A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 92

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

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JOHN A. PENINGTON, of Hugo, from its early history identified with the commer- cial interests of the city, and now register of deeds of Choctaw county, was born in Cooper county, Missouri, on the 14th of August, 1860, his parents removing soon afterward to a farm in Cumberland county, Kentucky. His parents were Fowler and Almira (Reynolds) Penington, and his father, who was a Tennesseean, died on the Cumberland county farm in 1872, aged about forty years. In 1880 the widow brought her family to Red River county, Texas, and she herself passed away in Lamar county, that state, in 1906. the mother of the following: James M., of Whitwright, Texas; John A., of this no- tice; Mary, wife of James Baize, of Fort

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Worth, Texas; Sallie, Mrs. Creed Morris, of Cumberland county, Kentucky ; William, who died unmarried; and Jackson W. Pen- ington, who resides in Lamar county, Texas. The first American Peningtons were of English stock who settled in Vir- ginia, two of the three brothers who emi- grated thither becoming the heads of fami- lies. Jackson Penington, the grandfather, was a farmer of the Old Dominion who mi- grated to Tennessee, where he passed his last years.

John A. Penington virtually passed his life until he had nearly reached his majority on the old homestead in Cumberland coun- ty, Kentucky. There his father died when the boy was only twelve years of age, and it was in this neighborhood that he ob- tained his education, became familiar with all the work of the farm, and spent the years of his life until 1880, when, as stated, the family removed to Red River county, Texas. There the young man resumed the occupation he had learned from his father and conducted farming in a modest way until 1885, when he prepared himself for engaging in mercantile pursuits in Chicota, Texas. He located at that point in 1886, and for twelve years he sold goods there, when he removed to Indian territory, locat- ing. six miles west of Hugo, and for two years engaged in the stock business. In 1900 Mr. Penington returned to Texas, but after remaining two years in that state came to Hugo, then a new railroad town at the junction of the two Frisco lines, and estab- lished an agency for the handling of the goods of the Canton (Illinois) Implement Company. He had charge of the business until 1907, when he became identified with the Webb Mercantile Company, of Hugo, and in the summer of that year entered the race for register of deeds of Choctaw county. He had always been a faithful worker for the Democratic party, was thor- oughly honest, popular, and a fine business man. The result of his candidacy was that in the nominating convention he received as many votes as were cast for his two opponents, and at the election was placed in office by the handsome majority of five hundred. His conduct of the affairs of his department has stamped him as a worthy

official under the administration of the new commonwealth.

On May 22, 1889, Mr. Penington mar- ried in Lamar county, Texas, Miss Alice Haynes, who died in February, 1890, with- out issue. On September 11, 1892, he mar- ried at Chicota, Texas, Martha A. White, daughter of D. B. White. The other mem- bers of her father's family were: Mrs. W. A. J. Black, a resident of Lamar coun- ty, Texas; Robert, now deceased; Ida, who married J. W. Thompson, of Lamar coun- ty; Edward C., of Roswell, New Mexico; Bertie, deceased, who married R. R. Hicks ; and Newton White, who is an Oklahoman. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. John A. Penington are: Harvey J., Winnie Alice, James Edmond, Lillian A., Katie L., John Allen, and Ethel Lynn Penington. Fra- ternally Mr. Penington is a member of the Woodmen of the World and of the Loyal Americans. The family are members of the Baptist church at Hugo.

JUDGE THOMAS CHAUNCEY HUMPHRY, of Hugo, a foremost lawyer of the Okla- homa bar, an able jurist and an honored citizen, was born in Scott county, Arkan- sas, December 20, 1846. He is a son of Charles Humphry, an English founder of the family in the United States, who be- came a settler of Scott county, Arkansas, before Arkansas had attained statehood, and afterward served in its legislature. The boyhood and youth of Judge Humphry were spent on his father's farm until the outbreak of the Civil war, which divided the household in sentiment and in fact. The father was a Union man, and during the war went north and remained in Illi-, nois until it ended. The three grown sons went into the Confederate army. Although too young to be identified with the mili- tary service, Thomas C. also cast his lot with his elder brothers, and was an inter- ested witness of the campaigns conducted through and around his state, and was in the battle of Marks' Mill. At the con- clusion of the war the family was reunited and the younger children continued their schooling.

