Jack D. Baker – President

Jack D. Baker was born on his Grandfather’s Cherokee Allotment at Chewey, Adair County, Oklahoma.  He attended schools at Chewey and Westville.  He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a B. S. in Accounting.  He retired in 1999 from Liberty Mutual Insurance Company after 29 Years:

He is currently one of the seventeen members of the Tribal Council of the Cherokee Nation and serves as chairman of the Executive & Finance Committee.   This committee oversees the appropriations of funds for the $600 million budget of the Nation.  The Tribal Council also legislates the various acts that govern the Cherokee Nation.

He is national president of the Trail of Tears Association and, as such, works with the National Park Service and other organizations including various state parks, The Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Land, and many publicly and privately owned sites historically connected to the Trail of Tears in order to protect the sites and provide interpretation for visitors to the sites.

Baker is the treasurer of the Cherokee National Historical Society, Inc. which operates the Cherokee Heritage Center.  He is also a board member of the Oklahoma Historical Society which operates about 40 historic sites across the state including Sequoyah’s Home, the Murrell Home, and Fort Gibson as well as the newly opened Oklahoma History Center.

He has been president for more than twenty-five years of Goingsnake District Heritage Association which is a local historical society based in Westville organized to preserve the heritage of the Goingsnake District of the Cherokee Nation.  He is a board member of the Cherokee-Moravian Historical Association which was formed to create awareness of the early relationship between the Moravian Church and the Cherokee Nation.  

Baker also served as a member of the 1999 Cherokee Constitutional Convention.  Until obtaining his position on the Tribal Council, he served as one of three members of the Cherokee Nation Registration Committee and as president of the board of the Cherokee Nation Education Corporation (now the Cherokee Nation Foundation).

He has done extensive Cherokee research for more than forty years and has authored various articles and edited various books on Cherokee history as well as writing forewords for several scholarly books on Cherokees.  He has also served as an advisor and assisted with various documentaries on Cherokee history.  In March of 2007, Baker was awarded the Principal Chief’s Leadership Award for his work to preserve Cherokee history and his contributions to the Cherokee Nation.

David K. Hampton – Vice President

David Keith Hampton currently resides in Tulsa. He’s the son of Thomas Marion Hampton Jr. and June Louise (Young) Hampton. He graduated from Broken Arrow High School in 1967. His Cherokee grandfather was George Elihu Young enrolled on Dawes roll minor Cherokee #3056.  David began working on genealogy in 1961 and later attended the University of Oklahoma majoring in political science from 1967 through 1970.  In the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1973 he was a Military occupation specialist as a Lao language translator, stationed in Udorn Thani, Thailand.  After his military service he returned to OU majoring in accounting receiving a B.B.A.  David has worked as an accountant at various businesses and since 1994 at a Tulsa law firm specializing in immigration.

David’s publications are:

§        Descendants of Nancy Ward 1975

§        Cherokee Reservees 1979

§        The Nantz Family 1983

§        Old Cherokee Families: Notes of Dr. Emmet Starr, volumes 1-3 1988

§        Cherokee Old Settler 1993

§        Descendants of Nancy Ward: A workbook for Further Research 1997

§        Cherokee Mixed-bloods: Additions and Corrections to Family Genealogies of Dr. Emmet Starr, volume 1, 2005

§        Currently working on Cherokee Mixed-Bloods volume 2

Member:

§        Oklahoma Historical Society

§        Goingsnake District Heritage Association, currently Vice President, previously secretary

§        Association of the Descendants of Nancy Ward, President since 1994

§        Oklahoma Chapter – Trail of Tears Association

§        National Genealogical Society

Ruth Faulkner – Treasurer

Barbara Louise Goss Dunlap – Secretary 

Residing in Tulsa, I have been a member of the Goingsnake District Heritage  Association for several years and have served as Secretary of the organization since 2004.

I was born and raised until age 11 on my great-grandfather George Washington Goss’ Cherokee allotment  near Chouteau.  His allotment was taken by the government to build the “powder plant” during World War II, and is now  located in the Mid America Industrial Park.

My parents  were John Thompson Goss and Mary Elsie (Whitmire) Goss.  My mother died when I was 9 days old and I was raised  by my grandparents  Benjamin Franklin and Flora Etta (Alberty) Goss. I have been unable to trace my Whitmire ancestors back any further than Henry, but according to “family history” they are Cherokee.

One of my Goss ancestors,  great-great-great grandfather  Benjamin Franklin and his sister Rachel were born in Georgia,  CN East.  After the death of their parents Thomas and Mary (Adair) Goss, they were brought by their uncle John Thompson Adair, in 1837 to the Stilwell area.  Benjamin was a  Clerk of the Goingsnake District in 1874 and 1875 and Judge on the Middle Judicial Circuit in 1895.  He fought with Stand Watie’s army during the Civil War.  Benjamin is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Stilwell, Goingsnake District.

My great-great –great-great grandfather Jeremiah Clinton  Towers built the first mill, where the Hildebrand-Beck Mill is today.  His granddaughter Annie Charlotte married  Jacob Udolphus Alberty.  They were the parents of my grandmother Flora Etta (Alberty) Goss.

I am related to many Cherokee families – Adair, Alberty, Bean, Buffington,  Eaton, Emory, Grant,  Goss, Harlan, Mayes, Starr, Towers, Whitmire, Wright, and am a direct descendant of Nancy Ward, the Cherokee’s Beloved Woman.

Goingsnake Messenger

Glenita Guthrie – Editor and Historian