Boots, chaps and a rope used by Will Rogers are on loan from Will Rogers Heritage in Claremore for display in the Guntersville (Alabama) Museum during the Will Rogers Heritage Festival June 14-17.
The Festival celebrates Will Rogers, great-grandson of Guntersville founder John Gunter and his wife, Ghenoheli, daughter of a Cherokee Chief.
Festival activities focus on the many interests of Will Rogers. The town’s community theatre group will present musical extravaganza “The Will Rogers Follies,” and Gene McFall, a longtime Will Rogers interpreter, will present performances of “The Witty World of Will Rogers.”
Kem Rogers, Rogers’ grandson and member of the Will Rogers Memorial Commission, will be grand marshal of the Festival and ride in a Saturday morning parade of horses, wagons, carriages, cowboys, members of the Cherokee Nation and winners of the Will Rogers Beauty Pageant.
Other activities will include an antique aircraft fly-in, antique cars, free airplane rides for children and Will Rogers Film Festival — showing four Will Rogers’ films. Chuck wagons and a chuck wagon show will feature a glimpse of cowboy life.
A farmers market will present cooking and food preparation demonstrations and a tent area will house dealers featuring antiques and collectibles. For children there will be a pooch parade, agility course for pets and pony rides.
“Will Rogers” will conduct an historical walking tour through downtown.
Boots in the display are a pair handmade by premiere boot maker C.H. Hyer of Olathe, Kansas. Will had several pair of Hyer boots. The Johnson County (Kansas) Museum has a collection of Hyer boots.
The chaps, seen in many Will Rogers photos, were made by G.P. Shipley of Kansas City. A rope is one of several in the Museum collection.
Planners of the event said John Gunter was probably the first white man to settle in Guntersville.
A Will Rogers’ official genealogy and bibliography by Pat Lowe, former Will Rogers Museum archivist-librarian, shows John Gunter — born in 1760 — was the first white man to settle in the Tennessee Valley. Although little is known of his early life (he died Aug. 28, 1835) he was said to be of Welsh and Scottish descent.
According to family legend, he was a trader, ferryman and gunpowder maker who also owned a salt claim. The chief of the Cherokee Paint Clan came to barter for salt for his people, bringing his daughter with him. John Gunter negotiated an agreement to exchange salt for the Chief’s beautiful daughter. It was advantageous to him because it allowed him to remain in the Cherokee Nation and the marriage was a long and apparently happy union.
John anglicized his wife’s name to Catherine (or Katy). John and Catherine were parents of Elizabeth Hunt, who married Martin Matthew Schrimsher, maternal grandparents of Will Rogers. Will was the son of Clement Vann Rogers and Mary America Schrimsher.