USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II > Part 8
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L. C. HOLLOWAY
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1455570 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
of whom died in Arkansas. They had one son in the Union army during the Civil war, George Haney, whose home is now in Se- bastian county, Arkansas. On the 2d of September, 1891, Mr. and Mrs. Barrett came with their family to Oklahoma, securing a quarter section of land in section 19, Earls- boro township, which Mr. Barrett yet owns, but in 1904 he bought eighty acres of land a half mile from Earlsboro, where he erected a good six-room dwelling and moved there in order to afford his children better educa- tional advantages. He has had nine chil- dren: Andy H., Mary Bryant, William, Levi (who died at the age of seventeen years), Isaac, Nellie, Archie, Albert and Lo- Raine. The home, however, has been re- cently saddened by the death of the wife and mother, who was called to the home be- yond on the 12th of December, 1906, at the age of forty-four. She was an earnest Christian worker, a member of the Baptist church, and was known and loved for her goodness of heart. Mr. Barrett is a be- liever in the principles of the Democratic party, and is a member of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows, Earlsboro Lodge, No. 77.
L. C. HOLLOWAY, one of the prominent early pioneers of Pottawatomie county, is the owner of a valuable farm of three hun- dred and twenty acres in Eason township, two hundred acres of which is under culti- vation, and he is one of the leading farmers of the township.
Mr. Holloway was born in Cass county, Missouri, near Harrisonville, November 1, 1851, a son of Joseph and Malinda (Jackson) Holloway. The mother died in Missouri, and the father afterwards went to Pottawa- tomie county, Kansas, where he died when about sixty-seven years of age, a life-long agriculturist and a Democrat politically. He was of the Baptist faith. In their family were six children, one son and five dangh- ters.
L. C. Holloway was a boy of eight years at the time of the removal of the family to Shawnee county, Kansas, establishing their home five miles west of Topeka, but after four years there they located in Pottawa- tomie county, near Wamego, from whence they later went to Westmoreland, that state. L. C. Holloway accompanied the family on their various moves, and during the Civil war he served as a member of the Ninth Kansas Cavalry, under Colonel Jones and Major Inman: He was for four months in
General Custer's command, and during his military career of six months he took part in the massacre and in many Indian bat- tles. Returning home after his honorable discharge he came to Oklahoma many years afterward, in 1890, and has since been farm- ing in Pottawatomie county.
Mr. Holloway married, in Pottawatomie county, Kansas, January 7, 1871, Emily Melott, a daughter of Cland and Theressa (Novarre) Melott, the former of French and the latter of French and Pottawatomie blood. The father died in Oklahoma when eighty-one years of age, but the mother still survives, and has now reached the advanced age of seventy-nine. Mrs. Holloway was reared in Pottawatomie county, Kansas, and received a good education in its schools. By her marriage she has become the mother of ten children, namely: J. H., the treas- urer of Eason township and whose history also forms a part of this work; Nettie, Isa- belle, Grover C., Walter, Blanche and Henry. Two children died when young, and Rosalie Durham, a daughter, died and left two children, one of whom has since died and the other, George Lee, is a boy of eleven and finds a good home with Mr. and Mrs. Holloway. Mrs. Holloway was reared in the faith of the Catholic church, and Mr. Holloway is a Baptist in his religious belief.
W. R. BUTLER, M. D. Among those who have contributed to the advancement of the medical fraternity in Oklahoma is Dr. W. R. Butler, a physician and surgeon of Maud. It was in 1903 that he established his home here, and here he has since lived and labored, building up meanwhile a large and constant- ly growing practice. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Little Rock, Arkan- sas, with the class of 1901, and he is a na- tive son of Alabama, born in 1866. His fa- ther, John W. Butler, was a gallant soldier in the Confederate service during the Civil war, serving under Generals Bragg and Longstreet, making a gallant record as a soldier in the cause of the southland. He has now reached the age of sixty-nine years, a farmer by occupation, and a Democrat po- litically. His wife, Martha Welsh, died in Texas, when sixty-six years of age, leaving an only son, Dr. Butler. She was a faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and was loved and honored for her goodness of heart and mind.
