A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II, Part 89

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 89

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).

In the election of September, 1907, the former chairman was elected representative from Johnston county, and on the roll call demanded by him was unaminously elected speaker of the house. He has presided regularly over the deliberations of the house during its sessions in the old Guthrie city hall, and next to the governor is the most conspicuous figure at the state capital. During the progress of the campaign he had been considered among the possibilities for United States senator, but he refused to make the race, and as candidate for rep- resentative received a majority of all the votes cast for the three candidates. As speaker, knowing that he would be held responsible for all legislation, good or bad, he has insisted that no bill be brought up without his first considering them. This policy has resulted in the house being actually the conservative side of the legis- lature, and under this influence many radi- cal senate bills have been modified before presentation for the governor's signature.

Speaker Murray was delegate at large

473

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

for Oklahoma to the national Democratic convention in Denver in 1908. In Johnston county he and his family are among the largest land owners. He has three children : Massena Bancroft, born January 1, 1901; Johnston, July 21, 1902; and William H., Jr., July 25, 1905.

ROBERT GALBREATH. The story of Glenn Pool, said to be the richest petroleum de- posit ever discovered, is the climactic chap- ter in the life history of Robert Galbreath of Tulsa. A pioneer of '89, formerly prom- inent in politics, a noted townsite boomer, and since the opening of the southwestern oil fields a persistent builder and developer of oil deposits, he has had many ups and downs in his experience. His persistency in continuing his search has finally been rewarded in the Glenn Pool, which has given him a fortune and at the same time has enriched all the surrounding country. He, Frank Chesley and Mr. C. F. Colcord, the Oklahoma City capitalist, own leases to several hundred acres in the heart of the Glenn Pool. At a recent date fifty-seven wells were flowing on these acres, and pro- ducing oil so rapidly that the railroads and pipe lines are unable to take it away. It being impossible to construct tanks rapidly enough to contain the output, a lake of many thousand barrels of oil has collected near the wells.

Previous to beginning his career as an oil operator, Mr. Galbreath had made con- siderable money in real estate and other lines of business. His capital was not enough, however, to back up his various adventures in search of oil, and before he had brought in a pay well in the Glenn Pool neighborhood he ran out of funds, and had to get additional backing from Frank Ches- ley, postmaster at Keystone. His own ex- perience must be reckoned as a factor of

value, and he was quite ready to risk his own judgment and the borrowed capital in the final prospect. His study of the coun- try had caused him to select a spot four miles a little north of east of where Kiefer, the renowned tent city, later was estab- lished. As soon as permission was gained from the government's representatives drilling was begun on the allotment of Ida E. Glenn, a one-eighth Creek Indian, her husband being Robert Glenn, a white man. Early in the morning of November 22, 1905, the drill sank into the oil sands, and the first well in that vicinity began pro- ducing at the rate of about one hundred barrels a day. The name Glenn Pool, which was almost at once given the field, is in honor of the Glenn family on whose land the discovery was made.

This strike produced a commotion among oil operators such as has seldom been equaled. Purchase of land was impossible because of its native ownership and the re- strictions in the transfer of titles. But in the two years since the opening of the field a forest of derricks has covered that region, industry and trade have developed wonder- fully, and there remains impressive evidence of the change which has produced millions of dollars' worth of oil since 1905.

The Prairie Oil and Gas Company, a branch of the Standard Oil Company, has a large tank farm nearby and a pipe line to its eastern connections, and there are two other pipe lines from this center. It is said that during October, 1907, the daily production of oil from this vicinity was 100,000 barrels, only three-fourths of which could be taken to market by the inadequate shipping facilities.

Robert Galbreath, who thus made fame and fortune in the Glenn Pool district, was born in Pickaway county, Ohio, a son of Robert and Sarah A. (Hill) Galbreath.

