Madden's Early Years

William Arthur Maddin came to Muskogee already trained as a building contractor.  This is the story of his background and of his first year in Muskogee.

A genealogist wrote that William Arthur Madden was born April 24, 1851 in Ste. Marthe, Vaudreuil County, Quebec Province, Canada.  He changed his last name to Maddin in 1887.  He was the tenth of thirteen children born to Irishman James Madden.

About 1861, the Madden family migrated to Lisbon, NY by crossing the St. Lawrence River.  Young Madden remained in New York State for about ten years. 

When he was old enough to leave home, he started going from job to job as a gypsy carpenter.  He is apparently the same William Madden who is briefly working as a laborer in a Buffalo work house according to the 1870 census. 

Madden next traveled to Cleveland, Ohio in 1871.  He worked there as a carpenter and display case maker for stores during the next nine years.

In June, 1880, William moved to Kansas City, Missouri where he lived with a cousin on his mother's side.  He migrated into Indian Territory in 1883, probably late in the year.

The following February, construction was booming in Muskogee.  At the same time several houses were being built, Tom Adams was having a two-story building constructed.  This was during the winter of 1884, Madden's first year in Muskogee. 

Adams wanted it built near Major John Foreman's mill east of the Katy railroad tracks.  The 24 by 40 foot structure was to become a lodging house with sixteen rooms for sleepers.  This hotel was described as "one of the largest buildings in town."

Madden's work on Adams' hotel established his reputation a creditable builder.  Two years later, he would build another hotel in Eufaula.

Madden finished building the hotel for Adams that summer.  This structure burned to the ground the next winter.  It was not the Hotel Adams that was built several years later on the west side of the Katy tracks. 

His next contract was for constructing the Seminole Capital building in Wewoka.  At eighteen by fifty feet, it contained four rooms.  Two were for both houses of the tribal council.  The other two rooms were for the chief and for committee use.  A simpler structure, Madden finished it in only a couple of months.

Tom Adams, along with Napoleon B. Moore and Thomas Perryman, had selected a site for a mission school for Creek students in 1883.  The first location chosen by the committee was about twelve miles west of Okmulgee.  However, water quality and political issues soon arose.  The committee then selected a new place on Deep Fork River about three miles further west in 1884.

Because he had first-hand experience in dealing with him, Adams recommended awarding the contract to Madden.  The committee then accepted Madden's bid for $6,840. 

Madden immediately started by hiring Beverly Berry, Adam McCann, Ed "Tex" Burk and John Walburn as carpenters.  Jim Lorden and John Long were hired as stone masons.  By the first of November, construction was almost finished.  Only the plastering was needed inside the school.  Work was completed on the New Yorker Mission School as scheduled before Christmas.

This ends William A. Maddin's story of his background and first year in Muskogee.  During 1884, he built a hotel, a tribal capital building and a mission school. 

FOOTNOTE:  Miss Alice Robertson brought back furniture, bedding, dishes and other necessities for the New Yorker Mission when she returned from Washington, DC in the middle of February, 1885.  She expected the school to be ready for students on March 1st.