A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 59

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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LOGAN G. HYSMITH, postmaster of Wil- burton, Latimer county, and for some years previous to his appointment thereto (in 1902), identified with railroad work in eastern Ok- lahoma. dates his advent to what was then the Indian territory from the year 1899. At that time he located at Hartshorne, as an employe of the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad, but the following year was trans- ferred to Wilburton as the agent of the road at that point. After two years of service in that position, he was urged by his Repub- lican associates to seek the postmastership. the office becoming vacant upon the death of Millard F. Campbell. The result was that in July, 1902. Mr. Hysmith received his com- mission, and his record for the succeeding four years earned him a re-appointment. and he is now in the seventh year of a ser- vice which the local public has found most satisfactory.

Postmaster Hysmith is a native of Mc- Nairy county, Tennessee, born on the 6th of September. 1869, and is a son of Elias J. Hysmith, born in the state named in 1846. When a young boy the grandfather, William Hysmith, was apprenticed to a North Caro- lina man and accompanied his master's fam- ily into Mississippi, where he was reared. He married in that state, but finally settled in McNairy county. Tennesee, and lived there many years engaged in farming. His wife was a Miss Davis, by whom he had the fol- lowing children :- William, Elias J., John, Ed- ward. Samuel; Aby, wife of Calvin Plunk : Malindy, who married John Gray, and Tea- nie, who became Mrs. John Smith. The fath- er. Elias J. Hysmith, passed his early life on the family estate in Tennessee, and at the outset of the Civil war, then a boy of six- teen years, joined the Sixth Tennessee Cav- alry of the Union army, commanded by Col- onel Hurst. As a regimental unit of General Rosecrans' corps that command participated in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Franklin

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and Nashville and was not mustered out of the service until the conclusion of the Rebel- lion. After the war he settled as a farmer in McNairy and Hardin counties, Tennessee, and from the latter locality migrated to Tex- as, settling at Celeste, Keller and other places in the state. Although in a Democratic stronghold, he continued to be a firm Union Republican, and at one time was postmaster of Keller, Texas. Later, he brought the remnant of his family to Wilburton, which has since been his residence. His wife, who was formerly Miss Hersilla Barham, daugh- ter of Thomas Barham, a McNairy county farmer, died in 1877, mother of the follow- ing: William T., Logan G., Charles B. ; and Emily, wife of James Johnson, of Leonard, Texas. For his second wife Mr. Hysmith married Miss Elizabeth Musser, and by this union is the father of Flora, wife of Gus Howard, of Kansas City, Missouri; Maggie, who married Homer Hovencamp, a resident of Amarillo, Texas; Bessie, of Wilburton, Ok- lahoma, and Daisy, wife of John F. Roberts, of Hugo, also in that state.

Logan G. Hysmith, of this biography, was educated in McNairy, his native county, his final training as a student being obtained in the Adamsville High School. After an ex- perience of one term as a country school teacher, in 1899 he came to Oklahoma in the employ of the C. O. & Y. R. R. in whose service he remained until the commencement of his term as postmaster in 1902. He has made an admirable record as a government official and as a public spirited citizen of Wil- burton. He is a member of Wilburton Lodge No. 108 A. F. & A. M. and has held the chairs of junior and senior warden. On De- cember 23, 1900, the postmaster married Miss Lettie McGinnis, who died in 1905. On Jan- uary 1, 1908, he wedded as his second wife, Miss Rose Edwards, daughter of Mrs. Mary Edwards, of Denison, Texas, Mrs. Hysmith was born February 12, 1880, at Santa Rosa, Califonia.

WALTER C. ALLEN, president of the First National Bank of Wilburton, has been thor- oughly trained on the ranch, in the law school and in the counting room, and is therefore well seasoned and prepared to play a broad part in the arena of southwestern life. This invaluable preparation is a somewhat remark- able accomplishment in a man of thirty-four, and is partially explained by the pregnant phrase "blood will tell;" for Mr. Allen is a son

of Judge J. P. Allen, of Oklahoma City, once probate judge of the county and active in its legal and political affairs since becoming a citizen of Oklahoma in 1894. Both father and son are natives of Attala county, Missis- sippi, the former born in 1850, serving the Confederacy in the last year of the Civil war. Judge Allen was a student in the University of Tennessee, read law with Jo P. Campbell, and practiced this profession in Mississippi until his removal to Oklahoma, his last loca- tion in the former being at Kosciusko. At Oklahoma City he promptly came to the front as an able lawyer and a Democratic leader ; was chosen mayor of the place in 1897 and in 1901 elevated to the probate bench of Ok- lahoma county, serving two years in each of- fice. Since his retirement from the probate judgeship he has devoted himself to his grow- ing professional and business affairs.

