A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 94

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

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William H. Harrison passed two and a half years in Spencer Academy while pre- paring. for a higher education, and grad- uated from Henry Kendall College in 1899. He then entered Central University at Dan- ville, Kentucky, from whose law depart- ment he graduated in 1902. Ready for the profession of his life, he assumed law prac- tice and also entered Indian politics, being elected district attorney of the Mashulatub- bee district and filling the office for four years. Retiring, he resumed the work of his profession as a private citizen, and maintained a friendly attitude toward the united statehood movement. Mr. Harrison has served as a delegate to all state con- ventions of the Republican party in Okla- homa. His prominent position in party matters added to his admitted qualifications led to his appointment as postmaster of Poteau in December, 1906, and he took charge of the office January 8th of the next year, as the successor of L. L. Smith.

On January 2, 1908, Postmaster Harri- son was married to Miss Minnette Roberts, daughter of C. S. Roberts, and they became the parents of a son, William Henry, Jr., who was born December 18, 1908, and died January 12, 1909. Mr. Harrison is a Mason and a citizen of wide acquaintance, unsul- lied reputation and high character. He is a property owner in Poteau and has landed interests in Le Flore county, his substantial condition in life corresponding to his stal- wart character for ability and morality.

DR. LAWSON D. JONES established him- self in the practice of medicine in Talihina in 1901, when he came here as an under- graduate from one of the standard medical schools of the east. His life to manhood was passed in the Mississippi valley and on

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the waters of the great river and on its navigable tributaries his father plied his vocation as a navigator prior to and dur- ing the period of the Civil war. The fam- ily is one of the pioneers in Hardin county, Tennessee, where it was founded by Jerre Jones, the grandfather of Lawson D., dur- ing the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury. That pioneer migrated from Georgia and created a farm from the forest around Coffee Landing, Tennessee, laying the foun- dation for the social and material progress of his successors. Jerre Jones reared three sons : Daniel ; George, of Wolf City, Texas ; and Jesse, who died as a resident of the In- dian Territory. These children were all born near the scenes of their father's pioneer ef- forts and aided in the clearing up of the old Jones home there. Daniel was born in 1827 and remained on' the farm until a young man, when he sought employment as a boatman. He finally rose to the position of a pilot, and his intimate knowledge of the navigable streams of the Mississippi valley led the Federal government to install him as a gunboat pilot during the Civil war. Altogether he passed sixteen years in this avocation, and then returned to the scenes of his childhood and followed farm- ing until his death in 1895. He manifested little interest in politics but voted with the Democracy, according to the time honored custom of his family. Daniel Jones mar- ried Paralee Hayes, a daughter of Wallace Hayes, a slave-holding farmer and a repre- sentative of one of the old families of Har- din county. Mrs. Jones died in 1889, the mother of Coma, wife of James Hughes, of Coffee Landing, Tennessee ; Minnie, de- ceased, Mrs. Thomas Meek, of Hardin county ; Tony, of Wapanucka, Oklahoma ; Robert, of Adamsville, Tennessee ; and Dr. Lawson, of this review.

The common schools of his native county furnished Dr. Jones with his literary educa- tion, and when he reached a more mature age he became a country school teacher himself. This work was only temporary, being assumed as a means of aiding him to the mastery of his permanent profession. He first read in the office of Dr. J. D. Har- bert, at Jackson, and then began his reg- ular course in the Memphis Hospital Med-

ical College. While pursuing his studies he spent some time in active practice at Talihina, returning to school as conditions would warrant, and graduating in 1902. Upon the death of Dr. Miller, he was ap- pointed local surgeon of the Frisco road, and is a member of the medical societies of the county and state. He has shown a deep interest in public education and is active in the school work of the town as chairman of the board of education. Dr. Jones was married in Wright, Tennessee, March 7, 1897, to Miss Chester McBride, daughter of H. J. McBride, who is the father of five children. The Doctor and Mrs. Jones have two children-Ruth and Ola Jones.

