| Notes |
- Name: Nelson Franklin CARR
Sex: M
Birth: 2 SEP 1844 in Wilton, Saratoga County, New York
Death: 3 NOV 1925 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Note:
"As eventful and colorful a story as can be found in this history of a family is the story of the life and adventures of Nelson F Carr.
Mr Frank M Carr has written a sketch of the life of his father. This is much too lengthy for such a work as this but to it I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for the information given here.
Left fatherless at four years of age Nelson's start was indeed the hard way. Not much time for education, none at all for play when at nine years old he began to shoulder the family responsibility. At fifteen he was the main support of his mother and two sisters.
It was when he was fifteen (April of 1859) that the family decided to seek better fortune in the exciting new west. By rail as far as it then went and beyond by ox team they journeyed until after four months of travel they settled near Ft Scott, Kan. Here they took up 320 acres of homestead land and began life anew.
Realizing his lack of education Nelson returned to Saratoga Springs in 1860 for a year in school. This year he must have used to tremendous advantage as he returned to a book keeping position in Ft Scott.
During the Civil War he served with distinction in Co B of the 6th Kansas Cavalry from 1862 to 1865.
The fifteen years of his life after the war was a period of adventure and frontier fortune making such as we expect to find only in fiction.
Love and marriage, the raising of a fine family, fur trading, founding towns, traversing game filled, primitive country, building grist mills, building and supporting a school, lumbering and farming were among the adventures.
His marriage was interesting and fortunate. Meeting the lovely daughter of his friend, the highly honored Cherokee scout Hilliard Rogers, he promptly fell in love as did she. Their marriage soon took place. For nearly sixty years they lived and worked together.
Oswego, Kansas was founded by Nelson Carr. He founded its first business (a trading post) and served as its first postmaster. Bartlesville, Okla is another city which owes its beginnings largely to Nelson Carr. The family removed from Oswego, Kan to Bartlesville, Okla in Sept of 1867.
After 1875 he gave most of his time to agriculture. At one time he owned about 5000 acres of excellent grazing and cropping land near Bartlesville, Okla.
In ____________ oil was discovered on the Carr farm and a fortune for him and his family resulted.
Nelson F Carr was a member of Old Parker Lodge F & A M of Coffeyville, Kan and later of a lodge in Bartlesville, Okla.
Both Nelson and his wife died in Bartlesville where since 1909 they had maintained a fine home. They are both buried in a Mausoleum in White Rose Cemetery."
Source: The Carr Book, by Arthur Carr, pp 449-450, plus photo opposite pg 449.
NELSON F. CARR
Posted by Earline Sparks Barger on Mon, 26 Oct 1998
Surnames: CARR, CLANCY, BRIDMAN, BENT, ROGERS, FOYAL, BARTLES, JOHNSON, BROWER, BRADY, KEELER
NELSON F. CARR
Vol. 3, p. 1191-1192
Book has photo of family
It is with the title of "The Pioneer of Big Caney" that Nelson F. Carr has long been known to the people of Bartlesville and Washington County. He was the first white settler of any real importance along that river, and nearly fifty years have elapsed since he and Mrs. Carr, his noble wife, began housekeeping in the wilderness which has since been transformed by civilization and is now one of the richest sections in the Southwest, with its great oil and grain fields and with the great development of railroads, cities and general industrialism.
He was born in Wilton, Saratoga County, New York, September 2, 1844, a son of William Henry and Sarah M. (CLANCY) Carr. His father was born in New York State and his mother in Vermont. The father died in September, 1848, at the age of thirty-one, and of him Nelson F. Carr has only a faint recollection. In 1859 the widowed mother brought her son and two daughters to the western frontier. Mr. Carr was fifteen years of age at the time and was born only sixteen years after the first railroad was put in operation in the United States. When the family came out to Fort Scott, Kansas, in the year 1859, they rode a railroad train only as far as Pleasant Hill, Missouri, then the terminus of the Missouri Pacific. From there they journeyed by stage as far as the present Kansas City and Mr. Carr's active lifetime covers the entire period of railroad development in the country west of Missouri. Mr. Carr's mother remained a widow for sixty years, and died at the age of eighty-nine in California. Her two daughters were: Anna BRIDMAN, now deceased; and Jennie BENT, of Colorado, who has two sons and one daughter.
