A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 87

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

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In 1893 Mr. Hanson married M. M. Schaeper, a native of Texas, and of Ger- man parentage. Their two sons are Ed- ward, born on the 4th of August, 1899, and Charles, born January 8, 1905. The family are members of the German Lutheran church, and Mr. Hanson is also identified with the fraternal orders of Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows and Eagles.

SAM ELZO, the proprietor of the Elzo Gin at McLoud, was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1870, a son of Ed and Sarah (Wheeler) Elzo, the former born in Yorkshire, Eng- land, in 1833, and the latter near Dublin, Ireland, in 1844, and they are now living at the Isle of Pines on the coast of Cuba. The mother's parents, however, were Ger- mans, who were visiting near Dublin at the time of their. daughter's birth. The father was reared on the coast of Cuba, and coming to the United States became a real estate dealer in Memphis, Tennessee. They were married in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg, and became the parents of five children, two sons and three daughters, but only four are now living-Sam, Anna, Het- ty and William, the latter with his parents in Cuba.

During the Spanish-American war, on the 17th of March, 1898, Sam Elzo enlisted for service in the Third Tennessee Infan- try, Company I, and served until the 28th of February, 1899, in the meantime taking part in the battle of San Juan. After his honorable discharge from the service he re- turned to Memphis, Tennessee, and from there came to Oklahoma and purchased, in 1902, the gin which he now owns. This mill was built by the Craddock Brothers in 1891, but new machinery has since been in- stalled throughout, being now operated by the Smith & Munger gin outfit, including a sixty-five horse power engine, which was put in in 1903. The gin has a capacity of thirty bales of cotton a day of ten hours, and during the season of 1907 it ginned and baled 2,042 bales of cotton, an amount equal to three ordinary gins. Its proprietor, Sam Elzo, is one of the best known busi- ness men of Pottawatomie county.

He was married in Shawnee, Oklahoma, in 1903, to Pearl Taylor, who was born in

Sabetha, Kansas, and she was educated both in that state and in Oklahoma, a daughter of Joseph Taylor, who was born in England, and coming to the United States moved from Iowa to Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Elzo have one son, Neal Ed, three years of age. Mr. Elzo is both an Odd Fellow and a Mason.

SAMUEL DAVID DODSON, M. D. Among the leading medical practitioners of Pot- tawatomie county is Dr. Samuel D. Dodson, who was born in Rockford, Tennessee, in 1855, a son of William F. and Amanda (Forest) Dodson, both of whom were also born in that state. The father was a Ten- nessee farmer and a Union soldier of the Civil war, and his death occurred at Marsh- field, Missouri, at the advanced age of eighty-six. His wife yet survives him and has reached the age of seventy-eight, a worthy member of the Christian church.

Dr. Dodson, the fifth born of their eight children, went with his parents to Polk county, Missouri, in his early life, and he received his literary training principally at Bolivar, that state. From Missouri he came to Indian Territory, locating at Eastman, where he began the study of medicine un- der the preceptorship of Dr. D. J. Farmer, a prominent and successful physician there at that time. Passing from his instructions to the University of Tennessee, Dr. Dod- son graduated from that well known insti- tution with the class of 1895, and for two years thereafter he was in practice at East- man. He was later in practice at Remus and at Maud, until finally, in the spring of 1908, he located at Sacred Heart, where he is rapidly building up a large and remun- erative practice.

At Paul's Valley, in the early seventies, the Doctor married Sena Hilbrant, who at her death left two children, Elvas and Esley, and for his second wife he married in 1882 Martha C. Wood, who died after becoming the mother of four children- Amanda, Ben, Martha and Ruth. On the 17th of June, 1902, at Paul's Valley, Dr. Dodson wedded Eufallia Chambers, a daughter of D. R. and Tennie (Rowe) Chambers. Mrs. Dodson was reared and educated in Texas. The Doctor and his

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wife hold membership relations with the Odd Fellows and the Rebekahs, and he is also a Mason and a member of the Baptist church. In connection with his profession he is a member of the Medical Association of Oklahoma.

JOHN BLEDSOE. The name of John Bled- soe is closely associated with the early as well as much of the subsequent history of Pottawatomie county, and he is also hon- ored as a soldier of the Civil war. Twenty- four years ago he sought a home in the In- dian Territory, and during the past eleven years he has resided on his present farm in Avoca township, located midway be- tween Maud and Asher.