After attending the high school at Hills- boro, Arkansas, the Judge chose medicine

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as a profession, commencing his studies with Dr. Tolbert, of Galley Rock, Arkan- sas, and continuing them for a time in the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis. He then practiced a short period at Freedom, Illinois, when he returned to the institution mentioned and graduated with his profes- sional degree in 1869. From the March of his graduation to the following, autumn he practiced in Memphis, Tennessee, when he formed a partnership with Dr. Jamieson in the drug business at Quitman, Arkansas, and was thus engaged in connection with his medical practice until his removal to Judsonia, White county, where a few years later he abandoned both profession and business in favor of the law and a judicial and public career.

In 1876 Judge Humphry located at Paris, Arkansas, and commenced the study of the law. He was licensed to practice and admitted to the bar by Judge John H. Rogers; now United States district judge at Fort Smith, and in 1878 was chosen judge of Logan county, spending a portion of his official term as a student at the Uni- versity of Louisville, from which he ob- tained the LL. B. degree in March, 1879. He practiced law at Paris until 1886, when he removed to Fort Smith, and for twelve years a progressive figure of the bench and bar at that point. In 1890 he was appointed circuit judge of the twelfth circuit of Ar- kansas, which includes Fort Smith, and filled out the unexpired term of Judge John S. Little, resigned.

In the meantime Judge Humphry had been making his mark as a Democrat and a man of civic affairs. As early as 1874 he was elected to the Arkansas legislature from White county, on the Independent ticket,' and served in the sessions of 1874 and 1875, and obtained considerable promi- nence as the author of the bill taxing the railroad lands of the state. Then followed his study of the law, his admission to the bar and the establishment of a substantial reputation both as a member of the bar and the bench. In 1892 he was again elected to the legislature, being chosen speaker of the house in the following year. in which position his abilities as a parliamentarian were evidenced by the fact that no appeal

was taken from his decisions during the entire session. In 1898 Judge Humphry moved his office from Fort Smith to Cam- eron, Indian territory, and in 1900 settled at South McAlester, and during the fol- lowing four years was especially active at the bar of the federal courts. The high standing which he won as a lawyer brought him the appointment in that year of United States judge of the central district of the Indian territory. He then took up his resi- dence at Atoka. A great many full-blood Indians resided in his district, and in his stanch protection of their rights, especially of the Indian minors, as against the at- tempted encroachment upon their allot- ments, the Judge won the name of the Square Deal Judge. When his office ter- minated with the coming of statehood he returned to private practice and soon be- came a resident of Hugo.

At the commencement of his political career Judge Humphry was an independent Democrat, and gave his general support to the Democracy until the period of the Spanish-American war, when he became an earnest advocate of the Mckinley policy, bitterly opposing the so-called paramount issues led by Bryan and all others who ham- pered the efforts of the United States to uphold the national dignity and assume the logical outcome of the war implied by the term Expansion. He was also convinced that on the free coinage issue Bryan had been a false prophet, and that to reverse the financial policy of the country would create panics instead of prosperity. For these reasons, added to the fact that one of his sons had made an enviable record as a brave officer in the compaigns of the Philippines, Judge Humphry became an en- thusiastic supporter of both Mckinley and Roosevelt, and has been a supporter of the Republican party ever since. As to Okla- homa matters, he always favored joint statehood, and served as a delegate to Wash- ington from Oklahoma City, appearing be- fore the committee on territories of the house and senate as a special advocate for admission on the "single" plan. This was not his first appearance at the national capi- tal as a special representative of his home constituents; as while still a resident of Ar-

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kansas he went to Washington with Gov- ernor D. W. Jones to urge upon Congress the importance of a fitting appropriation in support of the Louisiana Purchase Expo- sition of 1903. The Judge has also been a Masonic leader for many years. He has taken the thirty-second degree; in 1886 was grand master of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas; has served as master of the South McAlester lodge, and was foreign correspondent for the Grand Lodge of In- dian territory and wrote the reports for six years.

