Oklahoma Culpepper Archives
Washington County

History

In the Green Country of Northeastern Oklahoma, Washington County was formed in 1897 from Cherokee Nation land. Its county seat, Bartlesville, is on US-76 about 130 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. Washington is bordered by the Oklahoma counties of Nowata, Rogers, Tulsa and Osage; and by the Kansas county of Montgomery.

Any names below in red have not been matched with a person in the Culpepper family tree. If you can identify any of them, please let us know.

Census Records

Oklahoma was opened to white settlers with the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. The earliest extant Federal census for Oklahoma Territory is for 1900, and Oklahoma Territory became a state in 1907. No Culpeppers have been found in any Washington County censuses prior to 1940.

Jeffrey J. Courouleau (e-mail), the Local & Family History Librarian at Bartlesville Public Library submitted the following additional commentary about census records for Washington County:

The land run allowed settlement in a widespread sense, but as an example, Jacob Bartles (for whom our town is named), had been operating his mill in the area since around 1873. Nelson Carr, "The Pioneer Of Big Caney", widely acknowledged as the first white person to settle in this area, came in 1868.

What became a state in 1907 was the combination of both Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Bartlesville is at the westernmost edge of the Cooweescoowee District of the Cherokee Nation, and also abuts slightly into the Osage Reservation. A significant part of what became the State Of Oklahoma was formerly Indian Territory, not Oklahoma Territory. As an example, Oklahoma City was in Oklahoma Territory, but Tulsa, Oklahoma was in Indian Territory...

Full access to the Cherokee Nation census of both 1880 and 1890 are available through the Oklahoma Historical Society and other state/area institutions. Other Indian nations should also have similar census readings available. These were not sent into the federal government, and therefore were not destroyed when the main 1890 Federal Census was.

Whites can also be found in what is now Oklahoma much earlier, back when the land was enumerated in the census under "Arkansas, west of the Mississippi".

Social Security Death Index

All records of deaths on or before 31 Jan 2004 in which the final benefit was paid in this county.