Jessie Hallock

Jessie was a Caddo Indian woman

The Caddo are a Native American tribe that originated in the lower Mississippi Valley and spread west along river systems. They are part of a confederacy of North American Indian tribes that make up the Caddoan linguistic family. The Caddo name comes from the French truncation of kadohadacho, which means "real chief" in Caddo.


The Caddo were the most advanced Native American culture in Texas. They lived in large settlements with highly structured social, religious, and political systems. The Caddo raised corn, beans, squash, and other crops. They were also farmers and hunters. The women would plant corn, beans, pumpkins, and sunflowers, and then cook cornbread, soups, and stews. The men would hunt deer, quails, turkey, small game, and fish in the rivers.

Caddo dance, 1892. Courtesy Marilyn Murrow. Photograph from Archives and Manuscript Division, Oklahoma Historical Society
The Caddo are native to East Texas and parts of what's now Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. About 7,000 people are enrolled in the Caddo Nation today, and most live in and around Southwest Oklahoma.

The Kiowa Agency [also called: Anadarko Agency, the Kiowa and Comanche Agency, and the Kiowas, Apache, and Comanche Agency] was established in 1864. The tribes assigned to it -- Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche -- had been previously assigned to the Upper Arkansas Agency, and before 1855, to the Upper Platte Agency. Even after the establishment of the Kiowa Agency, it was closely associated with the Upper Platte Agency. The Kiowa Agency also has some responsibility for some Caddo Indians during the Civil War and for some Comanche Indians living in Texas.

There was no fixed location for the Kiowa Agency during its early years. It was supposed to have its headquarters at Fort Larned, Kansas, but due to the nomadic life of the tribes assigned to it, the agent spent most of his time moving about. By the Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek in 1867, the three tribes agreed to settle in an area south of the Washita River in Indian Territory. An agency headquarters was located on Cache Creek near Fort Sill.

From May 1869 to July 1870, the Wichita Agency was consolidated with the Kiowa Agency, but in 1870, the Wichita Agency again became independent. The two were again consolidated on 1 September 1878 and the combined agency became the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Agency[1].
[1] Hill, Edward E. The Office of Indian Affairs, 1824-1880: Historical Sketches. New York, New York: Clearwater Publishing Company, Inc., 1974, p. 85-86.

Famous photograph of Chief Long Hat's family compound near Binger, Oklahoma taken around 1870 by William Soule, Courtesy Smithsonian Institution

Biography:

Born c. 1882, Jessie Hallock has no recorded parents although the 1910 census says they were both Caddo, making here full-blooded Caddo. She reportedly from unsourced documents lived somewhere north of Fort Cobb in Caddo County, Oklahoma Territory.

Jessie was schooled as a child (probably) at the Riverside Indian School. Located at Anadarko, the Riverside Indian School is the nation's oldest federally operated American Indian boarding school and is one of four such schools remaining. Organized in 1871 at the old Wichita Indian Agency commissary with Thomas C. Battey as principal, it became the Wichita-Caddo School in 1872. In 1878–79 the facility was relocated one mile west to its present location along the Washita River and was named Riverside Indian School.

A photograph shows the Riverside Indian School as it appeared in 1901. (Oklahoma Historical Society) (16471, Virgil Robbins Collection, OHS).
"At least one school cemetery and possibly others exist near Riverside Indian School. Owing to a lack of records, no one knows for certain how many children have been buried here since the school opened in 1871, nor do they know exactly where all the graves are located."
Source: Hill, Stephen A. Martin and Doug, and NonDoc. “Lack of Records Confounds School Cemetery’s History.” NonDoc, 20 June 2016, nondoc.com/2016/06/20/lack-of-records-confounds-school-cemeterys-history/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.

According to Carla Joinson in her book Vanished in Hiawatha, Jessie was admitted to the Canton Asylum on January 29, 1903, and diagnosed with congenital imbecility, high-grade, later in 1910, re-diagnosed with just congenital imbecility. She died at the asylum on June 8, 1923.

According to the letter dated February 23, 1934, from DR. L.L. Culp to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Jessie was buried in the Canton Hiawatha Cemetery, tier 6 plot 45 with an Episcopal ceremony.

