USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II > Part 31
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lieved in the good work performed by the churches generally, reverently acknow- ledged a Supreme Being, and passed from the world at peace with all. For his wife, Peter S. Decherd married Frances H. Hold- er, daughter of John W. Holder, a success- ful planter and a man of means, formerly from Kentucky, where his wife was born. She died October 28, 1867, at the age of fifty- eight, the mother of the following: Benja- min, who died at Van Buren, Arkansas, a prominent lawyer and ex-Confederate sol- dier ; Dr. John H., who was a distinguished physician in Arkansas, until, his health fail- ing, he joined Nathan G. in Oklahoma, where he died in 1905; Catherine, wife of Dr. W. T. Black, of Alma, Arkansas ; Sophia A., widow of Samuel Black ; Lou, deceased, who married Effort B. Friend, also of Alma, Arkansas; Richard M., a Confederate sol- dier, who died at Van Buren, Arkansas; Jennie Penn, wife of J. A. Oakes, of Love county ; Corydon E., who died in Alma, Arkansas, and Nathan G., of this review. On March 15, 1871, Nathan G. Decherd mar- ried Eugenia, daughter of Robert H. Love, one of the leading characters of the Chicka- saws, whose biography is elsewhere pub- lished. Mrs. Decherd's mother was Sallie Love, a full-blood Chickasaw, born at Holly Springs, Mississippi, in the year 1825, and died at Oil Springs, Oklahoma, June 19, 1862. The other two children, Thomas and Mrs. Lee King, are deceased and buried in the cemetery of the Love family at the Springs. Mrs. Decherd received her edu- cation in Gainesville and Sherman, finishing in Paris, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Decherd had one daughter, Mahota, named for her grand- mother, who was born October 13, 1812, and died February 6, 1892. She was a womanly girl, bright, talented and ambitious, and was taken away from a life of much promise and usefulness. The Mahota Memorial church at Marietta was erected by her parents to her memory, and presented to the Presbyter- ian congregation. Both parents are earnest members of the Methodist Church at Mar- ietta, which had a good church, this being the reason of Mr. Decherd's present of the Memorial church to the Presbyterian con- gregation.
GEORGE A. STARRITT, of Marietta, is among the early white settlers of Love county and is also among its large and prosperous land owners. He is a son of Anderson and Nan-
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cy (Greer) Starritt, the parents of whom left Buncombe county, North Carolina, and Barnesville, Ohio, and brought their families to Lawrence county, Missouri. There were reared the North Carolina boy and the Ohio girl, and there they met and married. In 1851 they joined a party bound for the gold fields of California, crossing the plains and driving through a herd of cattle with other members of the train. Stopping in the Stockton valley, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson Starritt founded a home, the husband en- gaging there in the cattle business, with farm- ing as a side issue. While residing in this beau- tiful valley of California, on the 2nd of Oc- tober, 1859, was born their second child, George A. Starritt, of this sketch. The fam- ily remained in the Golden State for ten years, returning to their Missouri home in 1861. In that year the husband enlisted in the Federal army, joining the Fifteenth Mis- souri Cavalry, and served with that com- mand through the Civil war. At the con- clusion of the Rebellion he returned to his farm, upon which he died in 1872. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Starritt took her family to Texas, and, after residing in Cooke county for five years, removed to the Chick- asaw Nation, her final home. There she died in 1886, seeing most of her children grown to maturity, as follows: George A., of this review ; Alexander, now a resident of North Yakima, Washington; Elmira, wife of Abe Burtram, of Hagar, Oklahoma; Thomas A., of Ada, that state; and Mary, who married Thomas Tramble, of Shawnee, Oklahoma.
George A. Starritt was about thirteen years of age when his widowed mother re- moved with her family to Cooke county, Texas, and eighteen when the homestead was transferred to the Chickasaw Nation. Under the circumstances he secured alto- gether but a few months' schooling, al- though by the time he entered the Indian country he was skilled in everything which relates to the life of a cowboy. The family first settled on Overton Bend, near Willis, and there George A. found employment for years as a cattle "rustler" and in the super- intendence of the land leased from the na- tives upon which was conducted rather mod- est agricultural operations. In June, 1885, he married Mattie Forest Askew, daughter of Mearl and Eliza Askew, citizens of the Choctaw Nation, and the issue of the union are Steadman, Clemmie, Sidney, Charles and
Thomas. He remained with his family at Overton Bend, near the locality of his first settlement, until 1900, when he removed to Marietta that his children might enjoy the public school advantages of the place. He allotted his lands in Love county, near Mar- ietta, the old neighborhood where he mar- ried and brought up most of his children, and, save for a tract of 620 acres near Ada, the family is in possession of 1,800 acres in a body. In politics, Mr. Starritt is a Repub- lican, was interested in the organization of the party in Love county, and has been mod- estly active in promoting its advancement. On the approach of statehood he was a dele- gate to the Tulsa and Oklahoma City con- ventions, and other strong evidences might be advanced of his substantial and honor- able standing in the community.