Walter C., of this biography, who was born in Attala county, Mississippi, on the 28th of September, 1874, attended the public schools of Kosciusko as a preparatory step toward entering the state university, in which he spent six years, finally graduating from both the law and literary departments with the degrees of LL. B. and A. B. Then fol- lowed a most salutory experience of three and a half years upon the ranches of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Montana, this period from 1892 to 1895 concluding with a few months of law practice at Roswell, New Mex- ico, and the winning of the most important suit of his life-the one by which he became a married man. From Roswell Mr. Allen removed to Oklahoma City, where he en- gaged in professional work and became iden- tified with the New England Loan and Trust Company, the Bunnell & Eno Investment Company and finally with the Oklahoma Trust and Banking Company. He remained at Ok- lahoma City until 1903, when he opened the First National Bank of Wilburton as its as- sistant cashier, being rapidly advanced through several official grades to the presidency. When organized. with a capital stock of $25,- 000, James Degan was its president and L. W. Bryan, of McAlester, vice president. Its present officers are as follows: W. C. Allen, president : William Busby, of McAlester, vice president, and R. H. Lusk, cashier. Besides enjoying the leading connection with this sub- stantial bank, Mr. Allen is a director and treasurer of the Bear Creek Lumber Com- pany, of Oklahoma City and a director of the Oklahoma Mining Company. An earnest

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

Democrat, but never a politician, his strong belief in the uplifting influences of popular education has induced him to participate in school affairs, as secretary of the local board, and as a member of the city council he has also rendered useful service to the munici- pality. Fraternally, he is identified with the Blue Lodge of Masonry, and is a Workman and a Woodman.

Mr. Allen's wife, to whom he was mar- ried October 20, 1895, was a Miss William- son, daughter of J. S. Williamson, a ranch- man operating near Roswell, New Mexico. They have become the parents of two chil- dren-Glenn, born in 1897, and Constance, in 1898.

ASA L. PERDUE is the county clerk of Lati- mer county, and has resided in Wilburton, its county seat, since 1899. He was born at Mount Vernon, Illinois, May 31, 1866, a grandson of Adkins Perdue, a farmer who died near Paducah, Kentucky, and who was of French origin. Joseph L. Perdue, his son, was born near Nashville, Tennessee, Decem- ber 1. 1828. and in his early life was engaged in boating on the Ohio river and its navigable tributaries. He married Sarah F., a daughter of James F. Perdue, and they settled in Illi- nois about 1855, where they were farming people. In 1874 they came to Arkansas and located at Hacket City, where the wife passed away in 1894. During many years or until age decreed his retirement Mr. Purdue was engaged in contract work in Hacket City, and is now a retired citizen of Wilburton. The chil- dren of this couple were: Asa L., mentioned below, and James F., a prominent mechanic of Wilburton and as such is conspicuously iden- tified with the building of the town.

The schools of Springdale and of Hacket City, Arkansas, educated Asa L. Perdue, and one of his first employments was on the sur- vey of the Frisco Railroad from Fort Smith to Paris, Texas. During many years of his life he was a merchant clerk in Hacket City, and he was also interested in the mill and gin business there at one time. Conscious of his disadvantage in not possessing a trade, he took up the subject of engineering with the Scranton Correspondence School, an institu- tion which has turned many ambitious young men into profitable channels, and when he had completed the course he found employment as a stationary engineer in his home town with the K. and T. Coal Company. He subsequent- ly came to Wilburton to assume the position

of machinist with the Great Western Coal Company, and remained with that corporation for five years. By this time he had amassed a small sum of money, and in 1905 he be- came a member of the grocery firm of Ran- dle and Perdue, and was an active partner in the business until his retirement to assume public office, but he still holds his interest in the firm.

In the summer of 1902, when matters were shaping themselves for statehood, he became one of the five candidates for the office of county clerk before the Democratic primary and won the nomination. The first election in Latimer county showed it to be Democratic, and he defeated his Republican opponent by four hundred votes. His experience as a clerk in Hacket City and as a deputy postmaster there and his general knowledge of clerical matters made the opening of the first set of records for the county an easy matter, and the details of his office are matters as care- fully as of the greatest moment. Mr. Perdue was also elected a member of the first council of Wilburton, and had a hand in the move- ment and the actual building of the city water works, as well as in the giving of a free fran- chise to the Degnan people to light the town from its private plant. He holds to the prin- ciple of co-operation where the public is served by a corporation and thus benefitting their interests. The contribution of corpora- tions in the way of taxes is an item of much importance to municipalities, and if it can be attained by the giving of a free franchise the public are the gainers thereby.

