A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 46

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

USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II > Part 46

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Aside from his school duties in Harts- horne. Mr. Christian took an active interest in municipal affairs. For several years he served as recorder and one year as mayor, and in all official duty he proved to be an energetic worker and practical counselor. his familiarity with legal matters making him of especial value to the city. His ad-

ministration as mayor was successful, and especially so financially, for nothwithstand- ing the improvements inaugurated, and completed, the city and schools at the close of the term of office were free from debt and had money in the treasury, and Harts- horne was advanced to the position of a city of the first class. In 1905, Mr. Christian accepted the superintendency of the Harts- horne public schools which position he held until he entered upon the duties as Super- intendent of public instruction of Pittsburg county, and as he assumed his duties with the officials of the new state he organized the school system throughout. The first year of his term was largely occupied in the organization of school districts and the in- struction of their officers.

Mr. Christian was married in Missouri to Miss Emma E. Smith who was born in Franklin county, Missouri, November 22, 1820. They have four children : Ruby E., born in Vernon county, Missouri, February 2, 1892, and is now engaged in teaching in Pittsburg county public schools ; Bonnie L., born in Hartshorne, Indian Territory, Sep- tember 13, 1897 ; Vivian A., born in Harts- horne, Indian Territory, October 23, 1899; William Lewis, born in Hartshorne, Indian Territory, August 11, 1905. Although Mr. Christian's official duties require his pres- ence in McAlester a greater portion of the time, his home is still in Hartshorne, where his most important work in Oklahoma as an educator has been accomplished.

Fraternally, Mr. Christian is a charter member of subordinate order No. 213, A. H. T. A. of Hartshorne, and a charter member of Camp No. 7071, Modern Woodmen of America, of Hartshorne, and served seven years as clerk of the camp. He is also a ' member of the I. O. O. F., both subordi- nate and Encampment. He is a member of the Baptist church, and politically has al- ways been a Democrat.

JAMES S. ARNOTE, long an active attorney and influential in the affairs of the Choctaw Nation and since the admission of Okla- homa as a state one of the substantial build- ers of Pittsburg county, James S. Arnote, of McAlester, has been a resident of this section of the state since September, 1891. He is a native of Mercer county, Missouri, where he was born in December. 1868, his family being among the pioneers of the county named and the family was first estab-

241

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

lished by Adam Arnote, the grandfather of James S., in Ray county, Missouri. The ancestor named was a native of Tennessee where he was born, January 20, 1805, and became the father of eight children, of whom the following reached maturity, namely, William ; Allen ; Kate ; John, of Ray county, Missouri; Andrew, of the state of Oklaho- ma; Mary, who married R. Albright, and died in Missouri. These children were reared on the old Missouri homestead in Ray county, upon which both parents passed their last years. William Arnote, their eld- est child, was born in Tennessee but was reared in Ray county, Missouri, where he passed his early life and assisted his fa- ther on the farm, finally entering the service of the Union Army in the Civil war. He afterward removed to Mercer county. Mis- souri, where he married Eliza Owen, daughter of the pioneer John Owen, and in that locality reared a large family. His children were Joseph A. and John A., now residents of Mercer county, Missouri; James S., of this sketch ; Andrew J., of Ant- lers, Oklahoma, and at present county at- torney ; Mary J., now Mrs. Sherman Woods, of Mercer county, Missouri; Edgar R. of Rusk, Oklahoma; Elvie C., who lives in Mercer county, Missouri, and Allie V., who married Henry Hill, also a resident of that county.

James S. Arnote passed his early life on the old home farm and after obtaining what education was possible from the neighbor- ing schools he became a student at the Kirksville, Missouri, normal school, in which he completed a full two years course and lacked only Latin of finishing the reg- ular curriculum. In order to acquire this higher education he was obliged to practice the strictest economy and also to seek em- ployment while pursuing his normal course. He entered the Kirksville school with $160 which he had saved and this sufficed him for the first year. He afterwards replenished his purse by teaching school and thus when he was prepared to adopt that as a pro- fession, he had enjoyed considerable prac- tical experience. After leaving normal school he engaged for some time in teaching in Mercer, Caldwell and Clinton counties, but engaged in the work only as a stepping stone to his preparaton for the work of his chosen profession. In June, 1891. he grad- tiated from the law department of the North- Vol. II-16.

