Our Arklahoma Heritage: The trials, tribulations, and trek from Alabama to Arkansas for Indian Joe Muhlkey

In 1809, Indian Joe Muhlkey, a Cherokee hunter, lived in Cathedral Caverns, Alabama, near Bat Cave. He and his people used the cave’s steady 50-degree temperature and creek to store food and water.

That year, 16-year-old Isom Wright, a pioneer from Kentucky, settled at Wright’s Spring. After slipping on ice and breaking his hip, Isom was found by Joe and other Cherokees. They took him to the cave, where he recovered for two years, becoming Joe’s “blood brother” and learning Cherokee ways while sharing pioneer skills.

Joe Muhlkey, a skilled Cherokee hunter, lived in the cave’s cool, 50-degree shelter, where a creek preserved food and provided water. His world changed when he and his people found Isom, injured from a fall in a January snow, his hip broken and body chilled.

The Cherokees carried the young man to their cave, nursing him through two years of recovery. During this time, Joe and Isom forged a deep bond, becoming “blood brothers.” Joe, adept with a bow and arrow, shared Cherokee ways, while Isom taught Joe the skills of a pioneer.

Their friendship became a bridge between cultures in a time of harmony, as settlers and Cherokees traded knowledge and resources.

Isom eventually built a cabin two miles from Bat Cave, married, and raised sons, John and James. Joe Muhlkey remained a constant presence, hunting and living in the shadows of the mountain. But in 1837, the Trail of Tears shattered this coexistence.

While most Cherokees were forcibly removed, Joe Muhlkey refused to abandon his homeland. He vanished into the woods, a fugitive in his own territory, pursued by government agents and threatened by encroaching settlers.

Isom, ever loyal, supported his friend by leaving a flour sack of supplies--coffee, salt, tobacco, flour, and later ammunition--every Friday at a designated tree in Wright’s Cove. Isom even gifted Joe his first rifle, a tool that transformed his hunting but also marked his defiance against those who sought to erase him.

Life in hiding was grueling for Joe. Shot twice and constantly evading capture, he watched his forests shrink under settlers’ axes. Yet his spirit endured, sustained by his bond with the Wrights.

When Isom’s hip arthritis worsened, his grandson, Young Isom, took up the mantle of caring for Joe. From his country store on what is now Babe Wright’s Road, Young Isom kept watch over Joe’s spring and the signal tree.

A sack hung on a non-Friday signaled trouble; once, in the 1840s, Young Isom found Joe near death from pneumonia, just 100 feet from the tree. He carried the weakened warrior home, nursing him back to health.

Joe, now frail, his face weathered and his right side weakened, was recognizable only by his derby hat adorned with a tail feather--a quiet symbol of his enduring identity.

By the mid-1840s, the pressures of pursuit and land loss became unbearable.

Around 1846, Joe Muhlkey made a heart-wrenching decision to leave his Alabama mountain.

Joining a wagon train led by the Wright family, he sought refuge among allies in Arkansas, settling in Big Frog Valley near Mountainburg; There, he attached himself to Samuel Caswell Vaught, a friend of the Wrights who had relocated from Fayetteville.

Joe’s journey west, though undocumented, reflected the trust he placed in those who had stood by him.

Around 1850, Joe Muhlkey died, his body laid to rest by Vaught in a corner of his land by Big Frog Creek--the humble beginning of the Vaught Cemetery.

Back in Alabama, Joe’s presence lingered in Birch Hollow, where he had spent his later years helping the Wrights. At night, he milked cows, mended fences, and cleared fallen timber, moving silently as the Wrights’ dogs stayed quiet, recognizing their friend.

A special room in the family’s smokehouse offered Joe a place to rest, a testament to their unwavering bond. Near Truman Wright’s modern property in Swearengin, a spring and cave--500 feet south of his land--still whisper of Joe’s life.

Arrowheads scattered in nearby fields spark debate: remnants of Joe’s hunts or echoes of a forgotten battlefield?

In Arkansas, Joe Muhlkey’s grave became a cornerstone of the Vaught Cemetery, which grew to hold 488 graves before its relocation in 1955 due to a dam project.

His resting place, now near Highway 71 by Shepherd Springs--marked with a modern monument that replaced the one in the old cemetery-- stands as a testament to a Cherokee who defied displacement and the Wrights’ loyalty that sustained him.

Indian Joe Muhlkey--hunter, fugitive, friend---is a lasting symbol of the pioneering nature etched in the mountains of Alabama and the valley of Arkansas, carried forward by those who called him family.