Chickasaw Chief Tishomingo

Tishomingo

     Tishomingo in 1836 lived on the place in Lee county, known in 1870 as the Larkin Gambrell place, and was the chief of that district.  From map sent me in 1904 by Miss Janie Agnew, Bethany, Lee county, Miss., and by one or more members of Larkin Gambrell’s family I learn that Tishomingo’s house was on S. W. 1-4, Sec. 13, Town 7, Range 5, Lee Co., Miss.;  Larkin Gambrell’s home in 1849 was on N. W. 1-4 of same section.

     From Edwin G. Thomas, May 10, 1880:

“In 1834, before I moved to Pikeville, I made a trip through the Indian nation. I first made my way to Cotton Gin, on the east side of the Tombigby, across which was the Indian nation. By night of one of the days when traveling in the Chicksaw nation, we reached the settlement of an Indian, Tishomingo. On this day we were guided by an Indian, and passed several Indian huts. Some Indians run their horses by us during the day—drunk. The guide talked with the sober Indian, and learned that they had been at a trading place and gotten spirits. Tishomingo lived on the south side of a traveled road running a little north of east. He had a right smart sized farm and a good many negroes. He had a large spring across the road from his house, and below, a few hundred yards, there was a natural rock bridge, the branch running under it. The distance from the T. C. Stuart mission was 35 or 40 miles.” 

     Tishomingo was then (1836) a hundred years old, his wife seventy or eighty, and his mother (who lived with him) one hundred and twenty. He had been living at that place sixty one years. He had come from the Chickasaw Old Fields. 

     The Creeks and Chickasaws had had a fight sixty-one years before.  The Creeks came to the Chickasaw Old Fields and killed the Chickasaws, and the latter scattered out from this place, which had been up to that time the head-quarters of their tribe. 

     Tishomingo was a good, clever man, and very infiuential. The chief seems to have possessed some property in 1834; for we are told that in that year, Edwin G. Thomas, traveled in the Chickasaw Nation and that Tishomingo “had a right smart size farm and a good many negroes.”

     In personal appearance the chief was big, tall, and rawboned,
so described by one who knew him and who had visited his house many times, Wm. Henry Gates, Prentiss County, Nov 9, 1880:

“I have heard Brother [T. C.] Stuart and the first settlers speak in high terms of Tishomingo, as a noble-spirited chief, distinguished for his high sense of honor and virtue.”” In one of the treaties he is spoken of by the Chickasaws “as their old and beloved chief.”

Narrative of Berry Hodges, Union county, Miss., June 8, 1880:.

“While I was living near Ripley I visited the neighborhood of Tishomingo. Tennessee wagoners got me to sell their stock to the Indians, because I understood their language. I found no whites in Tishomingo’s neighborhood. Tishomingo was a noted Indian, an old man, very old. I saw him at Ripley several times. The Indians knew me very well. At Indians’ houses men would lie on bear-skins, covered with blankets if they had them. Their eating was poor stuff. I have eaten tom-fulla (hominy) beat and boiled, a little lye dropped in it, and turned a little sour) with Tishomingo. Tom-fulla was a common diet among the Indians.” 

     Tishoming died at Little Rock, Ark., on his way to the Territory, and was buried there.  It is supposed that he died about 1841. A county in Mississippi and a town in the Indian Territory perpetuate the name of this old minco.



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