Famous Choctaws: Captain Welch Grave Marker

Captain Welch is buried near the old Brazil Cemetery, just South of Brazil Creek where the Oklahoma Historical Society has erected a marker at his grave.

This is also the location of the Brazil Creek Stage Coach Station where horses were changed for the Stage Coach of the old Butterfield Mail Route, which started through Indian Territory in 1858.  Captain John Welch was a confederate officer who returned as a horse trader after the civil war and found his wife had remarried.  From many accounts, he simply killed the new husband and resumed living with his wife, until he died and was buried at the Brazil Creek Station. Another story of his life is listed below.  This story comes from findagrave.com and tells a different story of how Captain Welch came to Indian Territory.

The following is Quoted from findagrave.com:

Sarah Wilson was the only daughter of Mathew and Mary Holley Wilson. She married David Robert Welch on 9/8/1858.  During the Civil War, David enlisted as a private in Company F, Dawson's Regiment, 19th Arkansas Infantry, and was believed to have died while a prisoner of the North in 1864 or 1865.  This left Sarah with two small sons to care for, James age 4 and William Wilson who was close to age one at the time.

In 1867 Sarah, out of necessity, accompanied her widowed mother and relatives’ north to the Dutch Creek Settlement in Scott County, Arkansas, and had not remarried as of 1870. The census for that year showed she and her two sons were living with her mother, Mary Holley Wilson and her two brothers, Isaac and Jehu. Convinced that her husband was dead, she married George Washington Terry, whose first and second wives, Anna Indiana and Betty Barloe, had died leaving him with four girls to raise as well. By 1885, according to census records, they had four more children. Then suddenly, their lives were abruptly changed. 

One day, an old tin peddler pulled up in front of the house. He wore an old slouch hat and a long beard. Sarah and her children as well as the neighbors crowded around the peddler's wagon to inspect his wares. Sarah remarked to one of her neighbors that the peddler looked like her late husband, Dave Welch. Her neighbor assured surely he was not Dave and he said nothing. However, he was in fact, her "deceased" husband. 

It seems that Dave, upon his release from a Union prison in Washington, D.C., was without money. He labored to acquire sufficient funds for several years to buy a wagon and team, then to outfit it with wares for his new peddling business. Once accomplished, he slowly began to work his way across the country to Sevier County, Arkansas and home. When he arrived he found his property sold and after some searching, eventually found the family trail north to Dutch Creek. When he came upon his wife and family and saw that she had remarried, he realized the hopelessness of the situation and chose not to reveal his identity. It is unknown as to why he never wrote to her or sent any other type of message to let his family know he was still alive and trying to get home. 

Dave eventually moved on leaving Sarah and his family behind and ventured into Indian Territory (Oklahoma) where in June, 1873 he married Louvenia James, an Indian woman with a head right and considerable wealth. Together, with what Dave had earned as a peddler, they were able to contact his sons, James and William Welch, and both went to live with him. Dave gave each of the boys $1000.00 and set them up in a business. In later years, Sarah, George and the rest of their family moved to Indian Territory so she could be closer to her sons. She and George ran a store at Bates, Oklahoma for several years. After George died in 1907, Sarah lived with her son John and his wife Priscilla in Heavener, Oklahoma. The exact date of her death is not known. Her grave is located near the entrance into Weeks Cemetery in Scott County, Arkansas.

After Louvenia's death in 1874, Dave next married a Lucinda Daniels (1845 - 1/1/1875), a Choctaw Indian woman who was a widow. Her first husband had been an Albert McKee Folsom. Lucinda died shortly thereafter just as Louvenia had. He next married a Phoebe A. Harris on 10/1/1878. 

David is buried in the Welch Family Cemetery at Brazil Station, LeFlore County, Oklahoma on private property.  The graves are about 500 yards from where Brazil Station once stood, which reportedly was an old stagecoach stop.

The Welch Family Cemetery is located about 6 miles West of Shady Point.  A historical marker is located there.