Mr. Bledsoe was born in Jackson county, Missouri, July 25, 1839, a son of Abraham and Elizabeth (Warden) Bledsoe, the for- mer a native of Kentucky and the latter of northern Missouri. In their early life they moved to Texas, where the mother died before the war, but the father survived many years and reached the age of three score years and ten. During four years of the Civil war he served as a Union soldier, and four of his sons, William, John, George and Hezekiah, also served their country faithfully and valiantly during that conflict. Another son, Francis Marion, was killed by bushwhackers when a young lad of four- teen.

From Missouri John Bledsoe moved to Grayson county, Texas, purchasing one hundred and sixty acres of unimproved Indian land near Sherman, and from there in 1884 he came to the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, for he served throughout the Civil war as a mem- ber of the United States army, and for two years previously was a member of the Mis- souri State Militia.

In Barry county, Missouri, Mr. Bledsoe was united in marriage to Lucinda, a daughter of William and Susan (Dial) Dye, natives respectively of Iowa and Mis- souri, but the mother is now deceased, dy- ing at the age of fifty years. One of their sons died in the hospital at Cassville, Mis- souri, as a result of his army experience. Seven children have been born to Mr. and

Mrs. Bledsoe-Lafayette, William, Esther, Columbus, Matthew, Ida, and one, Hiram, who died at the age of twenty-two years. The political affiliations of Mr. Bledsoe are with the Democratic party.

ARTHUR DIMMERS, who has the distinc- tion of being the only Republican member of the city council of Shawnee, Oklahoma, representing the Fourth ward of the city, was born near Hillsdale, Michigan, Jan- uary 25, 1858, a son of Charles F. Dimmers, born of German parents, in Virginia. The mother was born in Connecticut, her name being Worthington, but now lives at Hills- dale, Michigan, while the father is deceased. He was by occupation a farmer ; originally a Lutheran in his religious faith he later became a Methodist.

Arthur Dimmers of this biography, was reared in Michigan, where he developed a good bodily constitution and at twenty years of age he removed to Topeka, Kan- sas, where he soon found employment as a fireman on the Santa Fe Railroad. After living in Topeka for thirteen years he moved to Arkansas City, Kansas, and later to Guthrie. He remained there until 1898, then went to Shawnee. He has been in the employ of the Santa Fe railroad since 1878 and is now one of their oldest as well as most trusty engineers, having commenced when a young man as fireman, and steadily worked his way to the responsible position he now holds with this great system. He has been economical and has accumulated a handsome property, possessing a good home, where he is surrounded by the com- forts of life. Republican in politics, he was elected in April, 1906, as councilman by a good majority and has given full satisfac- tion in the administration of ward and city affairs.

Mr. Dimmers was first married at New- kirk, Oklahoma, to Effie Kies, born at Hills- dale, Michigan, by whom he had one daugh- ter, now the wife of A. J. McGuire, a brother of Hon. Bird McGuire, member of Congress. For his second wife Mr. Dim- mers married Kate Hartzell on January 4, 1901.

Mr. Dimmers is a large man and fully six feet in height. He is, by reason of his

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manly ways, the friend of a legion of his fellow workmen as well as the citizens of his home town, who have placed him in charge of many local duties. He having long been a railway man, is used to, and insists on all matters being attended to on time and in a proper manner.

O. F. SHAW, the police judge of McLoud, was born in Saratoga county, New York, the 4th of June, 1839. His father, Edwin Madison Shaw, was born in Ireland of Scotch-Irish parents, and coming to Ameri- ca he became a noted criminal lawyer of his day in Saratoga. Going later to Butler county, Iowa, he was one of the pioneers of that state, and his death occurred there at the age of sixty-four years, dying in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church. His wife, who was before her marriage Elizabeth Whitford, was born in Massa- chusetts, and she was a granddaughter of a Revolutionary soldier, Abel Hatfield. Her death occurred at the age of seventy-five, after becoming the mother of four sons and four daughters, but of this once large fam- ily only three are now living, a son and two daughters in Iowa.

O. F. Shaw, one of the three surviving members of this family, was a young man of seventeen at the time of the removal of the family from New York to Butler coun- ty, Iowa, and from there in 1873 he went to Harlan county, Nebraska, where he se- cured a government homestead and also a tree claim, pre-empting in all about four hundred and eighty acres. For many years he continued his residence there, prominent- ly engaged in farming and the cattle busi- ness, and during those early days in that state he was also a noted buffalo hunter, and killed many of those animals for their hides. But on account of the ill health of his wife he decided to locate in Oklahoma, and in 1895 made the overland journey with team and wagon from Nebraska to Black Beaver, now known as Morrison, where he traded his team for a claim in the Kickapoo coun- try in Lincoln county, and which is now occupied by his son. During the past eight years he has lived in Pottawatomie county, and is now the police judge of McLoud.

