The tragic life of Delphia Creek

Trigger alert: Rape.

1890 photo of George Blount with wife Martha Leanna and two children. From Ancestry’s Joshua Daniel Eastwold Family Tree, by pao1949.

The story caught me by surprise. A kick in the gut. Wrong middle name, wrong hometown, wrong residence. Still, when you’re looking for your great-grandmother Blount’s father named George, and you find a series of horrific reports about another George Blount, it’s enough to make a body stop working on genealogy for a day and get outside. Fresh air. Birdsong.

This other George Blount was, shall we say, not a nice man. He had a friend named N.C. Johnson. N.C. and George had a falling out. George reingratiated himself into N.C.’s life to the point that Bud trusted him enough to let him get close.

One fine winter morning in Burneyville, Oklahoma, Chickasaw Nation land, George visited Bud at his place of business. They were “engaged in a friendly conversation,” when without provocation, George pulled out his Winchester and shot Bud at point-blank range. Killed his erstwhile friend.

Three months later, Blount was convicted of “assault to murder.” But the judge did not pass sentence on May 12, 1890. Blount remained a free man. Newspaper accounts gave no reason for the judge’s failure to at least incarcerate George Blount that Monday morning.

Less than a year later, on Thursday April 2, 1891, George Blount was living in Purcell, Oklahoma, near the home of Daniel Miller and his wife Sarah Jane (nee Poff). Newspaper reports stated that George Blount’s wife was Delphia’s sister. That would have been Martha Leanna Creek born in 1870. Martha and George had married eight years before the incident with Delphia. That means Martha was thirteen when she married George. George was nineteen when they wed.

That Thursday, Daniel Miller traveled to Ardmore, Oklahoma to testify in court. Sarah Jane accompanied him. The couple left their children at home. Arkadelphia, “Delphia” to friends and family, was around thirteen years of age at the time.

Once the parents had left, George Blount dropped by the Millers’ home and convinced Delphia to try whiskey. The next thing she knew, Delphia woke up in a wagon bed in the middle of the Oklahoma prairie. She could not scream for help. There was no one around. Only George Blount.

Blount drove Delphia to the home of an unnamed Black family and presented Delphia to the family as his wife. Threatening to cut Delphia’s throat if she called for help, he raped her that night.

Friday morning, Blount loaded Delphia back into the wagon bed. “Together” they drove to Norman, Oklahoma where Blount met up with a friend named Lige “Sam” Hays (alt. Hayes) and a third party named J.H. Miller, who presented himself as an ordained minister. Apparently Delphia did not know the third man, and the man’s name was not reported by journalists. I have to wonder if J.H. Miller was related to Delphia’s stepfather. Part of what makes my heart hurt with this story.

J.H. Miller performed a wedding ceremony, pronouncing 13-year-old Delphia and 26-year-old Sam Hays husband and wife. Over her strenuous objections. Blount had the nerve to tell Delphia that she had to marry Sam (Lige) to save her reputation!

Blount had Delphia’s age listed as fifteen on the marriage license and marriage certificate. Clearly no one checked records or asked where the parents were. Besides the officiant J.H. Miller and “Sam” Hays the groom and Delphia, George W. “Blunt” was the only other person at the ceremony. He served as sole witness.

That night, it was Hays’ turn to rape Delphia.

News articles diverge on events after Hays’ rape of the 13-year-old. The reporters of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat independently reported on April 30 that Delphia managed to escape the morning of April 4. And that once home, she told her parents what had happened. The same day, the Austin American-Statesman recounted it much differently. They said that “they” (Hays and Blount?) “took her near her home and released her with dire threats that if she ever told anything that had occurred she would be killed.”

Both accounts agree on the fact that Daniel and Sarah Jane Miller immediately called the authorities. Warrants for the arrest of both Blount and Hays were sworn out. Someone tipped off the two men. When Deputy Marshal Cook tried to serve the arrest warrants, they had skipped town. Cook persevered and located both men in Healdtown, Oklahoma, where George’s wife Martha was living.

Deputy Cook arrested both men. Commissioner Gates ordered them held without bail. Preliminary hearing found that “the testimony in the case was very strong against them.” The Black family where Blount had posed as Delphia’s husband corroborated Delphia’s version of events.

Initially unable to pay bail, Blount and Hays were jailed in Paris, Texas.

Reporters from the Fort Worth Daily Gazette picked up the story on May 2, 1891 and did a little of their own investigation. They noted that officials in Norman, Oklahoma, where the marriage took place, were inquiring regarding the circumstances of the “marriage.” Further, the Daily Gazette concluded that although Hays was culpable, Blount had whipped him to force him to participate. Contrary to earlier news reports, Blount raped Delphia on the second night as well.

The Fort Worth newspaper also picked up on an element of the story the others had missed. It had not been a sham marriage, as Blount and Hays tried to assert. Delphia was right. A person claiming to be — and apparently who was — an ordained minister performed the ceremony. Judge Frank P. Cean signed the marriage certificate.

