Roy Wolfe

Roy was a young Cherokee man

On March 4, 1872, the doors were opened to the Cherokee Orphan Asylum at the Male Seminary in Tahlequah, Indian Territory. The school was later moved to the estate of Lewis Ross at Grand Saline, I.T. a couple of years later where it remained until it burned in November of 1903. The school was then moved to its current location south of Tahlequah where it has remained for the last 117 years.
Source: Franklin, Don. “Cherokee Nation - Happy 148th Birthday Sequoyah School!” Www.facebook.com, 4 Mar. 2020, www.facebook.com/TheCherokeeNation/photos/a.125970577528729/2687079728084455/?type=3. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Photograph of the Main Building at the Sequoyah Orphan's Training School, near Tahlequah, OK, c. 1920-1921.

Photograph of the Dorms at the Sequoyah Orphan's Training School, near Tahlequah, OK, c. 1920-1921.

Photograph of male students at the Sequoyah Orphan's Training School, near Tahlequah, OK, c. 1920-1921.
Source: Sequoyah Orphan's Training School, photograph, 1920~/1921~; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1623147/: accessed May 19, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.

First established as an orphanage for Cherokee and Native children, Sequoyah Schools, an Indian boarding school, originated in 1871 when the Cherokee National Council passed an act setting up an orphan asylum to care for the many orphans who came out of the Civil War. In 1914 the Cherokee National Council authorized Chief Rogers to sell and convey the property of the Cherokee Orphan Training School, including 40 acres of land and all the buildings, to the United States Department of Interior for $5,000. In 1925 the name of the institution was changed to Sequoyah Orphan Training School in honor of Sequoyah, a Cherokee citizen who developed the Cherokee Syllabary. After being known as Sequoyah Vocational School for a time, it was named Sequoyah High School, and in 2006, it added 7th and 8th grades and became known as Sequoyah Schools. From a school with one building and 40 acres of land, Sequoyah Schools has grown into a modern institution covering more than 90 acres and a dozen major buildings nestled on a beautiful campus five miles southwest of the Cherokee Nation capital city of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. In 1985 the Cherokee Nation resumed the operation of Sequoyah Schools. It is regionally and state-accredited for grades 7-12. Today, Sequoyah Schools enrolls more than 300 students representing 42 tribes and 14 different states. Students are eligible to attend if they are members of a federally recognized Indian tribe or one-fourth blood descendants of such members.
Source: “Sequoyah High School.” Www.sequoyahschools.org, www.sequoyahschools.org/page/history. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Additional Reading:
1. Sadie Fields Parnell remembers Sequoyah Orphan Training School @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=z4zKjU7iub0
2. Remembering Sequoyah School-Cherokee Denwalt @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=yJTTR_JFObs
3. CHAVEZ Assistant Editor, WILL . “Sequoyah Cemetery: Lost but Not Forgotten.” Cherokeephoenix.org, 2 July 2003, www.cherokeephoenix.org/news/sequoyah-cemetery-lost-but-not-forgotten/article_0c11f878-0293-5731-928e-b9e7aa0e689f.html. Accessed 20 May 2024.

Biography:
Roy Wolfe is something of an unknown, he may have been an orphan with siblings. He appears to have been born c. 1905 and later attended the Sequoyah Orphan Training School, near Tahlequah, OK. Documents for the years he should have been there, 1918-1923, identify several persons named Wolfe (possibly siblings?), but not Roy.

According to Carla Joinson in her book Vanished in Hiawatha, Roy was committed on January 18, 1923, from the Cherokee Orphan Training School, which may have also been the same place as the Sequoyah Orphan's Training School near Tahlequah, OK, c. 1920-1921. He was diagnosed at Canton Asylum with epileptic imbecility, but not necessarily at birth.

In the letter dated February 17, 1934, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dr. L.L. Culp advises that Roy arrived from Tahlequah, OK, and that he died at the Canton Asylum on March 28, 1928, and was then buried in the Canton Hiawatha Cemetery tier 2 plot 62

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

Research Notes:

William Roy Wolfed son of William B Wolfe and Nappie Hood was born 16 September 1905. He’s on Cherokee Minor card 2895. He’s on the 1910 census with family, living in Park Hill; on the 1920 and 1930 census living in Tahlequah. He’s not our guy however as he died in 1980.
There is another Roy Wolfe, born about 1870 who was living in Tahlequah in 1893, and a third one, Roy Trotting Wolf born about 1892 living in Cooweescoowee in 1893. The Tahlequah man had a father or brother named John. I can’t find any more on either one, but neither of these men can be attached to a known family.
The Cherokee Orphan Asylum burned in 1903, it was an orphanage, not for the mentally ill. There was a Cherokee Insane Asylum that closed at statehood, and then the state established the Eastern State Hospital in Vinita in 1913.
But there are no indications that Roy Wolfe was at either of these locations.

-https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS5F-CWVR-H?i=1301... starting at image 1302. This looks like the years Roy was supposedly there - 1918-1923. There are other students named Wolfe (siblings?), but no Roy. The full records are at the National Archives in Fort Worth and are not digitized.
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Sources:

1923 Jun 30 - Canton Insane Asylum: 1923-33; Cantonment School, pg. 370/1140: 1910-27, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports 1910 – 1935, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155855298?objectPage=31, line 45, Canton Asylum male census

1924 Jun 30 - “Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940 [Microform].” Internet Archive, Washington : National Archives and Records Service, 1965, archive.org/details/indiancensusroll138unit/page/n137/mode/1up?view=theater. Accessed 29 Feb. 2024, pg. 513/519, line 49, census of the Canton Asylum 1924

1925 Jun 30 - Canton Insane Asylum: 1923-33; Cantonment School, pg. 370/1140: 1910-27, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports 1910 – 1935, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155855298?objectPage=116, line 49, Canton Asylum male census

1925 - "South Dakota State Census, 1925", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MM4J-9YH : Sat Mar 09 20:07:52 UTC 2024), Entry for Roy Wolfe, 1925, pg. 2802/3359, card 652, census of South Dakota, United States by H.R.Hummer (b=1909)

1926 Jun 30 - Canton Insane Asylum: 1923-33; Cantonment School, pg. 370/1140: 1910-27, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports 1910 – 1935, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155855298?objectPage=167, line 44, Canton Asylum male census

1927 Jun 30 - Canton Insane Asylum: 1923-33; Cantonment School, pg. 370/1140: 1910-27, Series: Superintendents' Annual Narrative and Statistical Reports 1910 – 1935, Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20408 @ https://catalog.archives.gov/id/155855298?objectPage=185, line 43, Canton Asylum male census

1928 Mar 28 - "South Dakota, Grave Registration Records, 1940-1941", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:CY8C-3HT2 : Sun Mar 10 18:07:50 UTC 2024), Entry for Roy Wolfe, no image
Name Roy Wolfe
Sex Male
Age 18 years
Birth Year (Estimated) 1910
Death Date 28 March 1928
Event Type Burial
Event Place Presho, Lyman, South Dakota, United States
Cemetery Indian Asylum Cemetery

1928 Mar 31 - Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14493921/roy-wolf: accessed May 19, 2024), memorial page for Roy Wolf (unknown–31 Mar 1928), Find a Grave Memorial ID 14493921, citing Hiawatha Asylum Cemetery, Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota, USA; Maintained by Graveaddiction (contributor 46528400).

1928 Mar 31 - 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

Chico Francisco 4-21-27 · Roy Wolfe 3-31-28 · Matt Smith 11-30-28