Dr. Butler was but a babe of three and a half years at the time of the removal of
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
his parents to Texas, where during his early boyhood he attended the public schools, and he prepared for his profession first by study under the instructions of Dr. T. R. Ogden of Mona, Texas, a well known physician of that place. During the years of 1893-94-95 he was a student in the Medical College of Little Rock, graduating at the close of that period with high standing. He is a mem- ber of the State Medical Society, and has served his party, the Democratic, as a dele- gate to conventions. His fraternal rela- tions are with the Woodmen of the World and the Modern Woodmen of America.
Dr. Butler was married in Texas, in 1884, to Miss Ella Lawn, who was reared and educated in Texas, and their two children are Hollie Butler and Fred. The elder is now twenty-three years of age, and is the proprietor of the Maud Bus and Transfer Line. Fred is but a boy of three years. They have also lost three children, Mattie, who died at the age of thirteen, the third born of the children, and two who died in in- fancy. Dr. and Mrs. Butler are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
SEVERN D. MOULTON, the postmaster of Earlsboro, is one of the best known men of the community and one of the county's prominent and early pioneers. It was in 1891 that he first became identified with the interests of Oklahoma, selecting the claim which is now the home of his daughter, Nel- lie Stebbens. On the 22d of August, 1898, he was made the postmaster of Earlsboro, and leaving his farm then he has since been engaged in business in the city, building and owning a fine large business room, twenty-eight by seventy-five feet, which he uses for his general store, and in the rear is his postoffice. The office supplies four rural route carriers, who leave the office every morning to carry the mail along the railroad routes. The first carrier was appointed April 15, 1905, and much credit is due Mr. Moulton for the excellent work he has done during his administration as the postmaster of Earlsboro.
He was born in Monroe county, New York, near Rochester, February 1, 1846, and is descended from an English family who have been represented in the epoch-making periods of this country, including the war of 1812, in which his uncle was a participant. His father, Eli P. Moulton, was a mineralo- gist, and died while classifying minerals in Tennessee, his home being in White Pine,
Tennessee. His wife, Hannah Hale, also died in that state, a member of the Presby- terian church. Of their three sons and a daughter, Severn D. is the only one now living, and he was reared principally in Michigan, receiving his education in Jack- son, that state. From there he went to Chi- cago, Illinois, and was employed in that city until the opening of the Civil war, when he entered the Eighth Illinois Cavalry, Com- pany L, and served under Colonel John Farnsworth. His regiment made a brilliant and gallant record in the preservation of the Union, and after the war was over he took part in the Grand Review at Washing- ton, District of Columbia. He received his honorable discharge in July of 1865, and re- turning to his home he later spent some time in Illinois and Tennessee, also going to Hutchinson, Reno county, Kansas, where he constructed the machinery for the first salt works erected there. Since coming to Ok- lahoma he has been active in public affairs and has served as a justice of the peace.
Mr. Moulton was married in Tennessee, when twenty-eight years of age, to Allie Eckley, from Illinois, who died in 1892, leaving six children, of whom the five now living are Nellie Stebbins, Verne, Frank L., Arthur and Stella. Frank L. Moulton is an attorney-at-law in Muskogee. On the 17th of September, 1894, Mr. Moulton married Mrs. Belle Staggs, who was born in Bel- mont county, Ohio, a daughter of Jehu and Mary (Kildoe) Burson. The father served as a member of the Fifth Ohio Cavalry dur- ing the Civil war, and he died in Pottawa- tomie county, Oklahoma. Mr. Moulton is a member of Shawnee post, G. A. R., and of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows.
THOMAS E. FINNEGAN. Among those who came to Oklahoma in the earliest period of its development to found homes for them- selves and families and thus lay the founda- tion for the subsequent upbuilding of the state is recorded the name of Thomas E. Finnegan, one of the best known men of Earlsboro township. He has resided in the southwest since 1882, first in the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, from whence in 1894 with two mules and a yoke of oxen and wagons, and accompanied by his wife and children, he came to Pottawatomie coun- ty, Oklahoma, where their first home was a little log cabin sixteen by seventeen feet, all of the material for the little dwelling with the exception of the nails, having been
JOHN H. GWINN
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
taken from his farm. This little home in time gave place to his comfortable and com- modious dwelling. Fifty-five acres of his land is under an excellent state of cultiva- tion. Mr. Finnegan has spent the best twenty-five years of his life in this part of the United States, and is therefore well versed in western life, familiar with its early pioneer conditions as well as its later and more highly developed epoch, and the name of Thomas E. Finnegan occupies an hon- ored place among the upbuilders of Pottawa- tomie county.
