Samuel Benton Callahan

Samuel was born to James Oliver Callahan and Amanda (Doyle) Callahan (1815 - 1902). Amanda Doyle was born in Georgia (part of the Old Creek Nation) to a white man, Nimrod Doyle and a Creek mother, Susannah Islands. Little is known of James, other than that he died in Alabama before the Creek Indians were forced to emigrate to Indian Territory. Amanda married James Callahan when she was 16 years old. The Callahans moved to Alabama, where they had two children, but one died in infancy. Amanda and Samuel, the surviving son, were forced to emigrate from Alabama to Indian Territory in 1836. Amanda married Dr. Owen Simpson Davis (1810 - 1885) of Sulphur Springs, Texas, which became Samuel's new home.[5] After her husband died, she moved to Muskogee, where she remained with her son for the rest of her life.[6]

Samuel went to live in Texas when his mother remarried. He attended public schools in Sulphur Springs, then went to McKenzie College (Texas) in Clarksville, Texas. After graduation, he became editor of the Sulphur Springs Gazette. After two years at the newspaper, he returned to Indian Territory, where he settled in Okmulgee and began a cattle ranch.[7]

In 1857, S. B. married Sarah Elizabeth Thornberg, daughter of Methodist minister, William Thornberg in Sulphur Springs. They had eight children:Josephine, James Owen, Jane Evylin, Samuel B., Jr., Sophia Alice, Emma Price, Walter McKenzie, and Edwin Thornberg.[7]

During the American Civil War, Callahan served in the First Creek Mounted Volunteers of the Confederate Army, He was popular among the men of his unit, who were mostly full-blood Creeks. and was commissioned as a first lieutenant. He was promoted to adjutant later that year. He assisted in reorganizing his unit in 1863, and emerged as Captain of Company K, First Creek Regiment. On May 18, 1864, he resigned from the Confederate Army to serve in the Second Confederate Congress in Richmond, Virginia, where he would represent both the Creek and Seminole nations as a delegate, beginning May 30, 1864.[7][8]

When the New York Times published a list of members of the Confederate Congress in 1864, S. B. Callahan was identified as representing both the Creek and Seminole Nations.[9]

Callahan remained heavily involved in the governing of the Creek Nation after the Civil War. He was elected to the Creek House of Kings and served from 1868 to 1872. He also served as Private Secretaries for three Creek Principal Chiefs: Roley McIntosh, Samuel Checote and Isparhecher.[lower-alpha 2] After his term ended in the House of Kings, he became clerk of the Creek Supreme Court. He worked for a time as editor of the Muskogee Indian Journal, starting in 1887. He was the superintendent of the Wealaka Boarding School from 1892 to 1894.[7] In 1901, he was elected a justice of the Creek Supreme Court.[11]

Callahan died in Muskogee County, Oklahoma February 17, 1911, where he was buried in Greenhill Cemetery.[12] Just before he died, he was the last living member of the Confederate Congress in Richmond, Virginia. His daughter noted that he was buried wearing his Confederate Army uniform.

According to his obituary, Callahan was survived by the following children: J. O. Callahan and K. W. Callahan of Muskogee; Bent Callahan of Morse, Oklahoma; Mrs. Adair of Little Rock; Mrs. Eva Shaw of Waggoner; and Mrs. H. B. Spaulding of Muskogee.[13]

• http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/5303
• Cox, James Howard; Cox, James H.; Justice, Daniel Heath (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-991403-6.