On the 11th of December, 1892, Mr. Per- due was married in Hacket City, Arkansas, to Minnie C., a daughter of James Erwin, ori- ginally from Tupelo, Mississippi, and they have one son Clarence Bryan, born February 8. 1898. Mr. Perdue is a charter member of the Wilburton lodge, No. 108. of Masons and a past master, and is also a member of the fra- ternal order of Knights of Pythias and of the Junior Order of American Mechanics. The family are members of the First Baptist church of Wilburton.

Mr. Perdue is a stanch Union man, he be- ing a stationary engineer. He was presi- dent of Division No. 52 of Coal Hoisting En- gineers in 1903-4. On resigning as engineer for the Great Western Coal Co. he accepted a position as salesman for J. R. Frazier & Co. of Wilburton, remaining with said firm two vears, when he resigned and became a mem- ber of the firm of Randle & Perdue mentioned

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

above. Mr. Perdue while clerking for the above firm of J. R. Frazier & Co. was a mem- ber of the Retail Clerks Protective Associa- tion of which he served as its president for one year. And he is today a member of the County Clerks Association of the State of Ok- lahoma.

WILLIAM H. ROYCE. Conspicuous among the merchants of Wilburton and important as one of the material builders of the town is William H. Royce, who has been identified with both the mining interests and the com- mercial affairs of the place and has been num- bered among the citizens of both the town and county since 1894. The firm of W. H. Royce and Sons was founded about ten years ago and is composed of the father and his several sons, dealers in groceries and meats. and theirs is the chief concern of its char- acter in Wilburton. The capital which es- tablished this business was dug from the ground by its proprietors as actual and prac- tical miners, and their success as merchants has been even more marked than as miners, as measured by the usual standard of values. The building in which the business is conducted is a two-story brick, and there also the county maintains its offices and the government its post, office. This building was erected by the firm in 1904, and the county commissioners' office is another of the structures which mark Mr. Royce as one of the real builders of the county seat of Latimer county. In 1909, the firm of W. H. Royce and Sons built their third brick block in Wilburton. William H. Royce was born in Campbell county. Ken- tueky, December 15, 1845, and is a repre- sentative of a prominent old family from Ohio, where his grandfather, the Rev. T. D. Royce, was a noted evangelist in the early clays. He became the father of Henry, Thom- as, John P., Joseph. Elizabeth, wife of J. G. Moore, and Sarah, widow of Abe Facemire, of Indianapolis. Indiana. John P. Royce. the father of William H., was born in Ohio in 1822, but moved from there to Kentucky in his early life. He married Amy Lemas- tres, a daughter of a Virginia settler of French descent. Mr. and Mrs. Royce moved from Kentucky to Jefferson county, Indiana. during the childhood of their son William, and were farming people there. The wife and mother died in 1865, at the age of thirty- nine years, and the husband passed away in 1899. The children of their union were:

William H., mentioned below; Andrew, of Danville, Illinois : H. Frank, of Perryville, In- diana ; John W., of Udall, Kansas; James B., of Terre Haute, Indiana ; Samuel B., also of Perryville; and Charles E., of Foster, Indi- ana.

The youth of William H. Royce was passed at farm work, and the educational advantages which came to him were from the common schools. During the first year of the Civil war he enlisted in Company E, Seventh Indiana Infantry, and participated in the second bat- tle of Bull Run and in Antietam or Sharps- burg, which was fought in September of 1862. He was discharged for disability after several months' service, and in the following year he rejoined the army, this time entering Com- pany K. One Hundred and Fortieth Indiana Infantry, which was attached to the Army of the Tennessee. Twenty-third Corps. He was in the battle of Nashville, where the Confed- erate General Hood was defeated and his army rendered helpless and scattered, and after this, the command to which Mr. Royce belonged was shipped from Clinton, Tennessee, to Washington, and thenee down the coast to Fort Fisher, where it took part in the fighting with General Johnston's forces from that time until the latter's surrender in April, 1865. Af- ter the war had ended Mr. Royce as mus- tered out of the service at Indianapolis and he returned to his father's home and to the work of the farm. But after a year or so he decided to become a coal miner, and going to Peoria, Illinois, he did his first permanent work as a miner there and was connected with that district for fourteen years. He then spent about one year at farming in Nebraska. From there he went to the mining region of Mahaska county. Iowa, and worked in the mines about thirteen years. From that point he went to Lake Charles, Louisiana, for one vear and was then attracted to the field in In- dian Territory, in 1894, locating at Coalgate where he worked in the mines four years and in 1898 he cast his lot with the community and people of Wilburton, Latimer county.

