A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. V, Part 1

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644

USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. V > Part 1

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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02302 5387

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A Standard History

OF 0

OKLAHOMA

An Authentic Narrative of its Development from the Date of the First European Exploration down to the Present Time, includ- ing Accounts of the Indian Tribes, both Civilized and Wild, of the Cattle Range, of the Land Openings and the Achievements of the most Recent Period

JOSEPH B. THOBURN

. Assisted by a Board of Advisory Editors

V.5

VOLUME V

GC 976.6 T352 V.5

ILLUSTRATED

THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK

1916

1535239

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

ROY M. JOHNSON. An aggressive and strenuous young business man of Ardmore, Carter County, Roy M. John- son had the foresight and good judgment to profit largely through his associations with industrial and financial enterprises in Oklahoma. He was best known for a number of years as head of the principal republican newspaper in Southern Oklahoma, but the chief objects of his attention are now banking and the oil industry in his section of the state. He is an alert and progressive young man of affairs, and has discovered and accepted many opportunities for disinterested public service.

He was born at Cashton, Monroe County, Wisconsin, July 11, 1881. His parental grandfather was born and reared in Norway, and on coming to the United States in 1850 settled in Illinois, but later became a pioneer settler in Wisconsin. He finally established his home near Cambridge, Dane County, that state, where, as a prosperous farmer, he spent the remainder of his life. Mr. Johnson's maternal grandfather was Dr. John B. Skinner, whose ancestors had come to America in early colonial times. He was an early country physician in Wisconsin, went from that state as a soldier of the Union during the Civil war, and was member of a regiment of Wisconsin cavalry until incapacitated by sunstroke, from the effects of which he never fully re- covered. He was a resident of Cashton at the time of his death in 1880.

Prof. O. Andrew Johnson, father of the Ardmore business man, was born in Illinois in 1851 and was a child when taken to Dane County, Wisconsin. While growing up he acquired a liberal education in schools and colleges, and is a man of high scholarship who has been an influential figure in educational affairs and also in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. His home was in Wisconsin until 1882, when he removed with his fam- ily to Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, where he continued his evangelic labors for a decade. In 1892 he became a member of the faculty of Union College at Lincoln, Ne- braska, but in 1894 returned to Wisconsin and served three years as president of the Adventist Conference of that state .. In 1897 he resumed his professorship in Union College, where he remained until 1900, and then went to Norway, the land of his ancestors, and became president of the Norwegian Adventist Conference. In 1908 he resigned from that position and has since held the chair of Bible History in Walla Walla College, the Adventist institution in Walla Walla, Washington. He is one of the most distinguished representatives of the religious organization of the Seventh Day Adventists, and his wife was also a devout and zealous member of the same body. Professor Johnson married in Wis- consin Miss Sarah M. Skinner, who was born in Illinois in 1851. She died at Walla Walla, Washington, in May, 1915. Roy M. Johnson is the older of their two sons, while Harry Lynn, who is becoming distinguished in the field of mechanical inventions, is now president of the Johnson Automatic Machinery Company of Battle Creek, Michigan.

It was in the public schools of Nebraska that Roy M. Johnson acquired his early training, followed by a course in Union College, where he was graduated A. B. in 1899. In the meantime he had also been a student for three years in Milton College at Milton, Wisconsin. Mr.

Johnson learned the printer's trade at Battle Creek, Michigan, where he lived from 1900 to 1903, except the summer of 1902 spent with his parents in Norway. For four years, 1903-07, he followed his trade at Beaumont, Texas, employed alternately in the offices of the two daily papers of that city.

In 1907, the year Oklahoma became a state, Mr. John- son established his home at Ardmore and founded the Ardmore Statesman. In a short time he had made this one of the model weekly papers of the state and was its editor and publisher until the spring of 1915, when he sold the plant and business to Edward L. Gregory of Lawton. The Statesman has been an effective exponent of the republican party, and under Mr. Johnson's con- trol it became the official republican organ for a large part of Southern Oklahoma, and in fact was the only important republican paper in the South Central section of the state.