DR. MONROE PLUMLEE, who has been en- gaged in a growing medical practice at Poteau for a period of thirteen years, comes of an old substantial southern family, his great-grandfather, John Plumlee, residing in Virginia during the progress of the Revolutionary war. The family appears to have been well established in the old Do- minion at the time of the adoption of the national constitution and it is therefore classed as one of the original families of the nation. This forefather afterward mi- grated to Clay county, Tennessee, where his son, Denton Plumlee, was born, dying in that section of the state in 1878, at the age of eighty years. This representative of the family was the grandfather of Dr. Mon- roe Plumlee and passed his entire life as a farmer of middle Tennessee. He married Miss Nancy Johnson, a daughter of Ben Johnson, and to them were born William, the father of Dr. Plumlee, Samuel, George, Mrs. Polly A. Hughes, Mrs. Betty Fraley, . Frank, Andrew and Mrs. Sarilda Penning- ton. Both parents died in Clay county. William Plumlee, the father, was born in this county in 1823 and engaged in farm- ing continuously until he had reached mid- dle life, when he enlisted in the Confed- erate army as a member of Captain Ham- ilton's company of cavalry. He continued with this command until his capture in 1864, when he was sent to Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, and remained in that mili- tary prison until the conclusion of the war.

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His wife was Lavona Kendall, daughter of William Kendall, who was a member of a substantial Tennessee family and became 'the mother of the following: John B., of Lincoln, Arkansas; Carroll, of Searcy county, that state; Dee, who resides in Marion county; Randolph, who lives at Port Arthur, Texas; and Monroe Plumlee, of this review.

Dr. Plumlee was born on the old family farm in Clay county, Tennessee, on the 7th of October, 1858, and continued to engage in agriculture himself until he reached the age of twenty-five, his education at that time being only such as could be obtained by the son of a humble farmer. His ambi- tion led him to adopt a professional career, and as medicine appealed to him as a call- ing calculated to give free scope both to one's mental and sympathetic qualities he entered earnestly into the preparation of his life calling. Up to the time of making this decision, as a member of the family he had made many changes of residence. In 1869, when he was eleven years of age, he accompanied his parents from the old Ten- nessee home to Newton county, Arkansas, and subsequently resided in other counties of the state where his father continued to engage in farming. The Doctor was resid- ing in Bellefont, Arkansas, when he aban- doned farming and began reading medi- cine in the office of Dr. L. F. A. Hamilton, of that place. His regular profession course was pursued at the Missouri Medical Col- lege, Washington Medical College and the Hospital Medical College of Memphis, Ten- nessee. While a student at these colleges he practiced his profession at Bellefont and St. Joe, and after being. thus engaged for a short time removed to Poteau, in the Choctaw Nation. There, as stated, he has practiced for the past thirteen years, having been most of the time connected with the American Medical Association and the County and State Medical Societies. In addition to having a substantial and grow- ing practice he also has an interest in the Miller Drug Company. He has also been actively identified with the material prog- ress of Poteau, having served as a member of , its common council while the water works and the electric light plant were

established. He was also a member of this body while the public school house was in the process of erection and in other ways assisted in the founding of its public insti- tutions. In politics he is a Democrat and in his religion is identified with the Chris- tian church.

In October, 1883, Dr. Plumlee was mar- ried in Newton county, Arkansas, to Miss Annie Burk, daughter of William and Kiz- zie (Bush) Burk. His wife was a native of Washington, Arkansas, born September 30, 1861. Their children are: John L., Haskell, Earl, Effie, Vera, Vallie, Zado, Monroe and Fred Plumlee.

JAMES W. BOOZMAN, of Cameron, is one of the leading. merchants of the city and of Le Flore county. He is also a stockholder in the Bank of Cameron, owns considerable real estate in Cameron, and all of his cir- cumstances and surroundings indicate his substantial position in the community. A native of Meridian, Neshoba county, Mis- sissippi, born December 14, 1864, James W. Boozman represents an old family which was founded in that locality by his. grandfather, Monroe Boozman. His father, James M., is a native of the same county, and his career as a farmer and plantation owner was interrupted by his service in the Confederate army under the famous Gen- eral Longstreet. He faithfully and pluck- ily followed the varying fortunes of his leader throughout the war, and stood in the tattered ranks of Lee's army when it sur- rendered at Appomattox court house. His mother was formerly Anna Jane Tolbert, a daughter of Jack Tolbert, whose plantation was near Meridian, Mississippi. In 1871 Mr. and Mrs. Boozman migrated west to Arkansas and established their home in Sebastian county, thence after a few years crossing the line of the Indian Territory into the Choctaw country. Mr. Boozman is now a prosperous farmer of Le Flore county. The children born to him and his wife were as follows: Jane, now the wife of T. C. Collins, of Shady Point, Okla- homa; James W., of this biography; Arthur, who died in Le Flore county at the- age of twenty-two, the father of a family; Eliza, who married William Burton and is.

