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My Indian Roots by George Cannon (Continued from previous issue of the Quarterly) It was certainly fortunate that the early records and the treaty identify John Connolly's two sons, Thomas and James, but I am sorry that neither his wife nor possible daughters are named. The wife and mother must have been Sac & Fox because her son, Thomas, was later identified in one of the treaties as a member of the Tribe and its interpreter. There may well be records in Iowa, Missouri and/or Wisconsin Territory, or even Illinois about John Connolly and his family---and those possibilities should be checked. Meanwhile, very little else is known about John Connolly or his wife and other son, James. The Sac & Fox Tribe left Iowa for its new reservation in Kansas around 1846. While tribal rolls dating between 1846 and 1855 may exist, the Oklahoma Historical Society's archives do not contain anything prior to about 1855 and those earlier rolls could help establish the birth year for Alexander Connolly. When the Sac & Fox Tribe arrived in Kansas, they were located next to the Chippewas who had been in the area of what is now Franklin County since 1839. My ancestor, Thomas Connolly, as mentioned before, was allowed by treaty to purchase "Randall's dwelling" and I have a copy of the deed. That property was located in Section 16, Range 17 east, Township 18 south. Essentially, Thomas Connolly's 320 acres included the north half of section 16 and his wife, Kish-kaw-swaw, was named in the same treaty to be given the south half. In addition, their children, Alexander, Charles, Alvira and Cordelia were all named in the treaty to each receive similar and nearby 320 acre allotments. Thomas and his wife had other children who were born after this particular treaty was drafted in 1859 and their names were: Lucy and Lou. One of the really interesting aspects of this particular treaty is that I discovered that the Connolly daughter, Cordelia, was given 320 acres and she had not yet been born at the time the treaty was drafted. The land was allotted to an unborn child and the child was born dead. The following is a footnote, number 92, on page 376, of "Sauks. & Foxes in Franklin and Osage Counties, Kansas", Kansas State Historical Collection, Vol II and reads: "Hon F D Coburn relates the following circumstances growing out of his allotment: In 1869, he then being ambitious to become a landowner in Franklin County, found by an examination of the plats in the United States land office that the east half of the east half of section 35, township 16, range 17 east, had been originally allotted to Cordelia Connolly, a name given for allotment purposes, to an unborn child; that when born the child was dead. As this land had not been filed upon, and had in some way also escaped the attention of the original land speculators, he filed and made application for it. After some delay he received from the land office information that the Secretary of the Interior had ruled that the land reverted to the mother of the child as its heir, she then living in the Indian Territory." After seeing this footnote, I was anxious to see the land records in Franklin County because I had not yet discovered the name of Thomas Connolly's wife. The first thing on my list of things to do in Ottawa when Judy and I visited there in April 1989 was to check the land records. That Warranty Deed transferred the 320 acres allotted to Cordelia Connolly from Kish-kaw-swaw, mother of deceased Cordelia, to Sarah Whistler for the sum of $550. Kish-kaw-swaw was shown to be a resident of Indian Territory and the deed was dated 27 Feb 1871. The Whistler family did relocate in Indian Territory and were neighbors of Alex Connolly and later generations of that family owned a restaurant located near the old Sac and Fox Agency---and eventually a restaurant in northwest Oklahoma City which was named "Whistlers". The OKC restaurant was located on Northwest Highway, just west of May Avenue and one of its specialities was Indian fried bread. In 1865, Thomas J Connolly died in Franklin County and the only record of his death I have found so far is contained in the Sac and Fox rolls. When the second quarter allotments were paid on June 30, 1865, Thomas Connolly was not paid. Kish-ka-swaw was number 177 on that roll and after her name, "Connolly's widow" was written. Thomas had been paid in the previous quarter. Also, in the previous quarter, Elvira Connolly had been enrolled so I assume she was born sometime between January and March of 1865. Following the death of her husband, Kish-ka-swaw married Chuk-ke-me-ma and both moved with the Tribe from Kansas to Indian Territory in November, 1869. Alexander Connolly remained in Kansas, got married around 1876 or 1877, but left for, I. T. immediately following the death of his first wife, Mary Turner. Very little is known about Alex Connolly's mother. In an interview with the Stroud, Oklahoma, Messenger, August 16, 1935, Alex told the reporter that his mother was a "common Indian woman" and his father "drank whisky hard and died while still young" (low 30s, I believe) . Alex also said he came to Indian Territory when the Government moved the Indian boys and girls from the Mission at Quenemo to the school on the new reservation in Indian Territory. I do not know what year lex came to I.T. for certain, but I believe it was 1877 or 1876. He was counted on the S&F enrollment on December 26, 1877, along with a wife and daughter. Next to his name on the tribal roll, is the note "Daughter of (Alex) Born Dec 18, 77," which would have been his second daughter, Let tie, by his second wife, Jane Gokey. No age was given for the wife, but his age was shown as 28 which would mean his birth year was 1849. The family listed just before Alex on this particular roll, was that of Alex's mother, her daughter Lucy, and the mother's second husband. Lucy was shown to be age 10 and the mother was 40, indicating she had been born in 1837, and in Iowa before the Tribe moved to Kansas. Grandmother, Elizabeth Eleanor Connolly Mahaffey,
believed her birth year was 1879, on January 3, but that year could not be correct.
