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From my Great Uncle Elzy B. Hickerson, published in Coal County Oklahoma History Book, new edition available at Coal County Public Library from the Coal County Genealogical Society:
Little is known of the early history of the Elzey family, although it is known that they originated in north Georgia and were Cherokee. The known history of the Elzey family begins with William Bryant Elzey, who was half Cherokee and who started on the trek (..Trail of Tears..) from Georgia with the Cherokees. When the group with whom he was traveling stopped for the winter near Murphreesboro, Arkansas, William Bryant Elzey, who was a blacksmith, set up his shop. The smithy apparently thrived, for William Bryant married Alabama Allen and settled in Murphreesboro. Three children were born of this marriage: Lilly, Liza and Louis Wilburn Elzey. The family remained at Murphreesboro until Louis Wilburn reached manhood. At that time, he and William Bryant decided to become cattle drovers, buying cattle in south and west Texas, and driving them to the railhead at Abiline, Texas and Dodge City, Kansas. For a number of years, they lived in the vicinity of Ardmore, (Oklahoma) Chickasaw Nation, where the women remained during the drives while William Bryant and Louis Wilburn drove the cattle through the Chickasaw Nation, fattening them on the lush prairie grass en route to the railhead. One drive took them near Globe, Oklahoma, just south of Allen, Oklahoma, where Louis Wilburn met Martha Gray, who had just moved there with her parents and three brothers from Mountain Home, Arkansas. Two years and two cattle drives later in 1898, they were married. Being married severely limited the largely nomadic life Louis Wilburn had led. Influenced by his new wife, Martha, and his dirt-farmer in-laws, Louis Wilburn, whose hands had never held a plow, decided to settle down in the vicinity of Jesse, Oklahoma and start farming. It was here that their first child, Mamie, was born 30 September 1900. And, although Louis Wilburn had driven cattle across parts of Coal County, he first became a resident when he rented the farm of R.T. and Hulda McKinney three miles west of Coalgate,I.T. (Oklahoma) on July 6, 1901. Louis Wilburn remained on the McKinney place until statehood when he bought a quarter section five miles east of Gerty. Their second daughter, Dozie, was born at Coalgate in 1903, while a third daughter, Beulah, was born in 1910 on the farm near Gerty. A son, G.B. was born in 1914 but died in 1918, Louis Wilburn farmed at Gerty, Oklahoma until 1936 when he bought a place near Coalgate and returned to Coal County. Martha died in 1939, while Louis Wilburn died in 1947. Both, with their son, G.B. are buried at the Gerty Cemetery. William Bryant Elzey is buried at Grant, Oklahoma, and his wife, Alabama Allen Elzey is reported to have been buried at Byrds Prairie Cemetery south of Tupelo, Oklahoma...
End of information from Elzy B. Hickerson.
Here is a hand written note from my Great Grandmother, Mamie Elzey Hickerson, mother of the above, Elzy B. Hickerson: "My grandfather's name was William Bryant Elzey, my father's name Louis Wilburn Elzey. My grandmother's name on my father's side was Alabama Allen. My Grandmother's name on my mother's side was Tabitha Jane Goodnight. Her husband, my grandfather was named Lawyer Hines Gray. My name Mamie Elzey Hickerson. My Grandfather's brother's name was Rob Elzey or Robert, middle name unkown. My mother also had a brother named Rob or Robert (Gray)." End.
Following are my comments:
Our family has tried to establish our Cherokee Blood with the Cherokee Nation, but apparently none of the Elzey's in our line registered for the Dawes Roll, and I did not find any Elzey on the Old Settler's Web Site. (I don't think anyone checked the Goodnight name...since my father's mother was an original enrollee of the Choctaw Nation) Before statehood they lived in the Chickasaw Nation, and in those days, in order to register with the tribe, your family had to live in, or move to that tribe's Indian Nation. The Cherokee Nation is in Northern Oklahoma, and the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation are in South Central Oklahoma. That is not to say that any siblings he might have had did not register with the Nation under their married name, but none in my family ever mentioned siblings...though surely there were some(?).
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