Tom Benjey's Weblog

Apparently, raising cattle wasn’t a very profitable undertaking at that time on that land because the Carlisle superintendent requested that the Cheyenne River Agency superintendent find him employment: “Thomas has made a most excellent record at Carlisle and it is hoped an opportunity will present itself to put him to work where he can earn ready cash while caring for his property.” Upon Hawkeagle’s arrival, the agency superintendent responded, “We will do all we can to find work for him but as there are no vacancies in the regular force any employment given to him would be of irregular nature and temporary only.” About a year later, in October 1916—after the cattle were fattened, one assumes—the Cheyenne River Agency superintendent wrote Ford to reinstate Thomas. That attempt was not immediately successful because the Chief Clerk at Carlisle wrote Ford recommending that they hire him. In ensuing correspondence, Superintendent Oscar Lipps gave Thomas a good recommendation. It is not known if he ever got back on at Ford or not, but it seems unlikely because he registered for the WWI draft at Cherry Creek, South Dakota.

Tribal rolls indicate that Thomas Hawkeagle was born in 1894. However, his WWI draft registration has his date of birth as April 14, 1893. Birthdates are often fuzzy for people born in that time period.

The 1920 Federal Census lists him as a single head-of-household living with Margaret Wolf (55), his widowed aunt, and her daughter, Nellie Wolf (16), his cousin. The 1920 tribal census lists him as married to Nellie. In 1921 they are also listed as married with son Claude born on August 4, 1920. The 1937 roll, the last one available to me, lists Thomas and Nellie as having four children: Claude, Ben H., Sylvester and Irene Matilda. Beginning with the 1927 roll, his family name was shifted to Eagle Hawk.

And this is all I know about the man who was once called Pretty Boy.

Tags: Nellie Wolf, Oscar Lipps, Thomas Hawkeagle

This entry was posted on October 12, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Carlisle Indian School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.