Indian Territory

A large land area west of the Mississippi River was called the Trans-Mississippi during the 19thcentury.  It consisted of the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas, as well as a region loosely called Indian Territory.  Indian Territory, which much later became the state of Oklahoma, was selected as a new home for many native tribes occupying valuable land that whites wanted in the southeastern states. Government leaders believed that removing the Indians to the new Indian Territory would resolve conflicts by creating a colony all their own where fewer conflicts would arise. The Cherokees were one of the tribes removed from its ancestral home and taken to Indian Territory.  Hattie read of their removal as a girl and was forever impacted by the brutality and unfairness of it.

Map showing the path of Cherokee removal

The central town of the Cherokee Nation was Tahlequah. Just four miles south lay Park Hill, a smaller town where many Cherokees had settled. Mr. George Murrell was a wealthy merchant, planter and landowner who went there with his Cherokee wife, a relative of Cherokee Chief John Ross. Murrell was a neighbor and friend of Rev. Samuel Austin Worcester of the Park Hill Mission. Hattie would long be linked to the Murrell family, as well. Today the Murrell Home is Oklahoma’s only remaining antebellum mansion.

George M. Murrell Historic Home

The Murrell Home ... restored to look like it did during Hattie's era there. Citation: Photo courtesy of the George M. Murrell Home and the Oklahoma Historical Society.George M. Murrell Home
Photo courtesy of the George M. Murrell Home and the Oklahoma Historical Society

Cherokee Female Seminary

Cherokee leaders prioritized education for their youth and built modern three-story boarding schools for them in 1851. Eastern-educated teachers like Hattie Sheldon were desired as teachers. One of Rev. Worcester’s daughters, Sarah, returned to Park Hill and taught at the female seminary before her marriage.

In A Distant Call: The Fateful Choices of Hattie Sheldon, Hattie reads about the outstanding schools and sees a photo of the female seminary brick building that she never forgets. Her memory of the school and its place in the plot provide an interesting complication.

First_Cherokee_Female_SeminaryCherokee Female Seminary, Park Hill, Indian Territory
Photo: Grant Foreman Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society Research Division