A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 84

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company
Number of Pages: 645

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JUDGE JOHN A. CLARK is known in south- ern Oklahoma as a man of high attainments and ability as a lawyer and as one who has achieved success in his profession. His professional career was begun as a teacher in the schools of Illinois, but his work was shortly interrupted by his enlistment for the war, and after returning home at the close of the conflict he resumed his teaching and also began the study of law. He was an earnest and diligent student in the prepara- tion of his future life work, and was ad- mitted to the bar at Mount Vernon, Illi- nois, in 1881, and he located for practice

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at Paris, that state. At the opening of the Pottawatomie reservation for settlement he came to Oklahoma, arriving here on the night of the memorable cloudburst, May 21, 1891, and he secured claim No. I. Dur- ing a number of years following his re- moval to this state he was in partnership with B. F. Burnell, of Oklahoma City, and both became very prominent in the legal fraternity here. His homestead is now known as Glenwood, one of the beautiful estates of the countv.

·Judge Clark was born in Blount county, Tennessee, near Marysville, November 17, 1845, the same year in which Texas was admitted to the Union, and he is descended from one of the oldest and best-known fam- ilies of Tennessee. He is in direct line from the valiant Revolutionary soldier of that name who served with the Light Horse cavalry of Virginia. The first of the name to locate in Tennessee was "Old Johnnie Clark," a pioneer miller and a noted char- acter of his time. He was perhaps one of the best-known men then of his part of the state, for his mill was patronized by people from a distance of fifty miles or more. The father of the Judge was St. Clair Clark, a carpenter and contractor and a Jackson Democrat politically. He married Nancy E. Davis, of Mississippi, and they became the parents of six children, four sons and two daughters, but only two are now living, John A. and W. E., the latter a physician of Marion, Illinois. The parents have also passed away, the father dying in Saline county, Illinois, at the age of forty years, and the mother in Paducah, Kentucky.

John A. Clark spent the first few years of his life in his native state of Tennessee, receiving an excellent education in its pub- lic and normal schools, and he then moved with his parents to Saline county, Illinois. In 1861 he enlisted in the Twenty-ninth Illinois Infantry, from which he was shortly afterward discharged, and in 1862 he be- came a member of the Seventh Illinois Cav- alry, Company H, Colonel Erskin's regi- ment and Captain Webber's company. Re- ceiving his discharge from that command in 1863, he then assisted in raising the reorganized Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry, of

which he became a commissioned officer and saw active service in Mississippi and Tennessee. He was with Generals Banks and Steele in the Red River expedition, and was twice wounded, on the 22d of July, 1864, while in front of Atlanta, and while with the Red River expedition was wounded in the leg. He was honorably discharged from the service at Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

At Vincennes, Indiana, in 1881, Judge Clark wedded Ninnie, a daughter of John and Margaret (Badolette) Coan. Colonel Badolette, Mrs. Clark's grandfather, was a West Point graduate and an officer in the Mexican war. The two children of this union are Nina and John St. Clair. The daughter is the wife of Max Lee Cunning- ham, a civil engineer of Enid, Oklahoma. The son is yet a student.

JOHN G. HUDIBURG has the honor of hav- ing been elected the first clerk of the dis- trict court in the new state, assuming the duties of the office in November, 1907. He has also been prominently before the people as an instructor, and few have a wider ac- quaintanceship in Pottawatomie county than John G. Hudiburg. Although so con- spicuously identified with the interests of Oklahoma, he is a native son of Tennessee, born in Hardin county on the 29th of Oc- tober, 1861. On both the paternal and ma- ternal sides he represents prominent old families of that state, both of his grand- fathers having been numbered among the first settlers of Hardin county, which was named in honor of his grandfather Hardin. He is a son of S. S. and Rachel (Coveny) Hudiburg, who were also born in Tennes- see. The father, born in 1835, still resides in the state of his nativity, but the mother died in 1885, at the age of fifty-three years.

After attending the public schools and Hardin College, John G. Hudiburg began teaching at Waynesboro, Tennessee, in 1888, taught about two years in Tennessee, then was traveling salesman in twenty-two states for about three years ; again took up teaching until the fall of 1897, when he came to Oklahoma. He resumed his school work in the country schools of Pottawato- mie county. During one year he was the

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superintendent of schools at Wetumka, In- dian Territory, and his professional labors were continued until he entered the office of district clerk in 1907, being elected on the Democratic ticket.

