A prominent rancher and principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, Wilson Nathaniel Jones was born circa 1827 in Mississippi. He was the son of Nathaniel Jones, a mixed-blood Choctaw, and a French-Choctaw woman. Jones moved with his family to the Little River in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory (present McCurtain County, Oklahoma), in 1833, where he was reared without an education. After the Civil War, a conflict in which he remained neutral, Jones settled on Shawnee Creek near present Cade in Bryan County, Oklahoma, where he farmed and established a general store. In 1867 he formed a ranching partnership with a man named James Myers and within a few years owned some one thousand head of cattle. Unfortunately, around 1871, Myers marketed the herd and absconded with the proceeds. Jones recovered his debt, however, and reportedly became the wealthiest man in the Choctaw Nation. By 1890 he held seventeen thousand acres of land, of which 550 acres were used for farming. The remaining acreage was pastureland upon which Jones grazed about five thousand head of cattle carrying his W. J. brand. In addition to his mercantile, agricultural, and ranching interests, Jones invested in a cotton gin and the burgeoning Choctaw Nation coal industry, and he co-owned a general store at Caddo. Jones was elected Choctaw Nation treasurer in 1887 and was the Progressive Party candidate for principal chief in 1888. Defeated, he ran again in 1890 and was victorious over the incumbent Benjamin F. Smallwood. Reelected in 1892, Jones bested Jacob B. Jackson of the National Party in a violent and controversial campaign. As a self-taught man, Chief Jones understood the value of an education, and the Jones Academy, a boys boarding school established near Hartshorne in 1892, was named in his honor. After completing his second term as principal chief in 1894, Jones moved to Sherman, Texas. He returned to Choctaw politics, however, and was the Union Party nominee for principal chief in 1898, when the Atoka Agreement was the key campaign issue. As a rancher, Jones opposed the allotment of tribal lands. Nevertheless, he failed to unseat incumbent Principal Chief Green McCurtain of the pro-allotment Tuskahoma Party. Wilson N. Jones died on June 11, 1901, at his ranch home three miles west of Cade, Oklahoma, and was buried there in the family cemetery. Predeceased by his eight children, Jones left an estate worth an estimated $250,000

Joel Bryan Mayes, a son of Samuel and Nancy Mayes, was born near Carterville, Bates County, Georgia, on October 2, 1833. He came with his parents to the old Indian Territory in 1838, where he attended the tribal schools until 1851, when he enrolled at the Male Seminary at Tahlequah from which he graduated four years later. He taught school at Muddy Springs near the present town of Stilwell from 1855 to 1857 and theerafter removed to Coo-wee-scoo-wee District and engaged in the cattle business until the outbreak of the Civil War. Records disclose that Joel B. Mayes enlisted and served as a private in Company A of the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate army and on September 18, 1862, was appointed Captain and Assistant Quartermaster of the 2nd Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Volunteers, by Gen. D. H. Cooper. He was appointed Major and Brigade Quartermaster by Gen. E. K. Smith, on July 13, 1864 and assigned to the 1st Indian Brigade, under Gen. Stand Waitie. He served faithfully and capably throughout the war, his name last appearing on a roster dated Mount Pleasant, Cherokee Nation, February 18, 1865. The Cherokees were somewhat divided in their sympathies during the Civil War and many of the non-combatant members of the families removed to the North or South as their sentiments inclined. The Mayes family removed to Rush County, Texas, returning to the Choctaw country in 1865 and back to the Cherokee Nation in the fall of 1867. Joel B. Mayes returned from Texas in the fall of 1865 and settled in what is today Bryan County, Oklahoma, where he remained until late in 1867 when he returned to the Cherokee country and re-engaged in the cattle business, in what is today Mayes County. The political life of Joel B. Mayes began rather modestly as clerk of the district court of Coo-wee-scoo-wee District in 1869 which position he held until 1873, when he was elected judge of the northern circuit of the Cherokee Nation, and subsequently was reelected. In 1881, he was appointed clerk of the citizenship court, a court which had been created by the Council to hear and dispose of claims for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. He served for a brief period as clerk of the Council and later was elevated to the tribal supreme court and was serving as chief justice when, on August 1, 1887, he was elected chieftain of the Cherokee Nation on the Downing ticket, his opponent being Rabbit Bunch, the candidate of the National party. The campaign which preceded his election was very spirited and, after the election, some confusion arose which embarrassed the newly elected chief in assuming the reins of office. Under the Cherokee National constitution, the National Council was required to canvass the election returns, declare the result and authorize a certificate to be issued to the successful candidate. These details appeared to be necessary prerequisites to evidence an unqualified right to office. The Council, however, postponed its canvass of the election returns and finally adjourned in December without having taken the required action. On the face of the returns it appeared that Mayes had been elected, although the Bunch followers declined to make the concession. A National party majority in the upper chamber of the Council postponed the canvass of the returns and provoked the premature adjournment. This delinquency of the Council was indefensible and left the succession to Chief Dennis W. Bushyhead, the incumbent chief, in a controversial status. The situation became tense as armed members of the rival factions began to arrive at Tahlequah. In January, 1888, armed adherents of the Downing party, in defiance of the constitutional requirements which the Council had ignored, forcibly invaded the executive offices at Tahlequah and installed Joel B. Mayes as chief. Chief Bushyhead gracefully retired, bloodshed was averted, and the political affairs of the tribe returned to a normal posture. The metropolitan press throughout the country grossly magnified the incident and editorially denounced the capacity of the Indian tribes for self government and insisted upon an immediate liquidation of the Indian tribal governments by Congress. The first overt gesture of the