, in spite of its central location, was one of the last states to be settled by Americans of white European descent. Part of the original Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the land was inhabited by plains tribes included the Cheyenne, Comanche, Wichita, and Kiowa among others. However, with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, several tribes from the southeastern U.S. — notably the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole — were forcibly removed to Indian Territory. Several more remnant tribes from the East — Delaware, Quapaw, Shawnee and others were also eventually resettled there. Following the Civil War and late into 19th Century, these lands were slowly opened to non-Indian settlement and many who were seeking economic opportunity, or just a new start, began to arrive from all over the nation.

Jess Rush had volunteered for military service in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, mustering in Chicago, Ill. It was about this time that we was married to Louisa Anna Adams (about 1862) in Indiana at age 26

Jess Rush had volunteered for military service in the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, mustering in Chicago, Ill. It was about this time that we was married to Louisa Anna Adams (about 1862) in Indiana at age 26. He was assigned to Company I of the 113th Illinois Infantry and initially mobilized to Memphis, Tenn. From there, he most likely participated in the battle of Arkansas Post in the early stages of the war. According to Illinois military records, he was most likely not present for the more famous battle, the Siege of Vicksburg, Miss., in which Gen. U.S. Grant won a decisive victory.

Records show that approximately half the companies of the 113th, including Company I, had been dispatched to escort Confederate prisoners back to Illinois and did not rejoin their comrades until later in the conflict. After another skirmish near Memphis late in the war, Rush, then 29, was honorably discharged as a private from military service on June 20, 1865 at the cessation of hostilities.

A post-war U.S. Census in 1870 listed his address as Douglas, Ill. He and Louisa (there are multiple spellings and variations of her name across several official documents of the time) had seven children, including Dora Belle Rush (1875-1953) who would later marry into the Chapman family, and a son — my enigmatic great grandfather, “Winnie” or W.E. Rush.

While residing in post-war Kansas, records from a veteran organization, Grand Army of the Republic, reveal Jesse Rush’s membership. Like Chapman, Rush’s vocation was listed as farmer or farm laborer. After showing multiple residences in Kansas throughout the 1870s and 1880s, the first official record of the Jesse Rush family in Oklahoma occurs in the federal census of 1900 — at Township 2, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory. He would have been 64 years old at the time.

It is unclear when Louisa — sometime shown as Louisiana, or Lucy, and several other derivations  — died, but she is not listed among the family members residing in Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century. Jesse and at least two of his children — Dora and W.E. — were present in the Stonewall area at the time and remained there for at least a decade. They would have had ample time to have become acquainted with the neighboring Chapman family. 

The last U.S. Census taken prior to his death in 1910 shows Jesse Rush’s residence in Stonewall and, also like Chapman, has having remarried in his later years. He died shortly thereafter on Oct. 5, 1910 at the age of 74. His own military issued headstone, is located just a few yards behind Chapman’s.

The unlikely story of two families  – one from the South and one from the upper Midwest – intersect in the tiny town in Indian Territory prior to statehood and are responsible for several generations of Oklahoma descendants.

Even though Jesse Rush and William A. Chapman came from different parts of the country, and served on opposing sides of the Civil War, two grown children from each family would intermarry, including W.E. Rush and Sally Chapman in 1900. I can easily imagine these two aging farmers, both widowed and remarried in their later years, sharing a smoke and conversation on one or the other’s front porch in the cool of the evening. They had much in common. Both families were of very modest means and made their living by the sweat of their brow.

W.E. “Winnie” Rush

For all the historical documentation available for that generation, there is surprisingly precious little known about Jesse’s son, W. E. Rush. From a research standpoint, the man is an enigma. Scant records exist that would provide clues as to his adult life and the circumstances of his death are shrouded in mystery. There is a birth record for Oct. 4, 1880 in Kansas and a marriage license for his wedding to William Chapman’s daughter Sally on Oct. 4, 1900 in Carter, Okla. Beyond that, official records of his death, where he is buried, or anything that would indicate the exact cause or date of his death, have proven elusive. There are a few potential explanations for this.