474

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

The paternal ancestry is Scotch and the maternal Scotch-English, the Galbreath family having lived in America 300 years, being originally settlers of Pennsylvania. The paternal grandfather settled in Pick- away county, Ohio, in 1804, when that part of the Buckeye State was still known as the Virginia Military Reservation. Born and reared on a Pickaway county farm, Robert Galbreath, after getting his educa- tion in the country schools and living at home until twenty-one, made a trip to Southern California in November, 1888, and on his return passed through Indian Territory over the M., K. & T. Railroad. Though he saw the country from a car window, he was converted by its appear- ance of fertility and abundance of natural resources, especially in that section about Eufaula and South McAlester and Musko- gee. Soon afterward Congress passed the law for the opening of the Oklahoma re- gion, and he came from Ohio and took part in the run of April 22, 1889. He was at Kingfisher the first few days, then moved to Edmond in Oklahoma county, where he was made postmaster. In the real estate and townsite business he followed up the different openings by which Indian Terri- tory was gradually parceled out to set- tlers-the Sac and Fox, Iowa and Pottawa- tomie reservations in 1891, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe in 1892, the Cherokee Strip in 1893, and the Kickapoo reservation in 1895. For several years he was a resident of Shawnee in Pottawatomie county.

With the beginning of the oil boom in the southwest, caused by the strike at Beau- mont, Texas, he joined the army of pros- pectors in the new fields of the southwest, and was one of the first prospectors in the Creek Nation, drilling some of the early wells at Red Fork. Since his fortunate dis- covery in 1905 he has become wealthy and one of the largest individual producers of oil in the country. It has been his policy never to sell an oil property that he de- velops, so long as it will produce. There- fore he is essentially a producer rather than a speculator.

Even a pioneer, Mr. Galbreath has, with other associates, more recently discovered

and developed the Bald Hill district, a large oil producing territory in Okmulgee county, about ten miles southwest of Has- kell. They had the honor of striking the first wild cat well (discovery well) in the new State of Oklahoma, at Bald Hill, on Severs Ranch, on November 21, 1907, five days after the admission of the State. His principal oil interests are located at Red Fork, Glenn Pool and Severs Ranch.

Ever since coming to Oklahoma, Mr. Galbreath has been prominently identified with the Democratic party, especially in the earlier years of old Oklahoma Territory. For some time he was county chairman of Pottawatomie county, and in 1896 was chairman of the territorial Democratic cen- tral committee. As such he planned the notable campaign by which J. Y. Callahan was elected the delegate to Congress, de- feating the Hon. Dennis T. Flynn for the first time. Mr. Galbreath was married at Edmond, Oklahoma, to Miss Mary E. Kiv- lehen. They have four children, Robert, Jr., Leone, George Francis and Glenn Pool. Mrs. Galbreath was born at Elmira, New York, and was a member of the first grad- uating class in the Territorial Normal Col- lege at Edmond.

WILBUR E. CAMPBELL. With the death of Wilbur E. Campbell at Tulsa, October 29, 1907, one of the notable careers of the Southwest came to a close. The life of Mr. Campbell throws some interesting light on at least two phases of Oklahoma history- the old cattle industry and the movement of settlement along the southern Kansas border preceding the opening of the Chero- kee Strip. Coming to Kansas in 1870 he got a start in the cattle business about the time some of the famous cattle towns of the state were coming into prominence. His headquarters were at Wichita. The Indian country was open to grazing without restrictions except such as the Indian tribes placed upon the industry, and Mr. Camp- bell was one of the cattlemen who ran their herds from the Kansas border south to the Red river. A contract with the govern- ment for supplying beef to the Indians of the Kiowa-Wichita agency in southwestern Oklahoma also brought him in familiar

Wolcampbell

475

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

contact with this section during the early days. Near the present city of Chickasha might be pointed out a spot where he once had his headquarters.

And now we come to an interesting fact about the cattle business, for which Mr. Campbell deserves credit, since it seems no one has disputed his claim to the honor. While in the range cattle business in the Territory, he brought back from Missouri a herd of shorthorn cattle, the first, it is said, ever seen in this section of country, where the longhorn native steers were still the sole occupants of the ranges. He was known then as "Shorthorn Campbell." The innovation satisfied him, and he was a pio- neer in introducing blooded stock into a country from which the longhorn has dis- appeared. Besides being the first to bring in the shorthorn, he also introduced the Hereford, or white-faced stock, and from this fact, to distinguish him from several other Campbells, he received the name "White Face Campbell," by which his serv- ice to the stock industry was signalized dur- ing the rest of his life. He was the first to introduce and owned the first established herd of Hereford cattle west of the Mis- souri river. At the fat stock show at Kansas City in 1885 his steer, "Texas Jack," that weighed 1,695 pounds, won the prize of the world, and many of his stock were premium winners.

