A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 76

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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Dr. Hall immediately began practice at Medford, Grant county, Oklahoma. That year and the three years following will long be remembered as the most distressing per- iod of hard times in Oklahoma, when food and clothing had to be distributed to pre- vent exposure and starvation. The Doctor was county physician of Grant county and had charge of this work in his county, and he recalls to mind that these first three years of his practice brought him financially scarcely a dollar, nothing but a combination

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of youth, strong physique, perfect health and a spirit of determination and self re- liance gained from a western training en- abling him to withstand these discouraging experiences. In 1897 a splendid crop of wheat put the country back on the road to prosperity, and Dr. Hall's practice was re- warded by ample financial returns. He located at Pawhuska in 1904, and has taken a prominent part in the building up of the city. He erected what was then and is still the finest residence in Medford before coming here, and also considerable business property. Here he built and owns the Hall Business Block, a splendid two-story brick structure at the junction of Main, Grand View and Kiheka streets, the most prom- inent business location in the city. The lower floors of the building are occupied by stores with offices above. He has also built several other business and residence . struc- tures in Pawhuska, his operations in real estate and building proving so uniformly successful and profitable that he has more recently retired from his medical practice to devote all of his time to his business operations.

He is a well known worker in Democratic circles, and was elected the mayor of the city in April, 1907. As a Mason he belongs to the chapter and commandery at Enid, to the consistory at Guthrie and to the Mys- tic Shrine at St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Hall married at Enid Miss Lulu Maud Murphy, a daughter of Colonel John Murphy, a wealthy and prominent citizen there. Their three children are Livingston, Charles E. and Martha.

THOMAS MOSIER is prominently numbered among those who have been conspicuous in the public affairs of the Osage Nation. On account of his exceptional educational quali- fications and his tried and known integrity he has been selected to fill many important official positions. He has represented his race, the Osages, on several delegations to Washington, has been national secretary of the Osage council, national interpreter, United States interpreter in the federal courts at Topeka, Fort Smith and other court centers. At the Osage Indian agency in Pawhuska he is connected with the de- partment in charge of the leasing of Osage lands, and in many other ways is prominent in the public life of his community.

Mr. Mosier is a member of the Osage Indian race and was born in Linn county, Vol. II-26

Kansas, then a part of the Osage Indian reservation, December 18, 1843. His father was Thomas Mosier, a Frenchman, who coming to the Osage country in early years, became a blacksmith for the Osages and married one of their nation, Basille Ahsin- kah. In the early fifties they moved to Neosho county, Kansas. They sent their son, Thomas, to school in the mission of the Jesuit Fathers in Neosho county, Kan- sas, where they all resided until the break- ing out of the Civil war. Thomas, with two of his brothers, enlisted in the Union army and served throughout the conflict, belonging to the Ninth Kansas Cavalry, and they were in service along the Kansas- Missouri border and in Arkansas and Indian Territory. Thomas Mosier was in Law- rence, Kansas, shortly after the Quantrell raid and later was chased and shot by the guerillas in Missouri, receiving a slight wound when carrying express. He was also in the campaigning connected with Price's raid in Missouri.

After the close of the war he returned to Neosho county, and after the treaty of 1865 moved with other Osage families to the Verdigris river in Montgomery county above Independence, Kansas, while after the treaty of 1870 they came to the Caney river and in 1872, upon the completion of nego- tiations for the final settlement of the Osages they with all other families of that race came to the present Osage Nation. Mr. Mosier is very prominent in Indian af- fairs and is well known throughout this sec- tion of Oklahoma on account of the con- spicuous part he has taken in its public affairs. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and is past commander of the local order of the Grand Army of the Republic. In politics he is a stanch Re- publican.

HON. RET MILLARD, the United States Ind- ian agent at Pawhuska, was born in Dewitt county, Illinois, in 1861, and he was reared in that county and lived there until 1890, when, at the age of twenty, he went to Wellington, Kansas. In 1893 he partici- pated in the great run at the opening of the Cherokee Strip and located at Enid, while later he removed to Oklahoma City and became the assistant postmaster, first under Samuel Murphy and later under the pres- ent postmaster, E. E. Brown. He had filled similar positions at Enid before locating at

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

Oklahoma City. In 1905 he became chief clerk at the Osage Indian agency, Pawhus- ka, and on January 9, 1906, he received from President Roosevelt appointment to the position of Indian agent in charge of the Osage agency.

