I learned from my father, Charles D. Mahaffie, Jr., that his father talked of riding in a covered wagon during the Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893. Young Charlie saw all the commotion and heard men firing their guns, sometimes at each other, in the breakneck run to get the land they wanted.
In the family archives, I confirmed the story and learned more. Asked by a newspaper reporter if she’d come to Oklahoma in a covered wagon, Mollie said, “I did . . . I drove the team myself with all our household goods and three children in the wagon.” 1)Undated news clip
Doc raced ahead on horseback to stake their claim while Mollie, Rose, Charlie, and Bart brought their wagon toward the new land.
The Cherokee Strip, aka the Cherokee Outlet, was one in a sequence of Oklahoma land rushes, followed also by at least one land lottery. Each took Native American land and made it available for white homesteading. Doc was a land-savvy guy, and took the utmost advantage of these land openings, participating in at least three of them.
Were they Sooners?
That name is used for Oklahomans who, in the land rushes, raced in ahead of the official land opening to try to get the best land. Doc seemed, through his life, law abiding. He even served as a sheriff. We can’t know if he might have jumped the starting gun, but we do know he had the savvy and presence of mind to get the best possible land, even if he followed the law to do it.
It’s likely young Charlie had at least an inkling of how all this worked, what mattered to his family, even some of the economics of their family life. Later in his career he was an expert on public lands, land use, and the economics of much of it. His prairie upbringing by homesteading parents gave him a close perspective to draw on. And too he was, in his adult life, a savvy investor—he must have learned much from his land, mule, and cattle-trading father, and farm and household-budgeting mother.
Even before emigrating to North America, Mahaffie ancestors were among the Scots who England induced to settle in Northern Ireland. In effect, the generational shift westward to settle lands which belonged to native peoples (in this case native Irish) started in Ulster, Northern Ireland, where Protestant Scots were England’s solution to subduing the native Irish Catholics.
This is one of a series of posts that explore the life of Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr. through family memories and items from a family archive. Charles was the author’s grandfather. He left a remarkable collection of papers, photos, and mementos which offer a lens through which to explore his life and legacies. For the full collection, click here.
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