Federal Government indicating a stronger policy of political control was evidenced the following year when Congress established a United States Court for the Indian Territory and a year later more clearly defined and enlarged its jurisdiction. With the succeeding years tribal disintegration proceeded rapidly until the independent political status of the tribes was completely folded up. The tenure of Joel B. Mayes as chieftain of the Cherokees was rather uneventful in so far as his necessary official activities were concerned. The Cherokee Strip cattle lease matter immediately engrossed his attention upon his induction into office. The five-year lease which Chief Bushyhead had made with the Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association in 1883 was about to expire and the company was seeking its renewal. There was considerable maneuvering upon the part of the Council and numerous acts were passed only to be vetoed by the chief who insisted upon a higher annual rental than the rental which the Council seemed willing to accept. Chief Mayes controlled the situation with remarkable tact, business judgment, and integrity, and the lease was renewed to the association, late in December, 1888, for another five years but at an annual rental of $200,000 which was twice the annual rental paid under the original lease. The Cherokee Strip incident served to bring into bold relief the courage and high integrity of Chief Mayes and these elements of character dignified his course of conduct throughout his public career. Time has no patience, history moves with incredible swiftness and things were beginning to happen during the tenure of Chief Mayes which clearly presaged the early absorption of the Cherokees into American life. The chief witnessed the opening of the first United States Court in the old Indian Territory, by Judge James M. Shackleford, at Muskogee, on April 1, 1889. This court and its successors were soon to supersede the decadent tribal courts. Later in the month, he saw the dramatic pioneer army cross the Strip to impress homestead rights upon lands in the western part of the Indian Territory, which had but recently been conveyed by the Creek tribe to the government, and the nucleus of the white man's Oklahoma Territory was formed. Preliminary gestures had already been made by the government toward the Cherokees, seeking to purchase the famous Cherokee Strip and throw it open to white settlement, as was done four years later. The old established standards of the Indian were suffering a dislocation and the "Trail of Tears" was leading to a new day. Chief Mayes was easily reelected over George Benge, his opponent, at the tribal election of August 3, 1891, but death terminated his public service very shortly thereafter. Following a brief illness, the chief passed away on December 14, 1891, at his home in Tahlequah, where he is buried.

Samuel Emmet Swinney, born near Whiteside, Missouri, on June 16, 1877, and died on December 16, 1936, and buried at Highland Cemetery, Durant, Oklahoma, was son of John James Swinney who was born in Virginia and came to Missouri when twelve years old. His paternal grandfather, Nelson Swinney, was born and died in Virginia. His mother was Wilhelmina Lyle, born near Whiteside, Missouri, on March 23, 1855, and married to his father in the home in which she was born. His maternal grandfather, Lorenzo D. Lyle, born in Virginia on October 29, 1820, and maternal grandmother, Sarah R. Williams, born in Kentucky on September 5, 1822, were married in Missouri on April 30, 1848. In 1879, John James Swinney, his father, moved to Texas from Missouri, settling on a farm near Long Branch in Fannin County, Texas, at which time Samuel Emmet Swinney was two years old, who later attended the schools at Long Branch and Savoy College nearby and the Normal School at Denton, Texas. Afterward, in 1891, he matriculated at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, registering in the School of Pharmacy of its medical school, and taking therein two courses. After his attendance at Savoy College at Savoy, Texas, at intervals between then and his matriculating at the University of the South, he taught school beginning when he was 19 years old, and also acted as a Deputy County Clerk for Fannin County, at Bonham, Texas. After he returned from the University of the South he went to Madill, Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory, where he was a pharmacist clerk in a drug store and then removed to Caddo, Indian Territory, and entered into the drug business with the late Ira Smith under the firm name of Smith & Swinney, Druggists. Later this business was sold to the late W. F. Dodd, Sam Swinney continuing with him for a while as pharmacist. In 1907 he became a candidate on the Democratic ticket for County Clerk of Bryan County, Oklahoma, and was elected. He qualified as such at the erection of the state for the term expiring in January, 1911. In 1910 he was re-elected and served for a term expiring in January, 1913. Beginning in the early part of 1913 he became an Assistant State Examiner and Inspector and so continued until 1916 when he was appointed and confirmed as Postmaster at Durant, Oklahoma, and continued as such until 1920. Beginning in 1920 he was associated with his brother Dan Swinney and so continued until 1929 in the drug business at Durant under the firm name of Swinney Drug Company. In 1929 he took the lead in the promotion and organization and construction of the Hotel Bryan in Durant. In 1933 he was appointed and served as Inspector for the Home Owners' Loan Corporation until July 16, 1934, when he was appointed and confirmed as United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, holding such office until his death. He was affiliated with the Democratic party and in its organization served as Congressional committeeman for the Third Congressional District and as chairman of the Bryan County committee. On January 6, 1906 he was married to Miss Soulie Pate of Caddo, Oklahoma, who with a daughter, Francile, to both of whom he was faithfully devoted. He had seven brothers and sisters, to-wit: Lee Swinney, who died in Dallas, Texas, in February, 1917; Daniel Webster Swinney, Durant, Oklahoma; Mrs. Charlie Price (Anna), Colville, Washington; Mrs. R. C. Bowman (Mittie), Detroit, Texas; John Swinney, with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, Portland, Oregon; Albert Swinney, Vice-President, First National Bank, Ringling, Oklahoma; and Mrs. Mark Myers (Callie), Deer Park, Washington. A member of the Christian Church, an exemplary citizen, loyal to every duty, private and public, and efficient in all of life's relationship, he has passed from this earthly home.