Mayhew, Indian Territory, located two miles north of present-day Boswell, Oklahoma, was the seat of government of the

Pushmataha District Pushmataha District was one of three provinces, or districts, comprising the former Choctaw Nation in the Indian Territory. Also called the Third District, it encompassed the southwestern one-third of the nation. The Pushmataha District was named ...

of the

Choctaw Nation The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly , it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding t ...

, in the

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

. It was located in

Jackson County, Choctaw Nation Jackson County was a political subdivision of the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory, prior to Oklahoma being admitted as a state. The county formed part of the Nation's Pushmataha District, or Third District, one of three administrative super-re ...

, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

of which was Pigeon Roost, south of present-day Boswell. It ceased its functions upon preparation for Oklahoma’s statehood in 1907, when the Choctaw Nation’s government and political subdivisions were dissolved.

History

Mayhew was founded in 1836 by Presbyterian

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

to the

Choctaw Indians The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw ...

. They named it for Mayhew Presbyterian Mission in Mississippi. From here they ministered to the Choctaws, providing schooling, medical aid, and other services. A

United States Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or simply the Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal serv ...

was established at Mayhew, Indian Territory on February 5, 1845 and operated until September 30, 1902. It then moved two miles south to Boswell, which was then a new townsite along the new railroad, and changed its name to Boswell, Indian Territory. Boswell was named for S.C. Boswell, a local

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

. Mayhew was visited by a

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...

field worker in September 1936. At that time she reported the remains of the original site of Mayhew—a half-mile away from its second and last site—were torn down in 1934. The last site of Mayhew still held the steel jailhouse constructed during territorial days to hold the prisoners of the

(Third District) of the Choctaw Nation. The jailhouse was originally located at the first site of the district court, near the present-day Choctaw County community of Sunkist, and was moved to Mayhew in 1903. (The Pushmataha District had abandoned the site of its first courthouse after it burned. Its remote location between the forks of the

Clear Boggy Creek Clear Boggy Creek, also known as the Clear Boggy River, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 3, 2011 creek in southeastern Oklahoma that is a tributary of Muddy Bog ...

and

Muddy Boggy Creek Muddy Boggy Creek, also known as the Muddy Boggy River, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 3, 2011 river in south central Oklahoma. The stream headwaters arise ju ...

caused it to move to Mayhew, the court's last seat before Oklahoma's statehood, rather than rebuild.) In 1936 it was still in excellent condition and being used as a granary. The original "whipping tree", from which the court dispensed punishment to those convicted of crimes, had been chopped down. Riveting accounts of the life and work of the Mayhew Mission may be read in the surviving papers of

Cyrus Kingsbury Cyrus Kingsbury (November 22, 1786 – June 27, 1870) was a Christian missionary active among the American Indians in the nineteenth century. He first worked with the Cherokee and founded Brainerd Mission near Chickamauga, Tennessee, later he ser ...

, a longtime missionary. These comprise the sole written record of this part of

southeastern Oklahoma Choctaw Country is the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation's official tourism designation for Southeast Oklahoma. The name was previously Kiamichi Country until changed in honor of the Choctaw Nation headquartered there. The current d ...

from the 1840s onward. Included are descriptions of the Choctaws, white settlers, and also fairly detailed meteorological observations, the first and only such recorded observations of this area.Cyrus Kingsbury Papers, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries.

References

{{coord missing, Oklahoma Indian Territory Populated places established in 1836 Populated places disestablished in 1902 Choctaw County, Oklahoma Ghost towns in Oklahoma 1836 establishments in Indian Territory