Though he was one of the active cattle- men of the Strip, when the movement be- gan to form a permanent Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association to fence the Strip, Mr. Campbell declared that he would never fence land that he did not own, and there- with moved back into Kansas, establishing a ranch for his white-faced cattle at Cald- well, in Sumner County. He later moved into Barber County, where he purchased 31,000 acres and fenced the entire lot, with a fence thirty-seven miles long, with barb- wire that cost eleven cents a pound.

Next to his importation of blooded stock into the Southwestern ranches, his next ac- complishment from a historical standpoint was the founding of the town of Kiowa, Kansas, which was an entry and supply point for the movement into the Cherokee

Strip only second in importance to Caldwell and Arkansas City. An interesting story of this achievement is told in the Kiowa (Kan.) News-Review. During the summer of 1884 his plans of founding a town somewhere on his large body of fine land, forty or fifty miles west of Caldwell, matured, and associating himself with others, the Kiowa Town Company was organized. He built the first brick building in the town, Camp- bell's Block and Opera House, at a cost of $30,000. The town of Old Kiowa was four or five miles from the Campbell ranch, and its most enterprising spirits were Dennis Flynn, who was then running a paper ; Alex. Hopkins, A. W. Rumsey and others. It is said that Campbell offered to pay Flynn for 350 new subscriptions to his newspaper if he would move to the new town, and Flynn moved. He also used the proper in- ducements to the Santa Fe people to build their extension through the proposed site, and the town began to grow, until in a short time nothing was left of Old Kiowa except a farm and the old shack in which Flynn had his paper and Hopkins his law office. In this way, by identifying himself with the town of Caldwell, and by starting the town of Kiowa, Mr. Campbell was in- strumental in moving the line of settlement close to the borders of the Indian Territory, and the opening of the Cherokee country found these centers ready to pour a popu- lation into the new territory.

Stories are current illustrating the de- termined spirit and courage of this fron- tiersman. One day at Caldwell a cowboy named Jim Sherman came into town with three or four followers and killed the mayor and the city marshal, and then made their escape. Passing through the Campbell ranch, they took one of his horses. Head- ing a posse, he followed them into the Ter- ritory, and at Deer Creek came up with them. When the battle ended Mr. Camp- bell found twenty-seven bullet holes in his clothes, one through his wrist, one through his groin and one struck a memoranda book in his breast pocket, this book saving his life. The band got away, but Sherman -said to be a nephew of Gen. W. T. Sher- man- vas afterwards apprehended in Cali-

476

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

fornia, brought to Sumner County for trial and acquitted.

Mr. Campbell made a great reputation as a horseman by purchasing from Leland Stanford the noted horse "Campbell's Elec- tioneer," for which at one time he refused $30,000. The horse was shipped from Cali- fornia to Kiowa, Kansas, by express. He also bred and raised the pacer, "Symbol- eer," whose record of 2:11 for two-year- old pacer still stands. In later years Mr. Campbell established a smaller ranch in Woods county, Oklahoma, about thirty miles west of Kiowa, Kansas, the postoffice being Winchester. In 1903 he moved his family to Tulsa and engaged in the oil busi- ness and other enterprises.

The late Wilbur E. Campbell was born at Brownville, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1847, and at the age of three years the family home was moved to Fairfield, Iowa. He was one of the youngest soldiers. of the Civil war. He enlisted at sixteen, at Knoxville, Iowa, in the Third Iowa Cavalry, and was a sharpshooter, one of the best pistol shots in his regiment, and always a brave and efficient soldier. He disobeyed a superior officer but once, when the latter ordered him to shoot a woman who had been mak- ing herself obnoxious in the camp. "I will shoot your men, but will not kill a woman," was his reply. He was four times wound- ed during the war. His service was in the command of Gen. John M. Noble, who was secretary of interior under Harrison, and who at one time was a business asso- ciate of Campbell. The captaincy of a col- ored regiment was offered him once, but he refused. After the war the young sol- dier engaged in railroad construction work on the Union Pacific in Wyoming, and in this way was introduced to the life of the West.