Practically from the time he established his home at Ardmore Mr .. Johnson was convinced that the city was the center of what would ultimately prove a great petroleum oil district. His confidence was one of action, and several years ago he mortgaged his newspaper plant for $2,000 and with some progressive associates leased a tract of land in the Healdton District. Their activi- ties brought in the now celebrated field, which, though only one third developed, gives a yield of 100,000 barrels. a day. Mr. Johnson's individual holdings in this field are valued at approximately over half a million dollars.

He is now president of the Crystal Oil Company, a heavy stockholder in the Bess Tucker Oil Company, the Vernon Collins Oil Company, and the Scivally Petroleum Company, as well as a stockholder in several developing companies. His judicious investments have also extended to farm land, and he is the owner of a large amount of that class of property in Carter County. His largest in- come is from his royalties in his oil properties in the Healdton fields. He is a director of the Guaranty State Bank of Ardmore and a stockholder in several other banking institutions in Southern Oklahoma.

It was as a sincere and straightforward republican that Mr. Johnson became so successful in making the Ardmore Statesman a leading organ of his party in the new state. For a number of years he has been a man of prominence and influence among Oklahoma republi- cans, is a member of the Republican State Central Com- mittee from Carter County and in 1914 served as presi- dent of the Republican Press Association of Oklahoma. There has been less of personal ambition than of broad civic loyalty in his work as a partisan and citizen, and his name might be justly linked with all the important movements and enterprises for the good of his section of the state. He is one of the directors of the Ardmore Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Dornick Hills Country Club, the Chickasaw Lake Club, the Ardmore Rod and Gun Club, and he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church of Ardmore, of which he is a deacon.

For a number of years he has been actively interested in fraternal work, especially in the various branches of the Masonic Order. His affiliations are with Ard- more Lodge No. 31, A. F. & A. M .; Ardmore Chapter No. 11, R. A. M .; Ardmore Council No. 11, R. & S. M .;

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Ardmore Commandery No. 9, K. T .; Indian Consistory No. 2, Scottish Rite at McAlester, and Indian Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City. He is also a member of the Ardmore Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World.

On April 22, 1913, at Dallas, Texas, he married Miss Odessa Otey, of Huntsville, Texas. Her parents died while she was a young girl, and before her marriage she was a popular teacher in the Ardmore schools. They have one son, Otey, born July 14, 1914.

WILLIAM H. MITCHELL. One of the most important municipal positions of the City of Guthrie is that of commissioner of public safety and chief of police, offices which at this time are being capably filled by William H. Mitchell. He is one of the strong figures of the day who are boldly standing for political reform, and none of the officials of Guthrie has a better record or a more appreciative audience. Mr. Mitchell was born March 29, 1863, at Salem, Massachusetts, and is a son of Robert P. and Margaret H. (Costello) Mitchell.

Robert P. Mitchell was born in Ireland, in 1831, and came to America with his brother, James Mitchell, in 1841, taking up his residence at Salem, which continued to be his home until his death in 1913. He was a good business man and for many years carried on operations in grain, and through honorable business methods and straightforward transactions won a firmly established place in the esteem and confidence of those among whom his fortunes were cast. Mr. Mitchell was married in 1853 to Miss Margaret H. Costello, a native of England, born in 1831, who died in 1910. They became the parents of three daughters and four sons, namely: Lizzie K., who is single and resides at Salem; Charles H., who is deceased; William H .; Mrs. Rachael Park, who is de- ceased; Emma, who died unmarried; and George M., who has also passed away.

