A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 6

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 6

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).

Mr. Rubey is a thirty-second degree Ma- son and a member of Shawnee Lodge and McAlester Consistory.

ALBON C. DAVIS, of Shawnee, whose ex- perience as a practical and successful archi- tect and builder extends over nearly twenty years, and who has been in business at Shawnee since 1901, has designed and erected some buildings in this city that in them- selves are the highest commendation and proof of his ability. Among those that may be pointed out as his work are, the Estes, the Pottenger, the Mammoth, the Christney buildings, the Catholic and Bap- tist churches, and ward school houses that cost eighty thousand dollars. His con- structive activity includes much besides these, and before coming to Oklahoma he left many substantial additions to the busi- ness and other kinds of architecture in other cities.

Mr. Davis was born in Sheridan, Indiana, June 14, 1870, son of William E. and Mary Fletcher (Poole) Davis, both natives of North Carolina, the former who followed the occupation of farming, having come to Indiana when a young man. After spending his youth on a farm and receiving his educa- tion in the public schools and in the normal school at Danville, Indiana, Mr. Davis pre- pared for his career as a builder by beginning work with Barnett, Hawkins Company, a well known contracting firm at Kentland, Indiana. Beginning with 1893 he became an independent contractor at various points in the west and southwest. After a year at San Antonio, Texas, he was for two years in the employ of the Excelsior Bridge Company at Los Angeles, and then returned to contin- ue some line of contracting in Texas, for four years. Mr. Davis has gained his suc- cess on a practical basis, and in every detail of his profession has become proficient through experience as a workman and plan- ner. As a citizen he is closely identified with the progress of Shawnee. He is a Mason and a member of the Episcopal church. In 1897 he married Miss Dora R. Eastes of Muncie, Indiana. They have three children, Helen, Branson and Catherine.

VIRGIL BIGGERS. One of the rising young attorneys of Shawnee is Virgil Biggers, who has practiced before the bar since 1901, and six years later, in 1907, was made the attor- ney of Pottawatomie county. He is a native son of the Blue Grass state of Kentucky, born on the 21st of June, 1880, to J. W. and Letha (Rodman) Biggers, also natives of that commonwealth. In 1882, two years after the birth of their son Virgil, the par- ents moved with their family to Texas, where the little lad attended the public schools and the University of Texas, receiv- ing the academic degree. He then entered the law department and graduated from the college in 1901, coming to Shawnee in the same year.

In 1901 Mr. Biggers married Emma Pat- terson, a daughter of John D. Patterson, of Whitewright, Texas, and their two children are Jim and Bill, born respectively on the 7th of November, 1904, and the 3d of Janu- ary, 1907. A daughter, Letha, born June 7, 1902, died November 1, 1905. Mr. Biggers upholds the principles of the Democratic party. Fraternally he is a member of Shaw- nee Lodge, Guthrie Consistory and Okla- homa City Shrine of the Masonic order, the

Franck A. Thackery

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias.

W. H. MONARY, of the firm of McNary & Mans, proprietors of the largest steam bottling works plant within the new state of Oklahoma, and located at Shawnee, is count- ed among the enterprising and worthy pion- eers, who rode in the famous race for land in 1892, but failed. Again at the opening of the Pottawatomie reservation he ran and was a winner of land, but a contest ensued, and after five years of litigation lie was beaten. He then went to work at his trade which was that of carpenter and contractor ; he al- so did considerable house-moving.

Mr. McNary was born in Greencastle, Put- nam county, Indiana, in 1854, coming from a family of early settlers in the Hoosier state. The father was E. N. McNary, who was born east of the Allegheny mountains. The mother, Mary E. Fry, was born in Ken- tucky and died at Atchison, Kansas, in 1904, the mother of nine children, four sons and five daughters. One son Jasper, was in the army and made an excellent military record. He died at a point in Smith county, Kansas, where he had homesteaded.

IV. H. McNary learned the carpenter's trade in Illinois and followed it successfully for several years, after coming west. He remained in Illinois until 1869, then went to Kansas where he remained two years, re- turning to Illinois where he was united in marriage in Clarke county, 1875, to Lieur- hama Chancelor, who made him an excellent wife, true and faithful to every duty. She was born and reared in Illinois and died at Shawnee, Oklahoma, in December, 1906, leaving two children: Mrs. Mabel Davis, of Tecumseh, Oklahoma; Otto, of Sulphur Springs, Oklahoma.