Rev. William Humphry, the paternal grandfather of the Judge, was a Baptist minister and formally constituted in 1808 the chapel at Isle Abbot, Somersetshire, England. He died in England in 1834, and his son, Charles Humphry, was born in Somersetshire, May 10, 1799. Three sons of the family came to the United States, John and Robert settling in New York City, and from these representatives are descended all the members of the family in this country who have adhered to the spell- ing of the name given in this article. Charles Humphry, the father, established himself in Scott county, Arkansas, during 1817, and in 1827, near Baton Rouge, Lou- isiana, married Elizabeth Garner, an orphan girl with distinguished family connections. The young English farmer soon proved his worth and his fellows honored him with their confidence in many tangible ways. He was serving as sheriff of his county when Arkansas became a state in 1836, and four years later was elected a member of its house of representatives. He died and was buried at Quitman, Arkansas, March 14, 1877. Charles and Elizabeth Humphry had the following children: Mrs. Mary J. Gray, who died of yellow fever in Mem- phis, Tennessee ; Henrietta, wife of W. W. Garner, of Quitman, Arkansas, and mother of Garner Brothers, prominent merchants of Lamar, that state; Mrs. Joanna Lee, who died in Boonville, Arkansas, wife of Dr. W. R. Lee and mother of Mrs. Judge Evans, of that state: Henry C., who was an officer in the Confederate army and died as a farmer in Pike county, Arkan- sas; James G .. of Washita, Arkansas ; Charles, of McAlester, Oklahoma ; Thomas

C., of this notice; John W., of Mountain View, Arkansas, well known as a teacher, and once a member of the Arkansas legis- lature ; and Mrs. Victoria Pearson, of Conway, Arkansas.

Judge Humphry was married Septem- ber 27, 1871, to Miss Anna McLeod, daugh- ter of the late A. A. McLeod, of Sumter district, South Carolina, and a cousin of Hon. E. D. Smith, United States senator from South Carolina, and the late A. Coke Smith, bishop of the Methodist Church South. She is also a cousin of Lieutenant Governor McLeod of South Carolina. The children of this union are: Charles A., a business man of Evansville, Indiana; La- mar G., of Fort Smith, Arkansas; Thomas C., Jr., a clerk in the land office at Musko- gee, Oklahoma; Frank, a shoe salesman for the Grand Leader, St. Louis : and three daughters, Daisy, Dollie and Kate, who re- side with their parents in Hugo.

CLYDE McMURTREY. One of the large farmers and prominent ranchmen of Le Flore county, Clyde McMurtrey is also president of the Bank of Cameron and interested in other large enterprises of the locality. The financial institution of which he is the head was organized in July, 1908, with a capital of ten thousand dollars. Its vice president is W. A. Bolin and its cash- ier R. W. Cotton. The institution owns the building which it occupies, and, al- though young, has attained a substantial standing.

Mr. McMurtrey is himself a native of Le Flore county, born October 18, 1872, and his education and business training have been obtained within the limits of Oklahoma. His father was Thomas H. McMurtrey. a white man, and his mother was formerly Martha Brashears, a Choc- taw born in Alabama in 1837, and who is now a resident of Cameron. The father was born in Sebastian county, Arkansas, in 1838, whither the paternal grandfather, William H. McMurtrey, had located a few years before, and in which locality he reared his family. William H. McMurtrey was a well-known Kentuckian and founded the homestead near the present site of Hackett City and became the father of Thomas H.,

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the father of Clyde, and a daughter, who afterward became Mrs. Faulkner, one of the early settlers of Fort Smith, Arkansas. His wife by a previous marriage to a Mr. Tichner was the mother of a son, William Tichner, who passed his active life in Cali- fornia, where he also married and reared a family.

Thomas H. McMurtrey was reared near Hackett City, receiving a limited education, but he possessed a strong practical ability which made him in after years a practical man of affairs. His mercantile operations covered Hackett City, Culleychaha, Le Flore and Talihina, and he also became an extensive ranchman with headquarters at Hartshorne. Prior to the Civil war he be- came firmly established as a leading mer- chant and financier of the Choctaw coun- try, and during the war of the rebellion supported the Union cause as a member of the Second Kansas Battery. At the con- clusion of the war he returned with energy and successful results to his old-time avo- cation of stock-raising and mercantile pur- suits, and he died in February, 1896, as a citizen of large property and substantial influence. The deceased was the father of James J. and John W., of Hartshorne, Oklahoma ; Susan R., wife of D. Thomas, of Talihina, that state; Clyde, of this biog- raphy ; Nettie, the wife of Enoch Needham, postmaster of Hugo, Oklahoma; and Joseph B., also of Hartshorne.