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also a resident of Shady Point; John P., who died in Oklahoma, leaving a family ; Lue, the wife of J. E. Park, of Red Oak, Oklahoma ; and Robert E., of Cameron.

James W. Boozman was seven years of age when the family moved from his Mis- sissippi home to Sebastian county, Arkan- sas, where he received a crude education but a splendid practical training for prog- ress in the southwestern country. When young he became a thorough farmer and clung to that vocation until he was twenty- six years of age, when he became a clerk in the store of C. J. Green and Company at Cameron. His career as an employee and merchant has therefore extended over a period of about twenty years, although he is still in the prime of early middle life. Following his services with C. J. Green and Company he entered the firm of the Battles- Green Company as a partner, and subse- quently became a member of the firm of Boozman and Edwards, continuing in the latter connection until fire destroyed the store and stock of the firm in December, 1905. In July, 1906, the firm of Johnson and Boozman was formed, which conducts a general merchandising business at Cam- eron, Oklahoma. As stated, the store at Cameron is the chief mercantile house of the town and is under the general manage- ment of Mr. Boozman. Its trade covers a wide area of the country and the house is a positive factor in the handling of the chief crops produced in the Castle Mountain re- gion. While Mr. Boozman takes no active interest in politics he is a staunch Demo- crat. He is also a Master Mason and be- longs to the Eastern Star.

Married in Sebastian county, Arkansas, November 3, 1882, before he had celebrated his eighteenth birthday, Mr. Boozman com- menced married life with virtually no assets except a team, a few farm implements and a few articles of furniture, but he and his girl wife bravely commenced housekeeping in a tiny house near Wicherville, now Hunting- ton. His wife was formerly Lucy Stroud, a daughter of W. J. Stroud, and was born in Sebastian county in 1865, and died at Cameron December 12, 1896, the mother of the following children: Ordie, Bert (now his father's bookkeeper), Bertha,

Claud, May and Barney. In 1897 Mr. Boozman married Mrs. Janie Norvell, a daughter of Pinkney Turham, a native of Tennessee, but an early settler of Sebastian, Arkansas, where Mrs. Boozman was born and reared. The children born to them are Burl, Curtis, Fay and Herman Boozman.

JAMES E. REYNOLDS. At and in the vicinity of Castle mountain, near Cameron, Le Flore county, are seen many picturesque evidences of the substantial achievements and high standing of Captain James E. Reynolds-a brave, determined and able character to whom the Choctaw Nation was greatly indebted for its advancement in agriculture, commerce and the true Ameri- can spirit. His unique and imposing castle of gray granite, double-turreted and medi- æval in outward form, stands at the base of the mountain, while at its apex is a splendid orchard of seventy acres, which he created on one of his wife's valuable al- lotments. In 1867 he came to the Choctaw Nation and located on Poteau bottoms in what is now Le Flore county and in the same year located and established a resi- dence on the state line. There he lived about eighteen years, and then built the house that he now occupies. The land has lately been sold to a development company which is promoting the new town of Arkoma. On the other hand the Captain still main- tains the farming interests which he opened up in the famous Poteau bottoms, near Fort Smith, in the form of about twelve hundred acres of improved and productive land, rep- resenting the allotments of the Reynolds family and which have so materially con- tributed to their independent standing in the community. Captain Reynolds is fur- ther recognized as the founder of old Mc- Alester and, more than any other man, identified with the establishment and the development of the mercantile and coal in- terests of this locality.