Grandmother was older than her sister, Lettie, and Lettie was enrolled into the Sac &
Fox Tribe as a new-born infant on December 26, 1877, as I mentioned in the previous
paragraph. My grandmother must have been born on January 3 of 1877 or 1876, making her two
or even three years older than she believed. Proof of Grandmother's birth year was finally
obtained: she was born January 3, 1876. Her birth was recorded The birth date is also contained within a letter to me from Norma Blanco, one of my McCoonse "cousins." In her letter, she shows that Elizabeth's mother died February 21, 1876, not immediately following Elizabeth's birth (as we had always believed) but certainly soon enough to have been the result of pregnancy and/or delivery complications as we had always heard. Additional proof might be found in the personal diary of Rev. Jotharn Meeker or the missionary to the Chippewa Tribe. Norma Blanco's letter also states that Grandmother was baptized on March 28, 1880, but not by whom. Neither does it identify the family which raised Grandmother but I suspect it may have been Edward McCoonse and his wife, Ellen, because they raised Elizabeth's mother, Mary, and her brother, William R Turner, after their mother had died. Ellen McCoonse was married four times and in this order: Edward McCoonse, Ignatius Caleb, Alfred McCoonse and Chief Mah-ko-seh-toe. Ellen was my grandmother's aunt and may well have been a Sac & Fox. After husband number one died, she married Caleb and they separated. She remarried Edward's brother, Alfred, and moved to Indian Territory. After Alfred's death she married the Sac & Fox Chief Mah-ko-seh-toe. It was in home of Elizabeth's aunt Ellen and Chief "Mack" that my own mother was born in 1906. Elizabeth Connolly was almost certainly born on the S&F Reservation near Quenemo, KS. Her mother died soon after giving birth and very little about her is known, except her name, was Mary Turner. Mary was part Chippewa and Potawatomi. Elizabeth's father, Alex, quickly remarried after his wife's death and moved from Kansas to Indian Territory, settling witht he rest of the S&F Tribe. The infant daughter, Elizabeth was left in Kansas to be raised by her mother's people. She attended Haskell Institute at Lawrence, KS., and another Indian school in Philadelphia with her half-sister, Lettie. She and Lettie also taught or attended school at Pawnee, I.T., and it was in Pawnee where she met her future husband to be, Elmer Mahaffey, whom she married on January 1, 1900. Among the Sac & Fox Agency documents found in the National Archives at Fort Worth, TX., is Alex Connolly's Indian Marriage Card and it reports three marriages. The card gives the name of Eliza Gokey Connolly (wife number three) and says she and Alex were married "about 1890: and it lists the names of their children: Viola, Theresa, Charlie, Grace and Edgar (Eddie). Alex Connolly's Marriage Record Card provides additional proof he was married three times. His second wife was Jane Gokey, the daughter of Antoine Gokey and Anna McCoonse, one of Chief McCoonse's daughters. Alex's first wife was Mary Turner, daughter of William Turner (a half-breed Potawatomi) and Pa-mon-qua-no-qua McCoonse, the Chief's oldest daughter. Eliza Gokey, Alex's third wife, had been married before and already had two sons when she married Alex. Those sons were Lewis Gokey (Cha-kak-ma) born 1889 and Frank Gokey (Ah-she-tah) born 1890. The Gokey's were either Chippewa or Ottawa and I do not know the relationship between Eliza and Jane, Alex's second and third wives. Alex Connolly's Indian name was Wah-wah-to-sah and, according to two sources, was 90 years old when he died on September 30, 1936. His gravestone (in the S&F Cemetery in Lincoln County, south of Stroud, OK) and a newspaper article quoting him both indicate his birth year was 1846. His death certificate, however, which was completed by his daughter, Lettie, says he was born in 1856. The 1856 date also generally corresponds to what is on most of the tribal rolls. The age discrepancy will never be resolved for certain, but I personally believe he was born in 1846. In the files of the Oklahoma Historical Society Archives is a slip of paper listing several Sac & Fox boys on the Kansas reservation. It was written by John Goodell,U S Interpreter for the S&F Tribe and one of the names listed was l'Wah-wah-to-saw, Conley' s boy" . While the slip of paper is only a small scrap and is undated, it is significant because Goodell was Interpreter until only 1854. Before he died in September, 1936, my mother and father took me tohis home so he might see his great grandson. He gave me the Indian name meaning "Little Red Head",
(Continued in next issue) |
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