Written by Hiram William Clark Impson 1951

JOHN Impson died December 31, 1864. He married LOUISA FOLSOM June 01, 1849, daughter of SAMUEL FOLSOM and ANNA HOLMES.

JOHN Impson came to what became the Indian Territory of Oklahoma from Mississippi over the "Trail of Tears." The father of John Impson was an Englishman by the name of Isaac Impson.

Isaac Impson intermarried into the Choctaw tribe in Mississippi. His son John Impson married Louisa FOLSOM, granddaughter of Nathaniel FOLSOM, who married the sister of the then tribal chief.

Nathaniel and two brothers intermarried into Choctaw tribe. Nathaniel was eighth in line from John FOLSOM, who came from Foulsham, England, to the Massachusetts colony in 1636.

John had a brother living near him in what is now Bryan County, OK, whose name is Caleb. Caleb had about twelve children, most of them sons. Both John and Caleb married sisters, daughters of Samuel FOLSOM, who was one-half Choctaw. I presume John and Caleb were from one-fourth to one-half Choctaw.

Caleb and John had two or three brothers who settled in what is now known as the Impson valley, 50 or 60 miles south and east of McAlester. Two of those brothers were named William and Morris, so I know there were two of them from hearing my father talk about them.

Just who was the father of these Impson, who all came to the Indian Territory in the early 1830's when the Choctaws came over the "Trail of Tears" from Mississippi, I don't know except I heard my father say something about an ancestor who was so much of an Englishman that he did not possess any humor.

John, Caleb, William, Morris, et al, came when boys or young men, and I do not know whether their father or mother came or were dead at the time.

There seems to be some knowledge that the name was originally spelled Empson. It is possible that the family came from the English Empsons. You know a lawyer by that name with another lawyer named Dudley lost their heads at the behest of Henry VIII.

Our Oklahoma Impsons have a number of Johns and Williams. My middle name is William, which I dropped when a boy. My father and mother had only two children, the other being a brother named Robert Lee Impson, who was a casual of War I in which we both served. He died in Fort Sam Houston Texas in 1925.

John Impson in California is an older brother, whose mother died before my father married my mother.