A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 89

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

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Another important epoch in this man's ca- reer was his marriage, January 8, 1870, to Martha A. Robinson, daughter of H. B. and Sarah (Tigert) Robinson, of Tippah coun- ty, Mississippi, but formerly of Tennessee. Mrs. Nelson passed from all earthly scenes March 25, 1906. She was the loving mother of the following children: Marvin C., deputy treasurer, who married Annie Knox and has two sons, Earnest Hubert and Haskell; Hugh B., who married Jessie

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Randolph March 1, 1906, and died March 23, following ; William R., of Idabel, Okla- homa; and Luther E., of the last named place, who married Jennie Ward and has a daughter, Erline. Mr. Nelson married a Christian lady, a member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, of which he is still a communicant. He maintains a happy, jovial disposition and has a pleasant word for all with whom he mingles. In the community where he broke up rowdyism and restored order in school many of his warmest friends reside, and among his staunch supporters for office were his pupils who had felt the force of his lash when doing the role of "running the teacher out of school." On October 25, 1908, Mr. Nel- son married for his second wife Mrs. Sallie E. Davis, of Dennison, Texas.

CHARLES J. STEWART, of Idabel, clerk of the district court of McCurtain county, Oklahoma, is descended from a Scotch an- cestor who came into the American Colo- nies some time in the seventeenth century and established his home in Maryland. He came out of the Highlands of his native country and his posterity, like that of con- temporary pioneers, scattered to the "four winds." One, Joseph Stewart, coming west- ward, entered Middle Tennessee during the first years of our American independence.

Joseph Stewart was the grandfather. He was a planter of some note and married, both he and his wife dying in Overton county, Tennessee. William and Joseph Stewart were the only surviving issue of this marriage, and the former reared a fam- ily in Alabama. Joseph Stewart was born in Tennessee in 1804, was sparingly edu- cated and married Elmyra Rogers, daughter of Joseph Rogers, another pioneer of Ten- nessee, and moved to Johnson county, Ar- kansas, in 1841, and there enlisted for the service of the war with Mexico. He was in old General Taylor's army and was dis- charged the evening before the battle of Buena Vista, but participated in it. He re- turned to Arkansas and followed the plow until 1856, when he crossed the great west- ern plains to California, intending to engage in mining gold, but after following it a

short time he bought a small ranch in So- nora county and stocked it with goats and sheep, remaining in that country until 1867. While in California he took an interest in politics, and was elected high sheriff of Sonora county. On his return to Arkansas, he resumed farming. Previous to his going to California he was elected a justice of the peace and constable of his precinct. He was well known as a staunch Jacksonian Democrat. Joseph Stewart married a Ten- nessee lady in his young manhood's days, and his children who reared families were: Mary A., who married Lieutenant Irvin Howard and died in Arkansas, leaving a family; Jane married John Bush and died in Johnson county, Arkansas; Rachel be- came Mrs. James Kelley, of Johnson coun- ty, Arkansas; Elsie married Matthew Brown, first, then Bud Howardston and finally Otho Rhoades, and passed away in Johnson county, Arkansas; Lucinda mar- ried Levi Smith and died in Louisiana ; Nancy married John Grace and also died in Arkansas; Charles J., our subject ; and Bourland, who passed from earth in his native state.

Charles J. Stewart was born in Johnson county, Arkansas, January 16, 1848, was reared on the farm, and had but little edu- cation until after the great Civil war. He enlisted in that conflict in 1864, in Hill's regiment, Cabell's brigade, Fagan's division, and served under General Price in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Among the engagements in which he took part may be named Pilot Knob, Missouri, where only thirteen of his company answered roll call when the fight had ended. He was dis- charged at Marshall, Texas, and returned home. After providing for his parental household he set about gaining an educa- tion. He entered Ewing Seminary with the purpose of preparing for the ministry, and after more than four years in that institu- tion terminated his school work with a year in old Franklin College, long since a de- funct institution. On, assuming his station in life he first taught school, and later was a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination. The two vocations he fol- lowed for twenty years in Arkansas, teach-

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ing in both country and graded schools, and identifying himself with the progressive element of the profession.

