A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 52

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.

white men concerned in the upbuilding of the locality. Judge Earnest was commissioned by Judge Bryant of the eastern district of Texas and sent to MICAlester in April, 1891. The federal court had just been established and Judge Shackelford had been appointed by President Harrison to preside over it. Judge Earnest remained in office until the eastern district of Texas lost its jurisdiction over this part of Indian Territory. At his retirement Judge Earnest became proprietor of the Mountain House, then the popular and leading hotel of the town and was thus engaged for the following six years. Thereafter he re- mained a private citizen until his appointment by Judge Campbell, in 1907, to his present office as United States Commissioner.

July 16, 1863, Judge Earnest married Miss Leann Cockrell, daughter of Elijah MI., and a granddaughter of the noted Johnson Cock- rell, of Kentucky. The children of the Judge and Mrs. Earnest were: Mrs. Helen Farmer. of Richmond, Texas : Fannie H., who married J. E. Shuptrine, of LaGrange. Texas; Ger- trude, wife of L. C. Cramer, of McAlester : Leslie E., who died of smallpox in the city of Mexico, in 1888, unmarried ; and Erma D., who died in young womanhood during 1903. Judge Earnest is Past Commander of Edward Vass Post, No. 16, G. A. R. of McAlester. Oklahoma.

GEORGE H. DEIBLER, contractor. has taken an active part in the upbuilding of McAlester, Oklahoma, during the past fourteen years, his work covering the whole line of construction from shop and mill to residence and business house, and some of the conspicuous and archi- tectural successes of the city are the result of his handiwork. Mr. Deibler is a native of Pennsylvania. He was born in Dauphin coun- ty. November 25. 1863, and is a descendant of early settlers of the Keystone state. Michael Deibler. the grandfather of George H., was born in Pennsylvania, and identified himself- with Dauphin county soon after its formation. His son, George W., the father of George H .. was born and reared in that county. He served through the Civil war as a member of the 10th Pennsylvania Infantry. In 1884 he joined the great throng of emigrants from the East, and brought his family to Kansas, where he spent the rest of his life. He was a miller by trade, but the later years of his life were spent on his farm in Riley county, where he died in 1893, at the age of sixty-seven years. His wife, Elizabeth (Gilbert) Deibler, was a Vol. II-18.

daughter of Samuel Gilbert, one of the first settlers of Dauphin county, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Deibler reared sons and daugh- ters as follows: William, a farmer of Riley county, Kansas ; Ellen, wife of Solomon Kop- penleffer, of Riley county ; Samuel, of Mc- Alester, Oklahoma; Elizabeth, who married William Davis, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ed, of Leadville, Colorado ; George H .; Salane, wife of Elisha Burr, of Manhattan, Kansas ; Frank, a farmer ; E., who resides in McAlester, and John of Washing- t011.

George H. Deibler passed his boyhood days in his native county, working on his father's farm and in the mill and attending the public schools. He had attained his majority at the time the family moved to Kansas, as above indicated, and there he entered the State Agri- cultural College at Manhattan. When he had reached his senior year, want of funds com- pelled him to discontinue the course he had entered upon, and he went to work as a car- penter in Manhattan. After spending some time there as a carpenter and small contractor. he came to the Indian Territory and engaged in contracting in the Seminole country. The result of his efforts may be seen in various parts of that nation. In 1894 he came to Mc- Alester. Here he built the United States pris- on, three of the ward school buildings, the old opera house. the Gordon residence, the Kross business house and numerous other buildings, including his own attractive home on E. Washington avenue.

Mr. Deibler married, in 1890, in Florence, Kansas, Miss Anna P. Mitchell, who died in February, 1905. without issue. In August. 1906, he married Miss Lena Boyce, daughter of I. N. Boyce, of Eldon, Missouri ; and they have a little daughter. Elizabeth Catherine. Fraternally, Mr. Deibler is a Mason and a Knight of Pythias.

DR. WILLIAM E. CROWDER, the founder of the town by that name in north Pittsburg county, is one of the leading merchants, land owners and citizens in the Canadian River valley, and has been a leading figure in the development of this section for the past twenty-two years. His family had been founded for several generations in North Car- olina, when Morton C. Crowder. his father. migrated to Benton county, Arkansas, some sixty-five years ago, and with the assistance of his numerous slaves conducted a large plan- tation to such good purpose that, before the

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outbreak of the Civil war, he had become wealthy. At the coming of the "irrepressible conflict." however, he joined General Stan Watie's brigade of Confederate cavalry, in which he served during the active period of hostilities. The direct and indirect results of the war made him a poor man, and death found him in that condition when he passed away in Benton county in 1875. The deceased had married Miss Emma Beam, who now re- sides at Rogers, Arkansas, aged eighty-four, the mother of the following children: Amelia, widow of James Blake, a resident of that place ; Thedio, who married L. L. Blake, now de- ceased, and resides in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Dr. William E. Crowder, of this biog- raphy.

