Corn Hampton

My great-great-grandfather is Corn Hampton. We have a scattered number of documents that refer to him, but we haven’t been able to definitively pin down who his parents are or even when he was born or died. The first reference we have to him is in a set of papers from the Quapaw Agency, in particular a document entitled “Examination of Allottee” that is in regards to my great-great-grandmother’s allotment. My gg-grandmother is Cora Jackson Hampton (Hollingsworth, Van Sant). On her papers, it lists that her first husband was Corn Hampton, and just above it lists the name Alfred in parenthesis. This is how we came to know that my gg-grandfather was Alfred Corn Hampton or, more commonly, Corn Hampton.

We also know that he is from North Carolina. In census records that list their family, Cora’s Hampton children all list that their father was born in North Carolina. Corn is not listed on the 1900 Shawnee Census with Cora and his last child was born in September 1897. This means that he had to be alive at least through January 1897, but likely died before 1900.

We also have some papers that are listed as being from the bible of Henry Harvey Hampton (also born in North Carolina, but moved to Grove, OK area later). It lists an Alfred Corn Hampton born May 22, 1855. Those papers list other members of HH Hampton’s family. Our primary reason for visiting Grove was to determine if the Corn listed in these papers is that same as our Corn Hampton. We were unable to draw a concrete conclusion there, however.

Malice, Murder, and Mayhem
What was exciting is a book that we found in Grove’s library. I had finished looking through most of the books my Aunt and I were interested in, so I was browsing the genealogy section. I came across a book titled “Malice, Murder and Mayhem in the Oklahoma & Indian Territories” by Edward Herring. It was a book that contained summaries of events that occurred in Indian Territory, in particular things that had to do with crimes. I thought that it wouldn’t do much for my search, but would be interesting to read. I flipped through a few pages, reading tidbits here and there. Out of habit, I checked out the index. Imagine my surprise when I saw Corn Hampton’s name there!

My Aunt and I had just been discussing the fact that Corn had to have been alive through January 1897. Here is what we found in the book about Corn:

February 18, 1897 (Thursday)
“It is reported that Corn Hampton was killed by a man by the name of Wilcox, on Spring river last week. –Miami Herald”

Miami is a small town near Seneca, where the Eastern Shawnee tribal grounds are. This means it’s very likely that the Corn Hampton mentioned here is my gg-grandfather. We visited Miami and tried to find the paper, but they only have records back to 1901. In fact, I contacted the Oklahoma State Archives, and found out that the earliest listing for the Miami Herald was 1901.

I contacted the author of the book, and this is what he had to say:

I received your letter yesterday. I am afraid that one article about Corn Hampton being killed is the only one found in the Muskogee Phoenix paper. You will notice the article was attributed to the Miami Herald. The Phoenix, as did any large paper of that era, ran wire service stories from other papers across the nation, just as today the Los Angeles Times may run stories from Denver, Dallas, etc. The only hope you have of finding any other stories is to check other large papers in the Indian Territory for dates immediately following the Phoenix article in hopes that they may have picked up on the story or any aftermath of the incident. Sometimes weeks, months, even years after a murder, additional stories about the apprehension, trial, etc. of the murder(s) may appear.
I have also done abstracts from several other state newspapers. Fort Smith, Arkansas, Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, frequently ran stories from the Indian Territory. You might check papers from those towns for additional information. Dallas and Fort Worth also had daily and weekly papers. Sorry I can’t be of further help. I will hang onto your letter in case I come across anything else.

My response from the State Archives suggested that I might check the Vinita Indian Chieftain, as it was published prior to 1900, and that there are also papers for Craig County before 1900 as well.

So far, I haven’t investigated any other papers to see if they have information, but I’m hoping that one of them might!

[Originally written November 13, 2004. Brought to new site Memorial Day, 2007.]