The Osage agency was established at Pawhuska in 1871, Isaac T. Gibson being the first agent. Its grounds occupy a pic- turesque location on the hill overlooking the city of Pawhuska and Bird Creek val- ley. The government school for the Indians is on a part of these grounds, and for the Osage children there are besides two Cath- olic mission schools on the reservation. At the last census the Osage Indian population numbered 2,230. Mr. Millard has always been identified with the Republican party, active and public spirited in its interests. He married at Enid, Miss Agnes Dempsey, of Garfield county, and they have two chil- dren, Dick and Madge.

DR. HUGH SCOTT. The life history of Dr. Hugh Scott in Oklahoma dates back to the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893, when with his father he made the run into the new country and secured a claim near Wau- komis in Garfield county, living on it for nearly three years while his father estab- lished his medical practice in Waukomis. In December of 1907 the son located at his present home, Pawhuska, Osage county, where he is the government surgeon for the Osage Indian agency. He also maintains a large private practice in both medicine and surgery, in which he makes a specialty of the diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, for which he took special post gradu- ate work at Washington in the Episcopal Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Infirmary, and also attended lectures on these subjects in George Washington University.

The Doctor was born at Centralia, Marion county, Illinois, in 1879, a son of Dr. S. F. and Lura Dean (Maddox) Scott. The pa- ternal ancestry is of Scotch descent and they are a family of physicians, covering four generations in the profession. The great- grandfather, Dr. Rufus Scott, of Scotland, was a graduate in medicine of Edinburgh University, while the grandfather, Dr. Hugh Scott, also of Scotland, came to America and received his medical education in Tulane University of New Orleans, afterward prac- ticing medicine in the south, particularly in Texas. The father is still a physician in

active practice, his home being yet in Wau- komis, Garfield county, Oklahoma. In earlier years he practiced medicine at Sul- phur Springs, Texas, at Centralia, Illinois, and in Missouri and Kansas. He is a physi- cian of the highest standing and imbued with the more kindly ethical ideals of the older school of physicians. His wife was born in Illinois and is of English-Welsh ancestry.

Dr. Hugh Scott, their son, received his preliminary education mainly in the public and high schools of Centralia, while much of his medical study and experience was obtained under his father's able preceptor- ship. This training was followed by a regu- lar medical course in the Central Medical College of St. Joseph, Missouri, from which he graduated with the class of 1903. He also took post graduate work in that col- lege and in Dr. Beverly Campbell's surgical hospital of St. Joseph.

Dr. Scott was crowded what would seem at first glance an almost impossible amount of work, study, public service and political experience into a life as young as his. He has done this through his own ef- forts, energy and ambition, never having received a dollar except as he has earned it. Besides his medical studies he has also studied pharmacy and has a pharmacist's license from the Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy. He is regimental surgeon for the Oklahoma National Guard, and was private secretary to Hon. Bird McGuire, delegate to Congress during the congres- sional term of 1905-6. From June to No- vember, 1906, Dr. Scott was assistant er- ritorial secretary of Oklahoma, from that time until the expiration of territorial gov- ernment in November, 1907, he was private secretary to Governor Frantz, and is sec- retary of the Republican state central com- mittee and a member of the Republican congressional committee for the First Con- gressional district. Dr. Scott belongs to the State and American Medical Associa- tions, is a thirty-second degree Mason, be- longing to the consistory at Guthrie, and is a member of the American Associa- tion of Military Surgeons. While study- ing medicine in St. Joseph he worked as police and hotel reporter on the St. Joe Gazette. Dr. Scott's wife was, before her marriage, Miss Willie Wallace, a native of

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Tennessee. They have a little daughter, Mary Dean Wallace, born at Pawhuska February 11, 1908.

COL. A. D. ORCUTT. A founder of the new Oklahoma; a hearty, able pioneer of the old territory ; a father of growing towns, as well as of mature and useful men and women ; an active Republican, and an hon- ored, albeit, unwilling, legislator of the in- fant commonwealth-Colonel Orcutt is now a resident of Coweta, southeast of Tulsa, Wagoner county, where he is chiefly em- ployed in the care and development of his important land interests in that locality. He is of the genial, progressive Kentucky type, his birthplace being Vanceburg, Lewis county, the ancestral home of the Orcutts, and the date, August 17, 1846. The colonel is a son of Dr. A. C. and Mary (Crull) Orcutt, the former being a native of New York and the latter, of Scioto county Ohio. About 1857 they removed to Doni- phan county, Kansas, and, after residing there for a short time located, with their family, in Coles county, Illinois, in the early seventies, settling at Oakland, Marion coun- ty, Arkansas.