James E. Reynolds is a Mississippian, born in Carroll county on the 17th of July, 1837, and is a son of Rev. Bowen and Sarah (Meaux) Reynolds, his parents hav- ing been married in Virginia in 1817. Both sides of the family were early established in the south, the paternal ancestors being

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of Irish origin and pioneers of North Caro- lina. Richard Meaux, Mrs. Reynolds' father, was a native of the Old Dominion, born in 1767, and in 1789 he married Frances Oliver, who was four years his junior. Captain Reynolds' parents spent their last days in Mississippi, his death oc- curring in July, 1845, and her decease July 25, 1850. Thus orphaned when he had just entered his fourteenth year, the month of July in its many recurrences has always brought to him some of the saddest mem- ories of his long life. The circumstances of his early years also made it impossible for him to secure anything like complete educational advantages, and he has little knowledge of the average care-free periods of boyhood. First employed as a dry goods clerk, at the time of the outbreak of the Civil war he had reached the dignity of an independent merchant, located at Carroll- ton, Mississippi.

On the Ist of April, 1861, Captain Reynolds joined the Confederate army at Carrollton, as a member of Company K, under Captain Lidell, and he helped Com- pany K organize at Corinth the Eleventh Mississippi Regiment, commanded by Colonel Moore. The regiment was dis- patched to Lynchburg, Virginia, and after- ward to Harper's Ferry, where it was in- corporated into a brigade which was com- manded by General Stonewall Jackson. After the battle of Manassas Captain Rey- nolds was stricken with typhoid fever, and after a hospital confinement of four months returned to Mississippi, in November, 1862, and re-enlisted in Company K, Thirtieth Mississippi Infantry, under Colonel G. F. Neil. The regiment became a part of the Army of the Tennessee, and during its first engagement at Perryville, Kentucky, the young Mississippian was wounded, but not disabled, and within the succeeding eighteen months saw active and wearing service in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. At the battle of Lookout Mountain, November 24, 1863, he was severely wounded in the breast, and again sent to the hospital. Four months afterward he returned to his re- organized regiment with the rank of second lieutenant, as a reward for his bravery at that battle, but in May, 1864, he received

another wound at New Hope Church, Georgia, from which he has never fully re- covered. His first lieutenancy dated from that engagement and later he was commis- sioned to a captaincy, but the war ended before the arrival of his papers.

At the conclusion of the war in 1865 Captain Reynolds married Miss Felicity L. Turnbull, of Choctaw blood, born in Lex- ington, Mississippi, on the 17th of Novem- ber, 1847, a daughter of Anthony and Hannah (Long) Turnbull. Her father was born in Mississippi in 1809, and died in that state September 21, 1849. Mrs. Reynolds' grandparents were Samuel and Felicity (Le Flore) Long, the Le Flores be- ing among the most prominent Choctaws of the Nation. Mrs. Anthony Turnbull was born February 17, 1813; married in Holmes county, Mississippi, September 7, 1829, and after the death of Mr. Turnbull became the wife of James Jordan, herself dying August 13, 1877, in Scullyville county, Choctaw Nation. The children who were born to Captain and Mrs. Reynolds comprise the following: James T., who died at the fam- ily home in Cameron, November 22, 1908, unmarried; Ida, who married Dr. Murray and resides at Poteau, Oklahoma ; Rosa O., now Mrs. F. H. Carr, and making her home with her parents; Hugh A., of Braden, that state; Earl V., who lives in Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Misses A. Grace and Felicity L. Reynolds, also at home with their parents. The Captain thoroughly educated his children, some of them being college graduates, and his sons are engaged in business and have other sub- stantial interests. The family are identi- fied with the Presbyterian church.

After his marriage Captain Reynolds lived for a year in Mississippi, but the con- dition of affairs in the reconstruction period immediately following the Civil war was so unsatisfactory that he removed with his wife to Scullyville county, Choctaw Na- tion, and settled on a farm near Cameron. As the result of the war his wife's Mis- sissippi plantation had been ravaged and her slaves had been scattered and freed, so that but little of value was taken from Mississippi into the Indian Territory, and with resolute spirit the Captain began the

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work of acquiring another fortune. The allotments of land which came into the family through the Choctaw blood of Mrs. Reynolds were energetically and wisely im- proved, while Mr. Reynolds became also one of the most progressive and influential business men of that part of Oklahoma. He was the first capitalist to begin the de- velopment of the now extensive coal mines at South McAlester and vicinity, and built the first business house in that place, where in partnership with R. L. Owen he estab- lished the large mercantile house conducted by the Indian Trading Company. Later he sold his interest in that enterprise, but for some years afterward was actively and extensively connected with the coal mining and agricultural interests. At the height of his activities in 1890 he erected his magnificent residence at Castle mountain, which at the time was one of the finest in the state, and is now the most attractive.