On the 4th of November, 1874, in Peoria, Illinois, Mr. Royce was married to Miss Cath- erine Wiley. a daughter of Henry Wiley, and their children are: Henry W .. John, William, George. Amy E., wife of Dr. P. S. Coleman of Wilburton, and Catherine and Isabel. In their political affiliations Mr. Royce and his sons are Republicans, and it is the pardonable boast of the father that his household gives a greater voting strength to the Republican

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ticket than the average family in the state. In their business relations they are always courteous and straightforward, and in their social relations sympathetic and liberal. A commendable strain of public spirit courses through their veins, and their liberality toward the public good has come to be proverbial.

JOHN W. RIDDLE. A native son of Ok- lahoma and one who has been entrusted with the duties of maintaining the peace and order of Latimer county is John W. Rid- dle, the county sheriff and the subject of this review. The Riddles are one of the old fan- ilies of Oklahoma and were founded here along with the settlement of the Choctaw Nation early in the forties, when the first settlers of the band came hither from Mississippi in fulfillment of their agreement with the federal authorities and for the establishment of a permanent abiding place in their new land. The patriarch of the family was John Riddle, born in 1819. He finally located in Gaines, now Latimer county, where he was known as a stock man and farmer and where he died in 1863. He was a half blood Choctaw, and the records of the Indian courts of the county show him to have been a court judge for some years. His first wife was Eve Rid- dle, who died leaving a son, George W .. now a well known citizen of Latimer county, and by a second wife there were four children. two of whom are Henry and William Rid- dle.

George W. Riddle was born at the old Rid- dle station a few miles east of Wilburton. October 25. 1841. and he matured under the influence of social and political condi- tions among his race, for there were few white people here then and they had no voice or interest in Indian affairs. His schooling was such as could be had from the facilities then established, chiefly domestic in character. Eastern teachers were the masters of educa- tion in the household or in the public place. and they were seldom persons without educa- tion and character themselves, and therefore shed a beneficent influence upon the young Indians who were placed under their charge. When the war between the north and the south came on Judge Riddle was approaching man's estate, and his interest was enlisted in be- half of the southern cause. He served un- der Colonel Cooper, in command of Fort Washita and a member of the Trans-Missis- sippi department operating in Missouri and Arkansas. Judge Riddle took part in the en-

gagements of Pea Ridge and Newtonia and saw mich active service until the end of the war.

On leaving the army he turned his attention to the stock business and took up as much iand as he wished near Wilburton, which he improved and where he has ever since resided. "He was finally drawn into Indian politics and was made the county judge of Gaines coun- ty, an office which his father had also filled many years before. His union with Isabel Mc- Curtain, a sister of Governor Green MeCur- tain, was a strong social alliance and provided the Judge's home with a mistress of much personalty and force. She became the mother of three children: Virginia, the deceased wife of L. Dunlap: Andrew, who died before mar- riage : and Susie F., the deceased wife of Robert Ball. A sister of his first wife, Elsie McCurtain, became the second wife of Judge Riddle, but she passed away in a short time without living issue, and in 1824 he married Elvarine Edon born in Arkansas, May 6, 1853. a daughter of Richard and Ella (Griffith) Edon. Richard Edon born in Tennessee in 1813 and his wife in Arkansas. Richard Edon died in 1882. The children of the last' union of George W. Riddle are: Richard, of Ash- land, Oklahoma ; John W., mentioned below : and Edmund, Mellinee, Samuel, Eureka and "T. T."

John W. Riddle was born on the old Riddle ranch May 25, 1882, and as he matured he familiarized himself with the handling of stock and acquired his education in Jones Academy, Harrell's Institute at Muskogee and in the Fort Smith Commercial College. He then spent a year as a bookkeeper in Canadian, ()klahoma, but was again at the ranch and on duty when the preliminaries for statehood were being arranged. He entered the Dem- ocratic primaries with three competitors for the nomination for sheriff, and winning the race was elected over his Republican opponent by a good vote. He took the oath of office on the day of the admission of Oklahoma into the Union and became the first peace offi- cer of Latimer county. And he is probably the youngest sheriff serving in Oklahoma.

