The travels and travails of the people who came to this region from all over the United States in the early to mid-19th century were often those of resilience, determination and desire to make a better life for their loved ones, and these factors all came together for a pioneering couple who made an impression on the history of eastern Oklahoma and Leflore County.
Samuel Fraser Hickman, son of Paris and Mary Alexander Hickman, was born in South Carolina. His early years saw him living in Alabama before moving to Neshoba County, Mississippi, around 1830 with his family.
In 1840, Samuel married Lucy Fille-moon-tubbee, an 18-year-old full-blood Choctaw Indian from the Bogue Chitto Clan. This union marked the beginning of a marriage that lasted almost 35 years until Samuel's death in 1874 and produced eleven children in all.
Following the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830, many Choctaws moved west of the Mississippi River, but a substantial number, including Lucy’s family, remained in Mississippi.
In 1849, Samuel and Lucy, along with their children, decided to relocate to the Indian Territory. Their journey led them to Fort Coffee, but an epidemic of cholera forced them to return to Mississippi.
Undeterred, they attempted the move again in 1853 with a larger group of Choctaws. Unfortunately, another epidemic thwarted their plans, and they had to return once more. It wasn’t until 1860, just before the Civil War, that the Hickman family successfully reached Fort Coffee on their third attempt.
Many of the couple's children made the migrations to and from Indian Territory over the years. Their oldest child, a daughter named Jane married a plantation owner in Mississippi and was said to be the only offspring of the couple who did not return to IT with them in 1860.
Upon their arrival, the family settled near Scullyville before moving further south to the Howe/Heavener area.
One of those children married into a family who lent a name to one of the towns in Leflore County. The first husband ot Tobitha Hickman, Zachery Taylor Hickman, died at the age of 36 and she remarried three years later to Joseph Herman Heavener for whom the town of Heavener was named.
After relocating their family to IT in 1860, Samuel and Lucy Hickman spent their remaining years in what is now LeFlore County. They passed away between respectively in 1874 and 1885, with their exact dates of death unknown.
Besides Tobthia, four of their other children's final resting places have been identified in Leflore County.
The couple was laid to rest in the Flemmichubbe Cemetery, a now-neglected and abandoned burial ground northeast of Howe.
This cemetery, also known as the "Fille ma Chubbee/Hickman Cemetery", once had about 25 identified grave markers. However, since the cemetery is on private property and has seen little or no upkeep in the past decade the last reported number of viable, marked graves was three back in 2013.
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