Her profile is part of the The Canton Asylum One Place Study.

Research Notes:
-Jessie is said to be Caddo but I've reviewed the Indian Census for the Kiowa Agency which had jurisdiction for the early years of 1900 and the supposed death year of 1923 and find NO Hallock's listed.
-there is a lot of information on Jessie Hallock at Canton but NOT a lot leading up to her confinement in 1903

Recommended Reading
1. Caddo Nation of Oklahoma (Oklahoma Social Studies Standards, OSDE). 2014, sde.ok.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/Tribes_of_OK_Education%20Guide_Caddo_Nation.pdf.
2. Black, Steve, and Emily McCuistion. “Tejas > Caddo Fundamentals.” Www.texasbeyondhistory.net, Jan. 2024, www.texasbeyondhistory.net/tejas/fundamentals/index.html. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.
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Sources:

1910 May 12-13 - "United States Census, 1910", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPXP-WD8 : Fri Oct 06 11:29:57 UTC 2023), Entry for Gilbert Schrager and Sigar Monson, 1910, pg. 79/1082, line 26 (age 28), census of Canton Township, Lincoln County, South Dakota

1910 May 13 - "United States Census, 1910", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MPFS-XDT : Wed Oct 04 15:46:55 UTC 2023), Entry for Jessie Hallock, 1910, pg. 81/1082, line 4, census of the United States Indian Insane Asylum, Canton Township, Lincoln County, South Dakota

1910 Aug 4 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=674, line 9, Table 7 Form of mental disease of those admitted since opening of asylum

1910 Aug 4 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=677, line 4, Table 8 Form of mental disease of those in asylum June 30, 1910, revised

1911 - "United States, Native American, Census Rolls, 1885-1940", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68Z5-J9HN : Fri Oct 06 00:11:34 UTC 2023), Entry for Jessie Hallock, 1911, pg. 506/522, line ? (Jessie Hallock is indicated as a 28-year-old female)

1917 Oct 1 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=776, line 57, Quarterly School Report, census for the Asylum for Insane Indians School

1918 Jan 22 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=880, line 50, Feb 2, 1918 ltr. H. Hummer to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, summary of patient arrivals

1918 Jun 30 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=887, line 13, 1918 annual report and census of the Asylum for Insane Indians

1920 Jan 30 - "United States Census, 1920", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6J7-FNN : Fri Dec 22 02:18:22 UTC 2023), Entry for Jessie Hallock, 1920, pg. 62/1130, line 79 (age 36), census of the Asylum for Indians, Canton Township, Lincoln County, South Dakota

1920 Jun 30 - Camp Verde School: 1910-27; Canton Insane Asylum: 1910-22, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155854182?objectPage=899, line 15, Canton Asylum female census

1921 Jun 30 - "United States, Native American, Census Rolls, 1885-1940", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:68Z4-CZ7S : Sat Oct 07 00:06:25 UTC 2023), Entry for Jessie Hallock, 1921, pg. 509/522, line 17, male census Canton Asylum

1923 Jun 8 - "South Dakota, Grave Registration Records, 1940-1941", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:CY86-83PZ : Fri Dec 15 10:28:48 UTC 2023), Entry for Jessie Hallock, no image (age 21!)

1923 Jun 12 - "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVVF-QB6F : 27 July 2019), Jessie Hallock, 1923; Burial, Canton, Lincoln, South Dakota, United States of America, Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery; citing record ID 14493736, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com. (Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14493736/jessie-hallock: accessed February 20, 2024), memorial page for Jessie Hallock (unknown–12 Jun 1923), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14493736, citing Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery, Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota, USA; Maintained by Graveaddiction (contributor 46528400).)

1923 Jun 12 - Hilton, M. (Ed.). (2023, July 10). Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians Historical Marker. Historical Marker. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=183486 Photo by Ruth VanSteenwyk, July 10, 2023, courtesy of HMdb.org

Josephine DeCouteau 4-9-23 · Jessie Hallock 6-12-23 · Marie Pancho 10-17-23

(Curator Note: June 12 is the date of burial, the date of death was June 8, 1923)