ern Indiana Normal School, now the Valpa- raiso University of Valparaiso, Indiana, with the degree of LL. B., and was at once admitted to practice before Judge Johnston, of the state circuit court, and also before the supreme court of Indiana. He was al- so licensed by Judge Burgess, who is now judge of the supreme court, then of the Missouri circuit court, to practice in that state, and when Mr. Arnote located at Mc- Alester in September, 1891, he was admit- ted to the bar of the Indian Territory before Judge Shackelford. At first he established himself in independent practice but subse- quently associated himself with Preston S. Lester, the style of the partnership be- ing Lester and Arnote. Later he formed a partnership with attorney Eubanks, as Ar- note and Eubanks, and still later formed a connection with J. E. Bain, under the name of Arnote and Bain, which relation was terminated in February, 1908. Mr. Arnote later was associated with Carl Monk, under the firm name of Arnote and Monk.

In the practice of his profession Mr. Ar- note has necessarily covered the field of gen- eral law and all of his work has been char- acterized by earnestness, faithfulness and ability. His practice has been extended among the native people of the Choctaw Na- tion and so well and successfully has he served them that he has obtained wide pop- ularity and universal respect. In a business way he is one of the most substantal men of McAlester, owning both an attractive home on Washington street and consider- able business property. In the latter class are the Arnote buildings on First street and Grand aventte, the latter building being the location of the postoffice. Mr. Arnote is al- so a leading director of the City National Bank of McAlester, has served in the city council and generally taken an active part in the politics of the county. He was a lead- ing speaker in the campaign for statehood and a Republican candidate for delegate to the Constitution convention, but as his par- ty was in the minority, he was of course defeated for that position. In the fraterni- ties he is a thirty-second degree Mason, be- longing to the chapter and Scottish Rite. He is also identified with the W. O. W. and belongs to the Encampment of Odd Fel- lows, having represented that order in the , grand lodge.

242

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

On November 6, 1900, Mr. Arnote was married in Mercer county, Missouri, to Miss Stella Rock, daughter of Joshua and Aman- da (Thompson) Rock, her father being reared in Kentucky where he spent many years as a successful farmer and merchant. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Rock were : Walter, a resident of Denver, Colorado; Hattie, who married Lee H. Bussell and died in Harrison county, Missouri, and Stel- la, Mrs. James S. Arnote, who was born in Mercer county, Missouri, January 12, 1876. Both of her parents are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Arnote have one child: Walter James Arnote, born January 19, 1905.

JOHN P. CONNORS, of Canadian, chairman of the State Board of Agriculture and ex- officio a member of many of the penal and charitable institutions of Oklahoma, has passed many years of his life within the borders of the state and during the whole period has been identified with practical ag- riculture. This record, combined with his high citizenship was the main consideration which determined his appointment as the executive head of the agricultural board of the new state. The year of Judge Con- nors' advent to the new state was 1881, and was the conclusion of a few months of mi- gratory life spent in Louisiana and Texas in which he was a contractor at Monroe, in the former state, and at Ft. Worth, in the latter. His stay with a firm of bridge con- tractors in Louisiana was brief and he con- tinued to the west, becoming a brick con- tractor in the metropolis of the Lone Star state. Attracted to the Choctaw Nation in the early eighties, he began his connection with the future state as an employe of the Teoc Lumber Company at McAlester.

When he left McAlester the way seemed open to him for a career of ranching and farming and he combined these callings in Gaines county, Choctaw Nation. When he finally located he found himself in Tobuck- sy county and became not only conspicu- ous as a stockman there, but was drawn into the politics of the county and gave to his adopted home a service that was sincere and efficient and which brought him addi- tional strength and influence among a peo- ple who had already given him their full confidence and support. In 1893 he moved to the valley in which his home is now sit- uated, almost adjoining the town of Cana-

dian, where his allotments were largely tak- en and chief work of his years as a farm- er has been conducted. His possessions are more in the nature of a plantation than a ranch, and his family estate embraces sev- eral hundred acres of land upon which more than a score of tenants make their homes.