Dr. Crowder was born on the family planta- tion in Benton county, Arkansas, on the 7th of March, 1862, his birth occurring in the midst of the fierce battle of Pea Ridge, which raged over the Crowder homestead. With the changing tide of the conflict, the family home was now in the possession of the Con- federates and then of the Federals, but event- ually fell into possession of the Union forces. which marked the ebb of the Crowder for- tunes. The boy remained in the vicinity of his birthplace until he had secured a substan- tial education in the public schools of Benton- ville and at Cane Hill College, and then com- menced to read medicine with Dr. Taliaferro, of Bentonville. Finishing his professional studies at the Missouri Medical College, with the class of 1885. in the following year Dr. Crowder located for practice in the Choctaw Nation, and it is said brought with him, as his chief material resources, his "pill bags, a dollar and a quarter in cash and a pair of patched pants.'

Dr. Crowder first located in the village of Canadian, where he engaged in active practice until 1902, when he abandoned it to devote himself to the founding of a town on the one hundred and sixty acres which he owned at the crossing of the Fort Smith & Western and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroads. This tract he platted and at the first public sale disposed of seven hundred lots to the highest bidder. Ile donated ground to churches and public schools, and not only laid the substan- tial foundation for the town which was named in his honor, but continued to be one of the foremost in its development, and finally had the satisfaction of bringing about the incor- poration of Crowder as a city of the third

class. Dr. Crowder was the active spirit in the organization of the Crowder State Bank, of which he is president, and, as long as it ex- isted, was at the head of the Crowder Mercan- tile Investment Company. He has erected some of the most substantial of the business edifices of the place, and his residence is one of the most commodious and attractive in the city. Further, he is still interested in one of the leading mercantile houses of Crowder and is the owner of a fine plantation of one thou- sand acres lying along the Canadian river. In politics the Doctor has been an active Demo- crat for years. At first he was a sturdy ad- vocate of double statehood, and attended the Sequoyah convention at Muskogee to advocate his views, but when he saw that public senti- ment was against him he as stanchly supported the popular movement and, with the actual coming of statehood, has never failed in his enthusiastic allegiance to the commonwealth.

On November 8, 1892, Dr. Crowder married Miss Juanita Harlan, of the Choctaw Nation, who died in October, 1904, leaving a son. Rob- ert S. Crowder. In November, 1906, the Doctor married Mrs. Nora Roberts, of Linden, Tennessee, daughter of Joseph Dickson, of that place, and one child, Dickson Crowder, has been born to them.

JOHN C. O'NEAL bcame identified with the business interests of Crowder in its incipient stage, when its foundation stones were being laid by settlers with a purpose of creating a new mecca of trade in Pittsburg county, and to thus aid in the development of the fertile agricultural domain tributary to it on all sides.

Like many of those whose efforts have add- ed wealth to Oklahoma in its progress toward statehood Mr. O'Neal was contributed from the citizenship of Texas, being born in Hunt county. January 25, 1849, a son of Wilson S. O'Neal.

The founder of this family in America was the great-grandfather of John C. O'Neal, who emigrated to the United States from Ireland and finally established himself in Tennessee, where his son John was born prior to 1800. There the latter grew up and married, wed- ding, first. Margaret Hickey, and reared Wil- son S., Matthew, Mrs. Marena Stockton and Mrs. Martha Bullard. This wife died and he then married Hannah Odell. To this union was born John Ruffin O'Neal, who went to California in an early day and has not been heard from since. The family finally came to Texas and became a force in the agricultural

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development of the state, and there John O'Neal died in 1861.

Wilson S. O'Neal was one of the pioneers in Hunt county, Texas, moving there from Hardin county, Tennessee, his birthplace. in 1818. On attaining his majority he was mar- ried, in Hardin county, to Miss Sarah, a daughter of Eli Keith, and the young couple made their way to the Lone Star state, then a republic, by the primitive mode of travel of that time.

