Oklahoma Family Tree Stories
Dyer Family
Dyer, Moses & Eliza
1832–1833 Choctaw Trail of Tears Eagletown, I.T.
Family information provided by the donor
Posted November 2024
Although no photographs of Moses and Eliza are known to exist, their descendants attest to their strength, resilience, and perseverance to survive the cruel forced “removal” from their homelands known as the Choctaw Trail of Tears.
Moses was the son of Ish-Kun-Ul-Lubbee and Ish-Te-Mah. Ish-Kun-Ul-Lubbee was the last surviving Wayne’s Warrior, the Choctaw scouts with General “Mad” Anthony Wayne in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in the Ohio River valley.
At age fifteen in 1828, Moses was listed as a student at the Mayhew Mission School established by Presbyterian missionaries through the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Today, the Mayhew community is unincorporated in Lowndes County and located south of Highway 82, east of Starkville, Mississippi.
Moses was later sent as a teacher with “two other boys that have attended this school, will leave here today for Tennesse,” documented in a January 26, 1830, letter from Reverend Cyrus Kingsbury, a Presbyterian missionary to the Choctaw people.
“Moses Dyer is teaching a native school is a promising young man, is in good standing as a Christian,” according to Report of the Male School at Mayhew for the Year Ending 22 July 1830.
In a letter dated August 11, 1830, “The school at Hikashvhaba is taught by Moses Dyer, a full Choctaw, who received his education from M__ Moseley at Mayhew. He has not much knowledge of the English but is a good teacher in his own language.”
As colonizers demanded the United States government provide more land for them to settle, the Choctaw people became the first to be forcibly removed from their homelands with the treaty signed at Dancing Rabbit Creek in Mississippi.
Moses “mustered out” on October 8, 1832, on his journey of a lifetime. Today, through resources compiled through the National Archives and Records Administration, the Oklahoma Historical Society American Indian Archives, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, we learn that their journey likely took them from Starkville, Mississippi, through Vicksburg where they were barged to a point near Russellville, Arkansas, then walked to what is now McCurtain County, Oklahoma, to establish the Dyer family at Osi Tamaha (Eagletown), Eagle County, Indian Territory, in 1833. According to an interview in the Indian-Pioneer Histories, we know that Moses was buried on one of his son’s “plantation” in today’s McCurtain County. Dates of his and Eliza’s births and deaths are not known at this time.
This image is from the baby book of Moses and Eliza’s great-great-granddaughter:
This beautiful sculpture of three redbud trees is located just outside the Eleanor and John Kirkpatrick Research Center in the Oklahoma History Center. Each leaf of the Oklahoma Family Tree memorializes an Oklahoma family with the family surname, first name(s), and the town or county where they lived. In addition, a short family history is preserved in the digital family history book at the base of the tree.
Sponsoring a leaf is a special way to recognize your family history and benefit future generations at the same time. To find out how to honor your own family with a leaf visit the Oklahoma Family Tree Project page.
