No, the Indians Didn't Get Andrew Jackson Callaway

Thelma M. Danilson, of Portland, OR wanted the Callaway Family Association to know that "the Indians didn't get Andrew!" It was reported by Arkansas relatives that Andrew Jackson Callaway, born 1850, went to Oregon and that "the Indians got him." He did join a wagon train which left Arkansas in 1877 and arrived at Prairie City, OR six months later. Even though Indian uprisings had subsided by that time, there were some attacks by renagade Indians that could be quite frightening - especially when the men were away.

In 1876, Andrew had married Susan Alston before leaving for Oregon. But she and their baby died at childbirth. Was she on the wagon train with him? If so, where is she buried? Does anyone know these answers?

Also on the wagon train was Sarah Ann Steele, born 1857. She was the oldest child in the Steele family who were also making that trip. Sarah had been born in Ozark and had lived in various places in Arkansas. She did not know Andrew before the wagon trip. They were married in Prairie City in May, 1878, shortly after her father, Thomas Steele, a Civil War veteran, had died. When her mother, Mary Jane Blaylock Steele, died a short time later, Andrew and Sarah provided a home for three of Sarah's sisters and one brother. The couple had four children of their own.

Andrew, who had been educated at Fayetteville Seminary in Arkansas, taught school in Prairie where he and Sarah homesteaded. He soon began to teach in other schools which were too far from his home to travel on horseback. This meant he had to be away from home for periods of time and he boarded with families in the various communities. So Sarah had to assume the responsibilities for the home, children and cattle. Bertha, the oldest and the only girl, remembered how she had to ride horseback looking after the cattle and always carried a stick to kill rattlesnakes. Often a year would pass before they would see another white woman. The nearest Post Office was 10 miles away and the nearest doctor and supply center was 80 miles away in Ontario, OR.

Often the Indians camped near the farm and, on one occasion, one of them sat in the yard for a long time sharpening his knife. Sarah was alone with the children and must have felt they would all be scalped. It is said that one of the women - perhaps Sarah - chased an Indian away with a frying pan of hot coals. In any event, the Indians didn't get them.

Andrew was as active politically as he was educationally. In 1896 he was the Democratic nominee for superintendent of schools in Juntura, OR. He finally moved to Ontario, OR in order that the children could have better educational opportunities. His oldest son, Thomas Hosea Callaway, graduated from the sixth grade - the highest grade taught at that time - in 1900 but, sadly, Andrew did not live long enough to see that happen. He died in 1898, age 48, from complications related to a spleen problem he had had for several years. The Ontario papers said of him at that time: "... a good citizen, an honest, upright man, a loving father and husband...Honest to the heart's core, true to his friends and moral convictions, fearless in his advocacy of the right, hating shams and moral cowardice, open as the day, yet, modest, unassuming and reticent with strangers. His virtues were the kind that shone brightest in the home, and in the narrower circle of intimate personal friends."

Those direct descendants of Andrew at the 1981 Callaway Family Association Meeting were proof that the "Indians didn't get Andrew," and that beloved "cousins" abound throughout the United States.

The preceding article was submitted to CFA in 1981 by Thelma M. Danilson, Portland, OR, granddaughter of Andrew Jackson Callaway, and originally appeared in the 1982 CFA Journal

Pictured in photo, front row left to right: Andrew Jackson, William Andrew and Sarah Ann Steele. Back row: Edward Cleveland, Bertha and Thomas Hosea.
The family line of descent is as follows:
Peter Callaway
John Callaway
John Callaway, Jr.
John Callaway
Thomas Callaway
John D. Callaway
Jonathan Hosea Callaway
Andrew Jackson Callaway

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