WILLIAM ANDREW CULWELL, president of the Marietta National Bank, was for twen- ty-seven years a large figure in the agricul- tural and stock interests of Love county, and is still the owner of a considerable acre- age near Burneyville, the management of which is one of the important features of his complex affairs. It was during the days of the republic of Texas that the grand- father, Hezekiah Culwell, came from Arkan- sas with his family and founded a home in Parker county, which was then on the very fringe of civilization. Amid frontier sur- roundings, with cowboys and Indians. Joshua Culwell, one of the sons, developed from boyhood to manhood, married, fought the battles of the Confederacy with bravery born of conviction, and after the Civil War was over, returned to the farm and the ranch where he has since remained. He is still a firm Democrat, is a Master Mason and a good man, husband, father and citi- zen. His wife is a native of DeKalb county, Missouri, and was known before her mar- riage as Poll Ann McMahan. The issue of the union of Joshua and Mary Culwell are : William A., of this review : Mary E., who married Robert Gibson and died in Parker county, Texas; James, and John, who died at Burneyville, Indian Territory, now Love county, Oklahoma; Thomas, a resident of Love county ; Charles C., of Tom Green county, Texas; Wesley and Presley, twins, the former of Parker county, and the latter deceased ; Frank and Robert, twins; and Fannie, now Mrs. Walter Hudson.
William A. Culwell obtained but a mea- ger education in the schools of his home
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community of Parker county, Texas, and remained at home until his marriage in 1877. He then ventured as a modest inde- pendent farmer, and within the following four years saved perhaps a thousand dollars. In 1881, with this small capital, he trans- ferred his residence to the Chickasaw Na- tion, and engaged in selling goods at Bur- neyville, the firm being Culwell Brothers. The enterprise was a success and, after ac- quiring other interests in the locality, he sold the store and devoted himself to agri- cultural and live stock operations. He first leased about 2,000 acres of land from W. B. Burney, and sublet it to such advantage that the results put him far on the road to prominence as one of the largest farmers in the district. His cattle business also de- veloped from modest proportions until it made him one of the largest handlers and feeders in Burneyville, at the height of his prosperity in that line his pasture em- bracing ten sections of land near Cornish, Jefferson county. In 1908 he closed out his leases, but he has become the owner of a considerable acreage by purchase near Burneyville, which he manages with char- acteristic energy and success. In January, 1908, he purchased an interest in the Mar- ietta National Bank, succeeding J. C. Wash- ington as its president. In the fraternal circles he is a Mason of high rank, be- longing to the blue lodge at Burneyville, the Marietta Chapter and the Gainesville Commandery; is also identified with Odd Fellowship and the W. O. W. He is a Democrat, but has never aspired to be more than an intelligent voter, the development of his large private interests and its reflex action on the growth of the com- munities of which he has become a resident giving him a lasting claim to distinction, without a participation either in politics or public affairs. On April 24, 1871, Mr. Culwell married Annie Graham, daughter of John W. Graham, who was a native of Illinois, and emigrated, first, to Arkansas, and, in 1845, to Parker county, Texas. Springtown, that state, has been his home for years, and he has there conducted a modest but profitable farm. He served in the Confederate army, and reared ten children, born to him by his wife, nee Nancy Doake, who died in 1902. The chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Culwell are Burney, a daughter, and "Dr. Dym" Cul- well.
ALEXIS EDDLEMAN, of the law firm of Eddleman & Graham, of Marietta, Love county, is a leading lawyer and Democrat, and from the time of his advent to Okla- homa, in 1890, until the attainment of state- hood, in 1907, was among the most active promoters of territorial interests and advo- cates of an unrestricted commonwealth. He is a native of Rockwall county, Texas, and was born on the 23d of April, 1856. His ancestors were German, the great-grand- father being born on shipboard while the founders of the family were migrating to the United States from the Fatherland. James, the grandfather, one of three sons, married Cynthia Douhitt, whose father set- tled in Kentucky as a pioneer with Daniel Boone. Their son. James P. Eddleman, was of a family consisting of seven sons and three daughters, and was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, in 1829. He accompan- ied his parents to Tipton, Mo., where his father died and where his six brothers and three sisters were reared. The father came to Texas in 1852, where, as stated, Alexis Eddleman was born four years later.
