As R.M. and Ida McFarlin Dean of the Library, Bob Pickering spends a lot of time around books. Recently, however, he spent time writing one.
Luck is a Fortune recounts the adventures and excursions of two soldiers living at an outpost in eastern Oklahoma in the 1840s. The title is derived from a note one of them scribbled in his diary – “luck is a fortune” – a fitting thought as life on the Plains meant death could come from any direction; one learned survival skills or faced death.
“This book is the result of an extraordinary coincidence,” Pickering said. “The University of Tulsa holds two diaries written by soldiers stationed at Fort Gibson in 1841. One was written by a young lieutenant who was a West Point graduate and the son of wealthy Southern planter family, while the other diary was written by a maker of hats in New York and probably an Irish immigrant – two very different people living on America’s westernmost outpost in 1841.”
Lt. Marcus Claudius Marcellus Hammond and Pvt. John Fynn had different reasons for enlisting. Hammond envisioned a gallant military future, while Fynn wanted to escape the urban job destruction caused by the Industrial Revolution. Both were brought to Fort Gibson against the backdrop of President Andrew Jackson’s Removal Act of 1830, which saw tens of thousands of Native peoples being forcibly moved to the Plains region.
As Cherokees, Chickasaws, Delawares, Kickapoos, and other tribes were relocated to the Oklahoma area and other adjacent states, they came into conflict with the Indigenous tribes already living there, including the Osages and Caddos. The new arrivals were viewed as unwelcome interlopers and unnecessary rivals, resulting in intertribal raids and killings. Fort Gibson was established to stop such slaughter while advancing the United States’ expansionist agenda.
“The human landscape around Fort Gibson was neither a melting pot nor a mosaic,” Pickering said. “It was more like the bar scene in “Star Wars;” people from vastly different backgrounds talk, relax, and trade, but everyone is distrustful, wary, and looking for personal advantage and minimal risk. They prefer to do business peaceably but will blast their way out if threatened.”
Utilizing Hammond’s diary and Fynn’s memoir “Reminiscences,” Pickering weaves together a story of two soldiers surviving at an outpost that must have seemed like the edge of the world. They took big risks, yet both depended on luck, perhaps more than they knew.
Together, these two first-person accounts reveal a little-known time in American history, a time of relative peace, yet the stage was already set for future conflicts. The factions of races, ethnicities, politics, and classes that vied for power then can still be seen today.
Learn more about McFarlin Library’s holdings by visiting https://libraries.utulsa.edu/mcfarlin.