A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 30

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 810

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

tion of independence. His property interests in Ardmore are yet extensive, and in the coun- try adjacent he owns and supervises the culti- vation of a considerable acreage of land.

In October, 1866, Mr. Hardy married Amanda, a daughter of Milton Kolb, and the children born of this union are, Dr. Walter Hardy, of Ardmore, who was educated in the Bowie and Sherman, Texas, high schools, and is a graduate of the Missouri Medical Col- lege with the class of 1898. He is now a specialist in surgery and at the head of the Ardmore Sanitarium. Cora, the second born, married Dr. James A. Bivens, and died in Ard- more in November, 1892, leaving two child- ren, James and Clarence. Florence is the wife of A. B. Seay, of Portales, New Mexico. Blanche is the wife of Rev. Rush Goodloe, of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Dudley is a hard- ware merchant in Portales and Andrew is a student in Vanderbilt University.

Reuben Hardy led an active business life for a third of a century. They were years of honorable competition with the business world and years in which he strove to lay by a competence for himself and his posterity, that he might pass his declining years in com- fort and that his children might not know the real sacrifices which their parents endured. A life crowned with the fruits of its former toil and honored with the esteem of his fel- lowmen-such is the record of Reuben Hardy.

MONROE WHEELER. The name of Monroe Wheeler is numbered among the pioneers of the city of Ardmore, and he has been closely connected with its material development dur- ing the period that he has made it his home. As a citizen his unpretentious life has at- tracted little attention beyond his business associates, but his work as a positive aid to modern town building has gone steadily and noiselessly forward to the consummation of a series of substantial improvements that re- flect the permanence of the city and the char- acter of the man.

He was born in Shelby county, Texas, in 1843, where his father, Ransom Wheeler, had settled in 1835. He had moved there from Monroe county, Tennessee, his birthplace in 1811, and he had there married Luvenia Lem- ons. They made their way to Texas the year its patriot army under General Houston won national independence from the Mexicans at the battle of San Jacinto, and the home which they established in Shelby county has ever since been maintained and is still in the pos-

session of one of their children. They passed their lives as modest farming people and rear- ed their children to lives of usefulness. The mother died in 1861 and the father in 1889, their children having been as follows: Caro- line, who became the wife of Mr. Pipes and died in Shelby county, Texas; Leonidas served in the Confederate army during the rebellion in the same company with his broth- el Monroe and is a resident of McMullen county, Texas; Fernando moved into that state with his family and there died, leaving two young children, one of whom was Jose- phine ; Monroe is mentioned below ; Lycurgus occupies the old family home in Shelby coun- ty ; Cicero and Ransom, of the same county ; Martha is the wife of Green Emmons and is also of Shelby county; and Napoleon died near the old home and left a family.

Monroe Wheeler received his educational training in the country school near his home. and his first serious battles in life were those which followed his enlistment in Company A. Twenty-eight Texas Cavalry under Colonel Randle in the Trans-Mississippi department of the Confederate army. He took part in the battles of Milligans Bend, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Perkins Landing, Fort De Russy, Jen- kins Ferry, and was discharged while under General Magruder at Hempstead, Texas, soon after the surrender of Lee's Army. He then took up the work of the farm, and he really began life for himself at the time of his mar- riage, his personal effects then including a pony and two hound pups. With the help of his wife he devoted himself industriously to tilling the soil of a rented farm in Shelby county until 1870, when they moved to the vicinity of Montague. Their circumstances so improved with the lapse of time as to finally permit them to purchase a sandy farm. There Mr. Wheeler promoted his interest in stock, but in 1890, when the range grew scarce, he disposed of his farm and brought his stock to the Chickasaw Nation and es- tablished himself on an Indian lease within three miles of the then village of Ardmore.

Optimistic and far sighted in his views re- garding the new town Mr. Wheeler sold his stock after five years and embarked in the grocery and feed business, which he followed for eight years, and the surplus derived from that business he invested in town property. On retiring from the store he devoted him- self to the improvement of his vacant prop- erty and to the buying and selling of real

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estate. His lot on Main and B streets, seventy-five foot front and running back to the alley, is now covered by the Wheeler Block, the Adrien Hotel and other brick structures and constitutes a real estate hold- ing among the best in Ardmore, and so sitn- ated as to remain desirable for years to come. Besides this property he has improved many resident lots with cottages, and in this way has promoted the growth and prosperity of the city and has proved himself one of the successful financiers of the city. He came to Ardmore comparatively a poor man, and it is due solely to his intuitive shrewdness that the nucleus of his present fortune was planted where the march of progress could swell it into business houses and residences.