William H. Mitchell was reared in the City of Salem, where his education was secured in the public schools. After graduating from the high school in 1876 he started to work for his father in the grain business and con- tinued to be so occupied until 1884, thus gaining experi- ence that was to prove. invaluable to him in later years. In the year mentioned he went to Worcester, Massa- chusetts, where he accepted a position as a traveling salesman and went on the road as the representative of wholesale tea and coffee houses. In 1887 he came to the West, locating in Kansas, and in the following year engaged in the retail grocery business at Winfield, an enterprise which he conducted for two years. In 1889 he participated in the original opening of Oklahoma, when he located at Guthrie, and here engaged in the real estate business. At the time of the opening of the Sac and Fox reservations, in 1892, he secured a claim on Bear Creek, in Logan County, a property which he still owns. In 1893-4 he served capably and energetically as deputy sheriff of Logan County, and at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war he enlisted in Troop K, First United States Volunteer Cavalry, the famous """Rough Riders" under Col. Theodore Roosevelt. He was with that regiment in all its engagements and move- ments in Cuba, including the battle of San Juan Hill, where he was in the thickest of the fight. While he was never seriously wounded, on one occasion he had a narrow escape, having the heel of one of his boots shot off. He was intensely loyal to his regiment, his country and his comrades, was one of the most cheerful and faithful members of his troop, and did a great deal of helpful work in caring for the sick and wounded. Mr. Mitchell was mustered out of the United States service at Mon- tauk Point, New York, from whence he went to his

boyhood home at Salem and there remained two years with his parents. In 1901-2 he was with Col. W. F. Cody ("Buffalo Bill") as sergeant of rough riders, touring the United States, and in 1903 joined the police department of Guthrie. In this department his executive ability, his detective powers and his fearless performance of every duty devolving upon him won him constant promotion, and in 1906 he was finally made chief of the police department, an office in which he capably served until 1912. In 1915, under the commission form of government, he was elected commissioner of public safety, the prerogatives of which office include police, streets and alleys, public buildings and lighting of streets.

As to the movements directly concerned with the civic reform of Guthrie, he has been one of the city's most helpful men. He has always been an enthusiastic worker for good roads, and many substantial improvements have made their appearance under his administration, includ- ing the inauguration and installation of a modern "white way"' system. He was the promoter of the plan also to utilize the labor of the city prisoners in the improve- ment of the streets, thus reducing taxes. Elected on the reform platform, he has faithfully fulfilled every promise made during his campaign. Commissioner Mitchell is active in all Masonic bodies of Guthrie, is a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of the finance committee of the Masonic Temple of this city and holds member- ship also in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Altogether he is a man who touches and improves life on many sides. As his thorough official requirements have been reinforced by extensive travels, during which he has been a thoughtful student of affairs, he has acquired a depth as well as a breadth of view which is enjoyed by few men now before the people.

Commissioner Mitchell was married at Worcester, Massachusetts, September 20, 1905, to Miss Alice M. Cheney, daughter of Wheelock A. and Lovina (Brown- ing) Cheney. She was born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 8, 1859, and learned the printer's trade there under her father, who was a publisher of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell have no children.

REV. ROBERT CARR. A lifelong resident of the old Creek Nation, Rev. Robert Carr has found opportunity for usefulness and service to his people both as a farmer and for many years as a preacher. He is one of the old timers well worthy of the distinction of historical record.

He was born west of Fort Gibson on the Arkansas River in the Creek Nation, about 1845, a son of Thomas and Sally (Russo) Carr. His parents were natives of Alabama and were members of the Creek tribe. Thomas Carr was a well educated man, having been sent to a boarding school in Kentucky. The mother came to Indian Territory first, and she lived in the territory until her death, in 1871. She died about a mile from where her son, Rev. Robert, now lives. The father was a soldier in the Confederate army, and died at one of the refugee camps about 1863. His business was that of stock raiser. Of the two children the son Richard served all through the Civil war, and died in 1867.

Robert Carr during his boyhood attended the Asbury Mission School, and learned to read, but after the school was broken up at the beginning of the war he had no further education. In a business way he has found employment for his energies and accumulated a considerable estate by farming and stock raising. Since the close of the war he has had his home in what is now Hughes County, and his 110 acre homestead adjoins the little city of Wetumka on the southeast. Until Wetumka was founded, in 1900, the nearest town was

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

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Eufaula. All members of Mr. Carr's family have their allotments.

Rev. Robert Carr was for several years sheriff, or light horse captain, in the Creek Nation. In politics he is a democrat. In 1871 he joined the Missionary Baptist Church, and ten years later was ordained as a preacher, and has been active in the work ever since. For many years 'he traveled as a missionary among his own people and the Cherokees, and served as pastor of local missions.