During his residence in Butler county,

Iowa, Mr. Shaw was united in marriage to Elizabeth Jaquis, who was born in New York, a daughter of Ben H. and Fanny (Lashbrook) Jaquis, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of Exeter, England. The mother died in Harlan county, Ne- braska, when sixty-four years of age, and the father was drowned at sea while mak- ing the return voyage from California in 1866, dying at the age of sixty years. Mr. and Mrs. Shaw have had seven children, namely: Cora Morrill, whose home is in Custer county, Nebraska; Hattie Meyer, deceased ; Fanny Robertson, of Arnold, that state; Minnie Griffith, a resident of Denver, Colorado; Ed, whose home is in Lincoln county, Oklahoma; Olive Lyle; and Abbie, a popular and successful teacher. Mrs. Meyer, the second daughter, died in 1896, in Custer county, Nebraska, leaving a son and a daughter, J. O. and Cora A. The son is a resident of Colorado, and the daughter is with her grandfather, Mr. Shaw.

During the Civil war Mr. Shaw enlisted for service in the Forty-fourth Iowa Infan- try, Company E, and he was honorably dis- charged on the 15th of September, 1864, with a good record as a soldier for the Union cause.

J. E. McNAIR. During the past eighteen years Oklahoma has been the home of J. E. McNair, and during the past three years of that time he has been an earnest and faithful employe of the U. S. government, receiving his appointment as a rural free delivery carrier on the 15th of April, 1905. His route lies west nine miles and south three miles of McComb, covering a distance of twenty-six and a half miles, and the roads over which he travels are rough and hilly. He has done faithful and efficient service, and is popular on his route.

Born near Ringgold, Georgia, in 1874, a son of Wiley and Mary McNair, who died respectively in Oklahoma and Texas, J. E. McNair was reared in both Oklahoma and Texas, receiving a public school education, which was supplemented by study at home. At the age of nineteen he engaged in teach- ing, from which he later turned his atten- tion to bookkeeping, and he was for eight

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years in that occupation in Ardmore and McComb. He was married at the former place, in 1897, to Bertha Ward, who died leaving one son, Homer, and for his second wife Mr. McNair wedded Anna Edwards, of McComb, by whom he had two children, Granville, and a younger one who died in infancy.

Mr. McNair is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity, Lodge No. 207, and is also a Master Mason, holding membership with the lodge at Tecumseh. Both he and his wife are members of the Baptist church.

VOLNEY SMITH. Among those who came as pioneers to Pottawatomie county is num- bered Volney Smith, who arrived here on the 22d of September, 1891. He succeeded in securing one of the claims of the county, but after partially improving it and resid- ing thereon for two years he lost the land through contest. He has since, however, become the owner of a rich and fertile farm in Earlsboro township, near the town of Tecumseh, a homestead of one hundred and twenty acres, known as the Smith Creek Farm. It contains mostly rich bot- tom land, admirably adapted to the raising of cotton, and he annually raises about one and a half bales to the acre of that com- modity.

Mr. Smith was born in Sanilac county, Michigan, near Watertown, in 1867, a mem- ber of one of the pioneer families there, to which they moved from Syracuse, Onon- daga county, New York. His father, Til- ton E. Smith, was a Civil war soldier in the Union army for three years, a non- commissioned officer, and he died at his old home in Michigan when fifty years of age. He was by trade a cabinet maker and an excellent workman, and he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Masonic fraternity. The mother still survives and is a resident of Michigan, hav- ing reached the age of three score years and ten. Of her six children, five sons and a daughter, Volney is the only one residing in Oklahoma. Four reside in Detroit, Mich- igan, and a son, H. W., is a prominent at- torney of that state.

The state in which he was born continued as the boyhood home of Volney Smith and

until he had attained the age of maturity, at- tending its public schools, and there under his father's able instructions he learned the cabinet maker's trade and later worked as a carpenter. In 1889 he went to Denver, Colorado, where some of his relatives re- sided, and there he followed his trade of carpentering. From Colorado he came to Oklahoma in 1891 to establish a home for himself and family in the new southwest. He has been successful in his efforts here and is now numbered among the leading agriculturists of Earlsboro township.