Nelson F. Carr grew up on a farm with his mother at Fort Scott, Kansas, and both of them entered a quarter section of land there. Nelson F., according to the land laws, entered his quarter section as the head of a family, although only fifteen years of age. He was only sixteen when he enlisted for service at Fort Scott in July, 1861, in Company B of the Sixth Kansas Regiment. In March, 1862, the regiment became the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, under Col. W. R. Judson. He is one of the last survivors of this noted Kansas regiment.
After his active military service he was employed in store at Fort Scott, and in 1865, he returned to Kansas schools. In September, 1865, he returned to Kansas and was employed in a store at Fort Scott until February, 1866. He then became one of the first settler of Oswego, Kansas, and built the first log house in the town and put in a stock of goods. He owned a half interest in this trading post, and he still has a copy of the document signed by the postmaster general which records his appointment on October 4, 1866, as postmaster of Oswego. He was the first to have charge of the postoffice in that town. One year later he resigned the office, which had paid him only a nominal salary.
The Carr store was the social center of the town and the surrounding country, and among those who came to trade there was a Cherokee Indian named Rogers, who lived at Timber Hill, eight miles south of Chetopah and about seventy miles from the present City of Bartlesville. Hillard Rogers was a native of Georgia, a quarter-blood Cherokee, a well educated man, and a descendant of one of the greatest Cherokee chieftains. Hillard Rogers died near Bartlesville at the age of fifty years in September, 1870, and his wife passed away on January 18, 1870, at the age of forty-two. She was a native of Tennessee, and was sixteen years of age when she married Mr. Rogers. At the age of seventeen Hillard Rogers acted as Indian interpreter for Generals Scott and Taylor in Florida during the Seminole Indian war. He was one of the prominent members of the tribe, and a man of fine character.
Between this Cherokee and the Indian trader Mr. Carr, there grew up a friendship, and in the course of time Mr. Carr came to hear much of Annie ROGERS, the daughter of the Timber Hill resident. She had many unusual accomplishments even for an Indian girl, and in September, 1866, when Mr. Carr first visited the Rogers home he fell in love with the young woman, and on the following 25th of August they were married. Soon after their marriage they removed from Oswego to the Big Caney. They were almost the first people after the war to locate in that section, and for almost forty years Mr. and Mrs. Carr had their home on a farm three miles north of the present City of Bartlesville. In the early days Mr. Carr traded supplies to the Indians for furs and buffalo robes and sold the latter at Leavenworth, Kansas. He was frequently away from home, and Mrs. Carr was left with her own children and with her young orphan brother William Rogers, who now lives in Dewey. At one time they remained in the lonely cabin eight days while Mr. Carr was away on one of his trips, and in the many dangers and discomforts of pioneer life Mrs. Carr was a participant as well as her husband.
A year or so ago an interesting little story was told and published in a monthly magazine, the subject of which was Mrs. Carr and her experience as a pioneer on the Big Caney. It contains a well deserved tribute to this splendid pioneer woman of Oklahoma, and a portion of the article, beginning with her experiences when she came as a bride to her new home, is quoted herewith: "The young bride took possession of the home prepared for her with as happy a laugh as if the rude logs had been blocks of stone and the dirt floor a carpet of plush. All the hardships endured in the little cabin did not conquer the laugh that bubbled forth from the brave spirit of the Indian maid. One-fourth of the blood in her veins came from a race keen in intellect as well as strong in body. From her Cherokee father she brought to the lonely plains a spirit of never failing courage and cheerfulness. Her own father, descended from the great chief FOYAL, who invested a wonderful Indian alphabet of eighty-six letter, was prominent man of his tribe and had been United States interpreter for General Harvey. The life of the pioneer is ever lonely, but to have been the first in a country so rich in natural resources and in future possibilities is recompense for many hardships. Mr. Carr's trading post drew other white people to settle in the vicinity, and the homes that soon dotted the river bank made life seem almost gay to the young trader and his wife. Thus it was that Mrs. Carr was instrumental in the foundation of one of Oklahoma's industrial centers. His business prospered too and more comforts crept into the little cabin. Lumber for a floor was brought from the Spadmore hills east of Grand River and later a new home was built. For almost forty years the devoted woman lived on the site of the log trading station and reared her splendid family. Hardships gradually became but a memory to her and so broad and noble her nature that they are a pleasant memory. About 1907 Mr. Carr built a comfortable home in Bartlesville and the ideal home life begun in the rude cabin shed a broader influence. Still more recently a handsomer home was purchased. There Mrs. Carr, still strong in all her faculties, with her happy vivacious personality permeating her household, surrounded by noble sons, beautiful daughters, and lovely grandchildren, occupies a position that queens might envy, her throne a home on the spot that she watched grow from a lonely plain into a thriving county seat, with magnificent business blocks, churches, schools and homes. The achievements of a woman of Mrs. Carr's nature cannot be measured in material things. She was placed in a hard situation and her strength was sufficient to meet it and to make of the hardships a joy. To be able to make a home in a cabin as well as in a mansion, to fill it with laughter, to rear children to honor the humble home and her who made this is the greatest work of woman's life."
