USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II > Part 85
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had the assessorship thrust upon him, and, seeing that there was no way out of the difficulty except to fight, he struck out hard and "downed" his opponent, who was be- lieved to be defeat-proof. But, notwith- standing this decisive victory, it was Mr. Stocker's first and last experience at office- getting and office-holding.
In June, 1872, Mr. Stocker was married at Bloomington, Illinois, to Miss Mary A. Sheean, daughter of John Sheean, an Irish- man by birth, and the children of this union are as follows: William L., cashier of the American National Bank of Stigler, who was long associated with his father in railroad work and married Miss Louisa Richey ; George A., a druggist of that place; Annie, wife of C. D. Ebey, of Tulsa, Oklahoma ; Frank, deceased; and Nellie and Orville, both living at home.
JOHN E. McBRAYER, treasurer of Haskell county, is one of the largest property owners in the Arkansas valley, near Tamaha, where he cultivates a large tract of rich bot- tom land and occupies, as a family residence, one of the handsomest and most commo- dious houses in this section of the state. He has enjoyed a long and successful exper- ience as a merchant and live-stock dealer and raiser, being especially enthusiastic and prominent as a breeder of good horses. A resident of the territory, including the Has- kell county of to-day, for a period of some thirty-two years, the activities of his entire career have qualified him to handle with dis- cretion and broad judgment such large in- terests as is indicated by the treasuryship of Haskell county.
Mr. McBrayer is a native of Lee county. Mississippi, born on the 28th of December, 1857, but was reared in Benton county, Mis- sissippi, and is the son of John and Susan (Barker) McBrayer, the former being a South Carolinan, who became a prosperous planter of Mississippi and was killed at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while serving the Confederacy in the early part of the Civil war. The mother, who was the daughter of John D. Barker, a South Carolina planter, died in Benton county, Mississippi, in 1884, the following children having been born to her union with John McBrayer: Mrs. George Witt, a resident of Sherman, Mis- sissippi, and John E., of this sketch. Mrs. Mc Brayers' second marriage was to W. G.
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McDonald, by whom she became the mother of two daughters, Eula and Lottie, who were both reared in Georgia and married there.
John E. McBrayer received a fair educa- tion in the country schools of his native Mis- sissippi state, and at the age of seventeen became a farm employe, working by the month. An experience of three years in this locality convinced him that anything like satisfactory advancement in the world was more probable on the western side of the Mississippi. In 1877, therefore, when twen- ty years of age, he settled at Pacola, six miles south of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and after again following the plow for three years he located at Tamaha, on the Arkan- sas river, some miles above Fort Smith, and there opened a small store. The enterprise was a success from the first, and as Mr. McBrayer was also appointed postmaster of the place his store eventually became the chief business and social center of Tamaha. Tiring of mercantile pursuits and becoming a Choctaw citizen by marriage, in 1886, Mr. McBrayer engaged in farming and stock- raising in the Arkansas valley, not far from town, and it was not long before his herds covered much of the grazing lands for miles on the south side of the river. He followed the range with horses as well as with cattle until 1906, when he disposed of his range interests and engaged in the banking busi- ness at Tamaha. The Bank of Tamaha had been established in the preceding year, with a capital of ten thousand dollars and the following officers : John E. McBrayer, presi- dent: W. W. Fisher, vice-president ; and J. C. Terrell, cashier. Of this substantial and growing institution, Mr. McBrayer has been from the outset the main support and pro- moting force.
Being a citizen of the Choctaw Nation by marriage and demonstrating unusual busi- ness ability as well as general and honorable popularity Mr. McBrayer was naturally drawn into Indian politics. He first ren- dered most creditable service as circuit clerk of the Mashulatubbee district, was then the able clerk of the Sans Bois county, and, upon the death of the regular nominee of the Democracy for county treasurer of Haskell county, was elected to his present position by a majority of five hundred votes. In September, 1886, Mr. McBrayer married Miss Virginia Harrison, daughter of Judge
Harrison, a widely known Choctaw citizen. She died in July, 1900, leaving a son, Eddie, three years of age. In June, 1903, Mr. Mc- Brayer married, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, Miss Sallie Mayes, daughter of Joel Mayes, a pioneer and prosperous farmer of Fayette- ville, Arkansas. Mr. McBrayer is a mem- ber of the Masonic order and of the Knights of Pythias.