Clyde McMurtrey lived within the boun- daries of Arkansas until he was thirteen years of age, when he moved with other members of the family into the Choctaw country, where he has since resided, either at Pottsburg or in Le Flore county. He obtained his schooling at and near Hackett City, and spent the years of his youth and early manhood as his father's assistant on his ranch and in his store. In 1896 he moved to the valley of Cameron, where as the son of a Choctaw mother he took ad- vantage of his legal allotment. The con- sequence is that he is now the owner of a valuable one thousand acre ranch and farm near Hartshorne and has cultivated seven hundred acres to the standard crops of the country. He was one of the founders of the Bank of Cameron, of which he was

elected president, and when it was merged with the. Farmers' and Merchants' Bank was placed at the head of the consolidated institutions, known as the Bank of Cam- eron. Like his father and other male mem- bers of the family, he is an active Repub- lican, but although he faithfully supports his party he has never asked favors at its hands.

In February, 1897, Mr. McMurtrey was married to Miss Della Adams, daughter of Thomas H. Adams, who migrated first from Tennessee to Kentucky and thence to Oklahoma. They have one child, Tom McMurtrey.

DR. WILLIAM BELTON MILLER. The late Dr. William Belton Miller, whose professional life was intimately associated with the village of Talihina for more than a score of years from its inception, and until death removed him on the 8th of May, 1908, was a character whose acts and deeds will be revered by both his contemporaries and descendants.

Dr. Miller was born near Birmingham, Alabama, April 7, 1859. His father, J. Miller, married a Miss Calhoun, and his parents were of the farming community and died when their son was yet a child. Being a child of rural folks and passing his youth amid industrious surroundings, the future doctor acquired the cardinal traits of his worthy ancestors, industry, honesty and sobriety, which, together with a liberal education, were the elements which made up his capital stock when his duties as a citizen actually began. In his youth and early manhood he taught school in the country districts of Alabama, but in the early eighties came to the southwest and passed a few years in southern Texas, re- turning to the east to assume his profes- sional studies.

The doctor's work as a student was com- pleted in the medical department of the University of Louisville, from which he obtained a diploma in 1886, and the follow- ing. year he returned to the west and sought a location in the Choctaw nation. In 1890 the Doctor took a post-graduate course in the New York Polyclinic, of New York city. At this time the Frisco railroad was

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being pushed through the Indian country into Texas, and the young physician saw the advantage of establishing himself in one of the several new towns which were destined to spring up along the line. He selected Talihina, was one of its pioneers, and was ever afterward identified with its development. He erected one of the first buildings, in which he placed a stock of drugs, which business with the active prac- tice of his profession fully occupied his time and absorbed his fine abilities. Death too soon placed a period to the Doctor's career to permit him to have had a long career in politics or public life, but in the municipal affairs of his town and in vari- ous other matters of importance which came before the Choctaw nation for solu- tion he was active and influential. Into the movement for statehood he entered heartily, and when the framers of the con- stitution gathered to perform their mo- mentous work he was summoned to Guth- rie and performed an important part in the creation of the organic law of the com- monwealth. He was a Democrat, assisted in organizing his party in Le Flore county, and was naturally pleased with the good showing of its candidates at the first state election.

In his professional life Dr. Miller was deservedly successful and popular. Being the pioneer physician, he was lovingly re- ferred to as the "old Doctor," and when death removed him every family in the vicinity seemed to have lost a personal friend. He was associated in membership with the medical societies of the county and state, and as local surgeon of the Frisco Railroad held membership in the Associa- tion of Railway Surgeons. He was pos- sessed of some of the valuable property of Talihina; was a Master Mason, a United Workman and a Woodman, and was a splendid type of the broad-minded physi- cian who never failed to remember the re- spensibility of citizenship.

On September 24, 1889, Dr. Miller mar- ried Miss May Emmert, a daughter of James E. and Frances (Pace) Emmert, who were settlers in Oklahoma from Se- bastian county, Arkansas, where Mrs. Miller was born May 7, 1873. Her mother

is a sister of Mark H. Pace, one of the well-known early settlers of the Cameron community and a retired business man of Poteau. The Doctor and Mrs. Miller were not blessed with children. Their lives were devoted to each other, socially to their friends and relatives, and religiously to the work of the Presbyterian church, of which they were both members. The death of Dr. Miller struck home with a keen thrust, his relations as a husband being peculiarly considerate and tender.

