The Indian Side

Turn about is fair play -- especially when you can find a balance. Remember I told you about the murder on the White side of the family. As the history of misfortune would have it, there was one on the Indian side, too -- my great grandfather, Sheriff Jesse Sunday.

The information below, I am taking from several pages in The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Spring, 1955. This is a Quarterly, published by the Oklahoma Historical Society. This particular story is found in a couple of other books I have in some safe-keeping place in the house. Every time I come across one of these books, I always put them back in a place easily remembered. Of course, it takes months to find them again. Heaven only knows their location now. But, relying on one source, this is the way the story goes. And, it even has a name. It was called, The Saline courthouse Massacre.

The year was 1897; the month, September; the place, a developing community around one of the nine courthouses built by the Cherokee Nation to serve the Districts comprising the Cherokee Nation. A general store, blacksmith shop, church, doctor, and school, took their important places around the courthouse.

This story happened in the Saline District, located near rural Rose, Oklahoma, in Eastern Oklahoma. Although Rose, Oklahoma still is found on an Oklahoma map, the Saline District was destroyed when the Federal Government ended the Cherokee Judicial System a year later.

There were major and minor roles played by several individuals that day. But, to de-complicate matters, only five names are going to be mentioned here. First, there was Thomas Baggett, a lawyer, who owned the general store; Sheriff Jesse Sunday (my great-grandfather), who was completing his elected term as sheriff; Dave Ridge, Jesse Sunday's half-brother, and soon-to-be the next sheriff. Finally, Andy Sunday (my grandfather), the eldest son of the Sheriff and Sampson Rogers.

As the initial scene begins, only Thomas Baggett and Dave Ridge are on stage. Dave Ridge had been sent by his wife to pick up a couple of items from the general store. Being a popular guy, he joined in the ongoing conversations by the groups of men who were sitting around enjoying the afternoon sunshine. Cherokees do love to talk and gossip. And, along this perpetual grapevine passes important family and community news. This was the social networking of the day.

But, mixed in with the sunshine on that September afternoon was a bit of moonshine. Playing his role, to the max, of an up-standing Christian man, Baggett, wouldn't tolerate the bottle-nipping, and closed the store. Realizing he was not going to be able to buy the items instructed by his wife, Ridge started banging on the store's front door to be let in. Baggett finally opened a second story window and told Ridge to go away. The store was closed. A ruckus ensued, a shot rang out, Baggett was struck and instantly killed. Everyone scattered.

As the second scene unfolds, we find Andy Sunday and a friend on a trail, some 200 yards from the shooting. Let's call him a typical teenager because, well educated and fluent in both Cherokee and English, Andy and his friend were delivering liquor to a bootlegger at that ill-fated time. Doesn't seem to matter the era, boys will be boys. Should they have known better? Did they need money? Were they doing someone a favor? I don't know. The reasons are lost to history.

But hearing the shot and sensing danger, the boys stepped into the bushes to hide. What they saw and later reported was seeing Dave Ridge walking the trail on his way home. From the other direction came two other men. When they met, Dave Ridge and one of the other men, later identified as Samson Rogers, started accusing each other of having killed Thomas Baggett. During the argument, Sampson Rogers just picked up some object -- a rock or a gun -- and struck Dave Ridge on the head -- it was a lethal blow and Ridge died.

Andy Sunday knew the man who'd hit Dave Ridge had a dreadful temper, so he stepped out of the bushes to try and calm him down and Sampson Rogers got right into Andy's face and threatened his life if he told anyone what he'd witnessed.

Although not recorded in the history books, the story has always circulated in the family that Andy Sunday ran home and told his mother, Sally Sunday (my grandmother) of the threat. She immediately took to her bed and refused to talk with anyone, claiming illness, as she was afraid for her son's life.

The story now changes to the third scene, where Sheriff Jesse Sunday is found busily guarding prisoners some ten miles away from the killings of Thomas Baggett and Dave Ridge. When the news arrives of these two deaths, the Sheriff left the prisoners in the hands of a deputy and turned his horse toward the Saline Courthouse. What I'm guessing is, he found a mess. Lots of confusion, finger pointing, stories running around trying to get straight, and heads shaking trying to get clear.

From here on, I believe different versions of the story are told. It's known that Sheriff Jesse Sunday questioned various men, one being, Martin Rowe. It's fairly clear that Martin Rowe shot, and mortally wounded, Jesse Sunday. What's not clear is the reason, other than, he did shoot Baggett, and knew that Jesse Sunday suspected he was the guilty man.

The Sheriff's horse arrived at the Sunday house without its rider and a search began. Andy found his father, sitting on the ground, propped up against a tree. He took him to the house of a friend, where his father died. But, the story that the Sheriff was shot and the Sheriff was dead Couldn't be told any which way other than one. It was a fact.

The trials. Martin Rowe was convicted of murdering Sheriff Jesse Sunday. For the crime, a noose was to be dropped over his head, ending around his nectk. But, later, the case was reviewed and a decision reached that not enough evidence was presented for a hanging. Instead, he was sentenced to ten years in prison. He escaped and wound up in Texas and eventually evaded capture by Oklahoma lawmen by joining the United States Army and fighting in the Spanish American War. After being discharged, Rowe made his way back to Oklahoma, a free man.

Sampson Rogers was responsible for the murder of Dave Ridge. No one would testify against him though, and he came away from the trial a free man. Maybe there was something to Andy Sunday's knowing about Rogers vicious temper, and maybe my grandmother, Sally Sunday, was doing the right thing by going to bed and refusing to talk to anyone about what her son, Andy, saw that September afternoon on a frontier trail in Eastern Oklahoma.

When hearing this story, you have to keep in mind that some accounts were told in Cherokee, some straight English, some with a mix of Cherokee/English. Important details, lost in translation, can shade the scenes and memories different colors. It all depends on the telling. Nevertheless, the stories remain important to tell. Here you find balance -- a murder on the White side of a family; a murder on the Indian side. As of now, the sides are equal.