JOHN C. FOSTER, vice-president of the First National Bank of Stigler and for many years identified with commercial pursuits in what is now Haskell county, came to Oklahoma in the year 1891 and is, consequently, fast approaching a score of years as a resident of the new state. As above indicated, the years have been those of almost constant activity, beginning at Whitefield, then in the territory of the Choctaw Nation, and continuing at Kinta and Stigler, where his business relations were concluded.
Mr. Foster was reared and began his active and independent career in Crawford county, Arkansas, where his birth occurred January 11, 1851. His father, Riley Fos- ter, was a soldier of the Mexican war under General Taylor, and died when a young man, two years after the son's birth. The father was born in the state of Missouri, and ac- companied the grandfather, Josiah Foster, into Arkansas as one of the pioneer settlers of that state. The latter settled in Crawford county and became one of its wealthiest citizens, his slaves numbering more that a hundred and the area that he owned and tilled being a small principality. A mill and blacksmith and carpenter shops were nec- essary adjuncts to his varied interests, and while the Rebellion swept away the bulk of his property and left him in poverty, his powers of recuperation enabled him to re- build a modest fortune under the new con- ditions and to lay down his life burden in 1868 as one of the most far-seeing and successful business men of Crawford county.
Josiah Foster, the grandfather mentioned, was born in 1796, and had the following children: George, who passed away at Flagstaff, Arizona, having served as a cap- tain in the Mexican war and a California pioneer of 1847; Riley, father of John C .; Joel, Walker, Sanford, Jack, Cyrus, Early. Susan, wife of James Vincent ; and Belle, who died unmarried. By a second marriage, Josiah Foster became the father of the fol- lowing : Charles ; Tishie, wife of a Mr. Good-
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in; Emma, now Mrs. Henry Crowell, a resident of California ; Harry; Earl; Lizzie, who married John Irwin; Rosa, wife of Jo Byers; and Price Foster. Riley Foster, the second child in this family, married Louemma Snyder, a daughter of Cornelius Snyder. Mr. Foster died in 1853, as a young man, while his widow, who survived him until 1889, saw her children grow to ma- turity and usefulness. Of the three chil- dren born of their union Josiah resides in Fort Smith, Arkansas; John C. is one of the representative men of Stigler, Oklahoma; and Riley is deceased, dying at about eight years of age.
John C. Foster, of this sketch, was reared under the care and influence of his widowed mother and amidst agricultural surround- ings. His education was not at all complete, as its early phases were in the unsettled period of the Civil war. He followed the calling of his fathers when he assumed his station as a man, became a farmer and was married in his native county in July, 1875, to Miss Maria Sims, daughter of George Sims, a Missouri farmer. In 1884 Mr. Fos- ter left Arkansas and passed four years in Pratt county, Kansas, but conditions there then were not propitious, and he returned to Arkansas and spent two years in White county, then returning to Crawford, his old home. On coming to the Choctaw country, some years later, he engaged in merchandis- ing and successfully pursued it at White- field, Kinta and Stigler. Upon the ground- work of his material success he has erected many of the permanent structures of Stig- ler, his brick store and many residences marking his effort in this regard. He be- came interested in banking when the First National Bank of Stigler was organized, was elected its vice president and has served in this office since. He is well known as a Democrat of strong local influence, having served upon several occasions as a dele- gate to party conventions.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. Foster are as follows: Daisy, wife of W. B. Fears, who is a member of the prominent mercan- tile firm of Fears, Sims & Henderson, of Stigler : Ella, who married J. A. Henderson, of the same firm ; Maud, who passed away as the wife of Fred H. Fannin, of that place ; Joseph W., county attorney of Has- kell county, Oklahoma; and Ina, now Mrs. Ed. O. Clark.
HARRY S. FERBRACHE, the manager and one of the promoters of the Stigler Hardware Company, the leading concern of the kind in that place and one of the largest in Ok- lahoma, has been a resident of the territory and state since 1899, when he first became acquainted with its advantages as a trav- eling salesman for the Wyeth Hardware and Manufacturing Company, of St. Joseph, Missouri. He retained Oklahoma as his com- mercial territory until Nov. 22, 1903, when he left the road and established a hardware store in the old town of Stigler. This was be- fore the building of the Midland Valley Railroad, and in June of the following year, with the assurance that the town was to have permanent railroad facilities, he began the erection of a large brick building in the new town, which was the third business house of Stigler. On September 30, 1904, the business which he had founded was in- corporated as the Stigler Hardware Com- pany, with a capital of fifteen thousand dollars, and the following officers. Mark H. Pace, of Poteau, president ; D. J. Sowers, of Bedford, Iowa, vice president ; and Harry S. Ferbrache, secretary and treasurer. The incorporation succeeded a partnership busi- ness conducted under the same name, and its official management from the first has been composed of men of wide business experience, its active manager having an especially thorough knowledge of all the conditions of the hardware trade. The stock carried by the company represents the largest investment of the kind in Has- kell county, and the substantial and pros- perous nature of the business is indicated by their fine store, which is fifty by one hun- dred feet in dimensions and covers an area of ninety-three thousand eight hundred square feet.