He was born in Charleston, South Caro- lina, in 1858, but during his child life his father died, leaving his mother with three small children of whom Thomas is now the only survivor, and he is also the only living representative of his family, for his mother died fourteen years ago in the Choctaw Na- tion, the wife of Albert Stankewitz, a soldier in the regular army. On a farm in Sebastian county, Arkansas, Thomas E. Finnegan grew to a sturdy manhood, and at the age of twenty-two he married Martha Goforth, from Tennessee, a daughter of Andrew and Lydia Goforth, both now deceased, the mother dying thirty years ago. The chil- dren born of this union are Calvin W., Mary Culp, Minnie Ross, John, Charles and Ira. Mr. Finnegan is a local leader in Demo- cratic politics, and is now on his second term as the trustee of Earlsboro township. He has also served as a justice of the peace, an office equivalent to that of judge. His fraternal affiliations are with the Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows, in which his wife is a member of the Rebekahs, and both are members of the Christian church.
JOHN H. GWINN, the owner of a valuable homestead farm in section 2, Earlsboro township, is numbered among the Oklaho- ma pioneers of 1893, and among the native sons of Missouri, where he was born in Saline county in January, 1850, a son of Wil- liam Carollton Gwinn, also from that state. His paternal grandfather, Alman Gwinn, was one of the first to locate in Saline coun- ty, Missouri, making the entire journey from Tennessee there on flat boats which were pulled by ropes along the bank. He located at Frankfort, that state, as early as 1814. His brother, Harrison Gwinn, a very promi- nent Republican, and a California pioneer of 1848, became an eminent criminal attorney of that state, whence he made the journey over the plains with ox teams. Alman
Gwinn married Mary Marr, of Scotch ances- try, and among their children was William C. Gwinn, who married Hannah Sullivan, from Saline county, Missouri, and a mem- ber of one of the prominent old families of that community. Her father, Samuel Sulli- van, was originally from Pennsylvania. William C. Gwinn died when thirty-eight years of age, and his wife was but twenty- eight at the time of her death, leaving five children : Mary E. McDold, of Atchison county, Missouri, John H., Margaret Em- ma Settes, of Missouri, and two, Francis N. and Charles C., deceased.
John H. Gwinn was reared to the life of a farmer, and during the period of the Civil war, although but a boy of fourteen, he en- listed for service and became a member of Company K, Forty-ninth Infantry, and saw much hard service until his discharge on the 20th of December, 1865. Among the battles in which he fought were those of Fort Blakeley, and Spanish Fort, from whence he marched to Montgomery, Ala- bama, and later to Eufaula, that state. He is the youngest Civil war veteran residing in Oklahoma. Mr. Gwinn made the over- land journey to the territory in 1896, ac- companied by his wife, and during the first years of their residence here they were lo- cated fifty miles from a railroad. With the passing years he has greatly improved his farm, which is now known as Oak View Farm, and has kept pace with the rapid march of civilization in the southwest.
In Johnson county, Missouri, in 1891, he married Laura L. Denton, a graduate of the state normal school and a prominent and successful teacher before her marriage, and a daughter of William Denton. She died September 5, 1896, when but thirty-two years of age, leaving two children, William Francis and Charles Albert, aged now, re- spectively, fifteen and thirteen years. On the 27th of August, 1898, Mr. Gwinn mar- ried Julia (Tolen) Shoffner, who was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, but reared in Tama county, Iowa, a daughter of John and Margaret (Evans) Tolen, both of whom were born in Indiana but are now living in Yakima, Washington, members of the Bap- tist church. The father was a Union sol- dier during the Civil war. In their family were twelve children, four sons and eight daughters. Mrs. Gwinn first married M. D. Shoffner, by whom she had two children, Leroy and Delore Belle. Two children have
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
also been born of her second marriage, John H. and Emma Elizabeth. Mr. Gwinn gives his political allegiance to the Republican party, and is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Methodist Epis- copal church.
