American Venture The Tilleys

American Venture is the authentic genealogical and historical story of the Tilley family as they lived and experienced America's growth from 1691 to 1994. They experienced the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the forcible removal of the American Indians from the eastern states to the newly established Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. They grew with the young nation and new state of Oklahoma as Oklahoma took it's place among the other forty five states in the United States of America. This family is thought to have kinship with the Tilleys that braved the hazardous journey on the Mayflower to land at Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts on November 11, 1620, but no firm connection has been made. It extends through the time between John Tilley that enlisted five times in the army of the Revolutionary War to John Oscar Tilley that moved his young wife to the new state of Oklahoma (admitted to the union in 1907) in 1908 or 1909. John Oscar Tilley was born on April 1, 1882 in East Fork, Arkansas. Mamie Salter Tilley, John Oscar's wife, delivered her fourth son in five years of marriage in Bilby, Oklahoma on December 6, 1909. John became adapt at mechanical endeavor and had a venturesome spirit. The young couple had nine children, five sons and four daughters. After learning the drilling trade working on water well rigs around East Fork, Linder, Heber Spriongs and other small towns in northwest Arkansas, John started his own oil well drilling company in Wewoka, Oklahoma aptly named "The Tilley Drilling Company". His sons would all work as roughnecks and drillers with him in the booming oil fields of southern Oklahoma in the 1930's. This was the years of the Great Depression and the company, although not making them hugely successful, provided them with jobs when jobs were scarce.