In 1871 he married Elizabeth Barnette, who was a Creek Indian and was born near Eufaula, April 13, 1855. She has spent practically all her life in this one locality. Her parents were Daniel and Sally Bar- nette, the former a Creek Indian and the latter possessing half white blood. Mrs. Carr's mother died along the Red River during the war, while her father was a Con- federate soldier and died near Fort Smith. Of the three sons and three daughters in the Barnette family two are now living, Louisa Gray, near Wetumka, and Mrs. Carr.

Mr. and Mrs. Carr lost three sons in infancy, and their five living daughters are: Mrs. Nettie Frazier, who lives in the same neighborhood as her parents, and has one child; Addie Smith, of Wetumka; Ida McCoy, who lives at Wetumka, and has seven children; Lulu Canard, of Wetumka, and the mother of one child; and Anius Canard, of Wetumka, who has two children. 1

JAMES C. STEWART. The profession of education has no worthier or more efficient representative in Grady County than James C. Stewart of Rush Springs, super- intendent of city schools and a man who has passed practically his entire career in the calling to which he is now devoted. His advance has been steady and con- sistent and has come as a result of personal merit and close application, inherent and peculiar talent for impart- ing to others his own broad knowledge, and a deep and comprehensive sympathy that attracts his pupils to him and make easy their control. He has likewise dis- played the possession of marked executive ability and in the management of the affairs of his office has shown no little business acumen.

James C. Stewart was born at Russellville, the county seat of Pope County, Arkansas, July 14, 1884, and is a son of T. B. and Margaret (Allen) Stewart. As the name would suggest, the family originated in Scotland, James C. Stewart, the grandfather of James C. of this notice, and for whom he was named, having been a native of Scotia and an emigrant to the United States from the City of Edinburgh. On his arrival in this country the grandfather became a pioneer planter and lumberman in Tennessee and through a long life of industry rose to a place of prominence and financial inde- pendence, and died at Franklin, Tennessee, well advanced in years, and standing high in the esteem of his fellow- citizens.

T. B. Stewart, father of James C. Stewart, was born at Stephensville, Alabama, in 1852, and as a young man removed to Winchester, Tennessee. In 1881 he removed to Russellville, Arkansas, where he remained until 1886, then going to Pottsville, Arkansas, where he followed his vocations of farmer and lumberman until 1906. In that year he retired from active participation in business and agricultural life and moved to South Pittsburg, Marion County, Tennessee, where he still resides. Mr. Stewart is a deacon in the Baptist Church, and in political matters is a democrat. He married Miss Margaret Allen, who was born at Winchester, Franklin County, Tennessee, in 1853, and she died at Russellville, Arkansas, in 1906. They became the parents of four children, as follows: John, who died at the age of two

years; Jack, who married T. B. Lax, superintendent of schools of Mulberry, Arkansas; Minnie, who is the wife of John Dane, a farmer of Russellville; and James C.

As a youth, James C. Stewart attended the public schools of Pottsville, Arkansas, where he was graduated from the high school with the class of 1900. During the next two years, desiring to see something of the country, he traveled extensively from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico in all the states east of the Rocky Mountains, and not only derived much pleasure from his travels, but also an education which could have been gained in no other way, and experience that has proved of immeas- ureable value to him since that time. For one year, also, he was in the service of the Iron Mountain Rail- road. In 1903 Mr. Stewart enrolled as a student at Washita College, Arkansas, and graduated therefrom in 1907. He next spent one year at the University of Chicago, which he left in 1908, and this training was later supplemented by a full course at the Central State Normal School, from which he was graduated in 1914. In the meantime, he had started upon his educational career in 1902, when he began to teach a summer school near Russellville. He rose steadily in his calling from that time on, and in 1907 was appointed principal of Willow Point (Oklahoma) School, two years later being made principal of the high school at Comanche, where he remained two years. In 1910 he received the appoint- ment as superintendent of schools at Loco and retained that office until the fall of 1915, when he was given his present position as superintendent of city schools of Rush Springs. He bears an excellent reputation as an educator, and while a strict disciplinarian has always had the esteem and friendship, as well as the confidence, of his teachers and pupils. Mr. Stewart is a democrat in politics. He belongs to the Baptist Church, and is fraternally affiliated with Loco Camp, Woodmen of the World, in which he is past consul commander, and Loco Lodge No. 361, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he is past grand. He has numerous friends in both orders, as he has also in professional life.

