USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume II > Part 90
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JACK BELL. Incidents in the careers of persons often mark the growth of a city or community. It serves to measure the rapid growth of the city of Tulsa to recall that Jack Bell, one of the well-known citi- zens who has lived here since 1896, once plowed corn in the now thickly built up part of the city where stands the Midland Val- ley depot. To such an extent has Tulsa
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overspread all the limits of its earlier im- portance and within the last few years at- tained to influence and size of a metropolis.
Mr. Bell's present homestead is a fine es- tate adjoining Tulsa on the southeast. On one of the hills in that part of the city stands his residence, commanding an excel- lent view of the city and the broad sweep of the Arkansas valley. The residence sec- tion of the city has gradually encroached on his land, and from his estate he has laid out a residence subdivision known as Bell- view. Mr. Jack Bell, who with his chil- dren owns valuable farming lands east of Tulsa in the old Creek Nation, is a Creek citizen by marriage, but was born in Texas county, Missouri, April 11, 1870, and was reared on a farm in that county. He lost his parents while he was a boy, and since 1895 has lived most of the time in Indian Territory, being at Muskogee before mov- ing to Tulsa. In Tulsa he married Miss Clarissa Hodge. Her father is Alvin T. Hodge, who lives on a farm adjoining the Bell place. Mr. Hodge is one of the oldest of the living natives of the Creek Nation. He was born here in 1844, his mother being of Creek blood and his father, Nathaniel Hodge, a native of New York state. Alvin T. Hodge built the first house, or one of the first, in Tulsa, and is on all accounts one of the pioneers of the city, as also one of the wealthy citizens of the Creek Nation. He has been a farmer and stockman all his life. Most of his education was obtained in the old Presbyterian Mission School at Tullahassee, and his intelligence and strong character have for years made him influ- ential in the councils of his people, having served as a representative in the Creek council, as district judge, and in other posi- tions. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Bell are the par- ents of three children: Aaron, Lela May and Marie. Mr. Bell is independent in politics.
DR. S. DEZELL HAWLEY. In the party campaign for Republican nomination for the office of governor in the new state of Oklahoma, the second in the race, following Governor Frantz, was Dr. S. DeZell Haw- ley, a prominent young physician and sur- geon of Tulsa and one of the Republican
leaders of the new state. Though a com- paratively recent resident of Oklahoma, lie has identified himself very closely with its public life, besides taking a prominent place in the profession of medicine and surgery. He has served as alderman of the city of Tulsa, and is otherwise active as a citizen.
Dr. Hawley became a general prac- titioner of medicine and surgery at Tulsa in 1903, and almost at once came into profes- sional favor and gained a large patronage. He was born in Webster county, Nebraska, in 1877. His parents. Dr. J. E. and Alice J. (Stephenson) Hawley, are both still liv- ing at their home in Burr Oak, Jewell coun- ty, Kansas. Dr. J. E. Hawley is a native of New York state, a descendant of the well-known New England family of Haw- leys (Connecticut), of which Senator Haw- ley is a distinguished member, the ancestry going back in direct line to the time of William the Conqueror. J. E. Hawley was one of the pioneer physicians of Nebraska, and has been a practicing physician for a long number of years, being still active in his profession at Burr Oak. Mrs. J. E. Hawley was born in Indiana, of an Ohio family of Scotch ancestry. The Hawleys are a hardy, longlived race, and in the Doc- tor's immediate family (he having a sister and two brothers) there has never been a death. S. DeZell Hawley spent his youth at Burr Oak, Kansas, graduating from the high school, and from the University of Kansas at Lawrence was graduated with the class of 1899. He at once began prep- aration for the medical profession, study- ing at the University Medical College of Kansas City, where he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in March, 1903. He soon afterward came to Tulsa. He is a member of the County, State and American Medical Associations and member of the Medical Association of the Southwest. He affiliates with the F. & A. M., B. P. O. E. (and treasurer of the local lodge), Modern Woodmen and Past Venerable Counsel of the local lodge. At Burr Oak he was mar- ried to Miss Vida S. Faidley.
COL. EDWARD CALKINS. The first mayor of Tulsa, and the father of the town gov- ernment which was organized in 1898, was
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Col. Edward Calkins. He is a pioneer law- ver of Indian Territory, having located at South Mcalester in 1889, about the time the United States Court was established there. He moved to Tulsa in 1894, and practiced law until 1906, and now gives his time to his property interests in the city. It is a remarkable instance of the rapid growth of Oklahoma cities that Tulsa first organized a municipal government in 1898. and that just ten years later it had grown to be a city of such business interests that its commercial club could afford to send out a special delegation to the principal cities of the United States to advertise the advan- tages and resources of this former trading point for three Indian nations.