Politically, Mr. McNary is a Democrat. In public matters he is broad viewed and enterprising, at all times doing his full share as a good citizen. Having lived in the free and untrammeled west so long he has come to take on that freedom and hearty hospital- ity for which the far west has ever been noted. He owns a good residence property at Shaw- nee, the same being located at the corner of Ninth and Park streets. His business place, of which he is the senior member in the firm, is a two story structure fifty-two by seventy feet, all fully equipped with the modern machinery and appliances necessary for turning out an excellent quality of a variety of bottled goods. This firm employs ·a large number of workmen, both within the

extensive works, as well as salesmen on the road and teamsters, who deliver the product from place to place. The out-put of this plant exceeds twelve thousand dollars per annum. The business tact and energy dis- played by this man, in coming to a new country and facing the hardships which usu- ally follow and surround the first settlers of any country, has developed him into a character at once rugged and excellent in its make-up.

FRANKLIN A. THACKERY, Superintendent and United States Indian Agent for the Shawnee Indian Training School and Agen- cy, has been identified with the interests of Oklahoma and with the local Indian affairs of the United States Government for many years. His labors have been effective in raising the standard of the institution since he has been its head as well as in assisting in the making of useful citizens out of the older Indian population of the state of Oklahoma. He took charge of the Shawnee Indian School and Agency on the first day of October, 1901, and since that time he has doubled the capacity of the school by build- ing many new and well equipped substan- tial buildings. He was first employed in the U. S. Indian service at the Sac and Fox agency, Oklahoma, his appointment there dating back to January, 1891, at a time when the nearest railroad to the agency was sixty miles distant. Later he was transferred and promoted to a position as Teacher of Indus- tries among the Sioux Indians at the Crow Creek agency, South Dakota. Later he was again transferred and promoted to the posi- tion of Disciplinarian at the Genoa Indian School, Nebraska, and from there to the position of Superintendent of the Riverside school at Anadarko, Oklahoma, from which place he came to Shawnee as Superintendent and Indian agent. He was twice promoted while at the Sac and Fox agency, twice pro- moted while at the Crow Creek agency, once promoted while at Genoa, twice promoted while at Anadarko and twice promoted since he came to Shawnee. His duties at Shawnee include full supervision over the affairs of the Shawnee, Pottawatomie and Kickapoo Indians of Pottawatomie, Lincoln, Oklahoma and Cleveland counties.

He is a native son of Wabaunsee county, Kansas, and was born March 5, 1872, on the homestead of his father, Samuel Thackery, who was a Kansas pioneer moving there immediately after the close of the Civil war from Ripley county, Indiana. His father

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

was a member of the Fifth Indiana Cavalry and served throughout the war, having been at one time captured and confined for seven months in the Confederate prison at Ander- sonville. His mother was formerly Eleanor Grecian and was also a native of Indiana. After completing his common school educa- tion, he with four brothers and five sisters completed his education at the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan, Kansas. It was from this latter institution that Mr. Thackery received his first appoint- ment of the Indian Service, the appointment being made upon the recommendation of the president of that Institution.

In 1897 Franklin A. Thackery was united in marriage to Miss Bessie B. Northrop then of Salem, Ohio, but who was born in the state of New York. Her father, John W. Northrop, was also a Union soldier through- out the Civil war and he too was captured and served eight months in the Anderson- ville prison. Mr. Northrop has been a practi- cal newspaper man and writer all of his life and during his imprisonment in Anderson- ville he kept a complete diary on scraps of papers which diary he has since published in book form. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Thackery to wit: Har- vey N., Ellis F., and Cora F. Mr. Thackery is a 32d degree Scottish Rite Mason.

In the year 1908, after many years of diffi- culty with parties attempting to take advant- age of the Indians of his agency, Mr. Thack- ery was unanimously selected as trustee for the Kickapoo Indians of his agency to re- ceive and disburse a sum of about $128,000, thus evidencing the confidence his wards have in him. In a general way it may be said that the policy of Mr. Thackery in deal- ing with Indians is simply to give them a white man's chance.