In 1893 Mr. Smith was married to Jane Delaware, a member of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians, and they have six chil- dren-Grace, Mark, Ollie, John, Ada and Willie. The four eldest are in the govern- ment school at Shawnee. Mr. Smith gives his political support to the Republican party.

REV. WILLIAM A. DOUGHITT holds and merits a place among the successful Chris- tian workers of Oklahoma, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was licensed to preach the gospel in 1880, and has filled several charges in Arkansas and Oklahoma, a fluent and ready speaker and an earnest worker in the Master's cause. He now has a charge in Beaver county, Oklahoma, and also has a fine estate, known as Cove Farm, in Bales township, Pottawa- tomie county. It is rich cotton land, fertile and well improved, and especially adapted to the raising of alfalfa and cotton. Rev. Mr. Doughitt was one of the first to locate in Shawnee, and throughout the interven- ing years he has been prominent in its pub- lic life, having been the first street com- missioner appointed in the town, and he also had charge of the clearing of the park for the 4th of July celebration in 1895, the first ever held in Shawnee.

A native son of Washington county, Ar- kansas, Rev. William A. Doughitt was born on the 5th of November, 1848, a year made memorable by the finding of gold in Cali- fornia. He is a grandson of a Mexican war soldier, Abraham Doughitt, and of a Revolutionary soldier, Henry Alburty, who was also one of the first settlers of Arkan- sas, locating there before its admission into the Union. Mr. Alburty lived to the re-

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markable age of ninety-nine years, dying in 1856, and his grandson remembers him well. Rev. Mr. Doughitt is a son of Thomas and Sarah (Alburty) Doughitt, the former of whom was born in Davie county, North Carolina, and after a life devoted to the work of the farm he died in his seventy- eighth year. He was an earnest Christian gentleman, a member of the Methodist Epis- copal church, and for thirty years he served his church as a class leader. His wife died at the age of seventy-seven, after becoming the mother of six children, four sons and two daughters, and a daughter, Mrs. Jobe, also lives in Pottawatomie county.

One of the four sons, Rev. William A. Doughitt, was reared on a farm in his na- tive county of Washington, Arkansas, and in the meantime he completed his education in the Evansville Academy. From the age of twenty he taught school for three years. At the time of the opening of Oklahoma to settlement he joined the tide of emigra- tion and was successful in his race for gov- ernment homestead land, arriving at noon on the 22d of May, 1895, at the Sac and Fox lines, two miles east of his present home. After some little trouble he secured the deed to his land, and he now has a val- uable and well cultivated homestead.

In Polk county, Arkansas, November 12, 1872, he married Belle Bowdon, a daughter of one of the prominent residents of that state, the Hon. John S. Bowdon, for years a member of the state legislature. Their children are William B., John Thomas, Liz- zie, Lulu R., George Franklin, Ben Har- rison, Jennie C. and Pearl May. The fifth child, Maudie Ann, died at the age of ten years. Rev. Doughitt is a stanch advocate of Prohibition principles, and has served his party as a delegate to conventions.

ELI TASIER, of Earlsboro township, owns and resides on a splendid farm three miles southwest of Tecumseh. He was born in Pottawatomie county, Kansas, in 1874, a son of Anthony Tasier, whose native soil was Canada, but he afterward became one of the early pioneers of Kansas. He was of French parentage, and was a Catholic in religion. The mother, Catherine Bourbona, was a member of the Pottawatomie tribe of

Indians, and was educated in Buchanan county and St. Joseph, Missouri. Their son Eli was but a small boy when the fam- ily came to Pottawatomie county, Okla- homa, their home being on a farm four miles west of Shawnee, and there the father spent the remainder of his life and died at the age of seventy-two years. His widow yet resides on the old home farm there.

Eli Tasier was early inured to the work of the farm, and his educational training was received in the Chiloco government school in Indian Territory. He was mar- ried in 1905 to Belle Grimmett, who was born in Michigan but was reared and edu- cated in Indiana, and by her marriage she has become the mother of one child, Glin. The family reside on a valuable and well cultivated farm of eighty acres, the most of which is rich valley land and annually returns to its owner abundant returns. It is improved with a pleasant four-room cot- tage, barns and other out buildings and also has a large orchard.

Mr. Tasier was reared in the faith of the Catholic church, and his wife is a mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal denomina- tion.