It was in 1897 that he came to Poteau in the Choctaw Nation and took charge of the high school and Indian schools there, with his oldest daughter as his assistant. They spent two years at that employment. The next year he passed as the editor of the Howe Searchlight. Resuming school- teaching, he taught at Heavener one term, then went to McCurtain county and taught a few months, then went to farming near Idabel, in which vicinity he has resided ever since 1902. He owns both town and farm property and was elected to his pres- ent office as a McCurtain county citizen, defeating his opponent in the general elec- tion by a majority of five hundred votes. Mr. Stewart is connected with the Masonic fraternity, being a Master Mason. * He joined John S. Hill lodge in 1873, and has demitted through Poteau and Goodwater and belongs in Haworth. He is also a mem- ber of the Knights of Pythias and other orders.

On December 9, 1869, he was married in Johnson county, Arkansas, to Mary, daughter of J. L. Overbey, a Virginian and a farmer. Mrs. Stewart was born in Arkan- sas December 19, 1850, and is the mother of: Sallie, wife of J. W. Covey ; Charles ; Lizzie, wife of W. B. Hinton; Nellie, as- sistant county clerk; Lucy, Mrs. C. W. Dickerson ; and Paul and Ben, of Idabel.

DR. ROBERT C. BILLS, well known as an educated and skillful physician and surgeon practicing at Soper, has been a citizen of Oklahoma thirteen years. He first cast his lot in the Choctaw Nation in 1895, then a young doctor, and established himself on Crowder's Prairie, in what is now Choctaw county. He practiced there four years and at Jackson, Oklahoma, another four years, and then located permanently at Soper, where he has since resided and continued in his medical practice. He is now one of the oldest representatives of the regular school of medicine within the county.

Dr. Bills was born in Lamar county, Texas, September 12, 1863, on his father's farm. The years of his life from childhood

to manhood were spent chiefly midst urban surroundings, as his father, G. C. Bills, opened a store at Sylvan, Lamar county, at an early day and became a merchant also in Lockhart, Texas, in after years and where he finally retired from business and now resides. G. C. Bills was born in Lewisburg, Tennessee, in 1839, and obtained a fair lit- erary education and migrated to Texas, while yet unmarried. He married in Lamar county, Texas, Nannie Patton, daughter of William Patton, a farmer who settled there from Alabama. Mrs. Bills died in 1893, the mother of John H., of Caldwell county, Texas; Annie, wife of Mr. McClellen, of Galveston ; Dr. Robert C., of this memoir ; Luther, of Seward, Alaska ; Della, who mar- ried Jo. Collins, of Greenville, Texas; and Sallie: who married James Lay, of Lock- hart, Texas.

It may be said in passing to the personal sketch of Dr. Bills that according to tradi- tion this family of Bills started from the remnant of a family who while crossing the waters of the Atlantic ocean to Ameri- can shores ali perished save one small boy, who had a large nose, and the surviving passengers dubbed him "Bill," in honor of his prominent feature. The most remote descendant of this family founder is John Bills, who was born in Tennessee about 1794, married and became the father of five daughters and four sons. He went to Texas as the head of his family and estab- lished himself in Lamar county, where he owned slaves during the final days of that epoch, and died as a farmer in 1878. All is tradition as to how the family originated -yet it is believed to be the true source of the name.

Dr. Robert C. Bills abandoned farming at the age of twenty-two years, and he had attended the public schools before that time. When thirty years of age he decided to study the science of medicine in the office of a relative, Dr. J. W. Patton, of Patton- ville. He took his first course of lectures in the Hospital Medical College at Mem- phis, Tennessee, with two additional courses in the University of Tennessee, at Nash- ville. As soon as competent he began practice, and really had many years of successful practice before he finally took his

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professional degrees, at the Gates City Med- ical College, Texarkana, in 1907. He is now an honored member of the Choctaw County Medico-Clinical Society.

Fraternally Dr. Bills is a Mason, having joined the order at Bennington, Oklahoma, in Lodge No. 19. He transferred his mem- bership to Soper lodge, No. 345, and was elected senior warden, and has held that office ever since. He also belongs to the Woodmen of the World and to the Mod- ern Order of Praetorians, being medical ex- aminer of both orders, and also examiner for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insur- ance Company.

On May 28, 1899, he was happily married to Miss Sarah Le Flore, daughter of Will- iam Le Flore, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation. Mrs. Bills was born in Oklahoma, was educated here and is descended from one of the prominent Indian families of the Nation. Dr. and Mrs. Bills have no issue.

JAMES T. LEARD, of Hugo, Oklahoma, is a pioneer white man of the newly formed state, for he was a youth of but sixteen years when his father brought him hither in 1868 and established his future home among the Indians of the Choctaw Nation. This home was founded among the rich scenes in the vicinity of Ft. Smith, Arkan- sas, where the parents both passed away, the father in 1902 and the mother in 1883.

