HUMMINGBIHD & BIGBY  PEAVINE COMMUNITY #12423.

 

Hummingbird & Bigby, Investigator

December 9, 11, 1937

 

"HISTORY OF FEAVINE COMMUNITY”

 

     A majority of the Cherokees who settled in the Peavine Community came from North Carolina in 1837.

Among those who settled this community were the Easkee, Cornsilk, Soap, Coon, Leach, Fixin, Chicken, Peacheater, Noisewater, Falling, Youngwolf, Twist, Tea-Cha-Nee-Skee, Terrapin, Walkingstick, and Blackwood families.  They were all immigrants. The old settlers who lived in this community were Jonathan and

Johnson Whitmire, George Crittenden and a family by the name of Cotton.  There were only three families here when they came in May 1827.

This community was composed of about forty sections; on the North it was bounded by Baron Fork Creek, South by Flint District, West by Rabbit Trap, East by Piney and Evansville Creeks.

In this community the first mission was built, the first church and the Government Commissary also established in this community; the first saw mill and first court house for Flint District were located in the northwest corner of this community.

The strongest Kee-Too-Wahs lived here.  This was the home of the majority of the Pin Indians.

This community when the Cherokees came was a prairie.  Cane grew abundantly along the small creeks; buffaloes were numerous according to the Whitmires, they came in 1830 as Old Settlers; grizzly bears were to be found on the mountains west of the present Peavine School.  There were two bears killed here before the Civil War.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, most of the Cherokees went with the North except the Old Settlers; they went South.

There were not any battles fought in the Community.  Among the men who served in the armies of the North were Aaron Goingwolf, Jack Bean, Jeff Ketcher, Dick Ketcher, Lincoln England, John Cornsilk and Writer Hogner.  Arch Scraper, a captain in the Union Army, lived here.

The first school was built just fifty yards south of the present West Peavine School.  This was also the voting place.

The church at first was established about one and a half miles up the creek from the present church; it was built by donations from all the Cherokees of the Nation; the structure was a four room house built of logs with a chimney in the center; it was called the “Big Shed.”

This was used as meeting place for representatives of both the North and South before the Civil War.  In this same building met a group of Cherokees in the early days plotting to kill the treaty signers who caused the removal.

In later years it was changed to the Antioch Baptist Church and moved to its present location.

There were also two lime kilns in this community.  One was operated by John Walkingstick and the other by Ance Ketcher.

In this community the Kansas City Southern Railroad had more trouble with the Cherokees.  Johnson Whitmire was the Councilman from this district at that time.  The railroad went through his farm.  Several times the right-of-way surveyors were driven away by these Cherokees.  Charley (Tobe) Whitmire was the leader of this band, a nephew of the Councilman who voted the law to be passed.

Wolfe Coon, the speaker of the Council at the time the allotment law was passed, lived in the community.