He is a member of the Farmers' Union, having ever taken a deep interest in the welfare of the agriculturist, and is a mem- ber of the Cumberland Presbyterian church.

WALTER C. PERRY. The public officials of Pottawatomie county include among their number Walter C. Perry, who is an active worker in the local ranks of the Democratic party and is now the incumbent of the office of treasurer. He assumed the duties of this position in 1904, and in 1907 was returned to the office for another term. He also has the honor of having been made a commissioner at the first election held in Cleveland county.

Mr. Perry is a member of an old South- ern family of Georgia, of English and Scotch-Irish descent on the paternal side, and both of his parents, James L. and Mar- tha J. (Bellah) Perry, were born in that commonwealth, the father born in 1812. From there they moved to Florida in 1867, and James L. Perry died in that state in 1889. Their son, Walter, was born in Co- weta county, Georgia, October 7, 1847, and received his education in the high school and the Georgia Academy at Newnan. In July, 1864, when a boy of seventeen, he be- came a member of the Confederate army, Phillip's Legion, and served until the close of the Civil war, having been in active serv- ice during most of the time. He also had two brothers in his command, W. H. and J. M. Perry. After the close of the con- flict Mr. Perry began farming with his father in Florida, but in 1874 removed to Texas and farmed there until his removal to the Chickasha Nation in 1884. He was identified with agricultural pursuits there at Paul's Valley before the advent of the rail- road into that section of the country, but in 1889 he left there and came to Cleve- land county, Oklahoma, still continuing as a tiller of the soil. He can thus claim the honor of being one of the pioneers of Okla- homa. In 1897 he became a resident of Pottawatomie county, farming for a time

one hundred and sixty acres of land, five miles east of Shawnee, but, selling his farm he went into the mercantile business in Asher. His election to the office of county treasurer in 1904 necessitated his removal to Tecumseh, where he is prominently identified with its political and social life. He is a member of the Masonic order at Asher, and has membership relations with the Methodist Episcopal church.

Mr. Perry married, in 1867, Miss M. C. Roberts, a native daughter of Florida and a member of one of its prominent early families. Her father, Arthur Roberts, was one of the pioneers of the state and was a man of prominence there. He was a valiant soldier in the Indian war, and during the conflict between the north and the south he served with the rank of colonel. The five children of Mr. and Mrs. Perry are: Maggie L., the wife of F. L. Davis, of Te- cumseh ; James A., in business in Shawnee; Hattie, the wife of W. M. Percy, of Lind- say ; Ernest L., in the treasurer's office with his father, and Maud C., married W. M. Cole, now deceased. Mr. Perry is a man of high character and true worth, a splen- did type of the pioneers of Oklahoma.

JOSEPH C. ORR resides on his farm in northeast part of Davis township, Potta- watomie county, which is known as the Gertrude Washington farm, having been allotted to her, a Shawnee Indian, now de- ceased. He first located in the Seminole Nation, Indian Territory, four miles east of his present place, and brought the first portable sawmill into this part of Okla- homa. For seven years Mr. Orr contin- ued in the lumber business, finally, however, drifting into the mercantile trade and for five years was associated in business with J. T. Peyton and George Traynor at Econ- tuchka, one of the early trading points of this section of Oklahoma. Mr. Orr's farm contains three hundred and sixty acres, and is devoted principally to the raising of cot- ton and contains six tenant houses, in ad- dition to his own residence, which is beau- tifully located in a grove of native trees.

Joseph C. Orr was born in Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, in 1862, a son of James and Elizabeth (Crain)

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Orr, both of whom were also born in that locality, and the paternal family is a stanch Scotch-Irish Protestant of the Presbyterian belief. Their four children are: Rebecca Sponsler and William, both of whom are living in Pennsylvania, the latter in Pitts- burg ; James S., whose home is in Cincin- nati, Ohio, and Joseph C. During his early life Joseph C. Orr received an excellent educational training, attending the public schools and finally graduating from one of the oldest educational institutions in the state.

Mr. Orr was married to Miss Daisy Mathis in 1894. She was a daughter of J. B. Mathis, one of the prominent early resi- dents of Pottawatomie county, and the union was blessed by the birth of one son, Don M., now a lad of twelve years. Mrs. Orr died in 1895 and in January, 1904, Mr. Orr wedded Miss Esther Acock, who was born and reared in Missouri, a daughter of W. R. and Elizabeth (Stephens) Acock. To this union have been born two daugh- ters, Agnes E., who is now two years old, and Rebecca May, born May 6, 1908. Mr. Orr is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Shawnee Lodge No. 27.