Colonel Calkins is a veteran soldier as well as veteran lawyer. He has had a varied career since he was admitted to the bar at Greenville, Ohio, in 1860. He had come to Greenville with his parents in 1852. from his birthplace at Burlington, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, where he was born August 20, 1836. He was a student at Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, and read law three years in Greenville. While trying his first cases at Greenville the war broke out and he enlisted, on the first call for volunteers for the three months' service. While with the Eighty-seventh Ohio Infantry he was captured at Har- per's Ferry, and being exchanged, re-en- tered the service at Indianapolis in the Sev- enth Indiana Cavalry. He became lieutenant under John P. Shanks, was for two years on staff duty with the noted cavalryman, General Grierson, and with headquarters at Memphis, participated in all the cavalry raids through Tennessee and Mississippi, in conflict with General Forrest. The most effective part of this service was in the scouting and cavalry movements leading up to the siege of Vicksburg. At the bat- tle of Guntown, Mississippi, in March, 1865, Mr. Calkins was wounded, and was disabled for further service in the conflict then drawing to a close. For over twenty years he practiced law at Rochester, In- diana, being one of the leading members of the local bar and also influential in In- diana politics. He was a Republican mem-
ber of the Indiana legislature in 1870-71, during the notable session when O. P. Mor- ton was elected to his second term in the United States senate. From Indiana Mr. Calkins moved to Indian Territory. Since moving to Tulsa he has judiciously in- vested in business property, most of it along Main street, which the city's develop- ment has made many times more valuable than at the time he secured it. Colonel Calkins was one of the organizers of the Tulsa Bar Association, and was its first president, an office he held for four years. Outside of his profession one of his chief interests has been in the Grand Army of the Republic. He was present at the first reunion of the armies of the Cumberland and Tennessee in Chicago in 1868, at which all the great commanders of the war were present. It is an interesting incident of his career that at that session he introduced a resolution expressing sympathy with the Cubans in their struggles with Spanish rule, and it was a continuation of this same con- tention that brought about American inter- vention in the war of 1898. Colonel Cal- kins organized the G. A. R. in Indian Ter- ritory, and was the first department com- mander of the Territory. He is a Repub- lican in politics. Mrs. Calkins, before her marriage, was Miss Elenora McClure. She was born in Lima, Ohio, and reared at Peru, Indiana. They were married at Wat- seka, Illinois. Her death occurred Sep- tember 29, 1908.
COL. GEORGE W. MOWBRAY. The history of Tulsa's development is truly marvelous, and yet it has been but the logical result of the well-directed and concerted efforts of its citizens of enterprise, foresight and determination. To this class belongs George W. Mowbray, a prominent busi- ness man who was formerly mayor of the city and came originally to this section of the country as a minister and missionary. He was born at Melton-Mowbray. Leices- tershire, England, in 1847, his parents be- ing John and Catherine (Lockton) Mow- bray. Melton-Mowbray has been the an- cestral home of the family for many gen- erations, extending back to the year 1066, when the original Mowbray in England,
Ges. A. Mowbray
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having crossed the channel with William the Conqueror, there established his castle. His more remote ancestors were Norse- men, who settled in Normandy. This an- cestral home in Leicestershire became the seat of the earldom of Mowbray, occupied by the successive lords of the Mowbray name until the time of Oliver Cromwell, who destroyed the castle because of the fact that the Mowbrays were royalists. The family also built the old parish church at Melton-Mowbray and the remains of the ancestors now rest in its mausoleum.
George W. Mowbray was educated prin- cipally at the Grantham grammar school, from which he was graduated. This is the Lincolnshire school which enjoys the distinction of having had Sir Isaac New- ton for a pupil. Although Mr. Mowbray's parents were communicants of the estab- lished Church of England, he decided to enter the non-conformist ministry and ac- cordingly was licensed to preach by the Wesleyan Methodist church. He came to America at the age of twenty-two years, and preached his first sermon on American soil in the Methodist church at Bingham- ton, New York, in November, 1869. There he remained in an active pastorate for six years, while subsequently he was located at Owego, New York, and afterward at Elmira, where he remained as minister of the Methodist church for nine years. He was afterward transferred to a church of that denomination at Tioga county, Penn- sylvania, where he continued for about a year and a half, and later went to McCune, Crawford county, in southeastern Kansas. In 1887 he left the Sunflower state for Tulsa, coming here as a missionary min- ister for the Southern Kansas conference, and when the Indian mission conference was organized he became one of its mem- bers. This was formed by Bishop Wal- den, March 21, 1889. Mr. Mowbray was one of the first missionaries to this part of the Creek Nation, and remained in minis- terial work until 1896, when he retired from active pulpit relations with the church and entered business life.