Mr. Eddleman completed his education in the Christian College, at Bonham, Texas, and in 1877 began his law studies, aban- doning them the following year, in order to engage in merchandising. With the fail- ure of his business venture, he resumed his professional studies under the precep- torship of Potter & Potter, at Gainesville. He was admitted to the Texas bar in 1880, before Judge J. A. Carroll, and tried his first cases in Cooke county. The general prac- tice of the law has since engaged his at- tention, and mention of a few noteworthy cases in which he has been engaged will not be out of place. The suit of Clark versus the G., C. & S. F. Railway was one for damages against that corporation, which by the building of jetties to protect its own property, had changed the current of the river and caused three farms to be washed away on the east bank of the Canadian river, at Purcell. Mr. Eddleman and J. F. Sharp represented Mr. Clark and won his case in the lower court. It was affirmed in the Indian Territory Court of Appeals, but was reversed in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. The trial had been for the loss of one of the three farms, and a second suit was commenced, which, by agreement between the two parties, was made a test case. The judicial proceeding resulted as
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in the first trial, and the issue is still un- settled. A case of more importance to Ard- more grew out of the incorporation of the city, in which Mr. Eddleman was a par- ticipant. Some of the taxpayers enjoined the collection of taxes, but Mr. Eddieman, employed by the city, assisted City Attor- ney Graham, and secured the advancement of the city from the second to the first class, under the Arkansas statutes, and not only ended the injunction proceedings, but placed Ardmore on a basis where its growth could not be impeded, at least by judicial processes. Quite a famous murder case de- fended by the firm of Eddleman & Graham was that of Lish Bradburn, of Cornish. The first verdict was that of manslaughter, with a ten-years' sentence, but that judgment was reversed in a higher court and, at the re-trial, the defendant was convicted of a lesser crime and his sentence reduced 10 five years, with credit for the time served under the first conviction. The Jim Cum- mings seduction case was one which result- ed in a fierce legal battle, yet the case wa. handled so adroitly that a verdict of ac- quittal was rendered. Mr. Eddleman wrote the pioneer deed of assignment under In- dian Territory practice, by which debtors were finally released after making assign- ment, instead of being held for the balance due the unpreferred creditors. Ever since his coming to Oklahoma, September 1, 1890, he has been a deep student and an active agent in the reformation of the prevailing laws of the commonwealth, as well as an earnest and forceful advocate of statehood. In No- vember, 1905, he was a leader in the dele- gation which went to Washington in the interest of single statehood, and was, there- fore, deeply gratified when Congress, at that session, passed the Enabling Act and cleared away the most serious preliminaries to the event of November 16, 1907. In that year he was a Democratic candidate for the nom- ination of district judge, but was defeated. Mr. Eddleman is one of the most prom- inent Masons in Oklahoma, having been master of Ardmore lodge three terms ; dep- uty grand master of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory when the two grand bodies merged into the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma, and in the new or- ganization was elected senior grand warden ; was a trustee of the Masonic Orphans' Home Fund of Indian Territory, from its creation by the order until his resignation Vol. II-11.
at the Grand Lodge meeting in August, 1908, and belongs to the chapter. com- mandery and Shrine. He removed from Ardmore to Marietta in February, 1908, and is a member of the Christian church of that place.
James P. Eddleman, the father, married Eveline Shaw, of Texas, in 1855. She was a daughter of Sebron Shaw, of Kentucky birth, but who lived among the Mormons at Nauvoo, Illinois, and participated in the troublous episodes of that period and as- sisted in driving the Mormons from the state. Mrs. Eddieman died in Denton coun- ty, Texas, in 1867, the mother of Alexis and Eldon H. For his second wife, James P. Eddleman married Bettin Crawford, and their children were O. T. Eddleman, of Du- rant, Oklahoma; Mattie, wife of Edward Ralls, of Ada, that state; Bertie, who mar- ried Paul Van Horn, and Lee Eddleman, all of Ada, Oklahoma, where the father also resides. In his active life Mr. Eddleman was an active farmer. He left the family home, at Tipton, Missouri, in 1852, when he was twenty-three years of age, and came to Collin county, Texas, where he married his first wife three years later. While a resident of Texas he fought for the Con- federacy, and in 1902 came to Ada, Okla- homa, his present residence. Alexis Eddle- man, his son by the first marriage, was him- self married in Gainesville, Texas, on the 4th of June, 1884, to Miss Mizzie Horne, who died in 1887, the mother of Irene, Verna and Alexis E. At Whitewright, Texas, on the 4th of March, 1901, he wedded for his second wife, Miss Laura Morgan, and they have become the parents of Mor- gan and James Clinton.
