A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 88

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

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· HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 553

creek bottom land, well adapted to the rais- ing of alfalfa and other products of the southwest, and the rich and fertile land is under an excellent state of cultivation.

Mr. Craig has been twice married, wed- ding first, in 1855, Lee Ann Coburn, who was born in Morgan county, Ohio, and died in 1861, when but twenty-six years of age. She left three sons, but only two are now living, Simon and Willie, the former resid- ing in California and the latter on the old Silvers homestead in Morgan county, Ohio. On the 15th of August, 1870, Mr. Craig married Nancy E. Caton, who was born and reared in Cooper county, Missouri, but her parents, Thomas and Elizabeth (Low- rey) Caton, were from Virginia. They be- came farming people in Missouri, and the father died in that state at the age of sixty years, the mother surviving until her sev- enty-sixth year. They were Methodists in their religious belief, and of their family of seven children four are living at the present time. Among those who have passed away were two Union soldiers, Nathaniel and Ben, the latter dying in Arkansas. Of the nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. Craig five are living : Ben W., engaged in railroad work; Minnie May, a stenogra- pher; Henry C., Jr., Mary Gertrude and C. Raymond, at home. A son, John D., died when a young man of twenty-six, and a daughter, Melissa, lived to the age of thirty. The other two died in childhood. Mr. Craig is a Republican, as was also his father, and is a stanch and true supporter of such principles and a strong Roosevelt man. He is one of Davis township's best known and most valued citizens.

MENDIOUS PLATZ has been numbered among the agriculturists of Pottawatomie county for a number of years, and during three years he served his township of First as its trustee, a stanch and true Republican. He came to the territory of Oklahoma in 1893, at the opening of the Cherokee Strip, and nine years ago he became a resident of Pottawatomie county.

Mr. Platz was born in LaGrange county, Indiana, near LaGrange Center, in 1857, a son of an Indiana farmer, Phillip Platz, who was born, however, in Pennsylvania, but

became one of the early residents of La- Grange county, and from there after many years he went to Kansas, dying in Douglas county, near Lawrence, of that state. His wife, nee Catherine Sipe, yet survives him, and has now reached the advanced age of eighty-two years, residing in Douglas coun- ty. Mendious Platz was one of their nine children, three sons and six daughters, and when a lad of eleven, in 1868, he accom- panied his parents on their removal to the Sun Flower state, completing his education and attaining to mature years in Douglas county. During all these years he also as- sisted his father in the work of the farm. In 1893, with his wife and family, he came to Oklahoma, and in First township, Pot- tawatomie county, he now has a valuable farm of seventy-five acres, devoted to the raising of many varieties of fruit, and the place is known as the Hoosier Fruit Farm.

Just after attaining the age of maturity Mr. Platz married Margaret Waner, who was born in Montgomery county, Indiana, and they had eleven living children, three sons and eight daughters, namely : Howard, Bessie, Pearl, Nellie, Sylvia, Lola, Ora, Ollie, Gladys and Fern. One son, Leslie, was killed on the railroad when twenty-two years old. He was a young man of great promise, loved by all who knew him, and his sudden death was a terrible affliction to his family. Mr. Platz is a member of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 24.

J. D. GILLILAND, an agriculturist in Eason township, was born in Barren coun- ty, Kentucky, in 1859, and his parents, David and Fribie (Mingard) Gilliland were also natives of that commonwealth, and there they spent their lives and died. In their family were five children, four sons and a daughter.

J. D. Gilliland spent the first seventeen years of his life on the home farm in Ken- tucky, and then went to Wright county, Missouri, from whence he later went to Webster county, that state, and from there to Texas, where he rode the range as a cowboy for some time. From Texas he became one of the early pioneers of Indian Territory, locating there as early as 1882,

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and after living for a time at Leon he went to Burneyville and from there to McGee. In 1897 he came to Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, and in Eason township he now owns a well cultivated and valuable home- stead farm, one of its principal features being its large and well bearing orchard of twenty acres, in which he raises all the standard varieties of fruits grown in this section, including many varieties of apples.

During his residence in Indian Territory, in 1886, Mr. Gilliland wedded Nancy But- tram, who was born in Arkansas, but was reared and attended school in Indian Ter- ritory, and they have had six children, namely : Margie, John, Buford, Zeland, Ruby and J. D., Jr. Mr. Gilliland's politics are Democratic, and during three years he served his township as a trustee with an excellent record. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Christian church.