These migrations of the Orcutt family determined the localities which were the scenes of the son's education. At the out- break of the Civil war, Colonel Orcutt en- listed in the Second Nebraska Cavalry for service against the Indians who were then threatening the western frontiers. He parti- cipated in the battle of Whitestone Hill, Wyoming, and later enlisted from Illinois with the Eighteenth Regiment of that state, winning distinguished honors and promo- tion to the rank of captaincy. Colonel Or- cutt is considered an able campaign speak- er and one of the best organizers in the Re- publican party in the Third Congressional district.

In 1873, Colonel Orcutt and his family lo- cated at Coffeyville, Kansas, but in the spring of the following year they started for the country of the Creek Nation, in old Indian Territory. On the 19th of June, 1874, they arrived at what is now the site of the city of Tulsa, establishing their home on a ranch six miles south of that location. This vicinity has been the home of the Or- cutts ever since, making them one of the oldest white families in this section of Ok- lahoma. Colonel Orcutt established a large stock ranch and also engaged in general

merchandise, in the early days, hauling all his goods from Coffeyville. With the ad- vent of new settlers and the probable es- tablishment of a new town, he also suggest- ed the name which was finally adopted- Tulsa being given it in honor of an old and honored Indian family of that name. Col- onel Orcutt hauled the supplies for the civil engineer and staff who laid out the route of the old Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (now the Frisco System) from Vinita to Tulsa and Red Fork, and, with the assistance of the engineer mentioned, made the survey of the first street in the town of Tulsa. Later, under the firm name of A. D. Orcutt and Company, he established the first exclusive implement and hardware store in the place, and conducted a growing and profitable business for many years. His cattle inter- ests also increased until he was classed as among the largest dealers in the territory, it being his custom, in the earlier years of his activity, to bring large herds from Texas, pasture them on Oklahoma lands and ship them to the northern markets.

In 1899, prior to the building of the Mid- land Valley Railroad, Colonel Orcutt found- ed the town of Coweta, and since it became a station on the line, centered also in a rich agricultural region, it has been continuous- ly progressing as an enterprising and thriv- ing little city. This has since been his resi- dence town, where in a large and modern residence he is leading a comfortable and honored life, engaged in the care of his broad acres and in the dispensing of a broad hospitality and benevolence which is so characteristic of a true Kentuckian. Al- though he has never sought political ad- vancement and was even opposed to being nominated for membership in the first state legislature, his numerous friends of the Re- publican party insisted upon his making the canvass, with the result that he was one of only eighteen Republicans who was sent to Guthrie to participate in the historic ses- sions of the new commonwealth. Although his duties were performed with entire satis- faction to his constituents, who tendered him a re-nomination, the Colonel absolute- ly refused to continue his career as a state legislator. It is quite natural, however, that he should be an active participant in fra- ternal and social life. He was one of the organizers and a charter member of the Lucius Fairchild Post, G. A. R., of Tulsa,

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and is also identified with the Masonic fra- ternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Colonel Orcutt's first wife was Mary Jock, a native of Holt county, Missouri, where they were married. She died at the age of thirty-three years, the mother of the following six children: Augustus, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work ; Net- tie, who married George Marshall, died at the age of twenty-four and left one child, Violet ; Katie, who died at the age of eight ; Garfield, who served in the Philippines dur- ing the Spanish-American war and is now a soldier in the regular army; Daisy, now the wife of Frank Gregory, a resident of Tulsa; and Josie, who died in infancy. In 1886, Colonel Orcutt wedded as his second wife, Miss Addie Hodge, daughter of Judge Alvin T. Hodge, of Tulsa. Her father is of Scotch extraction and her mother of Chero- kee blood. Mrs. Orcutt has enjoyed thor- ough educational advantages and is a cul- tured lady. She is the mother of nine liv- ing children and as each has an allotment of land, under the law, the Orcutt estate consists of some fourteen hundred acres of valuable land. The children of whom Colonel and Mrs. Orcutt have become pa- rents are as follows: Anna, now Mrs. Bed- ford Godwin, of Tulsa ; Alvin Hodge, Elem Blaine, David M., Ollie and Christina, living home; William McKinley, who died when five years of age; Guy B. and Pearl, also at home ; one who died unnamed, and Den- nis Flinn, the youngest, who lives with his parents.