Their first home was established in the wild region of northern Texas, where their efforts at farming were among the first put forth in what is now Hunt county. They had been reared in the rural districts of their home state, where civilizing influences were at a comparatively low ebb, and were in a measure prepared to endure the hardships incident to a land in possession of the savage and afflicted with all of the hostile elements that nature could devise. Perhaps no frontiersmen ever suffered greater privations and experienced fewer of the blessings and joys of life than the fathers and mothers of the republic age and of the years preceding the Civil war, and it is not therefore remarkable that their chil- dren should be found in home and state build- ing so long as a portion of the public domain remains to be settled and brought under the influence of the industrial, commercial and ed- ucational forces.

Wilson S. O'Neal passed his life as a cattle, horse and sheep raiser, and was undisturbed in his modest prosperity until the Civil war came on and he suffered with the general crash and destruction in business which was continual during the progress of the war. He was subject to military duty, but conditions made it necessary for him to substitute his son. John C., toward the close of the struggle, and soon after peace was restored the father's health failed and in 1873 he passed away. His wife survived him until 1904. Their chil- dren were: Louisa J., wife of W. T. George. of Wolfe City, Texas : Mary E., wife of Robert Henderson, of San Antonio, Texas; Rachel A., who married first Newton Graham and is now the widow of Dr. Sparks. of Lone Oak. Texas : Sarah M., wife of W. T. Hedrick, of Greenville, Texas : John C., mentioned below ; Josie, who married C. I. McQuirter and is now deceased ; and William W., of Commerce. Texas.

In his efforts to obtain an education John C. O'Neal was put to the inconvenience of rid-

ing some distance to attend the few months of school allotted to the district in which he lived, and when he reached maturity a bare knowledge of the fundamentals was all that he possessed. Having been reared in the stock business he embarked in that occupation for himself and was chiefly identified with the in- dustry when his attention was directed to Oklahoma, and in 1888 he drove his herd across Red river and located at Mathilda Gap, then in Gaines county of the Choctaw Nation. During the next ten years his interests were dual as to locality, for he maintained his home in Texas and his chief industry in what is now Oklahoma. From 1890 to 1894 he was the sheriff of Hunt county, Texas, having been elected by the Democratic party, the principles of which he had grown to revere and to which his father lent his aid and influence from the old Whig party after the war. His services as a peace officer were such as to commend him for a similar work at the hands of the U. S. government, and the lamented U. S. Marshal Love of the northern district of Tex- as making him his deputy, he seryed in that office from 1894 to 1898.

Returning to civil pursuits in the latter year, Mr. O'Neal disposed of his stock interests in Gaines county and located at Canadian in the Choctaw Nation. There he served as the rep- resentative of the American Cotton Company. the Round Bale people, for three years, and it was at this time that the town of Crowder was being organized, and coming here he en- gaged in the real estate and insurance busi- ness. His acts as a town builder have been in harmony with the best efforts of sincere citizens, and whatever could be accomplished to further the interest of the new town by a union of forces to a common end he has striv- en to achieve. He has served as city recorder of his town and is president of the Commercial Club. In the movement for statehood he fav- ored the "single" idea and supported the adop- tion of the constitution and the Democrat ticket at the first election in the common- wealth.

Mr. O'Neal was first married in Sherman, Texas, November 17, 1870, to Miss Mary E .. a daughter of Wheeler Cocke, a planter near Shreveport, but in Texas. Mrs. O'Neal died in 1888, after becoming the mother of the fol- lowing children : Clatie. wife of M. A. Carter. of Arlington, Texas: Lucy, wife of Marcus Murdaugh, of Commerce, that state : Tune, of Ft. Smith. Arkansas: Wilson S., of Mc \les- ter : and Bessie, now Mrs. Boyd Shoffner. of

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Greenville, Texas. In 1890 Mr. O'Neal wed- ded Mary A. Pistole, who died within six months, and in 1892 he married Minnie S., a daughter of W. M. and Elsie ( Bean) Strom their issue being Johnnie, Elsie, Kie and Glenn. Mr. O'Neal is a member of South Canadian Lodge No. 22 A. F. & A. M. and a demitted R. A. M. and a Knight Templar Mason. He is also a member of Crowder Lodge No. 121 I. O. (. F. of Crowder. For many years he has been a member and is at present the clerk of the Missionary Baptist church in Crowder. His home is one of the commodious and in- viting ones of the city.