Judge Connors was born in St. Louis, Missouri, January 25, 1857. Several years before his parents had settled there as Irish emigrants from county Tipperary, where both John Connors and Ann Eagan (his wife) were born. The father's birth occur- red in 1827, and his death in St. Louis, in 1895, the mother still residing in that city at the age of seventy-one years. The children of their union were: John P., of this notice ; Mary, wife of a Mr. Donnelly, of St. Louis ; and Patrick of the same place; Annie, who is identified with St. John's Hospital, of that city ; Michael, of Ft. Collins, Colorado, who is in the brick business in the Poudre valley; Miss Alice, a teacher in St. Louis, and Edward Connors of Oakland, Califor- nia. The schools accessible to the family when he was a youth were such as to en- able Judge Connors to acquire the foun- dation for a fair education. The varied business experience of a quarter of a century and the information gained by several years of service in important public offices among his people furnished him a wide range of opportunity for real education and the event of statehood found him equipped with ca- pacity for service in any position the state administration might see fit to place him. His initial experience as a public official was as clerk and judge of Tobucksy county un- der the Choctaw government, in both of which offices he acquitted himself with en- ergy and good judgment. As chairman of the state board of agriculture, he com- menced his official labors with the creation of the commonwealth. While the office he fills was established by the framers of the constitution, the first legislature placed him on many of the boards which it created, among them being the School Land Board, State Banking Board, State Board of Equal- ization, Board of Prison Control, State Board of Pardons, Board of Regents of the Agricultural College and the School of Mines. The work of these various bodies is increasing in responsibility with the pass- ing of the formative period of statehood and the chairman of the state board of agri-

243

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

culture was an especially busy man during the Haskell administration and the re-ad- justment of the state departments.

Judge Connors is also a writer on political, humorous and agricultural subjects, and has in preparation a history of the Choctaw peo- ple that is intended to truthfully portray the remarkable progress of this people, despite the well-meaning but misguided guardian- ship of the federal government.

In 1882 Judge Connors married Miss Fan- nie Anderson, a daughter of Daniel Ander- son, who was one of several brothers who were leading farmers and natives of the Choctaw Nation. Mr. Anderson wasa stock man of Mississippi birth, his father being a white man and his mother a Choc- taw woman. Mrs. Connors was born in the Choctaw country and died in 1894. The children to her union with Judge Connors were Ed, of Quinton, Oklahoma ; Daniel, of Shawnee, and Misses Cora and Fannie. Judge Connors was married the second time to Mrs. Aran Cook, daughter of Benjamin Jones, a Choctaw, whose wife was a Chero- kee Indian. The issue of this marriage is William, J. B., Annie, Pat, Mike, Aran, Ruth and Ada Connors.

JAMES I. WOOD, treasurer of Pittsburg county, Oklahoma, a member of the Con- stitutional convention and for fifteen years a citizen of this section of the state, is a native of Marion county, Arkansas, born February 3. 1850. His boyhood and youth were passed on his father's farm and the chief business of his life has also been ag- riculture. In 1873 Mr. Wood migrated from Arkansas to Comanche county. Tex- as, and after having passed twenty years of his life there as a successful farmer he came into the Choctaw country, locating near Scipio where he followed his vocation until 1906. About this date he became ac- tively identified with local politics and has been a strong factor in the public affairs of Pittsburg county ever since. William S. Wood, the father, was also a native of Mar- ion county, Arkansas, born in 1823, and the grandfather, Thomas B., settled in Arkansas during the territorial period of its history. The latter was a native of White county. Tennessee. and died in Marion county about 1851 at the age of sixty years. The great-grandfather. William Wood, who was a soldier in the war of 1812. died in same county during the second year of the Civil

war, and is believed to have been the found- er of the family in Tennessee. Thomas B. Wood, the grandfather, married Elizabeth Talbott and the children of their union were William S., Fred T., who died in Arkansas; Benton, who passed away in that state; and John W., of Houston, Texas. There were also four daughters in the family.

William S. Wood, the father, married Ma- linda Coker, a daughter of William Coker, of Alabama, and at the outbreak of the Civil war enlisted in Gen. Jo Shelby's command of the Confederate troops, serving in the Trans-Mississippi department. Prior to the war of the Rebellion, William S. Wood had served as sheriff of Marion county from 1850 to 1854, and during his entire life was an ardent Democrat. He was a member of the Christian church and a Mason in good standing. In 1873 he settled in Comanche county, Texas, and there died in the early nineties. The children of their family were Thomas B., of Rogers county, Oklahoma : Sylvester, of Mason county, Texas; Fred T., a resident of Abilene, Texas; Frank, who died in McAlester, Oklahoma, and left a family ; William S., of Comanche county, Texas ; Arminta, the wife of James Magnus, of Comanche, Texas ; and Maggie, who mar- ried Robert McAdams, of Comanche coun- ty, Texas.