On the 11th of January, 1905, Mr. Riddle married in Latimer county Miss Jessie Rus- sell. a daughter of William and Minerva A. (Spivy) Russell, both of Graysville, Tennes- see. The father was born May 13, 1836, and the mother, May 14, 1842. They were mar- ried in Gravsville where Mrs. Riddle was born June 5, 1884. The mother died at Grays-

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ville, July 11, 1898. Mr. Riddle is a mem- ber of Eureka Lodge No. 111, Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, Jeff Davis Council No. 35.

THOMAS N. RATTERREE. During many years Thomas N. Ratterree has been promi- nently identified with the interests of Wil- burton, and his residence here dates from the year of 1899. The firm of Ratterree and Com- pany, of which he was the head, was estab- lished in 1901, and its members are under- takers and embalmers and dealers in furni- ture, hardware implements, harness, wagons, queensware and tinware. In August, 1908, the firm of Ratterree and Company was dis- solved and January 1, 1909, it again resumed business as Ratterree and McMurray, two members of the original firm.

In taking up the personal history of Mr. Ratterree we find that he was born in Se- bastian county, Arkansas, March 31, 1860, and he traces his lineage back to the land of Ireland, where the births of his great-grand- parents are recorded. John C. Ratterree, his father, was born in Mississippi in 1834, but accompanied his father, Thomas Ratterree, to Arkansas when a boy, the latter establishing the home on a farm in Sebastian county, where he passed away in 1899, at the age of ninety- eight years. He chose for his wife Miss Fan- nie Cobb, who became the mother of John C., Wiley, Thomas, William, Ed. Alexander, Elizabeth Gillliam, Sarah Avery and Nancy Taylor.

John C. Ratterree passed his youth in the frontier settlements of western Arkansas, and his opportunities were only those peculiar to his commonwealth at that time. He was throughout life industrious and persevering. and inherited his family's patriotic impulses toward the country's flag. But when the war between the north and the south was inaugurated he was conscripted by the Con- federates and was forced into their service for two years, when he escaped to the Federal lines and was from that time on until the close of the struggle a butcher supplying meat to the Union army. The rest of the sons in that family all served in the Union army. His first wife was Telitha Osborn, who died in 1864. after becoming the mother of James, of Sebastian county, Arkansas ; Clara, who married a Mr. Avery and died in Brooken, Oklahoma : Thomas N., mentioned below ; and Frank, who died in Wilburton,

Oklahoma. The second family of children which Mr. Ratterree reared by his mar- riage with Mollie Graham were Arthur L., of Muskogee, Oklahoma; William, of Ar- kansas; Asa, of Wyoming; Flora, the wife of a Mr. East of Booneville, Arkansas; and Jesse, whose home is in Wyoming.

The early educational opportunities of Thomas N. Ratterree were indeed poor, and when less than fourteen years of age he left home and became a wage worker on the farm. Soon after this he went to Texas, where in Tarrant county he continued farm work for seven years. In 1881 he first be- came identified with the interests of Okla- homa, at first as a member of the floating pop- ulation of the Choctaw town of Kully Chaha in LeFlore county. From there he drifted to Brooken, and there married and began ac- cumulating property as a farmer and later as a well driller. He did not abandon the latter occupation until two years after com- ing to Wilburton. At that time, having ac- cumulated some capital, he joined with others in a mercantile venture in this city in 1901. The large two-story brick business house in which the business was carried on was erect- ed by him in 1903.

In November of 1887, Mr. Ratterree was united in marriage with Miss Mollie, a daugh- ter of Lee Edmiston. Mr. Edmiston came to the Choctaw country from Iowa during the Civil war period, and was there married to Miss Margaret Tucker, a woman of Choc- taw blood. Mrs. Ratterree has passed her life in Oklahoma, and is a direct descendant of Abigail Rogers-Glenn, well known as a member of a Choctaw family. Of the six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Ratterree four are living: Ethel, wife ot Robert Morris, of Wilburton, Medda, Cecil, and Hazel. John C. Ratterree cast his fealty with the Repub- lican party after the close of the struggle, and his sons have followed in the same chan- nel. Thomas N. Ratterree is a Master Mason, No. 108 of Wilburton, as was also his father, who was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Greenwood, Arkansas, and he has filled all of the chairs in the Wilburton lodge. His people on his father's side were Baptists and on his mother's they are of the Presbyterian faith. Mr. Ratterree and wife are mem- bes of the First Baptist Church of Wilbur- ton, Oklahoma.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 59

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