Mr. Wheeler married in July, 1866, Miss Mary, a daughter of R. T. Biggar, a farmer from Tennessee. Mrs. Wheeler died in 1898, after becoming the mother of the following children ; Walter, of Greer county, Oklahoma ; Etta, who married Alfred Woolverton and died in Ardmore, leaving a son ; Ella, who be- came the wife of A. F. Jones, of Phoenix, Arizona ; Bert, of Sedalia, Missouri; Cora, who married J. H. Carlock, of Ardmore; Oda, of New Mexico; and Jewell. In 1901 Mr. Wheeler married Della Jennings, also from Tennessee. He is a Master Mason, a Democrat in his political affiliations and has been a member of the Methodist church for a half a century.

WILLIAM P. POLAND, of Ardmore, has been identified with the business life of this city for twelve years and more, and he is num- bered among the native sons of Oklahoma, having been born in Red River county, Choctaw Nation, now McCurtain county, December 7, 1855. His father, William H. Poland, was a white man from Alabama, where his birth occurred in 1828, but he was orphaned when a boy and was brought to Texas by an uncle. Thomas Poland, who located near Marshall, and there the lad became a man and eventually crossed over into the Choctaw Nation, where he mar- ried Miss Kezzie Pitchlynn, the youngest sister of the Choctaw statesman and jurist, Hon. Peter P. Pitchlynn, who died at Washington, D. C., while representing his people as a delegate. William H. Poland's wife died in 1858, leaving her son, William P. as her only surviving heir.

Mr. Poland's grandfather, Major John Pitchlynn, was a prominent man among the

Choctaws in the days of George Washing- ton, doing active service against the Brit- ish with his people. Also in the war of 1812, and later in General Munshuletubbu's detachment of the tribe of Choctaw Indians that served on a campaign to Pensacola, commanded by Major Uriah Blue, in the years 1814-1815. Again in 1817, Major Pitchlynn was of the field and staff of a detachment of Choctaws under command of Colonel John McKee, on an expedition to Black Warrior against the Creeks. His son. Peter P. Pitchlynn, prior to the emi- gration of the Choctaws from Mississippi in 1830, to their present home in the beauti- ful Indian Territory, was sent here by the Choctaws to investigate the lands with a view of purchase, and it can be said that Mr. Poland's ancestors were the first Choctaws who set foot upon this beautiful country.

In the early '30s (1830) the Pitchlynns, Fulsoms and LaFlores, closely related fam- ilies and prominent among the Choctaws, removed from Mississippi to Indian Ter- ritory, bringing their cattle, stock and slaves with them. The traditions and trials of these early emigrants would make inter- esting reading. Mr. Poland was not old enough to be in the civil war, but his people were with the southern cause; Mr. Poland knows the conditions and wants of the Choctaw people as well as any man in the state, knows every part of the country, and is in a position to give sound advice to any- one wishing to cast their lot in this prom- ising land.

A large family of the Pitchlynns and Ful- soms came here from their old home in Mississippi. Mr. Poland's father, after his wife's death, moved across the line into Texas, taking his son with him. Mr. Po- land was there educated in the schools of Texas and later finished a commercial course in Soule College at New Orleans. In 1878 he married the daughter of Captain R. C. Garrett, an old Mexican veteran who entered the service from Tennessee when a boy of seventeen, remaining at the front until the last gun was fired in that remark- able war. Later he settled at Marshall, Tex- as, and enlisted in General Walter P. Lane's Texas Rangers and served throughout the Civil war. Shortly after his marriage, Mr. Poland returned to Indian Territory and set- tled on the Washita river at Alex in the Chickasaw Nation, he having named the

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town of Alex in 1883. He remained there for a number of years engaged in the cattle and mercantile business. In 1897 he moved to the young and growing town of Ardmore, where he engaged in the cotton exporting business. For the past few years his at- tention has been given wholly to the land business. By honesty and upright dealings he has won the confidence of all who know him. He has been the Choctaws' friend and champion, protecting them as much as pos- sible against the grafters and he has charge of a considerable block of their lands for sale. Being well up in the laws, treaties, etc., Mr. Poland knows a valid title when he sees it, and is in position to protect both seller and buyer.

Mr. Poland has three children, Robert P. Poland, who married Miss Emer Grizsby, Lucy G. Cook, who is the wife of Mr. C. H. Cook, and Raymond G. Poland, the young- er son who is not married and all residents of Ardmore, Carter county, Oklahoma.

