Observer, spread the news of military endeavors and The son of Rebecca and J.O. Hamilton, Rufus “Bud” Hamilton, conflicts, along with other local and regional stories. with his favorite hunting dogs. The dog on the left was named Pointer. Rufus Hamilton was Mark Hamilton’s great-grandfather. Coming from the Confederate South, and Courtesy Mark Hamilton. having Choctaw family members, it shouldn’t seem unusual that the Null and Buckholts families headed the territory by the end of 1872. The Null ancestors into the heart of Choctaw Nation in southeastern had relinquished their Choctaw citizenship in Indian Territory. The wealthy and powerful of the 1832 when they elected to stay in Alabama. The area crafted the region into a hotbed of southern Nulls and two other families petitioned the Nation sympathies prior to the Civil War. Thus, after the for citizenship, and their case was heard before Civil War, westward-moving settlers either passed the Choctaw Council in October 1872.” That through the area, or settled in to stay if they same month, the families of John Null, William embraced Confederate ideas. John Null planned Buckholts, and R.T. Jones were admitted into the to find land near Boggy Depot, and then move his Choctaw Nation. ranching operations from Texas to the new location. However, as Mark Hamilton explains, “The But the situation became sticky after the ruling did not solve anything for J.O. Hamilton, family arrived. According to Mark Hamilton, “In who was a single white male simply living with the spring of 1872, the Choctaw entered into an his sister’s family. Then something happened. agreement with the United States that called for J.O. Hamilton, and his sister-in-law Rebecca Null, non-citizens of Choctaw Nation to be removed from married late October 1872, and that allowed him 13 35