Volume 9 , Issue 46

1907 Marriage Ceremony Uniting Two Territories

This news article appeared November 17, 1907,in The Daily Oklahoman, the day after statehood was proclaimed.

"Governor Frantz, as commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, refused to participate, Adjutant General Niles felt that he could not go ahead and carry out his duties as marshal of the day, and Col. Roy V. Hoffman acted in his stead.

The marriage ceremony, uniting the two territories, was an important feature of the ceremonies. Oklahoma was represented by C. G. Jones of Oklahoma City, chairman for many years of the statehood committee, and Indian Territory by Mrs. Leo Bennett, wife of the United States marshal at Muskogee, and one of the most beautiful women of Indian blood in the southwest. She is a part blood Cherokee. The Rev. W. H. Dodson, pastor of the First Baptist church at Guthrie and a Confederate veteran, performed the ceremony. In proposing the marriage Mr. Jones said:

"I have been asked to perform the agreeable duty of proposing the marriage of Oklahoma to Indian Territory. Permit me to say that nothing gives me greater pleasure, as the president advises us in his proclamation that the marriage will be strictly legal, without regard to age, condition, or previous condtion of servitude. The bridegroom is only eighteen years old, but is capable of assuming all the matrimonial responsibilities of a stalwart youth. Though he was born in trouble and tribulation, in the city of Washington, 1889, his life of eighteen years on the plains has been one of tremendous activity, and he has grown in the size of a giant.

Like every well-regulated masculine individual he has grown tired of being alone, though he was fully capable of taking care of himself. Strange to say, on account of his youth and inexperience he is possessed for an unconquerable modesty and he has asked me to propose marriage with Indian Territory.

"Out of sympathy for the young bachelor, I now propose to Indian Territory, who I am assured is matrimonially inclined, that the proposal be accepted, and that the union be consummated here and now. It should be understood, however, that nothing should be said about the age of the bride. It is a case when youth and age are to be blended together in harmonious union, and that under the constitution and laws no divorce can ever be granted. This is not exactly a case of love at first sight. A lady by the name of Seqouyah at one time interfered with the courtship and at first tried to break up the match. But having failed to do so, and tired of the loneliness of single blessedness, she gracefully surrendered to the inevitable, and has ever since been in favor of the marriage.

"By authority vested in me by the high contracting parties, and in obedience to their request, I now call upon the Rev. W. H. Dodson of the First Baptist church of Guthrie to perfrom the marriage ceremony."

The bride was "given away" by William A. Durant, a Choctaw Indian, who delivered a brief address, which featured the Indian citizen. He said:

"To you as the representative of Mr. Oklahoma I present the hand and the fortune of Miss Indian Territory, convinced by his eighteen years of persistent wooing that his love is genuine, his suit sincere and his purpose most honorable. With pride and pleasure I present to him Miss Indian Territory, who was reared as a political orphan, tutored by federal office-holders and controlled by an indifferent guardian residing a though and miles from her habitation.

"Despite these unhappy circumstances of her youth, which have cast a shade of sorrow over a face by nature intended to give back only the warm smiles of God's pure sunshine, this beauteous maiden comes to him as the last descendant of the proudest race that ever trod foot on American soil' a race whose sons have never bowed their necks to the heel of the oppressor; the reginal occupants of the American continent.

"Although an orphan, Miss Indian Territory brings to her spouse a dower that equals in fertile fields, productive mines and sterling and upright citizenship, the fortune of her wooer. To Oklahoma, into whose identity Indian Territory is about to be merged forever, must be entrusted the care of this princely estate. We resign it to you freely in the confident hope that it will be cared for, developed and conserved to the undending glory of our new state and the untold benefit of her people.

"Oklahoma, your wooing has been long and persistent. For eighteen weary years you have sought the hand of our fair maiden in wedlock. It the object of your suit has at times seemed indifferent, believe it to have been but evidence of a maiden's proper modesty and not a shrinking from the union.

"In winning the hand, you take with it the heart. Your bride comes to you without coercion or persuasion, as the loving maiden confidently places her love she bears for you as the love you feel for her, arises from kindred interests, mutual aspirations and an unbounded admiration, one for the other."
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