Mr. Mowbray carried on a large mercan- tile store, which had been established orig-
inally by his son-in-law, T. J. Archer, who had come to Tulsa with a commissary store at the time of the completion of the Frisco Railroad to this point in 1882. Mr. Archer died in 1894 and Mr. Mowbray afterward carried on the business for several years, with a full line of furniture, hardware, im- plements, vehicles, etc. Finally, however, he disposed of the larger part of his mer- cantile interests, retaining only the under- taking department, which he still conducts. It has not been alone in mercantile lines, however, that he has left the impress of his individuality upon the city's develop- ment and substantial progress. In fact, as a public official, he has done much for its welfare. He served as mayor of Tulsa in 1903-4, being one of the most progressive and efficient officials the city has ever had. He took a leading part in advancing its public-spirited movements throughout the period of his residence here and has been an important factor in that growth and de- velopment which has made Tulsa one of the remarkable and attractive cities of the southwest. Prior to his service as mayor he had been the treasurer and the first president of the Tulsa Commercial Club, to the interests of which he devoted much time and money, making many trips to western cities for the exploitation of the resources of Tulsa and the surrounding country. He was largely instrumental in influencing the Santa Fe Railroad to ex- tend its line to this point, and, in fact, was the first man to bring Tulsa to the atten- tion of the outside world. For three years he served as president of the school board, and formerly was vice president of the City National Bank.
Mr. Mowbray was married in England to Miss Hanna E. Harley, and they have four living children: Mrs. Anna C. Ar- cher, George W., Jr., Mrs. Mary H. Thomas and Mrs. Grace E. Winterringer. Mr. Mowbray is well known as a repre- sentative of fraternal circles, being promi- nent in the Odd Fellows and Masonic lodges. He has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and is also a Knights Templar and a member of the Mys- tic Shrine. He has taken all of the degrees
Vol. I-31
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in the subordinate lodge, the encampment and the canton of the Odd Fellows, and is now grand master of the grand lodge of Indian Territory jurisdiction of Oklahoma. He was president of the board of directors of the beautiful Odd Fellows' Home at Checotah, superintended its construction, acting as its first superintendent after its completion. Mr. Mowbray is a man of most alert and enterprising spirit, whose interest in his city and its welfare is mani- fest in many tangible ways, while his busi- ness ability and enterprise are widely rec- ognized.
CICERO L. HOLLAND. The Democratic representative from the Tulsa county dis- trict in the first state legislature, when it convened in December, 1907, was Cicero L. Holland, who has been a consistent and enthusiastic advocate of statehood and the highest interests of Oklahoma and Indian Territory for a number of years. Mr. Hol- land is a resident of Tulsa, where, until re- cently, he was connected with the mercan- tile business, but during the past ten years has resided and had business interests in various parts of the two territories. He was a member of the statehood delegation that visited Washington in 1905, and which was chiefly instrumental in bringing about the legislation that resulted in the enabling act, the constitutional convention, and finally statehood.