FRANK M. CULWELL, of the real estate and insurance firm of Butler, Smith & Co., and for some years identified with the mer- cantile interests of Marietta, was born in Parker county, Texas, on the 1st of October, 1880, and reached maturity on the farm of his father, Joshua Culwell, mentioned else- where in this work.
Mr. Culwell obtained his education in the country schools of his native county, left home at the age of eighteen, and located in the Chickasaw Nation. At Burneyville he became a clerk in the store of his brother. William A. Culwell, now at the head of the Marietta National Bank. In 1901 he came to Marietta and obtained a clerkship with the mercantile firm of J. R. Holland & Co.
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He remained there for two years and, with S. Westheimer in the same capacity three years, and then engaged in the grocery business for a time. In February, 1908, he purchased an interest in the firm of Butler, Smith & Co., in which he remained until March 1, 1909, when he sold his interest and independent business in the same line, and besides his active participation in the development of its business, he owns farm lands in the county and is a stockholder in the Marietta National Bank.
On June 14, 1906, Mr. Culwell was mar- ried in Marietta to Josephine, a daughter of Judge Overton Love, one of the first men of the county, and in honor of whose family the county received its name. Mrs. Culwell was born in Love county, and is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. Mr. Culwell is a Master Mason, a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Elks lodge of Ardmore. He is a Democrat in politics, and one of the most promising young business men and citizens of the city and county.
JAMES E. ROSE, of the prominent stock and ranching firm of Thompson & Rose, Mari- etta, is a representative of one of the pioneer families of Cooke county, Texas, and also one of the first to become identified with the cattle industry of the Chickasaw coun- try. His father, Thomas Rose, was a native of Illinois, who left home permanently when a youth of eighteen, was a figure in the Re- public of Mexico and the Mexican war, and from 1849 to his death, in 1896, prosecuted his large cattle interests in Sivell's Bend, on the Red river, Cooke county. There was born James E. Rose, on the 20th of May, 1857, and although both his education and his training were primitive they produced a hardy youth and man. At the age of fourteen he left the little log school house at Sivell's Bend forever, and devoted his entire energy to the work of being a first- class cowboy for his father's herds, which were ranging over into the territory of the Chickasaw Nation. At the age of twen- tv-one he became an independent operator, and adopted as his brand, three parallel strips. When forced to pay for pasturage he rented land of the Chickasaws at twenty- five cents an acre, and eventually he became, like his father, one of the most extensive growers of stock in the country. While alone he handled from 1.000 to 1,200 fat cattle annually and the firm of which he is the junior partner does an equal busi-
ness. Mr. Rose owns a ranch eight miles west of Marietta, besides the old home in Sivell's Bend of more than 500 acres. He has built himself one of the most commodi- ous and attractive homes in the city, and occupies a most substantial and honorable station in the community and the county.
Thomas Rose, the father, left his Illinois home about 1840, at the age of eighteen, and from that time all communication ceased with his family. The youth made his way to the republic of Mexico, first locating in Fannin county. In 1846 he joined General Scott's forces in the Mexican war, serving in a regiment which was immediately un- der General Taylor. He fought in the bat- tle of Monterey and other engagements which led to the capture of Santa Ana and the reduction of the Rio Grande country. Soon after his return to Texas he located in Sivell's Bend, on Red river, Cooke county, where he resided for about forty-seven years, or until his death in 1896. The first quarter of a century of his stay there was replete with trouble and insecurity, for which condition both undesirable white men and raiding Indians were about equally responsible. In 1876, the red man made his last raid south of the Red river, and only three families braved the dangers in Sivell's Bend, one of them being the family of Thomas Rose. Engaging in the cattle busi- ness, Mr. Rose prosecuted his enterprise on the cheap land which he bought at an early day, on leased land on the free pasturage of the Chickasaw Nation, until forbidden by Chief Overton to graze in that territory without permission from Indian authority. His well-known brand was "R," and he was one of the cattle kings of the region at the height of his success. He sold his stock and brand to a Kansas ranchman eventually and closed his active life as a farmer, leaving a large estate at the time of his death when eighty-four years of age. In his religious belief the deceased was a Methodist. Thomas Rose married Elizabeth Cohee in Arkansas, his wife dying in Marietta in 1904, the mother of Benton, who died in Texas leaving a family: James E., of this review : Jennie and Jeff, both of Davis, Ok- lahoma.