Mr. Stewart was married in 1908, at England, Lonoke County, Arkansas, to Miss Alma Swain, daughter of the late J. H. Swain, deceased, who was a merchant, banker and oil inan of England, Arkansas. To Mr. and Mrs. Stewart there have come two children: Pearl, born June 8, 1910; and Ruby, born May 5, 1911.

HON. J. L. MCKEOWN, as an expert accountant, has been prominently identified with various departments of the government of the State of Oklahoma and retired from the office of financial secretary of the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater, Payne County, when he was elected a representative of that county in the fifth general assembly of the State Legislature. Entering the Legislature with an experi- ence of a number of years as an expert accountant in the service of the state, both as a member of the official staff of the state examiner and inspector and as financial sec- retary of the state board of agriculture, Mr. Mckeown came to his new duties specially well equipped, par- ticularly for the service assigned to him in connection with committee work, in which capacity he became one of the influential members of the house of representatives in the legislative session of 1914-15.

Mr. Mckeown was born in Wisconsin in the year 1873, and is a son of Patrick and Julia Mckeown. His father, a native of Ireland, came to America when a young man and for many years was a successful representative of the great basic industries of agriculture and stock-grow- ing-first in Wisconsin and later in Missouri. He whose name initiates this article was a child at the time of

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the family removal to Missouri, where he received his preliminary educational discipline in the public schools. In 1899 he was graduated in the Missouri State Normal School at Warrensburg, and he then turned his atten- tion to the pedagogic profession, of which he was for five years one of the successful and popular representa- tives, as a teacher in the public schools of Missouri. Later he completed a thorough course in scientific ac- counting, in the Spaulding Business College in Kansas City, that state, and for the ensuing five years he gave his attention to work as an expert accountant, a portion of the time through assignment to important special work in Oklahoma Territory. When the state government was organized in 1907, Mr. Mckeown assisted in plan- ning and executing the first work of the office of state examiner and inspector, and upon his retiring from this department he entered the service of the state board of agriculture, by which he was assigned to the position of financial secretary at the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater, a post of which he continued the efficient and valued incumbent until his election to the lower house of the State Legislature, in 1914. Prior to his election to this office Mr. Mckeown had accomplished valuable service for the state through his interposition and investigation as an expert ac- countant, and it is specially worthy of note that he effected in this capacity the discovery of the issuing of fraudulent state warrants to the amount of $37,000, this discovery having resulted in the prosecution and con- viction of a trusted attache of the office of the state auditor.

In the fifth Legislature Mr. Mckeown was assigned to the following named committees of the house of repre- sentatives : appropriation, education, general agriculture, banks and banking, initiative and referendum, manu- facturing and commerce, and oil and gas. He was specially concerned in legislation affecting the oil and gas industries and that pertaining to the State Agri- cultural and Mechanical College with which he had been actively identified. He took an active interest in the preparation, championship and enactment of the note- worthy oil conservation bill, especially by reason of the fact that he is personally interested in the oil industry, as an operator in the celebrated Cushing field, a part of which is in the county of which he is a representative. He is secretary of the Cimarron River Oil and Gas Com- pany and vice president of the Cimarron Oil Company, both of which have valuable producing wells in the Cushing field of Oklahoma. Mr. MeKeown was joint author of the admirable good roads measure that was passed by the Fifth Legislature, this being considered one of the most important passed at that session in touching the interests of the rural communities of the state. He was joint author also of measures fixing proper penalties for the desertion of wives and children by recalcitrant husbands and fathers. Mr. Mckeown was zealous in the supporting of adequate appropriations for the Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical College in his home City of Stillwater, one of these appropriations having been for the replacing of buildings that had been destroyed by fire and the loss of which seriously crippled the work of the college.

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Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941 Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society Number of Pages: 644

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644