EDWARD T. LONG. Among the public officials of Pottawatomie county is num- bered Edward T. Long, the present clerk of Bales township. He is also numbered among those who made the race to Oklaho- ma in 1889 to secure its choicest lands and drew a claim of rich red soil, but thinking the land worthless he left it and began rail- road freighting in Indian Territory, Arkan- sas and Louisiana, also working on the Choc- taw Railroad near Shreveport, Louisiana, and Camden, Arkansas. In 1892 he re- turned to Oklahoma and located at Tecum- seh, freighting from that city to Oklahoma City until the advent of the railroad in the following year. He then purchased his pres- ent homestead in Bales township, a valu- able farm of one hundred and forty-six acres, one half of which is rich bottom land in the Canadian Valley and especially well adapted to the raising of alfalfa, corn and cotton. It is black soil, very rich and pro- ductive.
A native son of Jerseyville, Macoupin county, Illinois, Mr. Long was born in March, 1867, and is a son of a Civil war veteran, Frank Long, who served his coun- try for four years as a member of the Sixty- first Illinois Infantry, and in that time was wounded in the foot. He is now a Jackson and Douglas, Democrat. With his wife, Elizabeth Holland, born in Nashville, Ten- nessee, he is now living in Tecumseh, Okla- homa. In their family were seven children, four sons and three daughters.
Edward T. Long was but a babe in arms at the time of the removal of his parents from Illinois to Kansas, where they settled near Fort Scott, later removing to Chautau- qua county, that state, where the son Ed- ward grew to manhood's estate on a cattle ranch. He was married shortly after com- ing to Tecumseh, in 1892, to Belle Hammel, of Des Moines, Iowa, from whence her par- ents, Isaac and Julia (Trobee) Hammel, moved to the Choctaw Nation many years ago, and her father, a native of Indiana, died there at the age of sixty-five years. That Nation is still the home of her mother. Their family numbered six children, two sons and four daughters. Seven children have been
born to Mr. and Mrs. Long-Lola, Jesse, Algar, Fred, Emmit, Gladys and Bertha. Mr. Long is one of the active Democratic work- ers of Pottawatomie county, having served as a delegate to many of its conventions, served also as a central committeeman, was for three years a member of the school board and is the present clerk of Bales township. He is frank and genial with all, and has won many friends during his resi- dence in Oklahoma.
JOHN CHAUNCEY, the present trustee of Bales township, has been identified with the public and business interests of Potta- watomie county since 1896, the year in which he established his home in Oklahoma. Short- ly after his arrival he purchased his present homestead farm of eighty acres, which he has since highly improved and is one of the township's leading farmers and stockmen.
Mr. Chauncey was born forty-five years ago in the commonwealth noted for its brave men and beautiful women, old Kentucky, and is a son of one of the old and revered pioneer ministers there, Rev. J. W. Chaun- cey, who devoted the greater part of his life to the work of the Baptist ministry. He was an efficient laborer in his Master's cause, and his memory is yet revered and honored in the communities in which he lived and labored. He came from Kentucky to Oklahoma in 1888, and he died in Bales township, Pottawatomie county, in 1906, after attaining the age of seventy-eight. His widow, nee Louisa Pierce, resides with her son here, and has reached the age of seventy- three.
When John Chauncey was a lad of eleven years he moved with his parents to Butler county, Kansas, where their home was near Wichita, and for eleven years he lived on a Kansas ranch, receiving meanwhile a public school education. In 1881 he married Miss Wyatt A. Kimsey, a daughter of Gus and Elizabeth (Brookshire) Kimsey, of Ken- tucky, from whence they moved to Missouri, and their home is now in Winfield, Kansas. Mr. Kimsey is a Civil war veteran from the Union army, and he is a member of the Baptist church. Mrs. Chauncey was one of their six children, and the union of Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey has been blessed by the birth of four: Lizzie Barnett, Pearl Lambert, James A. and Earl. Mr. Chauncey is a prom- inent worker in the local ranks of the Dem- ocratic party, and both he and his wife are members of the Christian church.
ERIsalistes, M.D.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
H. S. WHITTAKER, proprietor of the Whit- taker Nursery located four miles north and three miles east of Shawnee, is the pioneer nursery man of Pottawatomie county and was the first to grow trees in this part of Oklahoma. To him also is given the credit of demonstrating the practicability of the growing of small fruits in this part of the territory. He has lived in Oklahoma since 1892, and in all these years he has been prominently identified with the nursery bus- iness. Previous to this time he had been engaged in the same industry on the Gulf coast, in Texas and other states, and his entire identification with the business cov- ers the long period of eighteen years.