Mr. Campbell was of Scotch stock, as was also his wife, whose maiden name was Emily M. Duncan. Mrs. Campbell, who resides at Tulsa, was born near Dodgeville, Wisconsin, June 23, 1852, and they were married at Wichita, Kansas, January 18, 1871. She lived on the frontier many years, and brought up her family in the environ- ment of the old southwest. She was living

in Sibley. county, Minnesota, when the Sioux massacre of the Civil war time scourged that vicinity, and later came to southwestern Kansas. She was the only white woman at Chickasha in 1875, and at one time when in camp alone with two babies two Indians came. After she gave them their dinner, they became impudent. She took the Winchester down and drove them away. On account of the Indians they had to leave this ranch, going in an ox- cart to Wichita, Kansas. Her father, Rob- ert Duncan, still lives in Wichita. The surviving sons and daughter of Mr. Camp- bell are: Wilbur D., fruit grower, of La- Grande, Oregon ; Robert B., assistant post- master at Alva, Oklahoma; Charles D., postmaster at Apache, Oklahoma; Roy H., of Oregon; Frank L., contractor, of Santa Barbara, California, and Miss Gladys E. Mr. Campbell was a thirty- second degree Mason and was orator of same. The thirty-second degree Masons held Knights Kadosh funeral services at midnight over his remains at his home. A Republican, he would never accept office, but was quite active for friends and party. In Barber county, Kansas, he was bondsman for the county treasurer, who was preparing to leave and allow bondsman to pay his shortage. Mr. Campbell went to his house and captured him and held him prisoner in his own house for three days until his father-in-law came and fixed it up.

FRANK M. MATHEWSON, who has lived at Tulsa since 1893, is one of the pioneer cattlemen of Indian Territory and Okla- homa. Thirty years ago, when he began grazing his first bunch of cattle in the val- ley of the Arkansas river near Wealaka, in the Creek Nation, he did not own a dol- lar free of incumbrance, but by honest and legitimate business methods has since be- come one of the most substantially pros- perous citizens in the Tulsa country. He was a young man of twenty when he made his start in Indian Territory and had al- ready had a variety of experience in the battle of life. Born in Marion county, Iowa, September 6, 1856, he accompanied the family to Atchison county, Missouri,

Lilah I Lindsey

All Lindsay

477

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

in 1863, and when fourteen years old left home to rely on his independent exertions. He lived and worked at farming in Ne- braska until driven out by the grasshopper plague of 1873. After spending a short time in Sheridan, Iowa, he came to the Southwest in the spring of 1874, and dur- ing the following years was employed at lumbering, making staves, railroad ties, etc., at Clarksville, Texas. He moved to Wealaka, Indian Territory, in 1876. Careful, conser- vative methods, instead of the plunging means resorted to by many of the cattle- men of that day, brought him a steadily increasing success, and without going into debt he extended his cattle interests until in a few years he grazed some of the larg- est herds in his section of Indian Territory, and was known to reap constant profits from his business. In the earlier years, in the days of the open range, before wire fences were thought of, his cattle ranged over the old Territory from the Kansas line to the Red river. Although without the conveniences of modern life, there were many pleasurable phases of the pioneer days, now permanently passed away, that old settlers like Mr. Mathewson recall with regret ; particularly the unbounded hospi- tality of the people, their freedom from re- straint and the affectations of modern life, their adherence to the principles of the square deal, their strict sense of honor as between man and man in all business deals, a man's simple word being as good as his bond and no such thing as a note or se- curity being required.

Mr. Mathewson finally retired from ac- tive direction of his stock business in 1904, having accumulated enough to satisfy his ideas of a competence. He is the owner of valuable farming lands and city real es- tate and business property, and, from the standpoint of material possessions, is one of the best situated men in Tulsa. He has no ambition to be numbered among "the big rich," and is quite content with the re- wards of thirty years in active business life. His first wife was Miss Hattie Per- ryman, a member of the well-known Creek family of Perrymans that has furnished two chiefs to the Creek Nation. After her

death, Mr. Mathewson married Miss Le- vina Jack, daughter of the revered pioneer, John Jack, who died February 14, 1908, at eighty years. By his first marriage Mr. Mathewson had two children, Minnie and Phebe, the former of whom died at the age of eighteen. There are five children of the present union, namely : Pearl, Ben- jamin H., Archie, Ruth and Leonard. Mr. Mathewson is a Republican and was alder- man from the Second ward of Tulsa three years, when he resigned. He is a member of I. O. O. F., Aurora Lodge No. 121, of Tulsa.