G. M. D. STEEL. One of the first business men of Shawnee was G. M. D. Steel, who came to the site of the present thriving city in the latter part of 1893. At that time Shawnee was little more than a name, had not yet been platted as a town, was an un- important station with about two hundred inhabitants. Whether he was farsighted enough to find encouragement in future prospects, or was possessed of that pertinac- ity that causes men to remain and assist the progress of a community to the end, at any rate he stayed in Shawnee and watched it grow first into a town and then to a city, which as a shipping point and market rivals

the leading cities of the new state. It was in the loan, insurance, abstract and real es- tate business that he made his start in Shawnee, and as such has continued, and at the same time has helped build the city and has been closely identified with its every stage of progress. While without ambition for political preferment, he has lent his serv- ice to the cause of education by serving as president of the school board for two years. In banking circles Mr. Steel is one of the well known men of Oklahoma. He was cashier of the First National Bank at Shaw- nee until it closed out of business. At Ed- mond, where he first located on coming to Oklahoma, he has served as vice president of the First National Bank and as a director in the People's Bank of that town. He is a man of sterling business and private char- acter, and stands high in all the circles with which he has been identified.

Mr. Steel was born in Waco county, Ten- nessee, May 12, 1846, son of George and Sally (Hubbard) Steel. His mother was a native of the same state and died in 1865. The father, who was born in North Carolina, October 4, 1802, came to Tennessee in 1824, and died in November, 1884. Educated in the schools of Tennessee and reared on a farm, G. M. D. Steel became a practical farmer and also at an early age became iden- tified with practical affairs. When only twenty-one years old he was elected deputy sheriff of Wakeley county, Tennessee. In 1871 he increased his education by a course in a Kansas normal school, and on returning to Tennessee took charge of his father's farm and managed the homestead until the latter's death. His connection with the real estate business began in 1886, at the town of Mckenzie, Tennessee, and from there he moved his residence and continued his busi- ness in Edmond, Oklahoma, during six months of the year 1893, when he came to Shawnee. Mr. Steel affiliates with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, being a member of the grand lodge, and is a member of the Baptist church of Shawnee. He mar- ried, May 5, 1884, Miss Dora C. Finch, who was born in his native county of Tennessee, a daughter of Hite and Emily (Harris) Finch, a native of North Carolina and she of Illinois.

S. T. PIERSON has been a resident of Shaw- nee and vicinity since 1902. A man of varied business experience, in course of which he has participated in many lines of enterprise,

John H. Honegenth

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

and popular as a successful citizen deserves to be, he has identified himself very closely with this section of Oklahoma and is well known in this part of the state. Mr. Pierson has gained special note as a potato grower, having made a specialty of this branch of agriculture since he came to Oklahoma, and is still owner of four hundred acres of land near Shawnee, a large part of which he has exploited in growing this crop. In 1905 he engaged in the real estate business in Shawnee and this is his principal business interest at the present time.

Mr. Pierson was born in Morrow county, Ohio, February 29, 1848, a son of Stephen and Matilda (Harris) Pierson, both native Ohioans. An accident caused his father's death when S. T. was but a child, and as a result, after a few years' schooling in the public schools, the latter began earning his own way when fifteen years old. He re- mained on a farm until he was twenty-two, and then began railroad work, which he continued for many years. He was a con- ductor on the Miami division of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad for seventeen years. In 1885 he went to Carthage, Missouri, and after spending two years in the lead and zinc in- dustries, moved to southern Kansas and helped build the D. M. & A. division of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and then contin- ued as conductor on the line for thirteen years. Before he came to Shawnee he was a resident for two years in Des Moines. In Shawnee he has interested himself in the cause of public education and has served a term on the city school board. He is a Knight Templar Mason. He was married June 13, 1882, to Miss Kate Ankeny, a native of Xenia, Ohio. Their one son, Harry, is assistant cashier of the Oklahoma National Bank.

JOHN H. HONEYCUTT, one of the retired farmers and ex-soldiers of the great Civil war, most naturally finds place in the annals of his state wherein he had been a pioneer pathfinder. He came to Oklahoma in Feb- ruary, 1892, from Gage county, Nebraska and had been one of the original homestead- ers in Gage county that state in 1867, soon after the Homestead Act was passed and effective. His record, both as soldier and citizen is indeed one to be coveted.