JOHN J. THOMAS, one of the leading merchants and substantial citizens of Tali- hina, Le Flore county, has been identified with the place since it became a station on the Frisco line. He has become a strong factor not only in its business progress but in the social, political and religious move- ments of the community. A native of Hen- derson county, Tennessee, Mr. Thomas was born February 21, 1860, the family home being known as Shady Hill, which was also the birthplace of his father, John Thomas. The founder of the family in Tennessee was also John Thomas, a native of North Carolina, who migrated to Henderson county at a very early day and there car- ried on a farm as well as a small general store at Shady Hill. His wife, the mater- nal grandmother of Mr. Thomas, and who was formerly a Miss Lacy, died at the re- markable age of one hundred and three years, on the old homestead, in 1900, her husband having preceded her in 1868. The family of these grandparents consisted of three sons and four daughters. One of the sons became a Presbyterian minister, and all passed useful lives in the county of which they were early settlers. Still earlier in the genealogy of the family its American ancestor crossed the Atlantic from Wales and established himself in the state of North Carolina, and from him sprang the John Thomas heretofore noted.

The father, John Thomas, who was born at Shady Hill, October 26, 1826, married Miss Eliza Woods, daughter of John W. Woods, also a pioneer of the Shady Hill locality. Mrs. Thomas died in 1907, at the age of seventy-two, while her husband is a resident of Talihina, Oklahoma. The

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children of their union are: Mrs. Rebecca J. Browder, of Talihina; John J., of this sketch; M. D. L., a leading merchant of Talihina ; Mollie, now Mrs. J. J. McMur- trey, of Hartshorne, Oklahoma ; and Josie, who married Winfield Harper, of Ft. Smith, Arkansas.

John J. Thomas, of this sketch, received his early education in the common schools of Henderson county, and at Ozier Acad- emy, also in the neighborhood of Shady Hill. At nineteen years of age he com- menced work as a "devil" in a newspaper .office, which experience was valuable from an educational standpoint. He afterward removed to Kenton and entered the drug store of Dr. Bevill both as a means of liveli- hood and with the intention of studying medicine. But after filling this position for a year his parents decided to remove to the southwest, which fact determined the son's future employments. The first fam- ily home of the Thomases was at Boonville, Arkansas, where the father opened a store in which John J. was employed for two years. The young man then located at Fort Smith, where he connected himself with a local merchant, but as the father had in the meantime established a promis- ing business at Hackett City the son there rejoined him. Mr. Thomas remained at that point until 1888, the last year of his stay in Hackett City being. spent as a clerk in a drug store. In the year mentioned he located in the new station of Talihina, in the Choctaw Nation, where with another brother he established the well known gen- eral mercantile firm of Thomas Brothers. This existed for fifteen years, and its store was long the center of perhaps the most active trade in the town. After the disso- lution of the firm John J. Thomas estab- lished himself both in the drug and hardware business. and still later joined his son in a dry goods enterprise which was established under the firm name of A. W. Thomas and Company. This latter business, which was founded in 1907, was accommodated in that. year by the erection of a substantial two- story double brick building. This is the personal property of John J. Thomas, who also owns a commodious residence at Tali- hina as well as other improved and val-

uable property. Mr. Thomas is also well known as an active Democrat. He took a leading part in the statehood move- ment, and in the constitutional con- vention was appointed temporary county commissioner and chairman of that board, and at the first general election in 1907 was elected county commissioner of the Third district, being now chairman of the same.

Married December 4, 1881, in the state of Tennessee, to Miss Nellie Needham, he is the father of the following children : Atha W., who married Miss Mary Boyd, of Paris, Texas, and is the father of Nellie Boyd and his father's partner in business ; Auda M., Jessie J. and Ferris L. Thomas. The parents are both active workers in the Methodist church and Sunday-school, Mrs. Thomas being also president of the Ladies' Home Mission Society of the village. Fra- ternally Mr. Thomas is a member of the Masonic fraternity, Knight Templar de- gree, and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 92

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