Our Arklahoma Heritage: A single day in 1898 when one bullet led to the death of three people in Stillwell
- Dennis McCaslin
- May 18, 2025
- 2 min read
Adair County in 1898 was a rough frontier, teeming with outlaws and troublemakers. Stilwell and Westville were bustling towns where lawmen sometimes straddled the line between right and wrong.
Just two years after U.S. Marshal Isaac C. Parker’s era and nearly nine years before statehood, local law enforcement was shaky at best.
In the mid-1890s, Stilwell’s citizens hired Joe Morris, a Westville man, as their city marshal. Details about Morris are scarce, but some say he once ran with the territory’s notorious outlaws.
He served as marshal for a couple of years until late 1896, when a group led by businessman William Allison--possibly a saloon owner--pushed for his removal. The ousting left bad blood, especially between Morris and Allison, sparking multiple clashes in the months that followed.
On July 12, 1898, trouble boiled over. Morris stepped off a train onto Stilwell’s muddy Division Street and ran into Allison. A heated argument erupted, and Morris swung his valise, hitting Allison.
Allison fought back, grazing Morris’s neck with a knife. Bystanders broke up the scuffle, and it seemed the matter was settled.
It wasn’t. While Allison and his friends retreated to a saloon, Morris went home, grabbed a .45 caliber pistol, and returned to Division Street. There, on the wooden sidewalk, he shot Allison through the heart, killing him instantly.
The tragedy didn’t stop there. Jonathan Seller, an elderly man with heart disease, witnessed the shooting and collapsed dead from the shock. Later, when news reached Allison’s family, his grandmother Delena heard the story, rose from her chair, and died of a heart attack after two steps.
Three lives--William Allison, Jonathan Seller, and Delena Allison--ended because of that single shot. Stilwell’s mortuary workers cleared the bodies from Division Street as the town grappled with the loss.
William and Delena were buried in Chalk Bluff Cemetery, while Seller was laid to rest in an unmarked grave on his family’s farm.
No record shows Joe Morris facing trial for Allison’s death, leaving questions about justice in that lawless era.
The events of July 12, 1898, stand as a grim reminder of the volatility of Oklahoma’s territorial days, when one bullet could shatter a community.