HERBERT E. WOODWARD. Tulsa and vi- cinity have been noted for several years for the magnitude of their commercial inter- ests, for the great oil and gas productions, and for the rapid rise of a city from a small town. In raising the grade of the fine stock industry, which must be considered one of the important interests of this vicinity, and which will grow in wealth-producing possi- bilities with the continued development of the country, one of the men who deserves rank as a pioneer is Herbert E. Woodward. The Cedar Creek Stock Farm, a mile and a half southeast of town, of which Mr. Woodward is proprietor, has attained con- siderable note among the farms of eastern Oklahoma for its fine quality of blooded stock, especially for its Poland China hogs. This department of stock-raising was taken

up on his place some years ago, before the oil and other industrial interests had made a city of Tulsa. Mr. Woodward has a large acquaintance and business connections with the prominent breeders and stockmen of the north and east, and spends much time at the larger fairs, public sales and stock shows in exhibiting his premium stock. His busi- ness has prospered, and in addition he has been fortunate in securing a share of Tul- sa's real estate in time to profit by the rapid growth of that city.

The proprietor of the Cedar Creek Stock Farm is a New Englander by birth and an- cestry, born at Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1871. He was reared and educated at Gro- ton, the ancestral home of the Woodwards. This family, of itself and through its rela- tionship with the Wadsworths and Long- fellows, is one of the distinguished in New England genealogy. Mr. Woodward's moth- er, Henrietta (Johnson) Woodward, is still living, in Tulsa but his father, James H. Woodward, died when Herbert was a child. The poet, Longfellow, was a cousin of James H. Woodward, the latter's mother being Wadsworth. The most notable rep- resentative of the Wadsworth family in con- temporary life is ex-Congressman Wads- worth, of New York. Sandforth Wood- ward, an uncle of the Tulsa stockman, is one of the proprietors of the largest retail commercial house in Washington city, and another uncle, Eugene Woodward, is a prominent citizen of Brockton, Massachu- setts.

Herbert E. Woodward has been identi- fied with the west since he was fifteen years old. He lived in Kansas City from 1886 to 1893, and at the opening of the Cherokee Strip, in the fall of 1893, made the run into that country. In 1898 he came to the Creek Nation, and, without capital other than his characteristic New England enterprise and initiative, located near what was then the small town of Tulsa and began the work of establishing a first-class stock farm. The land he selected, southeast of town, was heavily timbered, and it was a task requir- ing unusual energy to clear and improve it to his satisfaction. He now has about 480 acres in the Cedar Creek farm, which is one of the farmsteads that prove how profitably agriculture and its kindred inter- ests may be carried on in the old Indian Territory under the proper direction and enterprise. Mr. Woodward married Miss

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Nellie E. Riley, and they have five children : Helen N., Hazel D., Grace, Edith and James H.

OLIVER P. JONES, a member of the Tulsa bar, who is now serving as city re- corder, was born at Sherman, Grayson coun- ty, Texas, in 1877, a son of Oliver P. and Mary (Russell) Jones. The father, a native of Tennessee, spent his boyhood in Missouri and in 1858 went to Cooke county, Texas, where he located among its earliest pio- neers, later removing to the adjoining coun- ty of Grayson. His experience on the fron- tier covered the troublous times of the war, the Indian depredations, the reign of the desperado and the picturesque early cattle days of northern Texas. Oliver P. Jones gave his attention to the cattle business for some time when the range was open and the cattleman's herds were numbered by the hundred head. In later years he turned his attention to the grain and milling busi- ness, becoming one of the substantial citi- zens of Grayson county and one of its best known pioneers. He now makes his home at Kingston, Marshall county, in southern Oklahoma, adjoining Grayson county, where he still retain most of his interests. His wife is a native of Illinois.

Oliver P. Jones, whose name introduces this review, acquired his general education in the schools of Sherman and Denison, Texas, and his legal education in the law department of Columbian College, at Wash- ington, where he was graduated with the class of 1904. He entered upon the practice of this profession in Washington and in January, 1906, removed to Tulsa, where he opened a law office for general practice. In the city election of April, 1907, he was chosen city recorder and ex-officio police magistrate. This town, because of its geo- graphical location and easy access by nu- merous railways, has its full proportion of thieves, beggars and restless characters, and to protect its law-abiding citizens from those who do not hold themselves amenable to law has made the duties of the city an- thorities very heavy at times. The new city generally, however, has been favored in the class of men who have filled its offices, for they have stood for all that is right and just and Oliver P. Jones recorder of the city and ex-officio police magistrate, has become a terror to evil-doers until the news has gone abroad that Tulsa must be avoided by those

who continually transgress if they want to escape an unpleasant interview with its po- lice magistrate. Mr. Jones is certainly well qualified for the position which he is filling. Those who meet him in social relations and, in fact, all those who are observant of the laws and necessary regulations of the land. know him to be a genial, courteous gentle- man, but the transgressors find in him one who is firm in his spirit of justice, discharg- ing his duties without fear or favor.