M. P. HATCH, manager of the Blue Rib- bon Creamery, at Shawnee, Oklahoma, was born in Chenango county, Illinois, in 1870, son of T. O. Hatch, a native of Ohio, who was a soldier in the Civil war, being a mem- ber of an Illinois regiment and making an excellent military record. After the close of the war he went to western Kansas, lo- cating a homestead in Finney county. There in the wilds of the plains of the west, which but a few years before had been indicated on the maps of the common schools as "The Great American Desert," he set out to make for himself a home. Notwith- standing the hot winds, dry seasons, grass- hoppers and occasional cyclones, he had the courage to brave all, and finally suc- ceeded in securing his homestead and some school lands which became valuable. He married Mary Moffat, a native of Pennsyl- vania, who made for him a most true and worthy helpmate, and did her full share in the early homestead days in Kansas. They were the parents of five children-two sons and three daughters.

He of whom this sketch is especially writ- ten, M. P. Hatch, was reared to farm labor on the homestead taken up by his father and attended the public schools, whenever opportunity afforded the chance. Subse- quently he went to Hutchinson, Reno coun-

ty, Kansas, where he served a seven-year apprenticeship learning the trade of a baker, together with the art of making ice cream and kindred delicacies, and mastered all the details of this business. In 1901 he estab- lished an ice cream business at Shawnee and three years later his present extensive plant was founded. This is in the south part of the city ; it is conducted in a build- ing thirty-six by sixty feet and two stories high. Here he handles milk, cream and ice cream, the milk being brought in many miles from the surrounding country by the farmers, as well as by train. The amount of milk purchased in the season of such work is upon an average of five thousand pounds a day, which makes a monthly busi- ness of three thousand dollars, paid out for milk and cream. All of the latest methods known to modern sanitary science is here employed. The trade is an extensive one, and is handled on excellent business prin- ciples. When Mr. Hatch came to Shawnee he was involved in debts amounting to more than five hundred dollars, but through his enterprise and hard work has cleared him- self from the debt and is now well-to-do, owning a good home and lucrative business.

He was married in Finney county, Kan- sas, in March, 1904, to Matilda Johorum, a native of Iowa, but reared and educated in Kansas. The five children born of this union are: Raymond O., Alma L., Regi- nald, Majorie, Theodore L. The parents are both connected with the Methodist Epis- copal church and number their friends in the vicinity of Shawnee by the hundreds.

CHARLES M. TAYLOR. Of the railroad officials of the great trunk lines in Okla- homa, several are located at Shawnee, which, though fifteen years ago without a railroad, is now one of the principal rail- road centers of the state. This being the division point of the Choctaw Division of the Rock Island System, one of the leading railroad men with offices in this city is Charles M. Taylor, who, on April 1, 1907, was promoted to the position of superin- tendent of motive power for the division. He is a capable and experienced railroad man, and in the mechanical department has worked his way up from the bottom. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, May 25, 1860, son

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of Edward and Mary (Sowers) Taylor, both natives of the same state, he accom- panied the family to St. Louis, Missouri, when he was seven years old, and was reared in that city, receiving his education in the public schools. He began the work which has finally led to the promotion above mentioned, when he was seventeen years old, in the shops of the Iron Mountain Rail- road at St. Louis, and during the following years was employed by various railroad companies and in capacities of increasing responsibility. Beginning with the Santa Fe in April, 1886, as machinist, he finally reached the position of mechanical super- intendent of the western grand division at La Junta, Colorado. December 15, 1906, he was led to accept the position of master mechanic of the Choctaw Division for the Rock Island, and a few weeks later was promoted to his present position. Since coming to Shawnee he has identified him- self as closely as his duties permit with the active citizenship of the city. In Masonry he is a Knight Templar and a Shriner. In 1888 he was married to Miss Edna Hern- don, a native of Missouri, and they have two daughters, Fay and Lucile.