ROBERT H. LOVE. The late Robert H. Love was one of the ablest representatives of the honored Indian family whose name has been given to the Oklahoma county of which Marietta is the seat of government. As much as any other leader of the Chicka- saw Nation, he was instrumental in nego- tiating the treaty with the Federal Govern- ment after the Civil war. His father, Henry Love, was an Irishman, and came with his Chickasaw wife from the state of Mississippi to the Indian territory when the tribe migrated westward to possess their new homes. Born near Holy Springs, that state, on the 19th of December, 1819, Robert H. Love was thirteen years of age when his family jomed the exodus, and al- though he was naturally a studious and thoughtful youth his facilities for obtaining mental improvement were extremely crude when the Chickasaws first came to the ter- ritory in 1832. He reached manhood with- out the advantages of a collegiate course, but his mind was strong, active and absor- bent and both stored and retained a won- derful amount of practical and readily avail- able knowledge. He thoroughly mastered the language of the nation and in every other way prepared himself for the useful career which he afterward followed among his mother's people. His business was that of farming and stock-raising, and he was as successful in this field as in his civil

achievements. He early participated in politics, and before the era of the Civil war was sent to the Chickasaw Legislature as a delegate from the Oil Springs district, to which his people first came when they re- moved from Mississippi.

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, Mr. Love strongly advised the Chickasaws to avoid any participation in the conflict be- tween the North and the South, saying to his people that "it was not an Indian war and no troops should be furnished either side for its prosecution." Notwithstanding his wise counsel not a few of the Chicka- saws actively aided the Confederacy, which much injured their case when the nation applied to the general government, after the war, to protect their lands against the in- cursions of white settlers. Mr. Love was one of those selected by the Chickasaw Na- tion, in 1866, to negotiate a new treaty with the Federal Government at Washington, his associates being Dr. Carter, Holmes Colbert, Edmund Pickens and George Col- bert. The deliberations of the committee lasted nearly a year and were on the whole successful, although the case of the Chicka- saws, as of the other nations, was prejudiced from the first because of their Civil War record. As further evidence of Mr. Love's foresight-throughout the Washington con- ference, he pressed upon his fellow delegates the wisdom of asking for a division of the land in severalty, stating that as there was then no outside demand for it the govern- ment would not consider it of much value and would grant the request. This proposi- tion was rejected by his colleagues, and the announcement of his policy created consider- able hostility against him at home, particu- larly among the larger class of land owners. As conditions changed and white settlers commenced to invade the territory the wis- dom of his proposal was seen by his enemies, his old-time popularity was restored, and he died secure in the confidence and affection of his nation. Up to the time of his death he also lent his strongest influence toward harmonizing the differences between the Chickasaws and the intermarried whites, which until the very formation of the new state was a source of constant friction. Mr. Love's first wife was also a full blood Chickasaw woman, so that aside from mo- tives of good state policy this would have been his natural and manly course. As an

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agriculturist, he improved farms in Adding- ton's Bend for all his children, looked after their education in Gainesville, and Paris, Texas, and in 1870 fixed his family residence in Van Buren, Arkansas. There he pur- chased much property, and there lived until his family matured and most of his children married. Toward the close of his life he returned to his territorial home, and died at Addington's Bend on the 31st of January, 1887.

For his first wife, Mr. Love married Sal- lie Love, a Chickasaw woman and an adopt- ed daughter of his brother, who bore him three children : Eugenia, wife of N. C. Decherd, of Marietta; Thomas, and Mrs. Lee King, both deceased. His second wife was Phebe Waterman, daughter of Simon and Anna (Hinman) Waterman, both na- tives of Erie county, New York, where the father passed his life as a lumberman. Mrs. Love came to the Chickasaw Nation in 1860, took a position in the government Indian schools and two years later was married to Mr. Love. The child by this union, May- belle, became the wife of J. C. Washington. The parents of Robert H. Love were Henry Love and "Mahota," a full-blood Chickasaw. Each had been married prior to this union, by which there were seven children, viz .: Henry, Isaac, Samuel, Sloan, Robert, Benja- min and Mrs. James Gaines, who all have families, and have given to Oklahoma many strong and notable persons.