Judge Jones stands as a splendid repre- sentative of the progressive younger ele- ment of citizenship in Tulsa, whose efforts in behalf of municipal virtue and advance- ment are most effective and beneficial. He owns substantial property interests here and is well known in fraternal organizations, be- ing a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias lodge and belonging also to the Elks and other organizations.

SAM CONE. The peculiar restrictions which have been placed around the Indian country by the federal government, and the territory's old-time reputation as a favorite resort of criminals, have made the lot of a federal officer in the territory one of special activity and unusually dangerous. The per- ils and varied duties if such an office are well illustrated in the career of Deputy U. S. Marshal Sam Cone, an officer of note throughout the southwest, and a resident of Tulsa. Born on the frontier, it happened that in his early life he was brought, more or less, in contact with the criminal ele- To carry a gun in his time and community was one of the merest conventionalities, and from this habit developed a reputation as one of the best shots in his neighborhood. It is said that by continued practice this talent has become almost second nature with him, and he hits his mark instinctively, even if his eyes are turned away from the object of his fire.

Mr. Cone was born in Wise county, Texas, in 1878, and his parents, John M. and Jane (Guttry) Cone, are still alive in that county. His father, born in Tennessee, in 1848, ac- companied his parents to Texas when seven years old, the family being one of the first in that section of Texas. In the cattle busi- ness, which has for years been the princi- pal resource of North Texas, John M. Cone has been for years one of the large factors and equally prominent in the general wel- fare of Wise county.

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The Cone ranch in Wise county had splen- did opportunities for learning the technique of the cattle range, though not so many advantages in getting an education, but Sam Cone acquired both. He was accustomed to life in the saddle almost from childhood, and under a private teacher at the home ranch began his schooling, which was con- tinued when the family moved to Newport. He also attended high school at Cleburne, finishing his education in the famous old Trinity University at Tehuacana, the alma mater of so many of Texas' notable char- acters. At the age of nineteen his fitness for full participation in the eventful life of the time was recognized in his appointment as a member of the Texas Rangers, under Captain McDonald. But his father object- ing, he did not qualify. In fact, Sam Cone, now so noted as a hunter of criminals, was intended for a career in the ministry of the Presbyterian church, so his parents planned. He came into Indian Territory to teach at Lehigh, and at the same time represented a detective agency in running down crim- inals in the Territory. He had already been admitted to the bar, having studied law in Fort Worth, and after he had finished his second winter of school at Lehigh, in 1903, he returned to Fort Worth and received ap- pointment as deputy sheriff of Tarrant county, under Sheriff John Honea. It is said that since reconstruction no Republi- can had ever received such an appointment except Mr. Cone. In 1904 he was appointed to the secret service, under W. H. Forsythe, chief operator for the treasury department JOSEPH C. MITCHELL, conducting a suc- cessful business as a stockman, and well known throughout this part of the state as an auctioneer, devoting thirty-five years of his life to that pursuit, was born in Morgan county, Illinois, in 1854. His boyhood and youth were spent in the usual manner of farm lads, as he assisted his father in the cultivation of the home farm through the spring and summer months, while in the winter seasons he attended the public schools. He started upon his business life at the age of seventeen years and, acquaint- ing himself with auctioneering, cried his first sale at that age. He has since been identified with the business and has con- ducted many important sales, gaining a wide reputation in this connection. He also has been a stockman throughout his entire life, and at different times has handled stock on in the apprehension of counterfeiters. The headquarters at Dallas had jurisdiction over Indian Territory and other sections of the southwest, and in this way Mr. Cone rap- idly acquired experience and reputation as a criminal officer. He was next made deputy U. S. marshal for the central district of In- dian Territory, under G. H. Witte, and with the realignment of the federal jurisdictions at the advent of statehood, in 1907, he was appointed, January 1, 1908, field deputy U. S. marshal for the eastern district of Okla- homa, with headquarters at Tulsa. In Sep- tember, 1906, he began additional duties as special agent of the interior department, under W. E. Johnson, his particular service being in the suppression of the illicit liquor traffic. Since statehood his duties in this office are confined to the Osage Nation. Bootleggers and counterfeiters, in many · an extensive scale. He is an excellent judge

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 76

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