REV. LINDSAY C. WOLFE. At Shawnee the Baptist church is presided over by the Rev. Lindsay C. Wolfe, one of the most energetic and effective workers for the church in the new state. The splendid new church building in Shawnee, nearing com- pletion at this writing, is a monument to his leadership and the growth and zeal of the Baptist congregation of this city. Dur- ing the recent campaign the cause of pro- hibition had one of its most able advocates in the pastor of this church, who urged the principles from the public platform and also did yeoman's service in directing public opinion to the desired decision on this ques- tion. He was an untiring worker and con- tributed not a little to the final triumph. Rev. Mr. Wolfe has been in charge of the Baptist church at Shawnee since 1904. He has done the work of missionary and or- ganizer here, and has increased his church membership from 236 to 760 in 1907. His ability in the pioneer work of the church has gained him a place on the territorial or

state board of missions, on which he has served six years, and at the present time is chairman of the Baptist educational com- mittee of the state for the purpose of devel- oping the educational interests. It is also part of the plan of the committee to locate a Baptist university in the new state.

Rev. L. C. Wolfe is a minister of varied interests and ability, and as a young man has made a large success of the profession to which he devoted himself. Of an old southern family of broad culture and social prominence, he was born at Mount Sterling, Montgomery county, Kentucky, April 14, 1873. His grandfather, Ezra M. Wolfe, had at one time been a prominent dry goods merchant of Charlottesville, Virginia. At the old university town last mentioned was born the only son of this merchant, J. B. Wolfe, who was a physician, a university graduate, and a man of unusual ability. He died June 20, 1906. His wife, who before her marriage was Sarah Horton Wilson, was also of an old Virginia family, but she herself was reared in Tennessee. She is still living. Lindsay C. Wolfe was edu- cated largely at home, under his father's direction, and later graduated from the law department of Richmond College in 1891, and for eight years was a successful prac- ticing lawyer in Giles county, Virginia. It was at the end of this time that he felt called to preach and in preparation for the work attended the Southern Baptist Sem- inary at Louisville three years. His first charge as pastor was at Vinita in Indian Territory, where he continued until his ac- ceptance of the post at Shawnee. Rev. Mr. Wolfe was married, December 30, 1891, to Miss Cynthia E. Shumate, a daughter of Kenley Shumate, one of the old residents of Giles county, Virginia, and a veteran of the Civil war. Mrs. Wolfe is a graduate of a well known school in Virginia, and a woman of culture who has co-operated heartily with her husband in his work. They have two children, Joseph Roger, born June 24, 1893, and Ira Clay, born February 24, 1895. Rev. Mr. Wolfe is affiliated with the Masonic order, having been initiated in John Dare lodge, the oldest lodge of the state of Virginia, and is now a member of the lodge at Vinita.

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EDGAR B. HERNDON, of Idabel, who is the present capable register of deeds for Mc- Curtain county, Oklahoma, went to that state while it was yet a territory, in 1890, from Sevier county, Arkansas, where near Ben Lomand his birth occurred December 29, 1871. He is the son of Harrison Hern- don, who was a native of Orange county, Virginia, born in 1830, and just prior to the breaking out of the Civil war in 1861 he left the Old Dominion state and took up his residence in Sevier county, Arkansas. When the war came on he enlisted in the Confederate cause, believing that his posi- tion was rightly taken. He was a captain of an infantry company, and he served through the thickest of the deadly conflict east of the Mississippi river. At the ter- mination of the disastrous war, he returned and followed the carpenter and bridge building business, which he pursued until advancing age forced him to retire to his farm, and he died in the month of Feb- ruary, 1906. As a citizen he was without ambition other than to be law-abiding. He was interested in all civilizing and enlight- ening agencies and in political choice he was a consistent supporter of the old-fashioned Democracy. He was married to Alice Rob- inson, a resident now of Idabel. Their children were: Robert F., of Sevier coun- ty, Texas; Charles H., of Idabel, Okla- homa; Quintus, of Garvin, Oklahoma ; Clara, wife of Mr. Conger, of Prescott, Arkansas; Lona, who married Mr. Bag- gerly and died near Prescott, Arkansas; John C .; Ezekiel, of McCurtain county, Oklahoma; Edgar B .; and Sidney J., of Idabel, Oklahoma.