The first account openly told by older Rush family members involves W.E., or “Winnie” as he was known, working for the railroad company, falling ill and dying, then being hastily buried somewhere in the vicinity of present-day Mounds, Okla. If he was hastily buried on railroad property somewhere near the tracks and his grave was only temporarily marked with a stake or wooden cross, or some other such crude marker, then it stands to reason that it would deteriorate and the precise location would be lost to time and weather. What is troubling, however, is that there does not appear to be any known county record, newspaper obituary, or any other official source that would provide information about the circumstances surrounding his untimely death. 

As unsatisfying as the very plausible illness and sudden death explanation may be, there is an even more troubling possibility, however.

Late in life, during a conversation about the Rush family heritage, my mother told me that my father had confided to her shortly after their marriage that the family held onto a dark secret.

Late in life, during a conversation about the Rush family heritage, my mother told me that my father had confided to her shortly after their marriage that the family held onto a dark secret. The story goes that a grandfather was employed by the railroad and participated in a strike or labor dispute of some kind that turned violent. Strike busters, or thugs, hired by the railroad to put down the labor uprising used clubs, hammers and other instruments to beat striking workers and break up the protest. In the resulting melee, W.E. Rush apparently suffered a blow to his head so severe that he was left debilitated and in excruciating pain. So much so, in fact, that it proved more than he could bear and he reportedly took his own life. 

At that time a century ago, suicide carried with it a tremendous stigma with major social and religious implications. According to the story related by my mother, this suicide was considered a dark family secret and never openly spoken about. If news of this event was purposefully suppressed by the family or others, it stands to reason that no obituary would have been published and only a hasty private burial arranged. 

Resettling in Henryetta

As for Sally, she was only 17 when they were married and was left a widow still in her early twenties. She would later remarry a man named M. F. Driver on New Year’s Day, 1906 in Grayson, Texas. Sally later lived for a time in Ada, Okla. but by the time of the 1920 U.S. Census her residence was listed in Henryetta. Okla. where she would spend the remainder of her life. My father referred to her as “Granny” growing up. She died in 1964 and is buried in the Rush family plot in West Lawn Cemetery, Henryetta.

Meanwhile, W.E. and Sally’s only son, my grandfather Cecil Elsworth Rush, would wed Elizabeth Francis Fox on Jan. 14, 1919, in Henryetta. They had eight children together, seven of whom lived into adulthood. Both would remain in Henryetta until their deaths and are also buried in the Rush family plot. 

From what I can recall, my grandfather Cecil was a quiet and humble man with very little formal education, having only completed the fifth grade. He was something of a “jack of all trades,” primarily self-employed as a house painter and taking other odd jobs to support his growing family. I personally have very few memories of my grandfather as he died while I was still quite young. But what I do remember, he was a slightly built man, reserved and gentle, who probably smoked too much. 

Meanwhile, his future wife, Elizabeth Francis Fox, was born in the town of Thurber, Erath County, Texas in 1902. According to the U.S. Census of 1910, she later lived in Pope County, Arkansas with her mother, Jimmie Booher Patterson who had since remarried, and her grandmother Ann Booher. That same census referred to my then 7-year-old grandmother as “Lizzie Fox.” Not much is known of her early childhood and upbringing, but in her later years, she cut a perfect grandmother figure: short red hair tinged with whisps of grey and, shall we say, pleasantly plump with a fondness for preparing all manner of Southern style comfort food for her family.

Information about Elizabeth’s parents are also scant. Records of her father, Barney (sometimes spelled Berney) T. Fox are few and far between. He was born July, 1, 1866 in Ft. Wayne, Ind. A marriage record shows he and wife Jimmie (then Jones) were wed on Christmas Day, 1898 in Russellville, Ark. Jimmie already had two children from a previous marriage. She died July 24, 1943 in Los Angeles, Cal. and is buried in the Rush family plot in Henryetta. Much like W.E. Rush, a precise date and place for Barney’s death is unknown at the time of this writing.

My father, Robert Frank Rush, was the middle child of eight brothers and sisters growing up in Depression-era Henryetta: James Howard, Margaret, Cecil Elsworth Jr., Garland Y., Robert or “Bobby,” Inabell, Billy Gene, and Wanda Lee. As the Great Depression lingered into the mid-1930s and the drums of war began to build in Europe and the Far East, the older Rush siblings began to seek better economic opportunities outside the confines of small-town Henryetta.