Mr. Ferbrache, the manager of this ex- tensive business, is a native of Bloomfield, Iowa, born October 31, 1868, and comes of an old and prominent family which originat- ed on the Isle of Guernsey, one of the fam- ous channel groups between England and France. Its American members emigrated from that locality to the state of Ohio and settled in the locality now embraced by Guernsey county, which derived its name from the old home of this family. The founder of the family in this country, Dan- iel, the great-grandfather of Harry S., came to this section of the Buckeye state about
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1806. Jacob N., the grandfather, passed his life in this section as a farmer, and by his two marriages became the father of sev- enteen children. His first wife was Betsy Underhill, who bore him the following: Thomas, who died without issue; Gilbert, who passed away in Ohio, leaving a fam- ily ; Daniel, who left a family in Springfield, Missouri; John, of Coles county, Illinois ; and James D., the father of Harry S. The second wife of Jacob N. Ferbrache was Miss Nancy Estep, and the children by this mar- riage were: Sarah; George W .; Amanda; Ed; Nancy, who married a Mr. Robinson; Martha, who became the wife of Daniel Stout; William G., of west Texas; Daniel, of Wildhorse, Oklahoma; Elizabeth, who died at St. Joseph, Missouri, as the wife of W. M. Kirkpatrick ; Jane, widow of George Hutchinson, of Charleston, Illinois; and Sarah, who died young.
James D. Ferbrache, the father, who is now living with Harry S., is a native of Cambridge, Guernsey county, Ohio, and passed his active life in that neighborhood as a farmer, having been a resident of Ok- lahoma since its advent to statehood. He is an old soldier of the Civil war, enlisting as a young man during the first year of the rebellion and joining the Sixty-second Ohio Infantry under the command of Colonel Pond. The regiment was attached for a time to the Twenty-fourth Army Corps, its first engagements being at Kerntown, Vir- ginia, and at Fort Wagner, and the activi- ties embraced in what is known as the Pe- tersburg campaign. During 1863 and 1864 his regiment was a part of Grant's grand army, and participated in the closing inci- dents of the war leading up to the surren- der of Lee. During the early part of the war Mr. Ferbrache was captured in the Shenandoah valley and was a prisoner of war for several months at Lynchburg and Belle Isle, but he rejoined his command in time to witness the downfall of the Con- federacy and participate in some of the final activities. For his first wife the elder Mr. Ferbrache married Miss Rebecca A. Pat- terson, who died in 1871, at Bloomfield, Iowa, leaving a son, Harry S. In 1879 he married Caroline McMurray, one of his old time acquaintances in the neighborhood of his Ohio home. The children of this mar- riage are: Mabel, Mamie, Carl and Fern Ferbrache.
Harry S. Ferbrache spent his youth and the early years of his manhood as a resident of St. Joseph, Missouri, and his first con- nection was with the great hardware house known as the Wyeth Hardware and Manu- facturing Company. During the fourteen years that he remained with this concern he thoroughly mastered the business in all its details, from the handling of the goods in the warehouse and on the shelves to its sale upon the road. The success of the busi- ness which he established in Stigler was, therefore, assured from the very first. Al- though Mr. Ferbrache has concentrated his energies upon the development of this busi- ness project, he is widely known socially and in the fraternal circles, being an active Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias. He is a married man, having been united, November 20, 1889, to Miss Marie L. McDonald, daughter of James M. and Nancy J. (Fallis) McDonald, both parents being of Scotch descent. Mrs. Ferbrache is a native of Brids Mill, Andrew county, Missouri, and the only other child of the McDonald family is Mrs. L. R. Dumball, of St. Joseph. One child has been born to Mr. and Mrs. Harry S. Ferbrache, Daisy Donald Ferbrache.