THE LAZZELL FAMILY. Julia Lazzell, of section 22, township 8, of Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, is well known to the English settlers of the county in which she resides, as the widow of Thomas Jefferson Lazzell, one of the first men to lead the vanguard into this part of the state of Okla- homa. He was prominently connected with the first settlement and was one of the dele- gates to select lands for the allotment of the Pottawatomie county Indians. He was born March 19, 1835, in Old Virginia, a son of William and Sarah Lazzell, French people. He was one of a family of four- teen children, four of whom became sol- diers in the Civil war. Thomas J. was reared in Virginia, until aged twenty-one years, when he went, in 1856, to Kansas, and later went to Pike's Peak, with a mule pack train, with John Anderson.

Thomas J. Lazzell came to Oklahoma in 1874, when it was yet a reservation for the Indian tribes of the great southwest. Here he owned a good farm, which he sold in

1900, and purchased a quarter section of fine land, upon which he erected a good modern house of six rooms, and furnished in style better than most of his neighbors. He improved the place by setting out many fruit and shade trees. Mr. Lazzell was aged seventy-two years at his death in 1906. He was a large man, weighing two hundred pounds, and was six feet in height. Mr. Lazzell was a Mason and was connected with the Kansas military companies and saw much service on the plains of the great west, as well as in the Civil war.

The date of his marriage was September II, 1858, when he wedded Julia Delain, born at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1842, daughter of Charles C. Delain, a French- man, who was a blacksmith in the employ of the government. Her mother, Archange Morae, born in Chicago, is of the Potta- watomie tribe of French Indians. Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Laz- zell, five of whom are deceased, three dying in infancy, one at fourteen years, one mar- ried, died aged seventeen, and three are living on the reservation. John Willis Laz- zell lives in Shawnee; Peter is a farmer in this township; the other child is Ivy Quinn, and she has one daughter, a bright-eyed child of eight years. Mrs. Julia Lazzell, the good mother, has seen much of pioneer hardship in the western country. She wit- nessed the exodus of the Mormons in 1846-7, as well as the gold seekers of 1849, who went to Pike's Peak. She was edu- cated at St. Mary's, Kansas, and is a mem- ber of the Catholic church.

JOEL ROBINETT, proprietor of Rock Springs Farm, a valuable estate of two hundred and forty acres in Earlsboro town- ship, near the town of Shawnee, is one of the best-known citizens of the community, and has resided here since 1896. At that time he bought an allotment from Indians, the Little Bears, which contained an old log ·house and a few acres under cultiva- tion. In the early days of the territory Rock Hill Farm was a favorite resort for the Indians, as it contains many springs of clear, cold water. It is now one of the best-improved homesteads in the township, containing many large and substantial

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buildings, and the land is devoted to the raising of diversified crops.

During the seven years previous to his coming to Oklahoma Mr. Robinett had re- sided in Indian Territory, farming on lands which he leased from the Indians in the Chickasha Nation, but he was born in north- ern Georgia, January 5, 1854, a son of Joel Robinett, who was born in North Carolina and died when his son and name- sake was but a babe of eight months, leav- ing a wife and nine children, three sons and six daughters, and two of the daughters are living in what was Indian Territory, and two, Nancy Burnett and Adelia Ham- lin, in Oklahoma. Mr. Robinett, Sr., was a farmer all his life, and both he and his wife were of the Missionary Baptist faith. They reared their children to lives of use- fulness on the farm, and when the son, Joel, had reached his nineteenth year he left home and spent the two following years on a ranch in Texas. Returning then to his home state of Georgia he farmed there for three years, and going again to Texas he took his mother and a sister with him and located in Grayson county. The mother died in that state, and later, in 1888, Mr. Robinett went to Indian Territory, which continued as his home until his coming to Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, in 1896.

In Gordon county, Georgia, in 1890, he married Miss Nevada, a daughter of John and Armina House, all of whom were born in that state. Mr. and Mrs. Robinett have three children, Celestia, Jessie and John Red, aged respectively sixteen, fourteen and thirteen years, and they also lost two in infancy, Joe Lee and Lafayette. Mr. Rob- inett is a believer in Democratic principles, and the family are of the Missionary Bap- tist faith.

