Pioneer Resident John Oldham

December 9, 1904--John Oldham in 1883, assisted General Tipton in moving the Pottowatamie Indian tribe, numbering 2,000 from Miami county to the state of Kansas. In crossing the Mississippi river 100 head of ponies leaped from the ferry boats into the river and swam back to the Illinois side. In an early day he nursed Gabriel Godfroy, of the Miami Indians, when the dignitary of the forest was a wee child, and he was frequently in the company of Frances Slocum, The White Rose of the Miamis, and frequently lived in her wigwam.
Forty years of John Oldham's life was given to the butchering business. At one time he made the remarkable record of cutting up 2,000 head of hogs in twenty days in a Lafayette pork house on a wager, using a forty pound cleaver.
John Oldham, the oldest pioneer resident of the Miami Reserve, having been a resident at Bennetts Switch, Miami county, for seventy-seven years, died at his home of old age complications, aged ninety two.