Mr. Holland was born near Circleville, Fairfield county, Ohio, April 29, 1866, and was taken, at the age of two years, by his parents to Morris county, Kansas, where they located on a farm as pioneers of the country. Reared on a farm, Mr. Holland had the advantages of the local schools, supplemented by higher schooling in the Kansas State Normal at Emporia. He was for eight years a school teacher, and at one time superintendent of the schools at Dun- lap, Kansas. He came to Oklahoma Ter- ritory in 1897, and has since been actively engaged in business. He was in the grain and feed business at Ponca, then moved to Duncan, Indian Territory, near the line of the Kiowa-Comanche reservation, and with the opening of the latter country on August 6, 1901, established a branch of his Duncan
business at Lawton. Later he was in the real estate business at Hastings, in Co- manche county, and in 1903 established his mercantile house at Tulsa, where he has since lived. On East Third street, between Boston and Cincinnati avenues, the substan- tial two-story business block which he erected was the first business improvement of that section of the city, but has since become central in a business district. Since selling out his business in 1907 Mr. Hol- land has given his attention to his general business interests in the new state and to public affairs. Mr. Holland was on the following committees while in the legisla- ture: Manufactures and Commerce, Oil and Gas, Geological and Economic Survey, Municipal Corporations, Revenues and Taxation. He was elected by the largest proportional majority of any member of the house, getting 2,246 of the 2,372 votes cast in his district. He was the author of the bill to issue county bonds, etc. Fraternally he is a Mason and an Odd Fellow and an Elk. His wife, before her marriage, was Miss Maude A. Schlosser, a native of In- diana. They have a son, C. L. Holland, Jr. Mrs. Holland went to Kansas with her par- ents when six years old. Her father took up land in Lyon county, Kansas. Mrs. Holland is a member of the Presbyterian church, as also is her son.
FLOWERS NELSON. The sixty-eighth con- stitutional district, comprising Tulsa and vicinity, elected as delegate to the consti- tutional convention Flowers Nelson, a prominent lawyer of that city and one of the leaders in professional and public af- fairs from the time when Tulsa was a vil- lage. Mr. Nelson was chosen to the con- vention over a very strong Republican op- position, and was active in the deliberations which produced the first constitution. He was a member of various committees, the one which occupied most of his time and attention being the committee on county boundaries. As one of the representative citizens of the new state, he was further honored by appointment, in December. 1907, from Governor Haskell, as one of the regents of the Oklahoma State Uni- versity.
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Mr. Nelson, who has been a resident of Tulsa since 1895, was born in Copiah coun- ty, Mississippi, in 1870, a son ot George Bancroft and Maggie (Flowers) Nelson, both of whom are still living in Hazelhurst, Copiah county. In 1861 his father, then only fourteen years old, enlisted in the Twelfth Mississippi Regiment, and served throughout the war, mostly in Virginia, participating in the historic battles at Seven Pines, Manassas, Fredericksburg, and others. Virginia was the ancestral home of the Nelsons, Benjamin F. Nelson, grandfather of the Oklahoma lawyer, be- ing born and reared in Culpeper county. Bringing his family to Mississippi some years before the war, he bought the old homestead of ex-Governor Albert G. Brown in Copiah county, known as Holly Grove, a fine old estate surrounded by one of the largest plantations in the state. The residence which he erected there, of the finest material and construction, still re- mains one of the noted attractions of Co- piah county. Flowers Nelson's mother is descended from a North Carolina family, her father coming from there to Copiah county and, like B. F. Nelson, becoming one of the large planters of the county.
The old Nelson homestead was the home of Flowers Nelson during his youth. He received the best educational advantages. After attending the local schools and leav- ing high school in 1885, he entered the Mis- sissippi Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege at Starkville, winning a medal in ora- tory. Three years later, having determined to study law, he came home and entered the office of Judge J. S. Sexton, one of the prominent lawyers of Hazelhurst, remain- ing there until 1889, when he became a student of the University of Mississippi at Oxford. He was elected by the student body as salutatorian at commencement of '89. Following a two-years' course of Eng- lish and belles-lettres, he finished the two- year law course in one year, graduating in 1892. Another member of his class was Charles B. Ames, now the distinguished Oklahoma lawyer at Oklahoma City. Mr. Nelson located at Birmingham, Alabama, in September, 1892. Taking naturally to
politics and public life, he stumped the city for Cleveland and the Democratic ticket, under the auspices of the Democratic state executive committee. After practicing awhile in Birmingham, he moved to Mus- kogee, Indian Territory, in September, 1893, taking a partnership in the law office of his cousin, George E. Nelson.
In 1895, when Mr. Nelson permanently identified himself with Tulsa. that center, now so populous and industrially and com- mercially prosperous, was an inconspicuous village in a thinly settled Indian country. From this condition Mr. Nelson has wit- nessed the transformation into one of the richest oil, gas and industrial regions of the United States. Mr. Nelson has sub- stantial real estate and financial interests in this city and surrounding country, and as one of the prominent lawyers has become a dominating influence in the public affairs of the eastern half of the new state. Mr. Nelson was married at Columbus, Kansas, in 1896, to Miss Birdie Shackle, a descend- ant of a Virginia family. They have one son, Bancroft Nelson.