FRED H. FANNIN, one of the leading law- yers of Haskell county, residing at Stigler, is a native of Oklahoma, born February 10, 1870, a son of Dr. H. W. and Adaline (Wat- son) Fannin, and is descended from one of the prominent pioneers of the Choctaw Na- tion. Dr. H. W. Fannin, his father, is a native of Ottawa, Canada, where he was born in 1834. He obtained his early edu- cation near his birthplace and prepared him- self for his profession in Bellevue Medical College, Philadelphia. In 1868, when thir- ty-four years of age, he came to the Choc- taw Nation, settling in the vicinity of old Sculleyville, near Spiro, and there laid the foundation of a worthy family and an hon- orable name. He was a physician, and this vocation, with the rearing and education of a large family, fully occupied the days of his life, his death occurring in 1904. His wife, who passed away two years later, left the following children: Elijah W., who is now engaged in the banking business at Spiro, Oklahoma; John H., a cattle man of the same place; Mrs. T. P. Hackett, also of Spiro; Edward J., an attorney at law and for many years clerk of the United States
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court at McAlester; Mrs. J. A. Hall, and Fred H., of this review, twins; and Dr. F. A. Fannin, of Stigler, Oklahoma.
Fred H. Fannin, of this sketch, passed his boyhood years at Spiro, then Sculley- ville, and there obtained his early educa- tion. He obtained his college education at the University of Missouri, and after his graduation therefrom assumed his law stud- ies, and prior to his admission to the bar at Greenwood, Arkansas, had obtained consid- erable experience in the lower courts of his community. He was admitted to practice before Judge Bryant, and subsequently ad- mitted to the bar of the federal court at McAlester, before Judge Shackelford, and for some time engaged in the practice of his profession at that place. On leaving McAl- ester Mr. Fannin located in old Whitefield, Sans Bois county, Choctaw Nation, where he was appointed United States commis- sioner. He afterward located at Stigler, where he has since engaged in a large and successful practice. He has obtained an an especial high standing as a jury advo- cate, which, however, has not prevented him from securing general recognition as a profound interpreter of the general princi- ples of the law. The combination of these two strong legal traits has brought him a large and increasing clientage, and his office is one of the busiest places at the county seat. Mr. Fannin is independent in politics, with Democratic leanings, and is a member of the Blue Lodge, A. F. & A. M.
He was married at Whitefield, then in Sans Bois county, Choctaw Nation, in July, 1897, to Miss Maud Foster, who died in the following January. In August, 1900, he was united in marriage at Sallisaw, Oklahoma, to Miss Eliza Kerr, daughter of James Kerr, of Heber, Arkansas. Mr. and Mrs. Fannin are the parents of Maud, Miriam and Fred- erick Francis.
LEVIN C. WINN, county clerk of Haskell county, residing at Stigler, is a native of Arkansas, born January 19, 1873, a son of Philip S. and Celia (Childress) Winn. His father was born in Mississippi in 1829, and when a young man settled in Arkansas, where he was long engaged as a farmer and trader, and died 'in 1876. His wife passed away near Huntington, Arkansas, leaving two sons, Philip S., of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and Levin C., of this sketch. At the time of the death of Mr. Winn's parents, when the
boy was about four years of age, the family was residing upon the farm of A. T. Bon- ham, who, in the kindness of his heart, adopted the orphan children into his own household and gave them all of the advan- tages enjoyed by his own children.
Levin C. thus acquired a good common school. education and also obtained a year's course at Cane Hill Academy, and spent a like period as a student at Cumberland Uni- versity, Lebanon, Tennessee. To this train- ing he afterward added a thorough com- mercial course at Central Business Col- lege, Sedalia, Missouri, and thus became liberally equipped for any kind of work which should offer itself. After spending a year on the farm of his foster-father he became connected with a wholesale flour and feed store at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and later became head bookkeeper for a mer- chant at Blaine, in the Choctaw Nation. Still later he became identified with Bon- ham Brothers, well known merchants of that place, and remained thus employed until February, 1907, when he was nomi- nated for the clerkship of Haskell county. Although he had four competitors he de- feated his opponents by four hundred and five votes and assumed the duties of the first clerk of Haskell county on November 16, 1907. Although his training and all his personal sympathies had always been with the Democratic principles, Mr. Winn cast his first presidential vote in 1908, following the admission of Oklahoma into the Union, and many old men who had resided in the western territories for many years also then exercised the elective franchise for the first time. As a fraternalist Mr. Winn is a Ma- son of high standing, having reached the Scottish Rite degree, and also served as the first noble grand of Keota Lodge, Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows.