WILLIAM H. THOMPSON, a resident of the town of Marietta, has for more than thirty years been prominently identified with the cattle industry of the Chickasaw Nation, now in the state of Oklahoma, and as a member of the firm of Thompson & Rose is still extensively connected with the growing and shipping of fat stock. Born in Clay county, Missouri, on the 16th of March, 1856, William Henry Thompson was brought to Cooke county, Texas, in 1860, his father, R. W. Thompson, there spending the remainder of his long life. A tract of 700 acres, which he purchased at an early day, became his home, and, like nearly all the rural settlers of that time, he engaged in the cattle business, and closed his life as a successful farmer. During the Civil war he was in the Confederate service on the frontier, attached .to Colonel Bowling's command, and at the conclusion of the Re- bellion resumed the grazing and handling of native cattle.

The grandfather of William H. emigrated from Ireland, and first located in Virginia, thence removing to Kentucky, where the father was born in 1819. The Thompsons were associates of the band of pioneers led by Daniel Boone, and while R. W. Thomp- son was still in his youth they again trans- ferred their homestead to Clay county; Mis- souri. There the son married Ella Myers, a Virginia lady, who died in Cooke county, Texas, in 1901. Their children were: Mary, who married John Hough and lives in Cad- do, Oklahoma; William H., of this sketch; J. R., of Marietta, Oklahoma; J. D., one of the leading farmers of Hereford, Texas ; George A., of Tishomingo, Oklahoma; J. W., of Portales, New Mexico; E. L., of Stonewall, Oklahoma ; C. E., of Jesse, Okla- homa ; Lillie, wife of J. R. Webb, and Lula, wife of John Anderson, both residing on the old farm in Cooke county. The father of the family died June 8, 1901, his wife sur- viving until December 12th, of the same year.

William H. Thompson obtained his book training in the schools near Dexter, Texas, and the practical experience which was to advance him in life on the ranch owned by his father. When twenty-two years of age he joined his brother, J. R., and together they established a ranch on the open prairie about five miles south of Marietta, where, in 1876, they built a log cabin on land leased of A. B. Roff. They fixed their brand "B. T." on their bunch of 400 cattle and passed fifteen years in the successful development of a business which earned them both good profits and a substantial reputation as cat- tlemen. They then disposed of their stock and spent the succeeding five years on the trail, buying in Texas and selling to ranch- men of the Indian Territory. In 1897, Mr. Thompson resumed the old-time ranch busi- ness alone, and in 1905 formed a partnership with.James E. Rose, the firm being the lead- ing shippers of stock from Marietta and also prominent as growers and grazers. More than fifty cars of hogs and 1,500 head of fat cattle are annually marketed by the firm, and personally Mr. Thompson has land in- terests in Texas and Oklahoma and prop- erty in Marietta, where he resides. On April 28, 1880, he married Miss Irena E. Collums and their children are: Beulah, wife of Al- mus Stokes, of Hart, Oklahoma ; Robert H., Claud E. and Irena, all living at home.

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

JAMES ALEXANDER MYERS, county treas- urer of Love county, was born in Walker county, Alabama, on the 16th of October, 1843, and his father, Washington Myers, was born in Georgia, March 14, 1820. and when a young man went to Walker county, Alabama, passing the remainder of his life there. He died November 28, 1868. The paternal grandfather, John Myers, came from North Carolina, and, like his son, was a farmer of modest means and a man of small pretentions. Washington Myers married Nicy Price, in January, 1840. She was born in Walker county, Alabama, May 7, 1824, and still survives (aged eighty-five). and resides among her sons in Texas and Oklahoma. The children born to this union were: James A., of this notice; Houston, who was killed while in the Confederate service ; Joseph L., of Travis county, Texas ; W. Robinson, of Knox county, that state ; George W., of Florence, Arizona; Elijah L., of McAlester, Oklahoma; Thomas, of Scip- io, Oklahoma; Felix M., of Iowa Park, Tex- as; B. E., of Hill county, same state, and D. T. Myers, who removed to the state of Washington about 1879, and trace of whom has been lost.

James A .. Myers enjoyed only a country school education, and while still a youth en listed in the army of the Confederacy as a member of Company C, Nineteenth Alaba- ma Infantry, Joseph Wheeler being his col- onel, with General Weathers as division and General Pope as corps commander. His first engagement was at Shiloh, and he was wounded in the knee, somewhat pain- fully, at Corinth. Rejoining his company, he was with Bragg's army in its invasion of Kentucky, was in the battles of Murfrees- boro and Chickamauga, and participated in the Atlanta campaign. He was wounded on the 28th of July, within two inches of his first injury, and disabled for service for the remainder of the war. After recuperating, he again engaged in farming, and a few years after the war removed from his old home in Walker county, Alabama, to Pon- totoc county, Mississippi. In 1873 he lo- cated in Hill county, Texas, where he pur- chased land at from three to eight dollars an acre, and was finally driven out of that part of the state by the severe drouths. He came into the Chickasaw Nation in 1887, locating six miles east of the site of Mar- ietta, where he farmed on leased Indian lands until his advent to Marietta in 1894,

when he engaged in the hotel business. In a political way, Mr. Myers has always been identified with the Democratic party, and while a resident of Hill county, Texas, in- fluenced its local well-being in many ways. He was nominated for treasurer of Love county in the face of considerable competi- tion, but was elected over his Socialistic opponent by a vote of 1,200 against 86.