He was born in Morgan county, Indiana, March 19, 1862, a son of Orville and Rebecca (Waters) Whittaker, natives respectively of Kentucky and of Owen county, Indiana. His paternal grandfather was killed by Indi- ans. On his mother's side he is. of English descent, and her parents were from Ken- tucky. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Orville Whittaker, five sons and two daughters, and among the number was H. S. Whittaker, the nurseryman of Pottawato- mie county. He spent the first fifteen years of his life in his home state of Indiana, at- tending the pubic schools, and then going to Kiowa, Barber county, Kansas, he lived the free and easy life of a cow boy on the west- ern plains for a time. He was later on a Kansas ranch for some time, later lived in Columbus, that state, and then going to Rogers, Arkansas, he was engaged in the nursery business there for seven years, in that time shipping eleven car loads of trees to Oklahoma City, which were the first set out in this part of the territory. In his nur- sery in Davis township he has eight acres devoted to the raising of trees of the best varieties, including many fruit trees. His long residence in this part of the country has made him familiar with the soil and cli- mate here and therefore an excellent judge of the trees which can be grown here to ad- vantage.
In Tecumseh, in 1893, Mr. Whittaker was married to Bettie Park, who was born in Johnson county, Arkansas, a daughter of William and Sarah (McAlister) Park. The father is a resident of Pottawatomie county, but his wife is deceased, dying in August of 1907, aged fifty-two, leaving four sons and four daughters. A son, William McKinley Hobart, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Whittak-
er July 13, 1897. The wife and mother is a member of the Christian church, and Mr. Whittaker is politically a Republican.
DR. E. R. MCALISTER, a prominent and well known physician and surgeon of Earls- boro, has been engaged in practice in this city since 1902, the year of his arrival in Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Barnes College of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, of the class of 1897, and was born in Bellefonte, Boone county, Arkansas, in 1872. His fa- ther, Michael McAlister, was one of the 1837 pioneers to that county, and he was also a Confederate soldier during the Civil war, serving under General Marmaduke. With his wife he yet resides in Boone county, Arkansas, both having reached the age of seventy-nine years. The Doctor, one of their ten children, seven sons and three daughters, was reared to the sturdy life of a farmer lad, and on account of a weakness of the eyes he did not attend school until he was sixteen years of age, but applying himself diligently from that time on he became well educated and finally began the study of medicine un- der the instructions of Dr. L. Kirby, a well known physician of his home place. After a time he became a student in Barnes Col- lege, St. Louis, and after the completion of his course there he practiced at Valley Springs, Arkansas, until coming to Pottawa- tomie county, Oklahoma, in 1902. Dr. Mc- Alister enjoys a large and, constantly grow- ing patronage, and maintains his position among the leaders of the medical fraternity in Pottawatomie county, while at the same time he has taken part in much of the public and social life of Earlsboro. He is a member of the Pottawatomie County Medical Soci- ety, of the Masonic lodge at Earlsboro, and of the Odd Fellows fraternity, lodge No. 77.
In 1900 the Doctor married Stella Murray, and their two children are Vera and Veva. The political affiliations of Dr. McAlister are with the Democratic party, and in reli- gion he is a follower of the teachings of the Chrisitan church. Mrs. McAlister is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church.
J. T. PEYTON is one of the best known of the early pioneers of this section of Okla- homa, and during many years he has been active in its cattle and other important in- dustries. In this time he has witnessed the development of the country from a wild and unsettled region to one of the leading com- munities of the entire southwest, and in this
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.
great work of country building he has taken an active and important part.
Mr. Peyton was born in 1855, in Callaway county, and reared in Montgomery county, Missouri, a member of one of the common- wealth's earliest families and a son of Thomas and Mary (Covington) Peyton, both of whom were born there. The Cov- ingtons were among the first families to take up their abode in that part of Missouri. Thomas Peyton died during war times and his wife in 1876, both honored and res- pected for their many sterling characteris- tics. To their son they gave the benefit of a public school education, but this has been greatly supplemented in later years by actu- al business experience and by reading and observation. Going from Missouri to west- ern Texas he was in the cattle business there for four years, and in 1880 he came to the old Indian Territory. For thirteen years he was prominently engaged in the cattle business there and in selling goods at Econtuchka in Pottawatomie county, finally drifting into farming pursuits and he now owns an ex- cellent homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and also another farm of the same acreage.
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