DR. SAMUEL P. Ross, of Kiowa, Pittsburg county, is a leading practitioner of that place as well as proprietor of the Palace Drug- store. Born in Mason City, Missouri, Novem- ber 14, 1863, he is a son of Samuel H. and Hulda (Briggs) Ross. His father was an Ohio man, born in Cincinnati, where he was reared to manhood, his marriage occurring in Brown county, Illinois. Some years prior to the Civil war he removed to Missouri, there joined General Price's staff and was in active ser- vice throughout the war, being for a portion of that time quartermaster in the Missouri District of the Confederate service. At the conclusion of the war he returned to the farm and in 1872 removed to Montague, Texas, and after following various occupations there, in the eighties, moved eastward into Fan- nin county, Texas, where he died in 1896 at the age of eighty-four. His wife survived him two years. During these last years of his life Mr. Ross acquired prominence as a public man and the people of Fannin county elected him to various offices of responsibility. It is needless to say that he was a stanch Democrat. His religious faith was that of the Baptist church and as a public speaker from its pulpit he acquired a readiness in oratory which held him in good part in his political activities. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel H. Ross were: Mrs. H. C. Jef- ferson, of Bonham, Texas ; Mrs. E. E. Hardy, of Houston, Texas; Mrs. Samuel A. Hard- ing. of Clayton, Illinois: Mrs. George Mc- Coy. of Houston, Texas; George W., who died in 1906 as postmaster of Allen, Okla- homa, and left three children ; one who died without issue; and Dr. S. P., of this sketch.

The Doctor obtained his first schooling in Montague, Texas, and as that was a frontier section at that time his instruction was nec- essarily very irregular. In 1881 he assumed

his medical studies at Gainesville and in the following year was matriculated at the St. Louis School of Pharmacy. At the close of that year lie returned to Gainesville and spent five years there in connection with a well known drug firm, subsequently engag- ing in business for himself at Ravenna. Later he sold his business at that place and opened a drug store at Houston, Texas, and after being engaged for seven years in that line decided to become a physician. He first en- tered the Medical School of the Tulane Uni- versity, of New Orleans but in the following year was enrolled in the medical department of the University of Texas, his last two cours- es of lectures being taken in the University of Dallas, from which he was graduated March 18, 1902. While a student in the Uni- versity of Dallas, Dr. Ross was enabled to enjoy actual practice, his experience being gained among the Choctaw Indians while he was temporarily located at Caney. He was the first white man to practice medicine among the fullblood Indians of this nation and in a way it decided his future career. Before lo- cating in the Indian Territory, however, he served for some time in connection with the Dallas City Hospital. He then came to the Choctaw Nation and opened his first office at Savanna and at that point had charge of a large practice among the miners for nearly four years.

In 1905 he removed to Kiowa where he re- sumed practice and also bought the Palace Drugstore of J. A. Parker. The Doctor is a member of the county and state medical so- cieties and of the American Medical Associa- tion, being also local surgeon for the M. K. & T. Railroad. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and a Democrat on national issues. Interested also in the substantial growth of his town, Dr. Ross has erected one of the most com- fortable residences in this locality and has contributed largely toward the opening of public highways and the improvement of the city thoroughfares. He is an energetic and public spirited citizen and has done much to promote the interests of the general pub- lic at large. On November 18, 1886, he mar- ried Miss Maud Lee, a daughter of E. Barnes, of Ravenna, Texas, and their only child is Marynette Ross.

ALBERT S. CORNELISON has been a citizen of the community about Indianola for the past nineteen years and has been conspicuously identified with the business interests of the

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community for much of that time. He came west in 1889 from Randolph county, North Carolina, where his birth occurred August 26, 1867. He was educated sparingly there, where his youth was passed, and he learned farming under the new conditions following the results of the Civil war. He left home at twenty years of age and spent a year in Jackson county, Alabama, before his advent to the Choctaw Nation. It was but natural that he should turn his attention to his boy- hood vocation in his new home and he farmed here the first three years. With a small capi- tal he joined his Alabama friend and fellow immigrant, James H. Bynum, in a mercantile venture under the firm name of Cornelison and Bynum. The firm was without surplus capital and its plan was to do a credit, as well as a cash business. For several years the growth of their business was phenomenal and their stock accumulated at a rapid rate, as did also their stock of credits, and when al- most fourteen years had elapsed the evil ef- fects of the system began to manifest itself to an alarming degree, the result being that the resources of the firm were so exhausted and their credit so impaired that they could not continue business, and in 1906 they sus- pended.

Mr. Cornelison began business in the oldl town of Indianola, but with the coming of the Ft. Smith & Western Railroad and the founding of a neighboring town, the firm moved its store bodily to the railroad and he has counted himself one of the pioneers of both places. He was made assistant post- master of the town some twelve years ago. and since his retirement from business as a merchant has given his time almost wholly to the conduct of the office. He is also a director of the Indianola State Bank and the vice president of the concern.