Captain Reynolds is one of the oldest Masons in the state, having joined the order while a resident of Mississippi in 1867. In politics he is still a Democrat, but has never voted, for since his service in the Civil war he has never taken his oath of allegiance to the United States.

GERHARD H. WITTE. In the year of 1887 there came among the people of the Indian Territory adjacent to Poteau a young German as foreman of a carpenter's crew in the construction of the Frisco Rail- road. He had acquired the trade of cabi- net-making in his native land, had after- ward learned something of bridge architec- ture and when he plied himself to the task of finding work in America he obtained the position of bridge foreman and was sent among the people of what is now eastern Oklahoma. He remained with the railroad till the spring of the next year, when he was induced to prospect for coal. As the indications about Poteau were prom- ising, he began his work there and his ef- forts led to the discovery of coal in great quantities in what is now Le Flore county and to the establishment of industries and the ultimate building of towns. They re- sulted also in the establishment of a leader

among the business men of Le Flore county in the person of Gerhard H. Witte.

Mr. Witte was born in the province of Westphalia, Germany, in the month of Sep- tember, 1866. William Witte, his father, was a coal man and rope manufacturer who was born at the ancestral home, married a Miss Brickelman, reared his family, and died there in 1887, at the age of sixty years. He was the government bank inspector of the town of Beckner and was an alderman of that place.

Gerhard H. Witte is the youngest son in a family of eight children, the only mem- ber besides himself who came to the United States being his brother, who resides in New York. From his youth Gerhard pos- sessed an independence and self-assertive- ness that often brought him into conflict with the time-honored regulations of the paternal household, and these derelictions and apparent lack of filial respect won for him the sobriquet of "the black sheep" of the flock. The compulsory school law of Germany forced him to acquire an ele- mentary education, and with the close of his school career he began learning the cabinet-maker's trade. When of age he ce- cided to emigrate to the United States, and finally landing in New York secured work that led eventually to his settlement in Poteau while at St. Louis on his way west.

Having discovered coal, as already nar- rated, he obtained a lease of a large tract of land from the Indians and with more confidence than capital he formed a com- pany for the ultimate operation of mines on Cavanal mountain. His combination was named the Cavanal Coal and Mining Company and developed the property sit- uated four miles from Poteau, subsequently connecting it with the Frisco line by means of its own road and rolling stock. In 1904 the company sold its property to the Poteau Coal and Mercantile Company. Having freed himself from his first great respon- sibility and won the confidence of capital as a successful financier, Mr. Witte set about the organization of a second mining enterprise called the Hodman Coal and Coke Company, which acquired property in Scott county, Arkansas, and subsequently

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reorganized as the Black Diamond Coal and Coke Company. Of this corporation he was superintendent until it was leased; but the lease was of a comparatively short duration, for he bought the mine himself and operated it as the Witte Coal Company, selling it in June, 1907, to the Hiawatha Smokeless Coal Company.

As a citizen of Poteau, Mr. Witte's re- lations have been signally broad and inti- mate. He was the first man to be elected to a mayoralty in the Indian Territory and was the first executive of Poteau. He was elected in 1898 and held the office four terms-twice as the representative of the independent ticket and twice as a Repub- lican. During his incumbency were made the first public improvements of the town and the chief event of his administration was the voting of bonds for the construc- tion of municipal water works. He was also a prime mover in the erection of per- manent school buildings, and was a liberal contributor of his private means toward the general welfare of the city.

In Republican politics Mr. Witte is, in fact, well known throughout the state of Oklahoma. He has attended practically all the important conventions since national politics were extended to the territories, was five years a member of the Republican Executive Committee of the Indian Terri- tory and is at present the state committee- man for Le Flore county. It should also be stated that he served as the last United States marshal of the central district of the Indian Territory, having filled the unex- pired term of Marshal Pritchard and re- tired from office with the event of state- hood. In a business way Mr. Witte was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of Poteau, and is its vice president. He is president of the Poteau Lumber and Manufacturing Company and organized, with R. C. Alexander and T. B. Wall, the Poteau Ice and Light Company, of which he is vice president. He is the owner of much valuable real estate in the county seat and has improved one of the good homes therein.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 94

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