James I. Wood was married in Arkansas, March 26, 1822, to Miss Cynthia A. Dobbs, a daughter of Jonathan Dobbs, a well known farmer. The children of James l. and Cyn- thia (Dobbs) Wood are: Ada, wife of Virgil H. Grantham of Mason county, Texas ; Jona- than W., of Pittsburg county, Oklahoma ; Burr and Olin, also of Pittsburg county ; Ota, who became Mrs. E. C. Wingrove, of Pittsburg county: and Minnie and Lafe, who reside at home. As stated Mr. Wood's life has been identified with the develop- ment of agriculture, his first political effort in Pittsburg county being his race for the Constitutional Convention. He was chosen to represent a portion of the eighty-ninth dis- trict and served on the auditing committee, the committee on impeachments and re- moval from office, and the committee on geological survey. Being quite unpreju- diced, having no special interest to serve, he devoted his time to examining all of the proposed legislations and the result was that his record was indeed creditable. When he returned to his constituents. Mr. Wood

244

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

announced hmself as candidate for county treasurer and was easily nominated in the Democratic primaries, his election being by a majority of about nine hundred votes. He has always been independent and outspoken in his political views but has never affiliated with any secret orders.

HUBBARD G. HANCOCK, of Kiowa, has spent the major portion of twenty-six years in Oklahoma, and during the past ten years of that time has been identified with com- mercial pursuits, both at Sterrett and Ki- owa, where he has gradually grown into the chief spirit in the field of merchandise as the manager of The H. G. Hancock Com- pany's extensive interests. Mitchell H. Hancock, his father, moved to Paris, Lamar county. Texas, where Hubbard G. was born September 8, 1872. Samuel H. Hancock, the grandfather, was one of the pioneers of Lamar county, and conducted his farm there with slave labor. Mitchell H. Hancock was reared to manhood in that new home, and when the war was fought between the states served in the Confederate cause, and several years after the close of the conflict moved to Cleburne, Texas, and .was en- gaged in mercantile pursuits there more or less until his death in 1819, at the age of forty-two years. His wife, Martha, widow of Alfred Reed and daughter of John Mash- burn, died in 1874, the mother of the fol- lowing children: Sammie, wife of W. H. Bacon, of Colbert, Oklahoma; Hubbard G., mentioned below ; and Lillian, who married P. F. Hughes and resides in Idaho. Mrs. Hancock had one daughter by her former marriage, Mrs. John P. Crawford, of Ash- land, Oregon. Mr. Hancock, Sr., was mar- ried secondly to Mrs. Cabiness, and the re- sult of this union were two children. David and Maggie, both of Lamar county, Texas.

Hubbard G. Hancock possessed the ad- vantages of the average boy as he grew to manhood. a good home training and lib- eral school opportunities. His elementary knowledge of merchandising was obtained after coming to Oklahoma in 1882, when a youth of twenty. Locating first at Col- bert, one of the oldest places in the Choc- taw country, he passed five years with J. Il. Mashburn, his uncle, working on the farm. From Colbert he moved to Paul's Valley and followed the same line of work for a few years more. but during the next few years the receipts from all this labor

were consumed in roaming about the coun- try, seeing the sights and gaining new ex- periences.

In the course of his ramblings he visited the state of Washington and passed a couple of years in the valley of the Palouse river, one of the famous wheat sections of the state, but after two years spent in the vicin- ity of Oaksdale, he returned to the Choctaw country. He had hardly become settled here when he was seized with a desire to visit Alaska, then attracting the world's at- tention as a gold field. Sailing from Seattle to Dyea in the early spring of 1898 he start- ed across the country with a company of several hundred to the interior, and was a member of the party that was submerged by the famous and disastrous snow slide, Sunday morning, April 1st of that year, and was the first one to be dug out. A week's storm of wet snow had covered the moun- tain passes to an immense depth, and as the little caravan of one hundred and ten persons passed down the slope it was over- taken by a slide, and all but three were covered and sixty-three were killed. Mr. Hancock proceeded on to Dawson, the ob- jective point and spent a year and a half prospecting the country for the precious metal, but with indifferent success, and in 1899 he returned to his home in the Indian Territory, his roving desires satisfied and ready to begin the serious duties of life.