I could find no report of the trial. On May 1, 1891, The New Delta of New Orleans, Louisiana commented that Blount had been charged with rape. “The penalty of this crime is death under the laws of the United States which are in force in this country.” The last phrase clarifying U.S. law likely stressed to their readers that although the rape had taken place in Indian Territory, Blount was subject to U.S. law, not tribal.

Blount’s trial must have been expedited. The Fort Worth Daily Gazette wrote on June 12, 1891 that George Blount was among the twenty-eight men convicted at the last term of the Federal court in Paris, Texas. All twenty-eight left Paris for the Detroit penitentiary the same day. As odd as it sounds, Detroit was indeed the closest federal penitentiary. George Blount’s luck ran out. In 1891 the United States government created its own prison system. He was one of its earliest inmates.

Persons listing George W. Blount in their family trees date his death between 1894 and 1898. There is no obituary to be found in newspapers dot com. No available death certificate from the Detroit prison. Since there’s no record of the trial (yet), it is hard to know whether Blount was indeed sentenced to death. ‘Another’ George Blount, also from Healdton, Oklahoma, was convicted of passing counterfeit money, noted as part of a notorious criminal gang in Healdton. Same George?

It is entirely possible. Martha Leanna Blount nee Creek’s family tree shows “death of husband George Washington Blount” as January 21, 1894, death occurring in Burneyville, Oklahoma. But “their” daughter Minnie Myrtle Blount was born fourteen months later on March 8, 1895, and “their” daughter Willa Leona Blount was born on September 29, 1898. Martha Leanna would marry Jacob Marlon Morelock in 1906.

“PLSPat’s” family tree on Geneanet is likely more accurate. That one shows George Blount’s death as May 26, 1898, however, also without documentation.

Should we infer that George Blount served less than two years in the Detroit penitentiary for the rape of Delphia Creek? His presence in Oklahoma suggests that was the case.

There is also no record of any punishment for Lige “Sam” Hays for his role in Delphia’s rape. Was he let off because he was officially “married” to the teenager? Several people who have Delphia in their family trees list Sam Hays (alt. Hayes) as her husband with no clarification as to the circumstances. There are no divorce records. At least Delphia had no children with Lige. Or with George.

Delphia did marry again in the early 1900s. She divorced her “second” husband Harold Moore in 1949. Few families with Delphia in their family tree picked up on that. Only the ones named Moore.

With time, the full story of Delphia’s ordeal will likely become known. George Blount’s connections that permitted him to skate on multiple serious felonies will also come to light.

The tragic story of Delphia Creek reminds us that personal histories contain more than joy and light. “Doing your genealogy” means you’d better be prepared for crapfests like this. It is little wonder that the almost-30 family trees on Ancestry that contain Delphia Creek’s name avoid the pain associated with that teenager’s life. And that the families listing George Washington Blount likewise ignore the reality of his person.

If this George Blount had been related to my Georgia Blount, I would have been obligated to include all this in her life story as well. Her father was George Granberry Blount, who lived in central Texas and had not migrated from Missouri to Oklahoma as had George W. Blount, nor had any of George G.’s family.

Much more important for us in 2025: Especially as life grows a bit grim, we tend to long for the good old days. The older a person is, the more likely you are to hear them long for those “good old days.” Which never existed.

There have always been those who prey on young girls, who rape them and leave them to deal with the fallout. That is nothing new. Bible-thumpers need to own up to the lack of consequences for rape in the book they call holy. This lack of consequences follows the human race through the centuries. Grown men violate the innocence of little girls, and everyone looks away. The little girls and their families have to figure out how to keep living with the pain. Meanwhile, the George Blounts of this world go on to their next victim. And the next.

I feel the same way today writing this about Delphia Creek as I did the first time her story surfaced. In 2012, I was simply looking to learn more about my great-grandmother Georgia Blount. But Delphia caught me and made me stop working, made me think about that child who lived a nightmare.

Will we ever care enough about our children to stop the George Blounts among us?

Postscript: If I were doing this for a paid genealogy research project, I would have to dig a bit more into the George Blount who killed Bud Trainer in 1890. It is possible — especially since no middle initial or middle name was given — that it is a different George Blount.

Since the location was the same, and since George Washington Blount seemed to have avoided a harsh sentence regarding Delphia’s rape, I assumed him to be the same man. Again, an actual project would demand more research.

Also: Although George was supposed to have been incarcerated from May 1891 on, Martha Leanna gave birth to son George Robert Blount on September 24, 1892. Either her husband was not George Robert’s father, or George W. Blount did not stay in prison very long at all.

I could not find any photographs of Delphia.

Comments worth sharing

Amazing what stories doing genealogical research uncovers. So many stories to retrieve and not all of them good ones. Even when the individual isn’t in our own line following the thread is hard to resist. In this case you have shed a light on a young girl whose story needed to be rescued. There’s fascinating and sensitive research here.

--Valerie Cotter, August 21, 2025.

What a horrific story! I can understand why you had to investigate further even though this sick, twisted George Blount was not connected to your ancestors. I hope Delphia was able to find some peace and happiness later in her life.

--Gwen Miertschin, August 21, 2025.

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