Clues about what brought the Pollard's north.

So, I have been frustrated the I cannot find any evidence about the Pollards from 1880 to 1905. The paper trail has just dried up, but I recently found three pieces of evidence that might help with a couple questions I have had. First, when did the Pollards go to Cooke county and why? As mentioned before, the Pollard’s show up in the 1910 Census in Cooke County, but that’s a 30-year gap from the 1880. I did find a death record for Rebecca Pollard in 1905, but that’s still a 25-year gap. Recently I found a census record of James M Pollard from 1910 and I realized that was Hosea’s younger brother (his age, wife’s and fathers name all match). In the census report he lists a son named Dennis Pollard, so I looked him up and found a WWI draft card. Dennis lists his birth date as 1896. That means James Pollard lived in Ardmore OK sometime before 1896, greatly reducing my time line. Now why would he move there? It says in the census that he was a cattle trader, so most likely he simply followed the cattle trail north and began transitioning from farming to cattle. There was a lot more money in cattle at the time, so it was common for farmers to try to move into cattle. We still don’t know for sure, but its very possible the rest of the Pollard family followed him north.

And that brings me to my second question. Nathan Pollard seemed to move around a lot and we know he spent time in Oklahoma. His first son was born in Ardmore and he enrolled his kids in school in Wilson Ok. I still have not been able to find out why, but James Pollard also enrolled his kids in school at Wilson Ok and some point. Could it be that they worked on James’ farm at the time? A quick look at the map shows that Ringling is only 10 miles from Wilson. Its very possible that the Pollard’s worked on their uncle’s farm.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions, but I feel like I have found some clues that might help explain why Pollards moved north and why Nathan might have been in Ardmore OK when he had his oldest son. Maybe as I keep digging I’ll finally get the information I am looking for!

As a side note I hope to make a trip to Ardmore sometime and visit the final resting place for James M Pollard and Minnie Lee Pollard.

UPDATE: I found some additional information. Dennis Pollard worked for Skelly Oil company. In 1923 two men got into a fight in a bar and Dennis tried to break up the fight. The two men then stabbed Dennis in the throat killing him. :( I'll try to find some more information about the event and see if I can find a final resting spot for him.