In 1868 during a raid from the Arapahos Mr. Carr's store was robbed, and after that he gave most of his attention to farming. In addition to his own claim he bought other lands which gave his a ranch of 1,200 acres under fence, and in time he bought 800 acres of this under cultivation. In 1868 he paid $2.50 for a bushel of seed Indian corn, and his own energetic example was an important factor in promoting the general agricultural industry. About that time Mr. Carr built the first grist mill on the Caney just across the river from the present site of Bartlesville. He dug a tunnel across a neck of land around which the river flowed and thus secured a fall of eight feet, which was sufficient to turn his mill wheel. Later he sold this mill to J. H. BARTLES, who replaced it with a modern flour mill. After that Mr. Carr gave his entire attention to farming and stock raising until 1907, when he removed to the City of Bartlesville. He still owns more than 200 acres three miles northwest of Bartlesville, including the land on which he first settled when he came to what is now Washington County.
Mr. Carr is a member of the Baptist Church and belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic and has been a Mason since 1866, having affiliation with Keystone Lodge, No. 102, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Coffeyville, Kansas.
He and his wife take pardonable pride in their fine family of children. Their son, Edward R., the first born, died at the age of nine years. Ida J. is the wife of John JOHNSON, now living on the old Carr farm near Bartlesville. Grace Maude died at the age of seventeen. William A. lives in Mound Valley, Kansas. Frank Marvin is a resident of Washington County. Sarah Louise is the wife of William KEELER of Washington County. Josie May married L. J. BROWER, of Washington County. Beulah Mabel is the wife of S. C. BRADY, of Bartlesville. They are also twelve grandchildren. Since Mr. Carr married prior to 1874, he was placed on the roll as an Indian, and he and his family have received the usual allotments of land and money with other members of the Cherokee tribe.
Mr. Carr has witnessed every improvement made in the hands of civilized man in the vicinity of Bartlesville. In many ways he has helped in this development, and his own example has been a potent factor to increasing the complete utilization of the splendid resources found in the soil and climate of Northern Oklahoma. Both he and his wife have traveled extensively, but with all their observations of other countries and states they remain extremely loyal to Oklahoma, which represents to them the greatest as well as the fairest portion of the Globe, and in all the "beautiful land" the spot most sacred to them is the site of the rude log cabin as it stood half century ago and in which the joys of young married life were sweetened and accentuated by the hardships and adversities of frontier existence.
Transcribed by: Earline Sparks Barger, October 24, 1998
Title: The Carr Book, by Arthur A Carr
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Book
Page: 310, 449 (photo opposite pg 449)
Title: The Carr Book, by Arthur A Carr
Repository:
Call Number:
Media: Book
Page: 449
Father: William Henry CARR b: 11 MAR 1818 in Wilton, Saratoga County, New York
Mother: Sarah Mable CLANCY b: 6 DEC 1819 in Wallingford, Rutland County, Vermont
Marriage 1 Sarah Ann ROGERS\RODGERS b: 3 NOV 1848 in Honey Creek, Delaware District, Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, Oklahoma
Children
Josie May CARR b: 22 DEC 1884
Edward Rogers\Rodgers CARR b: 30 AUG 1868
Ida Jane CARR b: 31 DEC 1869
Grace Maud CARR b: 18 NOV 1871
William Arthur CARR b: 4 DEC 1873
Frank Marvin CARR b: 20 MAY 1878
Lula B CARR b: 22 NOV 1881
Beulah Mable CARR b: 11 JUL 1892
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1844 - 1925 (81 years)