John R. Leard, the father, was born in South Carolina in 1822, a son of Alexander and Jane Leard. The grandfather was a native of Ireland and after his death the widow came to the Choctaw Nation to be near two of her granddaughters who were in charge of relatives there. She died near Ft. Smith in 1870 at the age of eighty-seven years. She was the mother of James O., who died in Alabama; Mary A., who mar- ried and died in that state; John R .; David E., deceased; William A., who died in the Confederate army ; S. W., who died in Mis- sissippi; and Sarah A. and Elizabeth C., who died in Alabama.

John R. Leard was by calling a farmer in Alabama and he engaged in that when he came to the Indian country of the West. He married in 1851 Priscilla Morris, who bore him: James T., of this notice; Will-

iam A., who was drowned in the Arkansas river ; Robert S., a merchant of Ft. Smith; and Andrew, of Tombstone, Arizona.

James T. Leard acquired his education by practical experience. The primitive af- fairs of the post-bellum days of the sixties and early seventies in this territory pre- cluded the possibility of more than a lim- ited education for the youth whose parents were without means. His father's farm was his home until past his majority, when he married and took his bride to a new place on the Arkansas river, near the mouth of Sansbois, and established their first home. He remained two years. He then moved to a farm twelve miles south of Ft. Smith, and on that farm some fifteen years of their lives were spent. Later they removed to Milton and ranched and farmed several years longer. They lived for a time in Fort Smith, Arkansas, while the children were finishing their education and spent their summers in McCurtain. When the allot- ment period came on he selected some of the family acres near Hugo, and in 1907 brought his family hither and established his final home. The Leard home is one of the most pretentious of all Hugo and vicinity. Its proportions. are simply im- mense for a country home in a new and frontier country and its dozen or more large rooms are tastily furnished and all the fittings shed an air of ease and comfort in keeping with substantial and indepen- dent character of the family.

On June 10, 1874, Mr. Leard married Cora, daughter of Robert S. and Mary A. (Moncrief) McCarty. Mrs. McCarty was a Choctaw, and she and her husband came to the Territory from Alabama. Mrs. Leard and husband have children: J. Nor- man, one of the leading young business men of Hugo, born March 23, 1875, in Le Flore county, Oklahoma, and educated in the Indian Schools and in Henry Kendall College at Muskogee. He acted in the ca- pacity of private secretary to Governor Dukes and to Governor McCurtain, and upon retiring from politics he took up the real estate business in Hugo. He joined Wright Brothers in a lumber and sawmill proposition, which was handled with much success and gained large returns within a

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few months. He is one of the stockholders in the Wright Lumber Company ; the Hugo Wholesale Grocery Company; the Carson Lumber Company ; and is a partner in the Palace Drug Company in Hugo. He owns farms and sundry other properties within Choctaw county. He married Marguerite Overstreet December 16, 1908. Minnie, the second child of Mr. and Mrs. Leard, died at the age of sixteen years; Annie died aged twenty-two years, as the wife of C. A. Overstreet; Walter F. married Winona Ross, of Durant, Oklahoma, and is engaged in the fruit business there; James A. re- sides in McCurtain; Helen is a young daughter at home; Robert R., Terry T., Laura A. and Wheeler R. are all at home.

That the Leard family have had a share in the wars of their country it only need to be subjoined that the subject's father served as a soldier in both the war with Mexico and in the Confederate army dur- ing the Civil war. The family are members of the Methodist church at Hugo.

THOMAS E. SANGUIN, proprietor of the Choctaw Chronicle and the ex-treasurer of the Choctaw Nation, is a citizen who has been closely identified with various features of the Indian problem during the years just preceding statehood. He was born within the limits of Choctaw, then in Kiamcha county, Oklahoma, Nevember 25, 1871. On the paternal side he is Swedish and on the maternal side French, German and Choc- taw, for his mother was a Spring of Swiss origin, and his maternal grandmother was a Le Flore, originally French.

