Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 7, No. 2
June, 1929
BANKING IN INDIAN TERRITORY DURING THE 80’s
B. L. PHIPPS, Durant, Oklahoma
Page
186
Sometime during the seventies, Rev. W. J. B. Lloyd, located the Mission Church at Old Bennington, Indian Territory, where
he spent the rest of his life as a missionary among the Choctaw Indians.
One day his wife, Mrs. Lloyd, saddled her pony and rode over to the ranch home of Governor Wilson N. Jones, principal Chief
of the Choctaw Nation, about seven miles distance for a visit with the family.
When she started home, Governor Jones came out to where she was and tied a small, heavy bag on her saddle, saying; this is
$10,000.00 in gold; take it home with you and keep it until I call for it; I am afraid of being robbed if I keep it here,
but nobody will ever think of a preacher having money, and it will be safe there with you. Mrs. Lloyd hid the bag of gold
in the foot of a large feather bed, where it remained five years before the Governor called for it. One day during the time
the gold was there, five finely mounted horsemen rode up to the gate and asked Mrs. Lloyd to sell them some chickens, which
she did; the chickens being pointed out to them, they proceeded to draw out their six shooters and begin firing at the chickens,
each shot either taking off the head of the chicken, or breaking its neck. After killing as many as they had bargained for
they paid Mrs. Lloyd, mounted and rode away.
John, Mrs. Lloyd’s son, then in his teens, was very much impressed by the men, their markmanship and the horses they rode,
especially a fine iron gray and a splendid black stallion, each ridden by one of the men who did the expert shooting.
Several years later after Frank James had been pardond or cleared of some of the depredations charged in connection with his
eventful life, John Lloyd met him in Paris, Texas, and recognized him as one of the men who had shot the chickens and the
one riding the iron gray horse. Frank told him that the heavy set man riding the black stallion was Jesse James, that he was
Frank James and the others were the Younger brothers. John then told Frank of the money,
Page
187
$10,000.00, hidden in the house, in his mother’s feather bed; Frank replied that it would have been safe even if they had
known of its presence, that they would not have robbed Mrs. Lloyd.
John Lloyd is still living near Bennington, Oklahoma, and vouches for the truthfulness of this story.
B. L. PHIPPS, Durant, Oklahoma.
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