S. L. WHITLEY, proprietor of the Bronze Medal Orchards of Brinton township, Pot- tawatomie county, is one of the best-known fruit growers in this part of the state, his residence in Oklahoma covering the inter- vening period since 1893. His orchard is one of the best in Oklahoma, and at the St. Louis exposition in 1904 he received the bronze medal for the best apples grown in Oklahoma. His estate embraces eighty

acres of rich and fertile land, and forty acres of this is devoted to the orchard and is known as the Bronze Medal Orchards.

Mr. Whitley was born in Leavenworth county, Kansas, June 27, 1867. His father, John Whitley, a Confederate soldier under General Joe Shelby, settled in Kansas at the close of the Civil war, from whence he later moved to Kentucky, and going from there to Missouri was married to Mary Alexander, a daughter of one of the early pioneers of Johnson county, that state. For a time after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Whitley lived in Osage county, Kansas, and in 1878 the family moved from there to Grayson county, Texas, later, in 1883, coming to Ardmore, Indian Territory, and just ten years afterward, in 1893, they con- tinued their journey to Oklahoma, locating on the farm now the property of their son, S. L., where the father died in 1901, at the age of seventy-two years. His entire busi- ness career was devoted to the farm, and he was politically a Democrat, of the stanch Jackson type, and was a member of the Missionary Baptist church. His widow is still living, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Their children are Alice, Artie, Cora, S. L. and John, the sons both residents of Brinton township, Pottawato- mie county.

S. L. Whitley grew to manhood's estate on Kansas and Texas farms, and in the latter state he married Almeda Smith, who was born in Burnett county, that state, a daughter of Michael and Rebecca (Hogue) Smith, of Comanche county, Oklahoma, and the parents of nine children. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Whitley : Joseph, Alice, Artie and Ollie. Mr. Whit- ley is an earnest worker in the ranks of the Democratic party, and for five years he served his township as a trustee, also serv- ing as a delegate to conventions, and in October, 1907, he represented his party at the Farmers' National Congress at Okla- homa City. He is an Odd Fellow, belong- ing to Brown Lodge No. 82.

O. W. GRIMWOOD. Pottawatomie county numbers among its best-known business men and pioneers O. W. Grimwood, who has been prominently identified with its

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business interests since 1893. During the time was a candidate for the office of regis- first years of his residence here he lived on trar of deeds. He is a member of the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 82, of Brown. a farm just south of the town of Brown, and then forming a partnership with A. B. Ramsey they bought the general store of T. D. Williamson, which they conducted from 1900 until 1905. The style of the firm was then changed to Ramsey & Tar- box, and still later the Brown Trading Company was organized with O. W. Grim- wood as manager. O. W. Grimwood is also the proprietor of the Brown Gin Mill, which has a capacity of fifteen hundred bales of cotton per annum, and they do a large and constantly growing business.

He was born in Knox county, Ohio, in 1866, a son of W. J. and Henrietta (Ly- barger) Grimwood. The father, born in Toronto, Canada, served in the Union army during the Civil war for four years as an aide to a colonel, and he died at the age of fifty-nine years in Pottawatomie county. His wife was fifty-six years of age at the time of her death. Their children were O. W., Charles, Nelly Tarbox and Jessie E. McFall, all of Oklahoma, and Frank, William and Anna, who live in Kansas. The eldest of the children, O. W. Grim- wood, was but a boy at the time of the re- moval of the family to Hornellsville, New York, where they lived on the Canisteo river for three years, then lived near Chilli- cothe, Missouri, for five years, and they then went to Chase county, Kansas, settling near Cottonwood Falls. In that state, in 1886, he married Mary F. White, who was born in Ohio, and her father, William White, is now a resident of Kiowa county, Oklahoma. He was a soldier in the Civil war and is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Of the nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. White only two are living in Pottawatomie county, Mrs. Grimwood and her brother, George White. Four chil- dren have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Grim- wood, namely: Cora B., a popular and successful teacher in the home schools; Retta E. Butler, whose home is in Brinton township, and Alta and Charles W. Mr. Grimwood is an active worker in the local ranks of the Republican party, and at one

RICHARD F. KING, one of the leading business men of Pottawatomie county, is a native son of the Lone Star state of Texas, born in Wise county, in 1865, a son of Ly- curgus and Sarah (Giddens) King, born respectively in Missouri and Kentucky. The father was a Confederate soldier dur- ing the Civil war, and leaving his native state of Missouri he journeyed to Texas and from there in 1869 to Kansas, settling near Emporia in Lyons county, where he died at the age of fifty-eight years. He was a prominent stockman and farmer during his lifetime, a Jackson Democrat politically, and both he and his wife were members of the Baptist church. Of their family of six children four are living, but Richard F. King is the only representative of his fam- ily in Oklahoma.

