A few miles northeast of the small community of Kinta in Haskell County, a home that was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and served as the principal residence of the Chief of the Choctaw Nation from 1884-1886 sits as reminder to the legacy and history of one of four members of the same family who served in that capacity.
Chief Edmund Aaron McCurtain was born at Fort Coffee in Indian Territory on June 4, 1842. He was the son of Cornelius McCurtain and Mahayia Nelson Belvin, and granddaughter of Sho-ma-ka of the original Choctaw tribe.
The lineage of Chief McCurtain is well documented and can be followed back in the time along the Trail of Tears.
His grandfather, Daniel, had been a captain in the War of 1812 and his great-grandfather, Daniel J., was born in 1748 in Cork, County Cork, Ireland before migrating to the United States and settling in Maryland. The family moved to Mississippi sometime before 1777 and he married Sho-ma-ka.
His father had been born in 1803, in Oklafalayah District, Choctaw Nation East, Mississippi and his mother was born on April 30, 1806, in Natchez. They came to Oklahoma as part of the Trail of Tears.
Edmund attended neighborhood schools in and around Kinta until he was 17. At the age of 19 he enlisted in the Confederate Army and served as a Second Lieutenant under the command of his brother Captain Jackson McCurtain.
After his military service was over he established a home at "Sans Bois" in Haskell County. He married Susan King in 1862 and after her death he married Harriet Austin in 1876. In 1881 he married Clarissa LeFlore upon the death of his second wife.
Edmund distinguished himself by his persistent efforts and effective interest in the education of his people. He served as Judge of Sans Bois County, Trustee of Schools, and Representative to the National Council, and Superintendent of Education while his brother, Jackson Frazier McCurtain, was Principal Chief.
Edmund became Chief of the Choctaws at the end of J. F. McCurtain's term of office. He served from 1884 to 1886. He declined to run for re-election and gave his support to Thompson McKinney, who was elected. Much of his political service occurred in and around the now-ghost town of Scullyville, which is located a few miles northeast of Spiro and is now a farming community.
His brothers Greenwood "Green" McCurtain and nephew Allen Cornelius McCurtain both also served as Principal Chief of the tribe. McCurtain County was named as such in honor of the family when the county was established in 1907.
Edmund was elected Senator from San Bois County in August 1888. He also served on an adjustment committee designated to settle certain fees growing out of the old Net Proceeds matter.
Chief McCurtain died at Skullyville at the age of 48 while returning home from a meeting of the National Council on November 9, 1890. He was buried at Skullyville in a carefully marked grave.
Seventy-three years later, that grave would become part of a scandalous affair when
grave robbers attempted to dig up the coffin containing the remains of the Chief in 1963.
The raiding of Indian burial grounds were commonplace in the 50's and 60's in the fertile archaeological burial grounds and native mounds of eastern Oklahoma. And rumors of "buried treasure" have persisted over the years concerning Scullyville, which once was athe thriving community and "payment house" for members of the Nation.
Thousands of dollars in Native American artifacts were looted over the years from places like what would eventually become the Spiro Mounds, the "Indian Mound" that was located near the intersection of Jenny Lind and Cavanaugh Road in Fort Smith and various other locations.
The 1963 grave-robbers only succeeded in making a hole about two feel deep and three feet across before someone discovered the horrific effort at Scullyville, and Edmund's remains and monument stand as a testament to this day to the memory of the McCurtain family.