It was at this time that he engaged in mercantile pursuits in Sterrett, and was a member of a mercantile firm there until his removal to Kiowa in 1901. Here he resumed the selling of goods and bought out the pioneer merchant of the town, E. A. Robin- son. On May 25, 1907, he formed a stock company with a capital of $30,000, named The H. G. Hancock Company, and has ever since continued as its president. He is also a director of the First National Bank of Kiowa, and president of the board of trus- tees of the town. He owns one thousand acres of land here. He has contributed toward the building of the town in a sub- stantial way by the erection of a residence and business property, and is president and chief owner of the Merchants and Planters Gin and Mill Company. He is little con- cerned with the active work of politics, but adds his vote and the influence of his per- sonality to the Democratic party

245

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Mr. Hancock married in Sterrett, Febru- ary 14, 1901, Miss Nellie Vaughan, a daugh- ter of M. C. Vaughan, originally from Vir- ginia, but who moved to Lamar county, Tex- as in an early day where Mrs. Hancock was born. In fraternal relations Mr. Hancock is a thirty-second degree Mason, and a mem- ber of the Knights of Pythias.

FIELDING LEWIS, ex-assistant attorney general of Oklahoma, who died in Novem- ber, 1908, enjoyed an especially strong con- nection with the development of the public business and financial institutions of Mc- Alester, Pittsburg county. He was a cit- izen of high standing and of as fine a strain of Southern blood as can be conceived. His great-grandfather, Colonel Lewis, was a dis- tinguished officer in the Revolutionary war, and was especially close to Washington, as he married Bettie Washington, the sister of the great patriot and commander.' He settled at "Kenmore," Fredericksburg, Vir- ginia, at the close of the war, was a pros- perous and cultured planter, and died near Fredericksburg on his farm still known as "Kenmore," and in possession of the Vir- ginia members of the family. Colonel Lew- is reared several sons, among whom was Dangerfield Lewis, the grandfather of Field- ing. The latter married a Miss Brocken- borough and passed his life as a plant- er at "Marmion," King George county, Vir- ginia. Five of his children reared families and four of the sons were men of influence in the county. Fielding, one of the latter, was the father of Fielding Lewis, of this memoir. The elder Mr. Lewis was edu- cated at William and Mary's College, and upon reaching manhood continued to culti- vate and operate old "Marmion," which is still the home of his widow and was the property of his son, Fielding, until his death. Fielding Lewis. Sr., married Miss Imogen Green and died on the ancestral estate in 1878. Mrs. Lewis, the widow, is a repre- sentative of one of Maryland's pioneer and historic families. She was born in the Dis- trict of Columbia, formerly a part of that colony, and is a granddaughter of General Plater. third governor of the state of Mary- land, and of General Uriah Forrest of Rev- olutionary fame. By her union with Field- ing Lewis she became the mother of the following: Annie, wife of William C. Dick- inson, a resident of Essex, Virginia ; Attie M., who died as Mrs. John M. Dickinson ;

Fielding, of this notice ; Imogen ; Mary W., deceased ; and Lucy B., and Zola Lewis, re- siding with their mother at "Marmion," which was built in 1664.

Fielding Lewis, of this review, spent his boyhood at "Marmion," the old Virginia homestead, first attending various private schools of the neighborhood, and then pur- sning courses at St. John's Academy, Alex- andria. and the Georgetown University, near Washington, District of Columbia. In 1891 he finished his law course at the lat- ter institution, and at his graduation sought a western field for the practice of his pro- fession. His decision as to a location was determined by the fact that Jefferson D. Bradford, one of his kinsmen and private secretary to Jefferson Davis, when the lat- ter was secretary of war, was at this time prominently connected with the Choctaw Coal and Railway Company. Through the influence of this gentleman Mr. Lewis ob- tained a position with the law department of that company, arriving at McAlester to assume his duties on the 28th of October. 1892. Mr. Lewis left the service of the cor- poration to become the first clerk of the United States court, filling that office with great credit for two and a half years, when he established himself as a private practi- tioner. His first partner was W. J. Horton. a leading lawyer of the McAlester bar, with whom he was associated for two years, when he formed a connection with J. C. Harley, retiring from the firm September 30, 1908. to become junior member of Stew- art, Gordon and Lewis, and dying in the fol- lowing November.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 46

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