Mr. Honeycutt is a native of Tennessee and one of seventeen men who left Tennes- see for Kentucky to enlist, having to go through the enemy's line to do so, and ten

of their number were killed. Seven how- ever making their way to the Union lines, enlisted in defence of the stars and stripes. The place of enlistment was Barbersville, Kentucky and the command was Company D, First Tennessee Regiment. He served under Captain J. W. Branson, and Colonel R. K. Bird. The term of his service was three years. His first engagement was Mills Springs, where General Zollicoffer was killed. For a time, he was under General Thomas; in various fights and skirmishes, also served in the Third Brigade, Third Division of the Twenty-third Corps with General Scofield. He saw much severe fighting; was at Atlanta when General Mc- Pherson was killed, and on the various campaigns until discharged at Nashville, Tennessee in September, 1864, having made a soldier-like record as a military man and volunteer. This gentleman who is a pioneer of two states, was born in 1837, of a family noted for courage, industry and honesty. His father was Austin Honeycutt, born in North Carolina, of English ancestry. The mother was Rebecca Robison, born of an old Tennessee family of Scotch descent. This worthy couple reared a family of four sons and three daughters. Two of the sons were soldiers in the Civil war in the union cause. These were John H., and James, of Beaver county, Oklahoma. One son was killed by bushwhackers while piloting sol- diers over the mountains.

John H. Honeycutt was reared in Tennes- see on a farm, and educated as well as taught the principles of doing business in the South. On February 7, 1865, he married Catherine Williams, who died February 7, 1866, leav- ing a babe. In December, 1867 he went to Gage county, Nebraska and there took a homestead upon which he proved up in the usual manner and time and then sold that and bought a farm in the Otoe reservation, the same state. For over 17 years Mr. Hon- eycutt was a member of the Nebraska Light Artillery, commanded by Captain Murdock, of Wymore, Gage county, Nebraska, serv- ing as first sergeant and also as quarter-mas- ter sergeant of the company. In 1871, he married, Rebecca S. Hadden, of a first class family, who made him an excellent compan- ion and helpmate in life. She was reared in Indiana, her father becoming a pioneer in Iowa. He was Isaac Hadden, who had three sons : Isaac, John and William. Isaac and William are long since deceased and John

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

resides in Gage county, Nebraska. The good father laid down life's burdens in Iowa, the mother dying in Nebraska.

In 1892, Mr. Honeycutt went to Oklahoma territory and filed on a fine tract of farming land, to the east of Shawnee, and bought two hundred and forty acres. In 1904, he sold and purchased property in Shawnee, re- tiring from farming, still owning some valu- able land however. At Shawnee, he has a beautiful home, surrounded with all that goes to make life dear. Of his eleven chil- dren ten are still living. They are as fol- lows: J. V., who was a soldier with the famous Rough Riders during the Spanish- American war, with him who later became President-Theodore Roosevelt; J. V. now lives in Denver, Colorado; W. L. now in New Mexico, was a member of the Okla- homa State Guards; May McNew, Dora Wymore, Ollie Robb, Maud Broshier, and Alta Thompson, all of Shawnee, Edward Lowe, Elmer E. and Mary, of Tennessee ; one died in infancy.

Politically, Mr. Honeycutt, is a staunch supporter of Republican party principles, and withal one of the correct, painstaking and practical men of the town of Shawnee.

JOE OSCAR PROWSE, of Shawnee, Pottawa- tomie county, Oklahoma, who is justly en- titled to space in this work, was elected as a member of the city council of Shawnee, April 7, 1908, representing the interests of the Fifth ward of the city municipality. Politi- cally, he affiliates with the Democratic party. To acquaint the reader with something con- cerning his earlier career, let it be stated that he was born in the enterprising city of Austin, Texas, in the shadow of the State house in May 1882, a son of George W. Prowse, an honorable, and well known citi- zen of Austin. The father was born in England, and there reared and educated. He emigrated to Texas, while yet a young man, and is still living in Austin, aged about sev- enty years. He served in the Confederate army, during the Civil war period. His wife, was before her marriage, Elizabeth Dalton, also born in England and emigrating from there while quite young. These parents were both members of the Methodist Epis- copal church, and were the father and moth- er of nine children-six sons and three daughters.

J. O. Prowse, of this memoir, received a good education in the public schools of Aus- tin, Texas, after which he engaged as a clerk,

in one of the leading stores of his native city. He was ever faithful to his employer's interests, and in due time, was promoted to manager of the large business concerns of. the firm, which position he held with ability for seven years. He came to Shawnee, in 1905, from Indian Territory, and now re- sides in a fine, modern-styled cottage on East Main street. He has charge of the in- surance department of the Conservative Loan & Abstract Company, of Shawnee. He was united in marriage at Hutto, Texas, April 12, 1906, to Ida Hensel, of a highly respectable family of Travis Peak, Texas, where she was educated. Both he and his estimable wife are members of the Metho- dist Episcopal church.