He was reared to manhood on a Kansas farm, and received a part of his educational training in a government fort in New Mex- ico. At the age of twenty, in 1886, he en- listed in the United States army, Company H, Tenth United States Infantry of Vol- unteers, under Colonel Douglass, and was stationed in New Mexico in General Miles' command. For two years he was also a member of the hospital corps at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, and his entire military service covered a period of five years, years of faithful and honorable service. In 1892, an early period in its history, Mr. King came from Chicago, Illinois, to Pottawato- mie county, Oklahoma, where he has since been prominent in business, and is now the owner of Lookout Hill Farm, a valu- able estate of one hundred and sixty acres. His first home here was a little log cabin fourteen by sixteen and a half feet, but in 1902 this gave place to his present commo- dious and pleasant home. He is a partner with Mr. Grimwood in a gin mill at Brown, has served his party, the Democratic, as a delegate to conventions, and has also been the incumbent of the offices of township clerk and justice of the peace. His fra-

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ternal relations are with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Brown Lodge No. 82.

In Lyons county, Kansas, in 1891, Mr. King was united in marriage to Mary Kemp, born and reared in that state, a daughter of Joshua and Mary (Pike) Kemp. Seven children have been born of this union: James, Richard, Harry, Carl, Ella and Elsie, and a son, Ralph, who is deceased.

H. G. CAMPBELL, M. D. Among those who are practicing medicine and surgery in Asher and at the same time demonstrating their ability to cope with disease is num- bered Dr. H. G. Campbell, who located in this city in 1907 and is now in partnership with Dr. Byrum. He is an honorary gradu- ate of the University of Nashville, Ten- nessee, with the class of 1903, serving the following year as interne in the city hos- pital at Nashville. In the winter of 1905 he took a post-graduate course at the New York Polyclinic Medical School, of New York. Dr. Campbell is a native son of Izard county, Arkansas, born June 24, 1872, to Rev. John W. and Charlene Kava- naugh (Davis) Campbell. The father was born in Kentucky and was a minister of the gospel in the Cumberland Presbyterian church, a man honored and revered by all who knew him and one whose memory is yet enshrined in the hearts of his many friends. He died in 1880, at the age of forty years, leaving a widow and two chil- dren, one of whom S. D. Campbell is a resident of Newport, Arkansas, and an at- torney.

Dr. H. G. Campbell spent the early years of his life in his native state of Arkansas, receiving a high school and college train- ing at Lacrosse and Batesville, and for eight years thereafter he was engaged in teaching school in Newport and other towns of that state. He was married at Bates- ville in April, 1907, to Pearl Reeder, a daughter of Mrs. Emma Reeder. Dr. and Mrs. Campbell are Presbyterians in relig- ion, and the Doctor is also a member of the Masonic order and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His profession connects him with the Pottawatomie Coun-

ty Medical Society and the Pauls Valley Medical Society, and his political affilia- tions are with the Democratic party.

REID RIGGINS, the president of the Ca- nadian Valley Bank of Asher, has been a resident of this city since 1902, but since 1899 he has been prominently identified with the banking and other interests of Oklahoma. He was born in Clinton, Henry county, Missouri, September 18, 1868, and is a member of a well known family of that community. His father, George Rig- gins, died when his son Reid was but three years old. . He was a well known contrac- tor and builder of Clinton, Missouri, whither he moved from his native state of Illinois, and during the Civil war he served as a member of the Confederate army, principally on the Mississippi river. He was a Democrat politically, and religiously a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church. His death occurred when he was but thirty years of age, leaving a wife and two children, Reid and Wyatt, the younger the assistant cashier of the National Bank of Bowie, Texas. His widow is a resident of Austin, that state.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 84

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.) Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company Number of Pages: 645

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company
Number of Pages: 645