Charles Sanguin, a Swede, and the father of Thomas E., entered the Indian Territory just after the close of the Rebellion, set- tling directly from Kansas. He was born in the Scandinavian peninsula and left the fatherland to seek more favorable condi- tions as offered industrious settlers from foreign lands in the United States. Settling among the Choctaws, he devoted himself to agriculture and stock raising. Subse- quently he married Susan Spring, daughter of William Spring, a prominent Indian set- tler of the Nation and a widely known gen- tleman and successful business man. Orig- inally Mr. Spring was from Mississippi,

where his birth occurred, and as a youth he accompanied his parents into their new country in the West. He took sides with the southern Confederacy during the Civil war and served in Folsom's command as a soldier during a part of that great struggle. After the war closed Mr. Spring devoted himself to farming and mercantile pursuits, made much money and died with a good es- tate. When Hugo first started he became interested in its growth and owned consid- erable realty in the new town. He married Miss Le Flore, as before stated, and reared a family of children.

Charles Sanguin died rather early in life's career, passing away at the age of forty- seven years, in 1883. His children were: Thomas E .; Henry L., of Hugo; and Will- iam M., who resides in the Chickasaw Na- tion. In time Mrs. Sanguin married Za- dock Le Flore, who recently died. The children by that union were: Carrie, wife of John Roden, of Choctaw county ; Basil, of Ft. Towson ; Winnie, who married a Mr. Blankenship and died with one child; Rosa, wife of William Smith, of Ft. Towson ; Osborn, Grace and Susie, of Ft. Towson.

The public schools and Spencer Academy, an Indian School, provided Thomas E. Sanguin with a liberal education. He be- gan his independent career as a clerk for his grandfather Spring in a country store. He had been reared near his birthplace, and Old Spring Chapel did its share in pre- paring him for the duties of citizenship. On leaving the Spring store he embarked in a mercantile business at Doakesville in company with his cousin, Joel Spring, whose interest he subsequently purchased. After five years in trade there and for some time after the disposal of his business he was engaged in dealing in and shipping cattle, while farming also demanded his at- tention. Being an Indian himself Mr. Sanguin found it to his liking to take some part in the Indian politics, and from early manhood he did so. His large business ex- perience made him popular with all classes and a safe candidate for service under the Indian government. He became a candi- date for treasurer of the Nation in 1897. and being elected was the youngest man to hold that important office. He readily gave

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a bond of twenty thousand dollars, and handled for his people during the two years of his official reign between three and four hundred thousand dollars in money. While treasurer of the Choctaw Nation he resided at Goodland, having moved there from Doakesville when he quit mercantile life. When Hugo superseded Goodland and be- came the railroad's chief town in the county he took up his residence here, and became connected directly with its welfare. He was made coal commissioner for the Choc- taws by appointment of the President of the United States and made many trips to the National capital with other members of the Commission, trying to sell the coal lands of the two tribes, but no deal was ever consummated. After retiring from the office of treasurer he was appointed by Gov- ernor Dukes royalty collector, giving five thousand dollars bonds, and he collected twenty-five thousand dollars while in the service. The same governor made him a member of the commission to formulate a supplemental agreement to the Atoka Agreement, and he made a trip to Wash- ington while performing the work for which this commission was appointed. When he went out of office as coal commissioner he entered the newspaper field and estab- lished the Choctaw Chronicle in January, 1907, and he has been its business manager ever since. This journal was conducted as a weekly.

Mr. Sanguin took his family allotments near Goodland and Hugo, a body of eight hundred acres, which is a part of the fam- ily's possessions within the county. Much of his fine lands are being farmed by ten- ants, with only a general supervision upon his part. What but a few years ago was a wild waste is now domesticated and is approaching the real dignity of an eastern farm.

On December 27, 1897, Mr. Sanguin was married to Zula C. Vaughan, a daughter of J. B. and Virginia (Vann) Vaughan. The Vaughan children were: John S., of Texarkana ; Mrs. Sanguin ; Willis ; Joseph, deceased ; Lewis, of Texarkana ; Ruth, wife of Chester W. Miller, of Hugo; and Leo, of Springfield, Missouri. The issue of Mr. and Mrs. Sanguin are Clyde, Virginia (de-

ceased), Charles, Marcia and Joseph. Mr. Sanguin is a worthy member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity.

ENOCH NEEDHAM, postmaster of Hugo, Choctaw county, and one of the pioneers of this prosperous and promising. city, was born at Kenton, Obion county, Tennessee, on the 27th of May, 1876. His father, Enoch Needham, was a merchant, born in the same county, where he died in 1880, at the age of thirty-eight. The widow Mary J. (Tucker) Needham, is the daugh- ter of Stephen Tucker, who died while en- gaged in farming near Hackett City, Ar- kansas. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Enoch Needham were as follows: John, who died at Cordell, Georgia, and left a family; Nellie, wife of John J. Thomas, of Talihina, Oklahoma; Nannie, Mrs. W. D. Ayres, residing in Fort Smith, Arkan- sas; Emma, who is Mrs. W. R. Burns, of Van Buren, Arkansas; Jessie, who became Mrs. A. M. Chambers, of Poteau, Okla- homa ; Jennie, wife of R. L. Cook, of Hugo; Enoch, of this sketch, and Collin, a resident of Van Buren.