On October 19, 1882, James E. Rose mar- ried Fannie Thornton, daughter of Green Thornton, an early settler from Alabama, who located near Fort Worth, where Mrs. Rose was born. The children of the mar-
Mas Derrick
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riage are as follows: Jessie, wife of Will Riley, of Marietta ; Thomas, deceased ; James, Martha and Frances.
REV. WILLIAM STEWARD DERRICK, presi- dent of the Madill National Bank, Marshall county, was identified with the religious and educational progress of the Indian territory for nearly three decades, and is now the oldest surviving member of the Oklahoma South Methodist Episcopal Conference, be- ing still under "marching orders" should an emergency in church affairs require his further services. He is of the church militant in the best sense of the expression and his Civil war experience which directly led him to the work of the ministry is most significant. Born in Benton county, Mis- souri, on the 22nd of December, 1847, Mr. Derrick is a son of Harvey and Caroline (Feaster) Derrick, who settled in that coun- ty as pioneers from Tennessee. The parents were identified with agriculture in Missouri and Arkansas until late in life, when, with their children, they removed to Coke coun- ty, Texas, where they died within two years of each other, aged eighty-three years.
William S. Derrick was a student in the common schools of Missouri, when, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the Federal service, joining Captain William C. Mont- gomery's company of light. artillery (Col- onel. Cole's regiment). During the Civil war he participated in the campaigns con- ducted through Missouri and Arkansas, and in the spring of 1865 his company, with an- other portion of the regiment, was sent up the Missouri river to Omaha, and thence marched into the country of the warring Sioux and Cheyennes. The Union force pursued and fought the hostile Indians in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and Idaho, and toward the approach of winter, hampered by short rations and as- sailing savages, returned to Omaha. In November of that year (1865) the soldiers reached St. Louis by boat, and were there honorably mustered out of service at Benton Barracks, November 20, 1865. Mr. Derrick then returned to the home farm in Missouri, and while engaged in the work connected with that life decided to devote himself to missionary work. After four years of theu- logical training under the auspices of the Methodist church he sold his little farm in Benton county, Arkansas, where he was then living, and purchased property a1 Southwest City, making that place his
headquarters while arranging to conduct missionary work among the very race against which he had fought many a fierce engagement. Joining the Indian Mission Conference, in 1873, Rev. Derrick was sent into the Cherokee country by the Methodist Episcopal Church South. He was a strang- er to the native language and was obliged to preach to the Cherokees through an in- terpreter, laboring under the same difficulty with the other tribes among which he worked. Eventually he made his headquar- ters at Vinita, now Craig county, but in 1880, when he was sent into the Creek and Seminole Nations, he resided at Okmulgee. His work in the field was so effective that his church appointed him presiding elder of those nations and of that portion of the Cherokee Nation south of the Arkansas river. In 1881 he accepted from the Semi- nole Nation a mission school erected for the Southern Baptists, who had failed to take charge of it. In behalf of his church, Mr. Derrick established a school of forty pupils in this building, which, in connec- tion with his missionary work, he superin- tended for about four years. Leaving this field, after four years of useful work, he was transferred to the Chickasaw Nation, or- ganizing a pastoral charge and school at Cedar Grove (now near Francis, Oklahoma), the school was called Rosebud. At the re- quest of the native church he also went to Stonewall, where he conducted a school for a year, preaching at the same time. Under appointment from Governor William L. Byrd he then served as superintendent of the Chickasaw Orphan Home, at Lebanon, and although it was re-let at the end of that time by the Chickasaw legislature, by suc- cessive re-appointments he held the posi- tion for two other terms of five years each, receiving his reappointments under Gover- nors Byrd, Mosley and Johnston. He, therefore, served this institution for thir- teen years, making it one of the best of its kind in the southwest. The Lebanon school was conducted on practical lines, having not only a prescribed curriculum, including mathematics of the higher grades and Latin, but an agricultural department wherein was taught elementary and practical farming, and a military feature as seen in the uni- forming and drilling of the boys.
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