LEE W. LINDSEY, of Tulsa, was one of the pioneer contractors and builders of the Territory and one of the leading men of the Creek Nation. He completed the walls and enclosure of the old council house, or capitol building, of the Creek Nation at Okmulgee. The trees surrounding the council house were set out by Colonel Lind- sey (as he is nearly always called). While these facts serve to identify him in a spe- cial manner with the history of the Creek Nation, they are incidental to the larger career of Colonel Lindsey in the industrial, business and political life of this section of Oklahoma. He is a pioneer resident of the Creek Nation, having come here in 1876, before there was any civil court juris- diction or government for white people in Indian Territory. In 1886 he established his home at Tulsa, then a small village of five years' growth, but already important as a trading center. As a contractor and builder he continued in active business here until 1892, since which year he has de- voted his energies to the development of business interests in the Creek and Chicka- saw Nations. At Sulphur, in Murray county, he has taken a prominent part in making the town a resort of wide reputa- tion. He built and owns the Lindsey block at that place, and is also the owner and promoter of the Lindsey addition, one of the best residence subdivisions. In the Creek Nation, besides owning fine farm property, he is promoting the Lindsey ad- ditions to Tulsa. These additions, the First and Second, lying in the southwest part of the city, are in the most picturesque part

478

HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

of the city, overlooking the Arkansas val- ley. In the Second addition, Colonel Lind- sey has built his own residence, at the cor- ner of Guthrie and Cypress Streets. This home is one of the show places of Tulsa. A handsome structure both within and without, it was built for actual comfort and convenience, in which features it excels. There are more than twenty rooms on the two stories, besides a basement and attic floor, and the cost of construction was about $15,000, though it is worth more since the Colonel built it himself. It is of the solidest frame construction, with 2 by 6 studdings reinforced by sills, then ship- lapped, covered with building paper, and then the regular outside slab siding. Oak and pine of native growth enter into the building. The floors are all double, the rooms beautifully furnished, gas and elec- tric lighted. Air pressure pumps, installed in a small building at the rear of the house, supply, alternately just as desired, hard or soft water from the well and cistern-an arrangement that few houses in the state could claim.

In public affairs Colonel Lindsey's posi- tion is best indicated by his having received, in the statehood election, the Republican nomination for member of the Legislature from Tulsa county. While his career since coming to Indian Territory has been one of remarkable activity and success, he has an interesting personal history before that time. He was born in Clermont county, Ohio, December 13, 1845, was reared on a farm, and at Batavia, the county seat of his home county, in 1863 enlisted in L troop of the Ninth Ohio Cavalry, being sent immediately to join Sherman's army. Though only eighteen years old, he was an active soldier in the siege of Atlanta, was on the march to the sea, and thence through the Carolinas and Virginia to Balti- more, Maryland, and discharged at Colum- bus, Ohio. He was in the last battle, at Bentonville, just before the surrender of Johnston's army. He returned home after the war, but in the early seventies went South and was present at the laying off of the town of Birmingham, Alabama. At that time he superintended the work of get-

ting out the stone material for the machine shops of the North and South Alabama Railroad at Birmingham. Having learned the trade of stonemason, he began the con- tracting and building business in the South, and about 1875 located at Van Buren, Arkansas, whence he moved soon afterward to the Creek Nation.

Mrs. Lindsey is one of the notable wom- en of Eastern Oklahoma. She has served as president of the Indian Territory Wom- en's Christian Temperance Union and is well known in various phases of church and reform work. Before her marriage to Colonel Lindsey, which occurred at the Wealaka Mission in 1885, and while she was known by her maiden name of Miss Lilah Denton, she was an accomplished teacher in the Indian schools. She belongs to one of the leading Indian families of the Creek Nation, her mother being of a Creek family and her father a Cherokee. She re- ceived her early education at the old Tulla- hassee Mission, then attended a seminary at Fulton, Missouri, and from there entered Highland Institute, Hillsboro, Ohio, where she graduated with honors in the class of 1883. She then taught for a time in the Wealaka Mission of the Presbyterian Church, also at Coweta Mission, and for about three years at Tulsa, making ten years altogether in mission schools. She was the first Creek girl to graduate, and was appointed by the board of missionaries to take charge of a mission school before she graduated. She is an active worker in the Relief Corps. An extensive traveler, she was appointed by Governor Haskell to attend the tuberculosis convention at Wash- ington, D. C. In April, 1908, she was state delegate to Richmond, Virginia. She has attended three receptions at the White House.

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 89

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