Enoch Needham, the son, left Tennessee with his mother in 1881 (the year after his father's death) and the family settled in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The boy was then but five years of age, and it was at Fort Smith, Van Buren and Greenwood that he obtained his common school education and his initial experience as a clerk in a mer- cantile establishment of the first named city. He was still a youth when the home of the family was transferred to Talihina, Indian Territory, where he was employed by Thomas Brothers and by the King-Rider Lumber Company, of Thomasville, Okla- homa. In 1901 he removed to the new sta- tion of Hugo, on the Frisco Railroad, in November of that year assuming the man- agement of the S. B. Spring interests in the old town site on the "west side." Mr. Needham remained thus employed until the west and the east sides were consolidated, when he was appointed postmaster, being the second to hold the office. He was ap- pointed nine months after the establishment of the office and soon after the two "sides" were consolidated the office was located on

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the east side of Broadway, where it re- mained until June, 1905, when it was re- moved to its present site in the First Na- tional Bank building. His training and ex- perience admirably fit him for his official duties, and his administration has been char- acterized from the first by prompt executive methods and businesslike management. His first appointment was in 1902 and his sec- ond in 1904, when the office became a presi- dential one, and in January, 1909, he re- ceived his third appointment, and he has therefore been responsible for the conduct of the rapidly expanding postal service at Hugo for the past seven years. The postmaster has always been a firm Re- publican and sees no reason why he should change his politics at this or any other time. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and an earnest member of the fraternity. On June 11, 1902, Mr. Needham was united in marriage with Miss Nettie McMurtrey, daughter of Thomas H. McMurtrey, a na- tive of Missouri, and for some time a farmer and merchant at Hackett City, Arkansas, who died at Hartshorn, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Needham's children are Helen, Herbert and Frank Frantz Needham.

J. HENRY WRIGHT was widely known for several years as a member of the firm of Wright Brothers, whose extensive oper- ations in the pineries of Arkansas and the Choctaw Nation brought them both fortune and high repute. He is now a leading citi- zen of Hugo, Choctaw county, and although he has personally retired from the active manufacture of lumber he has an interest in the Lawless and Wright mill five miles north of the city. He is also a director in the Carson Lumber Company and in the Hugo Wholesale Grocery Company, and is somewhat extensively interested in city property.

The Wright family is of Irish origin, the grandfather of J. Henry coming from the mother country to South Carolina, where both himself and his wife passed their last years. Andrew Wright, the father, was born in the Palmetto state in 1812, married Lavonia Ward and coming to Cleveland county, Arkansas, located on

a small farm there and reared a family of three sons and two daughters to useful and honorable lives. J. Henry Wright was the second child and son, and was born July 26, 1865, nearly his entire business life being identified with that of his elder brother, Andrew J. He received scant edu- cation in the school room, but when as a youth he left the home farm to labor in the pine woods of the vicinity he was a rugged, self-reliant and useful unit of the commu- nity. He had worked in the cotton fields at such low wages as one dollar and twenty- five cents per day and the wages which he received as a lumberman seemed like a stroke of good fortune. He steadily clung to his position until he was rewarded with a foremanship and better wages. Within a few years he took a contract for getting logs to the mill by the thousand feet, which so improved his financial condition that be- fore long he was able to enter into a part- nership with his brother in the manufactur- ing branch of the business. They purchased a small sawmill, largely on time, which burned to the ground before they had made much progress in meeting their notes, but their credit was good, and they soon had another and a better plant in operation. Their operations became widely extended and so profitable that within two years they removed from Drew county, Arkansas, to the Choctaw Nation as men of virtually independent means. Their operations there were even broader and more remunerative, and at one time they controlled some twenty thousand acres of timber land, with several large sawmills in constant operation. In 1906 they disposed of their lumber inter- ests and became identified with the advance- ment of Hugo. They have built several of the best brick blocks in the city, and in 1909 they bought a three story brick block for forty thousand dollars and are adding another fifty foot front to it, which will make it one of the best in Hugo.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 89

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