A. MILLER HAMMETT. The industrial opportunities of Oklahoma and Indian Ter- ritory during the last eight or ten years have attracted some forceful men to en- gage in the work of development. Men of unusual daring, eager to undertake large affairs with little regard for difficulties, gifted with remarkable business acumen and skill, such talents and abilities may be found in those at the head of the largest business enterprises of Oklahoma as would do credit to any state. The oil region about Tulsa has brought there some men of this character. One of the best known is A. Miller Hammett, whose own career is in- teresting, and whose father possesses the business genius and the striking attributes of the modern man of affairs that are the chief characteristics of the modern age of business.
Captain C. H. Hammett was born at Huntsville, Missouri, a son of J. M. Ham- mett, a Kentuckian, who helped found the town of Huntsville. For several years Captain Hammett was a member of the real estate firm of Hammett and Davidson.
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of Kansas City, and also had business con- nections with a similar firm in St. Louis, of which his brother, Hon. B. F. Hammett, was the senior member. (B. F. Hammett is now a wealthy retired citizen of El Paso, Texas, of which city he was mayor a few years ago.) Captain Hammett is a born speculator. He has made and lost several large fortunes, always with a steady cour- age that enables him to continue fighting whether he wins or loses. He raised the capital and built the Galveston, LaPorte & Houston Railroad, from Houston to La- Porte, Texas, now a division of the South- ern Pacific system. He also built a rail- road in Mississippi. He assisted David R. Francis in the organization of the Missis- sippi Valley Trust Company, of St. Louis, and, with other capitalists of that city, en- gaged extensively in lead and zinc mining in Missouri, and later in gold mining in Colorado and Nevada. One of his latest fields of exploitation is Idaho, where, in 1907, he began work on a large irrigation project. Captain Hammett was one of those who made a fortune in the Indian Territory oil fields. In 1904, the pioneer oil well at Alluwe, in the Cherokee Nation, was the strike that at once gave him promi- nence as an oil developer. In May, 1906, making his first appearance at Glenn Pool, he invested a moderate sum in leases, and within fifteen months had cleared half a million dollars in profits.
One of the stories told of Captain Ham- mett's financial experiences illustrates his unshaken nerve under the worst circum- stances. He is a game loser, as an ardent winner. During the early nineties he went to New York to close the sale of a railroad he had built in Mississippi to Jay Gould. Three million dollars was at stake in the deal. The papers had been drawn, and he and Gould were closing their interview in the latter's private office. Just as Mr. Gould picked up the pen to sign his name to the document that would conclude the negotiation, a messenger came in with a cablegram announcing the failure of the Baring Bros., of London. His signature was never affixed, the transaction came to an abrupt conclusion, and though it meant
millions of dollars to Captain Hammett, he took it all with philosophic humor, and at once returned to St. Louis to begin work on other enterprises. Captain Hammett's wife, now deceased, was Fannie M. (Jack- son ) Hammett, a native of Fayette county, Missouri.
A. Miller Hammett, of Tulsa, is a son of this capitalist, and inherits his qualities. He was born at Huntsville, Missouri, April 15, 1878. His educational advantages were of the best, beginning with the public schools of Mexico, Missouri, and contin- ued through the Mexico Military Academy, the University of Virginia, at Charlottes- ville, where he was graduated with the class of 1900, in the Kansas City Law School, from which he was graduated in 1901, and a post-graduate law course at Yale Law School. He began practicing law at Kansas City in 1902. While in school he took a great interest in journal- ism, and his talents in that line and his practical training have afforded him a grat- ifying occupation aside from the promotion of financial and industrial enterprises. He has the newspaper man's special liking for the work, and his taste has run particularly in the line of dramatic criticism. As a stu- dent of the drama and a writer on its forms and representation, he has found, not a means of livelihood, but a means of recrea- tion and diversion from the more trying la- bors of his business career. Just before lo- cating at Tulsa he was temporarily en- gaged in the newspaper business at Paw- huska, where he established the first daily paper, the Star. Mr. Hammett was for- merly a member of the bar at Oklahoma City, where he opened an office in 1904, but came to Tulsa the following year. The oil boom was at its height, and becoming associated with his father in the promotion of some enterprises in this line, he aban- doned the legal profession as offering an inadequate field for his energies, and has since made a distinguished success in this industrial field. Several leases in the Glenn Pool came into the ownership of Mr. Ham- mett, who developed them, and after oper- ating them at a large profit, sold them at large figures of increase over their cost.
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