October 13, 1864, Mr. Myers married Sarah Ann Rice, who was born in Walker county, Alabama, March 1, 1842, a daughter of James and Huldah (Cannon) Rice. The father, born in Georgia, April 7, 1797, and the mother in Tennessee, September 15, 1804. They were the parents of James P., George R., Melissa, R. J., who married Ro- bert Burton, Elias, John, Mary E., married to David Maroney, Elijah J., Green S., Eli T., Doctor T. and Sarah Ann, who married Jas. A. Myers. Mr. and Mrs. Myers are the parents of an only child, Mahala, who is the wife of Joseph T. Coody, of Marlow, and the mother of Edward, Oma, Grover, Ellis, Ray and Jo Cecil Coody. Mr. Myers is a Chapter Mason, a Baptist, and alto- gether a man of pronounced worth and use- fulness.

NATHAN GREEN DECHERD, a large property owner of Marietta, and one of the early and substantial settlers of Love county, is a native of Franklin county, Tennessee, where he was born on the 29th of July, 1844. His European forefathers were Germans and his American ancestors colonial settlers of Vir- ginia, the Decherd's Rifles being a military organization which participated in the war of the Revolution. Mr. Decherd's father was a Virginian, who went to Tennessee when a young man, married there, became a wealthy planter and, in 1854, when the boy was ten years old, transported his es- tablishment by wagon to McLennan county, Texas, and in 1860 to a more favorable lo- cation for his farming operations at White River, near Des Arc, Arkansas. The coun- try schools of Texas and Arkansas, there- fore, provided Nathan G. Decherd with his education, and in 1864, then twenty years of age, he enlisted in Fagan's division of the Confederate army. He was made Colonel Crawford's orderly, his superior command- ing a regiment of Arkansas troops. Mr. Decherd's chief service was performed dur- ing Price's last raid into Missouri, when he participated in the twenty-seven days of incessant marching and fighting; but the

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Confederates were driven back by the Fed- eral troops into the Indian Territory, and the command to which he was attached was furloughed home without the formality of a written order, which terminated Mr. Dech- erd's military career. The war left the fam- ily without means and Mr. Decherd returned to farming pursuits. In 1881 he left Arkan- sas, came to the Chickasaw Nation and ac- tively identified himself with his wife's peo- ple, having ten years before married a daugh- ter of Robert H. Love, of the widely-known Chickasaw family by that name. He located in Addington's Bend on the Red River, im- proved a farm, entered the cattle business, and resided there until 1905. He then lo- cated in Marietta, where he owns much property and whence he supervises the culti- vation of his family allotments in the Bend.

Peter S. Decherd, the father, was born in Abingdon, Virginia, January S. 1808, but when a young man went to Franklin county, Tennessee and married in that state. He had been liberally educated and admitted to the practice of the law, but early in life abandoned his professional ambitions and became a planter. In the latter calling he acquired a large estate, including many slaves, and aside from the operations of his large plantation handled many business propositions. Among the latter was the con- tract for grading a portion of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, Decherd's Station on that road being located on his farm. In 1854, Mr. Decherd migrated from Tennes- see, and while passing through the country with his train of nineteen wagons, which bore his family, slaves and personal prop- erty, naturally attracted considerable atten- tion. He settled in McLennan county, Tex- as, on the Brazos bottoms, but as the dry climate of the locality was not favorable to farming, in 1860 he removed his establish- ment to White River, near Des Arc, Arkan- sas, and later to Van Buren, Arkansas, where he died in 1879. His experience, training and interests were all southern ; he furnished several sons to the Confederate service, and during the war refugeed back into Anderson county, Texas, in an effort to save his slaves from being run off by the Federals. While residing in Palestine his wife died, and is there buried. Returning to Arkansas at the close of the war, he main- tained himself as a farmer until his death. Although having no formal connection with a religious sect. the deceased thoroughly be-

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 30

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.) Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 810

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 810