Joe Bates

Joe Bates was an Osage husband and father of six whose sudden death in 1921 became part of the investigation into William K. Hale’s exploitation of Osage landowners. The surviving account centers on his refusal to sell inherited land shares and his widow’s claim that Hale obtained the land through a dubious deed after Bates died; the evidence implicates Hale in apparent poisoning but does not establish the accusation as proven.

Identity and Circumstances

The available account identifies Bates as married and the father of six children. It gives no further biographical details, placing him instead within the investigation of deaths from which Hale allegedly profited. Bates died suddenly in 1921, and Hale subsequently produced a deed purporting to convey Bates’s land.

Land Dispute and His Widow’s Account

In a letter to the Office of Indian Affairs, Bates’s widow said that Hale had kept her husband drunk for over a year and repeatedly came to the house to ask him to sell his inherited shares in land. According to her account, Bates refused each time, even when drunk. She wrote that she never believed he had sold the land: he had continued telling her he would not sell until only a few days before his death. The disputed deed appeared after Bates was gone, and, as his widow concluded, Hale got the land.

Significance in the Investigation

The investigation treated Bates’s death as an apparent poisoning and connected it to Hale’s acquisition of the land. The widow’s letter supplies the account of Bates’s repeated refusals and makes the sequence consequential: pressure to sell preceded his sudden death, and a questionable deed followed it. The available evidence preserves her allegation and the investigators’ suspicion, but does not provide a definitive account of how Bates died or establish that Hale poisoned him.