National Register Listing

Splitlog Church

a.k.a. Cayuga Mission Church

About 9 mi. NE of Grove, Grove, OK

More perhaps than any other religious edifice standing in Oklahoma today, Splitlog Church is the handsomely impressive monument to a remarkably able, public-spirited individual.

Mathias Splitlog was born in New York in 1812 by ancestry half Cayuga and half French. An important figure on four frontiers Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and Indian Territory he died in 1897... in Washington, D. C., appropriately enough, while representing the Senecas, into whose tribe he had been adopted. He lies buried beside his wife in the oak-shaded burying ground of the stately limestone church he built, quite possibly the only structure of its kind standing in the United States today to be built by an Indian with his own personal
resources.

Says Velma Nieberding: "Distinguished, even in his early years, for his sound business sense, a mechanical and inventive turn of mind, and the ability to estimate the possibilities of the future, Split log possessed the quality known as vision." Nannie Lee Burns has written "He was of a peculiar, eccentric disposition. His ideas were ahead of his time. He was always planning and building." Unable to read or write, Splitlog_spoke seven languages. A far from a young man when he came to Indian Territory in 1874, he had outlived his wife and all but one of his ten children when he helped dedicate his church, on Nov. 25, 1896. Less than six weeks later, on January 2, he was dead.

Mathias Splitlog was a young man in Sandusky, Ohio, when he met and married Eliza Barnett (1829-1894), thus becoming a member of the Wyandot Tribe. In 1842 this tribe quit-claimed its Ohio reservation to the United States in exchange for land along the Neosho River in Kansas. Splitlog came west with more than 700 Wyandots in 1843. The tribe later bought land from the Delawares in the fork between the Kansas and Missouri Rivers now occupied by Kansas City, Kansas. But the value of this land soon created sufficient public pressure to dispossess them. Finally, the Senecas, honoring a pledge of friendship made years before in Ohio, turned over to the Wyandots 30,000 acres of their reservation in northeastern Indian Territory. Splitlog and his people moved yet another time, in 1874, and the now 62-year-old leader chose for his new home a site near the junction of the Cowskin and Grand (Neosho in Kansas) Rivers.

On it was a spring he named Cayuga in honor of his own tribe and the town he started became known as Cayuga Springs. (As Cayuga, it had a post office from June 11, 1884, to April 30, 1912. It has now virtually disappeared.) He built a sawmill and a grist mill... established a general store, a blacksmith shop, and a ferry... erected an impressive three-story-and-basement factory for the manufacture of wagons and buggies. He started a subscription school and (his most ambitious project) began work in 1887 on the "Splitlog Line," forerunner of a section of the present Kansas City Southern Lines. The railroad reached Splitlog City (in nearby Missouri) in 1889. "I go on," Split log promised in a celebration speech. "I make Cayuga and Split log the biggest towns in the Ozarks." But the dream was not fulfilled.

It is not known just when Split log first became interested in building Cayuga Mission Church. He was a nominal Catholic, although he had never shown any particular interest in religion. Mrs. Splitlog, however, was a devout Quaker and the Splitlog General Store was generally available for religious services of any interested denomination. Then in 1892, Father William Ketcham came to Indian Territory to work among the various tribes in this area. Splitlog sent for him and in 1893 he was confirmed at a Pontifical Mass at St. Mary's of the Quapaws (a church that still stands some miles to the north). Mrs. Split log also became a convert.

Father Ketcham helped Split log with his plans for the Cayuga Church, which he began in 1893. When Eliza Split log died Sept. 28, 1894, she was buried in the still uncompleted structure. Not until late in 1896 was it finally finished. At the dedicatory service the bell, which had been cast in Belgium, was blessed and first tolled in her memory. Removed in 1930, when the church was sold to the Methodist church, the bell has since been returned. Today, the well-preserved church, and the neatly tended, still-used churchyard containing the graves of both Mathias and Eliza Splitlog remain as a quite impressive tribute to one of Indian Territory's most progressive Indians.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1972.