Edgar B. Herndon received his education at the public schools and was under the paternal roof until nineteen years of age, when he came to the Choctaw Nation and became a clerk at Lukfata, then Shawnee- town, and finally to old Fowlerville, near Wheelock, where he was located twelve years, selling goods for himself a greater portion of the time. He was also married there, and when he ceased to be a mer- chant he became a farmer and stock man. He was thus engaged, when he won the nomination and final election to his present office. He made the race for the election

to the office of register of deeds of Mc- Curtain county against three opponents and won the nomination from the Democratic party, defeating the Republican opponent at the September election by four hundred and sixty votes, he being the high man of his party ticket. The people made no error in voting for him, for his official duties are seen to without fault or favor to any fac- tion. In his fraternal relations Mr. Hern- don is identified with the Masonic Lodge, No. 170, of Valliant, with Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Woodmen of the World.

Of his family relation it should be re- corded in this connection that he married, May 3, 1896, Mrs. Lucy Townsend, a Choc- taw lady and the widow of W. J. Town- send, whose children are Charles, deputy register of deeds; Sarah, wife of E. A. Tacker; Susie; Clark and Benjamin. The issue of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Herndon is as follows: Alice, Harrison, James, Maud, Clara, and Lucile Fay, who is deceased.

JOHN R. WHITE, of Idabel, a leading merchant of the county seat of McCurtain county, was born near Clarksville, Texas, November 23, 1858. He was a farmer's son and received a limited education in the country schools, being a resident of Red River county until his advent to the Choc- taw Nation in 1891.

William S. White, the father, was born in Alabama in 1834, a son of a planter in humble circumstances. He was educated in accord with the family station, and served through the rebellion in the Confed- erate army as a Texas soldier, to which state he had gone in 1857. The father's name was John C. White, and he passed away at Greenwood, Louisiana, and had no other surviving children. William S. White married Frances Stiles, by whom children as follows were born: John R .; Joseph, of Foreman, Arkansas ; William R., deceased; Laura A., wife of Clarence B. Aydelotte. The father died in Texas in 1890, and the mother resides in Idabel, Oklahoma.

Of Mr. White's mother's people it should be added that they were among the pioneer

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settlers of the famous Red River county section in Texas, to which country her father went at a very early day and he, John Stiles, opened a farm there and was among the element who planted civilization there. Before going to Texas the family was under the protection of Ft. Towson, just across the Red River in the Choctaw Nation, as the country was then overrun by fugitives from justice and other unde- sirable persons.

John R. White remained at home with his parents on the farm until he had reached his majority and he had engaged in farm- ing himself but had not succeeded in gain- ing much capital upon his coming into Oklahoma. On August 17, 1891, he was married to one of the citizens of the Choc- taw Nation. He here engaged in the stock business and was undisturbed in it, pros- pered and became a somewhat extensive cow man. In a few years he embarked in the mercantile business at Harris, a coun- try trading point near Red river, and in partnership with Mr. Coleman built up a prosperous business. When the Frisco rail- road was constructed through the country and established a station at Idabel, he was one of the first men to identify himself with the future county seat. Here he invested much of his vacant property and opened the first business house in the new place. Within a few years his quarters became too small to accommodate his increasing trade . and he erected a brick building, fifty by one hundred feet, on one of the main corners of the town and in which he has since con- ducted his business.

Mr. White has been actively engaged in the affairs of Idabel in other ways than a builder, having developed and organized the First National Bank of the town, was a member of the first council of the town and served four years on the board of edu- cation. He is a member of the Masonic order, in which he has attained the thirty- second degree, and of the Knights of Pythias and Woodmen of the World.

Of his domestic relations it may be stated in this connection that he was married August 17, 1891, to Lena Simpson, a daughter of Tuck and Jency (Hampton) Simpson. Mrs. Simpson was a Choctaw

and Mr. Simpson's people were emigrants from Ireland. Mr. and Mrs. White have children : Julius, May, Ola and Tuck.

All in all the career of Mr. White has been one marked with hardships, but at al- most every step of the way he has suc- ceeded in gaining his point and to-day stands as a living monument of what a man may accomplish on free American soil if he possesses the right elements of success and will work honorably toward that end.

