Memorials › James Madison "Mattie" Dobbs

James Madison "Mattie" Dobbs

17 Oct 1833 – 17 Aug 1909

Birth17 Oct 1833
Death17 Aug 1909
CemeteryCloud Chief Cemetery
Cloud Chief , Washita County , Oklahoma , USA
Added byKiowaGal on 01 Jun 2011
FaGhttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12125515

Bio

James Madison Dobbs was born in Hamilton County, Illinois on October 17, 1833. He married Susannah (Susan) Gregory on December 18, 1856. Ten children were born to this union. James was a farmer by trade. He enrolled as a Private in the Company K, 49th Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers Infantry for the Union on October 29, 1861. He served all through the Civil War and was wounded at Ft. Donelson, Tennessee on February 13, 1862. James Madison was mustered out by CPT Shaw with his Company at Paducah, Kentucky on September 9, 1865. About 1870, the family moved to Sugar Loaf, Arkansas. The trip from Illinois took something like four weeks accompanied by many hardships. The maps no longer show this town, so it must have vanished with the other ghost towns. Evidently not finding Arkansas to their liking, they moved to Decatur, Texas. They lived in Decatur for about two years or more. Their next move was to Graham, Texas in Young County where they lived for almost the next quarter century farming and where their family grew to young manhood and womanhood. They had crude farming equipment- sometimes pulling the plow with oxen. After all these years in Texas they had one more move in their future a move to the glorious Cheyenne Arapaho County in Oklahoma. This they started in the spring of 1896. Finally, after many hardships they crossed the Red River and camped on Cache Creek somewhere west of the present city of Lawton, Oklahoma. After a few more weary days, they reached their claim, two miles west and one mile south of Cloud Chief, Oklahoma. Here they lived in a dugout until they built a small two room house, hauling lumber from El Reno. The next ten years in the frontier country were still rough- cold winters and hot summers. Cloud Chief was the county seat and had a few stores. Four off Madison Dobbs' sons filed on almost adjoining quarters so it was almost a Dobbs settlement. In the following years they built small houses to take the place of their dugouts, broke the virgin prairie with their sod plows and lived the best they could. Their furniture was crude- rawhide bottom chairs and no detergents just home made soap and sometimes used the wood ashes to scrub the floors. James Madison was lucky enough to have a fairly good water well on his claim which made extra good coffee. Everyone bragged on his coffee. They sometimes had church at his house from about 1905-1912. James Madison Dobbs passed on to the Great Beyond on August 17, 1909. His wife Susannah Gregory Dobbs joined he on January 23, 1920. They are buried in Cloud Chief Cemetery, just two miles east of the old homestead. Their Children: Mary Elizabeth (Dobbs) Meadors, Albert Dobbs, Alice Rebecca (Dobbs) Donnell, Emmaline (Dobbs) Burk, Miles Dobbs, Lee Andrew Dobbs, Nathan Levi Dobbs, William Madison Dobbs, Claude Dobbs, George W. Dobbs.

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