J. F. QUILLIN, a general merchant and the owner of a cotton gin in Eason, is one of the prominent and progressive business men and pioneers of this section of Pottawatomie county, and truly merits a place in its his- tory. He has been numbered among the citizens of Oklahoma since 1895 and among the business men of Eason since 1898, and both his large general store and his gin are well known over the surrounding country.

Mr. Quillin was born in Tennessee, in Hickman county. in 1847. Both his father, John, and his grandfather, Thomas, were born in South Carolina, and were representa- tives of prominent old southern families. Mr. Quillin's mother. Caroline Holbrook, was a member of a Tennessee family and was a daughter of Joseplı Holbrook. In their early life, Mr. and Mrs. Quillin moved with their family to Washington county, Arkansas, locating near Fayetteville, where the husband and father died at the age of sixty-one, after many years of agricultural labor. His wife was eighty-three at the time of her death, and thev were members of the Baptist church and the parents of eight children, three sons and five daugh- ters.

Among this family was J. F. Ouillin, who attained to manhood's estate in Washington county, Arkansas, and when the Civil war was inaugurated he became a member of General Sterling Price's command and served valiantly as a Confederate soldier. From Arkansas he went to Texas, spending ten years in Tarrant county, that state, and from there came to Oklahoma in 1895, where in Pottawatomie. county he owns a splendid farm of two hundred and forty acres, and his buildings both in the town and

J . F. Quillin

MR. AND MRS. HENRY G. LOWRY

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

county amount to many thousands of dol- lars, including his large store room and gin and his commodious two-story residence, while in addition to all this he owns four hundred acres of as fine fruit land as can be found in Washington county, Arkansas.

He was married in that county in 1865 to Elizabeth Comb, who died four years later and left one child, but it survived its mother but a little time and died at the age of four years. In 1871 Mr. Quillin mar- ried Winnie Boyd, who was born and reared in Arkansas, and of their eight chil- dren five are now living, namely: Eliza- beth Allebough, whose home is in Lincoln county, Oklahoma ; Malinda Cantrell, also of this state ; James, who is operating the home farm and gin; Alice Allebaugh, of Lincoln county; and Maggie Baker Quillin. Mr. Quillin is prominent in the local order of Odd Fellows, in which he has served in all of the offices and has been a delegate to the Grand Lodge. His politics are stanch Dem- ocratic, and he is a member of the Baptist church.

C. G. GRAVES, of the firm of Graves & Fun- ston, proprietors of a gin mill at Maud, has through this channel of trade contributed much to the business stability of the town and surrounding country. The firm began business here in 1903, and their mill, which has a capacity of forty bales for ten hours work, is improved with the latest improved machinery, and in fact no better equipped plant of the kind can be found throughout Oklahoma. Its engine, a Frost, is a sixty- five horse power, with an eighty-five horse power boiler, and during the season of 1907 the mill pressed nineteen hundred bales of cotton. In the summer of 1908 they pur- chased another gin at Seminole.

Mr. C. G. Graves, a young man of thirty- three years, came to Oklahoma with his fa- ther, WV. R. Graves, April 22, 1889. The senior Mr. Graves was born in Tennessee, and is now living in Stroud, Lincoln county, Oklahoma. By his wife, nee Harriet Wade, he has had five children, two sons and three daughters, and when their son, C. G., was , a boy of fourteen they came to Oklahoma,

where he was reared on a farm and attended in the meantime the state normal at Ed- mond. After entering upon his business career he served for a time as an engineer in the saw mills of Logan and Lincoln counties, and from there he came to Pot- tawatomie county and entered upon his suc-

cessful career in gin milling as a member of the firm of Graves & Funston.

Mr. Graves was married in Logan county, Oklahoma, when twenty-one years of age, to Kate Funston, who was born in Indiana, a daughter of Henry Funston, deceased. Their five children are Minnie, David, Ethel, Paul and Lillie. As a Republican, Mr. Graves takes an active interest in the po- litical life of his community, and he is a member of the fraternal orders of Odd Fel- lows and Modern Woodmen.

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 6

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