EDWARD L. NELSON, of Idabel, the county treasurer of McCurtain county, Oklahoma, and a settler who came in from Sevier county, Arkansas, was born in Lauderdale county, Alabama, February 23, 1848. He is descended from the Tennessee Nelsons, for his grandfather was a native of that state, while his father, Robert Nelson, was born in Alabama. The latter was born in 1813, was reared during the closing terri- torial days of Alabama, and as a boy saw the early years of statehood in that famous commonwealth, and there married Polly Norvell. About ten years prior to the great Civil war they moved to Tishomingo county, Mississippi, where he continued to reside and ply the trade of a shoemaker. There he lost his wife in 1856, and in Dumas, Mississippi, he passed away himself in 1890. From 1861 to the fall of Fort Donelson in February, 1862, Robert M. Nelson was a private soldier in the Twenty-third Mis- sissippi infantry, entering the Confederate service at the age of forty-eight years and being exchanged after the Fort Donelson fight and discharged from the army on account of age limit. He was a man of strong physique, and although he had led a sedentary life he maintained unusual vital- ity almost up to the threshold of his cen- tennial year. By his marriage to Polly Norvell he became the father of: Eliza- beth, of Ellis county, Texas, wife of Thomas A. Dandridge; John A., killed at the battle of Baker's Creek in 1863; Lydia, of Greenville, Mississippi, wife of B. F. Perry ; Edward L., of this review; Luther C., of Brashear, Texas; and Emily, who married G. D. Feagin, of Seagoville, Texas.

The youth of Edward L. Nelson was passed in Tishomingo and Tippah counties,

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Mississippi. His time was consumed large- ly with enterprises of an industrial charac- ter and with some phases of social employ- ment not on the program of a youth with moral upright intentions. The presence of a stepmother in the home failed to stir in him the most loyal and deepest filial emo- tions in his youthful breast, and he longed for an opportunity to free himself from a situation full of unhappiness to him and chance the future with the stern realities of life. The schools of his youth had not inspired Mr. Nelson to an effort to acquire an education, and the excitement of the Civil war beckoned him to a participation in the conflict, so that when his father gave his consent to enlist he did so joyously, and in August, 1863, he enrolled in the Seventh Mississippi Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Col. E. A. Cox. This was a state militia regiment and was placed under General Brandon and saw some active service in the field, even going outside of the state and skirmished and fought battles in Ten- nessee and Alabama. He was in the en- gagement at Brice's Cross Roads, and when the war ended was paroled at Tupalo, Mis- sissippi. At the war's end Mr. Nelson was yet a sturdy youth of but seventeen sum- mers, without education, but with consid- erable experience with the world's ways and with a desire to know and to be known. He entered a country school whose teacher was about his own age, and started with the multiplication table. Encouraged by a good teacher to believe that he had the metal in him to make a useful man, he applied himself diligently and in twenty months became able to get a third grade certificate and was encouraged to make his home in school. This was the beginning of a long and eminently successful career as an educator, for he taught seventeen years in Mississippi, then went west to Sevier county, Arkansas, where he taught fifteen years more, and finally served three years in the schools of the Choctaw Nation, finishing his work in 1906 with the princi- palship of the Valliant school. While in Arkansas he taught twenty-four schools in twelve years, and made and gathered a crop each year. For six years he was the only teacher employed by a certain school dis-

trict, and whatever may be said compli- mentary of his work as an instructor, his real forte was keeping order. Order is Heaven's first law, and the rule applied in the school-room in which E. L. Nelson taught. As a means of securing order he was friendly toward moral suasion, but he kept himself so familiar with the old time methods of handling obstreperous and bul- lying boys that when moral suasion failed he resorted to the birch, and such occasions were sometimes celebrated by the patrons of his school as the achievements of an impor- tant victory for peace and order in the community. A third of a century in the school-rooms of the South so familiarized Mr. Nelson with the various subjects to be taught as to almost make him a text-book, and his career among the natives of the frontier of Arkansas gave him so varied an experience that he was regarded as an authority on matters of school government, and he was so held by teachers of institutes and other educational bodies where he was wont to attend.

On coming to Oklahoma in 1903 Mr. Nelson leased a tract of land in the moun- tain country north of Valliant in McCur- tain county, and was there engaged in farm- ing and stock raising until 1906. That year his faithful wife died, and he was soon called to take the Valliant school and aban- doned farming. From this school room he was elected county treasurer, and took his office with the beginning of the statehood affairs. The Democrats of McCurtain county have entrusted to his care and keep- ing the funds of the wealthy county and the proper conduct of one of their most im- portant offices. He with his highly compe- tent deputy are fulfilling the sanguine ex- pectations of their political and civil friends.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 88

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