The Cornelisons are among the oldest of North Carolina families. Jonathan Cornelison, the grandfather of Albert S., being born in Randolph county. He was a farmer and rear- ed his children as such. William, the father. was born in 1831, and served in Lee's army during the Civil war, being wounded in the battle of Gettysburg and present at Appomat- tox where the final surrender of the Confed- eracy took place. His life was passed as a modest farmer and he died in 1898. He mar- ried Sarah Deaton, who lived until 1907, and was the mother of Andrew, of Wyoming : Ira and Lucretia, of North Carolina, the lat- ter the wife of Henry Lyons; Albert S., of

this notice; Barbara, who married William Bean and resides in Georgia ; Eli, of Dwights, Wyoming; Mettie, wife of P. Sanders, of North Carolina; James B., of Dwights, Wyoming, and Zella, who resides at the old home in North Carolina.

On August 22, 1892, Mr. Cornelison was married at Indianola, to Mrs. Lou Bynum, a daughter of George Sprouse, a settler here from near Spartanburg, South Carolina. Mr. Cornelison is a Republican and a member of Indianola Lodge No. 242 A. F. & A. M. and Albert Pike Lodge of Perfection No. 2 of McAlester. Mrs. Cornelison is a member of the North Methodist Church of Indianola.

JAMES H. BYNUM of Indianola, has been for many years prominently connected with the mercantile interests of the town and has performed the duties of the postmastership in connection with his mercantile enterprises. He is a native of Scottsboro, Alabama, born January 4, 1820, son of Isaac N. and Cyn- thia ( Potter) Bynum. For many generations both sides of the family were southern peo- ple, the forefathers of the Bynum branch lo- cating in Jackson county, Alabama, during the early part of the nineteenth century. The father was born in that county about 1842 and still resides there engaged in his life long occupation as a farmer. During a portion of the Civil war the elder Mr. Bynum served in the Union army and was stationed at Nash- ville, Tennessee, and although the prevailing political sentiment of his neighbors has often favored the Democratic party he has invariably persisted in his faithful support of Repub- licanism. Before the war he married Cyn- thia Potter, a daughter of Jonathan Potter, who although a southern man by birth and family traditions was also a loyal supporter of the Union cause. Mrs. Isaac N. Bynum died in 1896, the mother of the following :- William T. and Jasper T., of Hannah, Okla- homa ; Ellen. wife of Isaac Cook, of Holly- wood, Alabama ; James H., of this biography ; Samuel, who died in Alabama and left a fam- ily : John, of Ellensburg, Washington ; Charles, a resident of Alabama : Julia, who became the wife of Mack Hall. and resides at Hannah, Oklahoma ; and Emily, who married a Mr. Chesser, a resident of Alabama.

James H. Bynum received his education in the district schools of his native county and in 1889 at the age of nineteen decided to migrate to the Indian Territory, in com- pany with a school boy friend. Albert S. Cor- nelison. The two found an asylum in the

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Choctaw Nation near the old town of Indian- ola where Mr. Bynum settled with his twenty- three dollars in ready cash and a firm de- termination to make the most of his life. His first work in the new country was as a picker in the cotton fields and after being thus en- gaged during the fall of 1889 he determined to engage in an independent farming ven- ture. In the following year, with a small capital and an equally modest personal credit he engaged both in farming and in the estab- lishment of a small business in general mer- chandise. His friend, Mr. Cornelison, joined him in his mercantile enterprise and the firm of Cornelison and Bynum was early estab- lished as an important business factor of the village. When the Ft. Smith & Western Railroad pushed its line through the locality and made the establishment of a new town necessary, the young men moved their store to the new Indianola and continued to ex- pand their trade. The business expanded so remarkably that its proprietors were tempted to extend their credit beyond the conserva- tive limit, the result being that at the end of a dozen years or so they found their books en- cumbered with accounts many of which were impossible to collect. Although it was a shock to their pride like honorable men they finally suspended business and Mr. Bynum again commenced to establish himself as a busi- ness man building from the ground up as in his earlier years. In this manly resolve and ambition he was successful and is now one of the chief partners in the well known Indian- ola Trading Company and the firm of R. B. Moore and Company, and also president of the Valley State Bank. Further he has been one of the most active promoters of the In- dianola Gin Company, has developed large and profitable interests in farming and stock- raising, accumulated considerable valuable land and as stated, has been postmaster of Indianola in connection with all these other important enterprises. He has always been a Republican in politics and for many years has been connected with the Masons being a member of Indianola Lodge No. 242 A. F. & A. M. and also of the Odd Fellows, Indian- ola Lodge No. 144.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 52

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