ALLEN BELL, M. D. The medical fra- ternity of Pottawatomie county numbers among its representatives Dr. Allen Bell, a physician and surgeon of Maud. He be- came identified with the professional life of Oklahoma in 1904, and has since been en- gaged in practice here, a prominent and well known physician and a graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Cincinnati, Ohio, with the class of 1886, of the N. N. Polyclinic Medical College of 1898 and a post graduate of the same in- stitution in 1903.

Dr. Bell was born in Preble county, Ohio, near Eaton, August 3, 1857, a member of one of the oldest and best known families of that part of Ohio. His paternal grand- father established his home there as early as 1820, moving from Kentucky, but he was originally from Pennsylvania. John Bell, his son, was born on the old farm which his father cleared from the woods in Preble county, and died at the age of sixty years, a farmer all his life. He gave

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his political support to the Democratic party, and was reared in the faith of the Christian church, man honored and respect- ed by all who knew him, a faithful friend, a kind husband and father and an excellent neighbor. His wife was Mary Thompson, and she was also born and reared in Ohio, her parents coming from Virginia, and she died when fifty-five, a member of the same church as her husband.

It was on his parents' old home farm in Preble county that Allen Bell attained to a sturdy and useful manhood, attending meanwhile the common and high schools of West Alexandria. He laid the founda- tion of his professional career by study un- der the able instructions of Dr. F. N. Michael in 1883, and in the following year he entered the medical department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Af- ter a thorough medical training, including a course and post graduate course in the N. N. Polyclinic Medical College, he began practice in Freeport, Kansas, in Harper county, where after fourteen years of suc- cessful professional work he moved to Sal- lisaw, Indian Territory. After four years there, in 1904, he came to Maud, Okla- homa, where he has since been in active practice .. He is a member of the County, State and American Medical Societies, and supports the principles of the Democratic party.

In 1886 Dr. Bell married Flora D. Bunch, who was born and reared near Canton, Ohio, a daughter of T. J. and

(Potter) Bunch, of Canton. She died soon after her marriage, on the 5th of March, 1887, when but twenty-two years of age.

HENRY C. CRAIG, who is farming in Davis township, Pottawatomie county, bears an honored record for service in the Civil war, and is the grandson of a Revo- lutionary officer, Captain James Craig, who served with General Washington. He was born at sea near the island of Jamaica of Scotch-Irish parents. Absalom Craig, his son, was born and reared near Baltimore, Maryland, but his wife, Matilda Silvers, was from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and both are now deceased, the former dying in Morgan county, Ohio, when but forty-two

years old, and the latter was forty-eight at the time of her death. They were Presby- terians, and he followed the calling of a blacksmith and voted with the Whig party. Of their seven children, five sons and two daughters, one son, John, was with Gen- eral Sherman on his famous march to the sea during the Civil war, going from Rock Island, Illinois, as a member of the Fourth Illinois Cavalry.

Another of the sons who valiantly fought for his country in the strife between the north and the south, Henry C. Craig, was born in Morgan county, Ohio, May 30, 1833, and in his boyhood days he attended the old pioneer schools there, the school which he attended having been a little log structure furnished with slab seats resting on pegs, and his teachers were particularly dexterous in the use of the long supple switches. At the call of Lincoln for thirty thousand volunteers in 1861 he left his old home in Morgan county to join an Ohio cavalry company, but as it was not accept- ed by the governor, Mr. Craig transferred to the Second West Virginia Cavalry, Com- pany E, under Captain Andrew Scott and Colonel Bales, and he saw much hard fight- ing in the Old Dominion state. For three years and three months he continued as a brave and loyal soldier, in that time partici- pating in many of the memorable battles of the war, including those of the Shenandoah valley and the engagement at Winchester, where his comrades fell on every side and his own horse was killed. Receiving his honorable discharge at Wheeling, West Vir- ginia, in December, 1864, as a commissary sergeant, he returned to his home and to his former occupation of farming, but short- ly afterward, in 1865, he went to Browns- ville, Missouri, where he farmed until his removal to Oklahoma in 1897. He was among the first to establish his home in Pottawatomie county, where he purchased one hundred and sixty acres for eleven hun- dred and fifty dollars, and later he paid six hundred and seventy dollars for a tract of forty acres. The Roosevelt Farm, as his homestead is known, is one of the best farms in Davis township and lies four and a half miles north of Shawnee. It is mostly

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 87

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