Lewis Francis Hadley: "Long-Haired Sign Talker"

He told me that he and another clerk visited Hadley often, and did
lk to him in the sign language. Many of the signs of Hadley were
wrong, and his delineations of them were from the view of the Speaker
rather than that of the person spoken to; I. e. the front of the hand would
appear in gesture where the back of the hand appeared to party spoken to.
That Hadley had wide interests is suggested by an article in the
Cherokee Advocate (Tahlequah) on October 27, 1880, copied from a
Fort Smith newspaper saying:
There is a strange looking craft now afloat below the wharf, under
process of construction, by equally as strange a looking genius. At his
request we boarded his vessel and listened to the explanation of its object.
He (Hadley) has some new theory of propelling appliances, which if ever
put into successful operation cannot fail to work radical changes of a
very economical, safe and useful nature.
The present vessel, although designed in the main to improve and
illustrate his plans for more enlarged and extensive application will
answer for a trading boat, a pleasure trip boat, or a transport in low
waters. Mr. Lewis F. Hadly (sic) the owner, builder, inventor, mate and
pilot of this 12 by 30 foot craft, has lived on this frontier for over thirty
years. He seems to be an inventive genius and a natural draughtsman,
and has taught drawing in the schools of the Cherokee Nation. He has
spent a season or two in the survey of the Arkansas channels above this
point and has complete charts hundreds of miles above here.11
And he now desires to put his inventions into practice. He has studied
upon it for years, and has worked to accumulate means to effect that pur-
pose. His accumulation have (sic) been so slow that his impatiences
has (sic) got the better of him, and he has invested every cent of his
earnings and has deprived himself of the comforts of life to get it thus
far along, and trusts to find in this community some monied friends to
assist him in completing it. We would commend his undertaking to the
serious attention of any one interested in useful and profitable invention,
and we think the inventor can demonstrate its feasibility. It was ever
thus with genius. . . . .
An interesting picture of Hadley was furnished the writer by
an early resident of Fort Smith:
He was thick-set rather than "stout"-and had let his hair grow so
as to be received among primitive Indians without suspicion ..... I recall
well his first call. It was in the evening, and my brother and I had gone
to bed. Presently my mother came up and told us we might . . . . dress
and come down stairs to hear Mr. Hadley's stories. . . . .  My mother
brought him a cup of tea, and some apple pie and cheese, and watched
him-with horror-put the cheese into his tea and stir it as he talked. Then
he took a sip, looked a little queer, and set down the cup. My mother
said "Mr. Hadley, I'm afraid you didn't mean to put that cheese into your
tea-Letme get you another cup." "Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought it
Was sugar-You see on the reservations we have only brown sugar....."
11 Although a search was made in the files of the Corps of Engineers, Wash-
i.gton, D. C., nothing was discovered regarding Hadley's survey of the Arkansas
.iver Mrs. Louise Cook of the Newspaper Department, Oklahoma Historical So-
ciety checked the Fort Smith Elevator, the Cheyenne Transporter and the Cherokee
Vocate for material about Hadley. Mr. E. R. Dabney of the library staff of the
Universityof Texas made a thorough search in the great newspaper collection in
that institution without results.

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