Mr. Winn was married near Keota, Ok- lahoma, February 14, 1900, to Miss Alda At- tebury, daughter of Jefferson Attebury, who was one of the early settlers of the Choctaw country. Mrs. Winn was born in the Choc- taw Nation, November 11, 1879, and is the mother of Oren Bonham Winn, born July 12, 1901.
JAMES F. LONG, formerly a mining pros- pector and painter, is now postmaster of Stigler, and is both a popular and efficient incumbent of that position. He was born in San Francisco, California, April 7, 1874
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his father, Jeremiah Long, being a native of Cork, Ireland, who came to the United States upon attaining his majority and ob- tained his first mining experiences in the eastern states. He early joined the rush of the California '49ers and, taking the Cape Horn route, arrived on the California coast among the first of the pioneer miners of that region. Staking his first claim at Smarts- ville, Yuba county, he opened up one of the first hydraulic mines in California, and in partnership with Henry Sutliff and John D. Tobin also owned and operated the Ophir and Lamaile mines in Eldorado county. Subsequently he located and put in opera- tion the Golden Gate mine, but was finally accidentally killed in the Eldorado mine, January 16, 1888, at the age of fifty-six years. His wife was Mary E. Sullivan, who as a young girl crossed the plains with her foster parents, John Coughlan and wife, and located with them in Yuba county. There Mr. Coughlan engaged in mining, and through these circumstances his adopt- ed daughter met and married Mr. Long. Mrs. Mary E. Long died in Eldorado coun- ty, December 25, 1877, eleven years before. the demise of her husband, and was the mother of Timothy S., of Stigler, Oklahoma ; James F., of this biography ; and Mary Lam- bert, of Pasadena, California.
Postmaster Long obtained his education at the night school conducted by the Jesuits in San Francisco and by a course of per- sistent private reading. At the death of his father, when the youth was fourteen years of age, he was thrown completely on his own resources, and had the forethought to master the painter's trade. But. doubt- less inheriting some of his father's roving propensities, he left California in 1898 and went on a prospecting trip to Nome, Alaska. Upon his return to the States he followed his trade at various points in the northwest, and finally drifted down into the Indian country and located at Stigler. For sev- eral years his services both as a painter and general mechanic were in active demand while that town was in the early stages of its development, and the wide acquaintance which he thus formed, coupled with his re- liable qualities, secured him the appoint- ment of the postmastership of Stigler in 1906. From the first he has been prominent- ly identified with the Republican party, and in his fraternal relations he is a member of
the Masonic order, of the Knights of Pythi- as, and consul of the Stigler camp of the Woodmen of the World.
LUKE D. ALLEN, sheriff of Haskell county and a resident of Stigler since the advent of statehood, is a native of Marion county, Alabama, but was raised in old Sculleyville and Sans Bois counties, his parents moving into this section of the country when he was a lad of five years. The sheriff was born February 25, 1869, a son of Andrew J. Allen, now of Lindsay, Oklahoma, and of Cather- ine (Cook) Allen, who died near Cameron, Oklahoma, in 1889. The family came west by rail to Little Rock, Arkansas, and by boat to Fort Smith. The father resumed farming on rented land in the Indian coun- try, and amid rude frontier surroundings the children reached maturity. His family con- nections and his breeding brought Andrew J. Allen into close sympathy with the slave aristocracy of the south, and to the best of his ability bravely supported it in the ranks of the Confederate army. With the fall of slavery and the Confederacy he entered into a life of agricultural industry and lo- cated on his present homestead at a re- cent date.
The family of Allens from whom Andrew J. and his posterity emanate comes from a long line of honorable ancestry, whose pio- neer American home was in the Old Domin- ion state, from which the Reverend Hardy Allen, the grandfather of Luke D., migrated to Mississippi, and finally to Dallas, Texas, where he died in 1885, at the age of eighty- four. His life was spent in ministerial work for the Methodist church, and he reared a family consisting of the following children : Dee, who was killed in the Civil war as a southern soldier; Andrew J., the father of Luke D .; Bettie, who married a Mr. Pierce; and Elizabeth, now Mrs. Thompson, who resides in Corsicana, Tex- as. To the marriage of Andrew J. and Cath- erine Allen were born: Lemuel H., who passed away unmarried; William H., of Stigler, Oklahoma; Helen, wife of J. L. Holmes, of Whitefield, that state; Florence, now Mrs. J. H. Smith, of Cameron, Okla- homa; James Y. Butler, of Stigler, same state ; and Alvin, of Kinta, Oklahoma.
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