USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. III > Part 107
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Judge Julius C. Folsom was born January 17, 1831, in Mississippi, and came to the present Choctaw Nation in the first group of Choctaws that came to the West. He was educated in the national schools, in an academy at Hartford, Connecticut, and at Paris, Texas, and after leaving school engaged in the mercantile business with his father. He came to Atoka in about 1886. As a public servant he held the offices of county clerk, repre- sentative, senator and county judge, and also represented the' Choctaws on the Dawes Commission.
Judge Folsom was married three times, his first wife being Miss Nettie Thompson, a daughter of Giles Thompson. Two children of this marriage are now living: Don Juan, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Mrs. Tom W. Hunter of Hugo. The second marriage was to Miss Annie Shapp, whose children are deceased. Judge Folsom was married the third time in 1888 to Miss Hattie Coppland, the children of this marriage being: Tephia, a 1915 graduate of Oklahoma Presby- terian College for Girls, Durant; Orilla, and Julius C., Jr. Judge Folsom was a member of the Presbyterian Church of Atoka. Fraternally he was identified with the Masonic fraternity, while his political allegiance was given to the republican party.
JOHN W. ERVIN, president of the Phenix Mortgage Company, with offices at 412-414-416-418 Bawn Build- ing, Oklahoma City, controls a substantial and repre- sentative enterprise in this important field and is known as an authority on real estate values throughout Okla- homa, the while no man has higher reputation for reliability, circumspection and straightforward methods in the extending of financial fortification to those who are carrying forward industrial and commercial enter- prises of important order. He gives his attention largely to the handling of high-grade farm mortgages, has been a resident of Oklahoma during its entire period of statehood, and commands the confidence and good will of all who know him. As a loyal and progressive citizen and representative business man of the capital city and metropolis of the state of his adoption he is specially eligible for recognition in this publication.
John Witherspoon Ervin was born at Washington, Mason County, Kentucky, on the 21st of May, 1882, and is a scion of a sterling family that was founded in America very early in the colonial era of our national history, the original progenitors in the New World
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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
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having been two brothers, Hugh aud John Ervin, who left their native Ireland in 1632 and immigrated to the wilds of America. They first located at Kingstree, Wil- liamsburg County, South Carolina, in which colony John remained, the older brother, Hugh, having soon removed to Mississippi, where he numbered himself among the early pioneer settlers of that now prosperous com- monwealth. John Ervin, who continued his residence in South Carolina until his death, was the ancestor of him whose name introduces this article, and who bears the full patronymic of his grandfather, John Wither- spoon Ervin, who was a man of high intellectual attain- ments, who became a prominent figure in educational work in his native State of South Carolina, and who was for many years connected in an editorial capacity with leading newspapers and other publications in the City of Charleston.
John W. Ervin, subject of this review, is a son of Rev. Erasmus E. and Mary (Guthrie) Ervin, the former of whom was born in South Carolina and the latter in Tennessee. The father became a representative clergy- man of the Presbyterian Church and thus the family led a somewhat itinerant life during the childhood and youth of the son. When John W. was about one year old the family removed from his birthplace to Paint Lick, Kentucky; when he was five years of age removal was made to Shelby County, North Carolina ; - two years later found the family established at Faunsdale, Ala- bama; the following year his father became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Pisgah, Kentucky, where young Ervin was reared to the age of fifteen years and where he received the advantages of a well conducted private school, besides having been signally favored in having during his entire youth the environment and influences of a home of signal culture and of high ideals. When he was fifteen years of age the family removed to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and there he completed an effective course in the Florida State Normal School. At this juncture may be interpolated the statement that when but sixteen years of age the father of Mr. Ervin ran away from home to manifest his loyalty to the cause of the Confederacy, by enlisting for service in the Civil war and that he continued in active service as a youthful soldier until the close of the long inter- necine conflict between the states of the North and the South.
Leaving school at the age of nineteen years Mr. Ervin was thereafter identified with the mercantile business at DeFuniak Springs for a period of four years, at the expiration of which he engaged iu thie same line of enterprise at Darlington, South Carolina, where he remained until December, 1906, when, at the age of twenty-four years, he came to Oklahoma Terri- tory and established his residence at Norman, where for the following six months he was associated with one of his cousins in the mercantile business. In July, 1907, the year that marked the admission of Oklahoma as one of the sovereign states of the Union, he removed to Chickasha, Grady County, where, after having devoted a year to the fraternal insurance business, he engaged in the real estate business. He thus became promi- nently identified with the early development and prog- ress of that now thriving little city, where he was associated with Hard Butler in the purchase, platting and sale of Steele's Addition to the city, this enterprise having been conducted under the firm name of J. W. Ervin & Co.
In November, 1909, Mr. Ervin accepted the position of manager of the city loan department of the Oklahoma Farm Mortgage Company, and thus removed to Okla- homa City, the headquarters of this corporation. He
continued in tenure of this position until March, 1914, when he resigned. After passing about six months on a farm in this vicinity he returned to Oklahoma City and established his present business enterprise, the rapid extension of which has attested his ability as a progressive young business man and his inviolable place in popular confidence and good will. Concerning him the following pertinent statements have been made: "Among all the mortgage-loan firms in the State there is not a man who stands higher in efficiency and knowl- edge of values, men and conditions in Oklahoma than does Mr. Ervin; nor is there a young man in any husi- ness calling in the State who more fully enjoys the con- fidence and approval of those who know him." As a citizen Mr. Ervin is essentially loyal and public-spirited, his political allegiance being given to the democratic party, and both he and his wife holding membership in the Presbyterian Church, their pleasant home being at 2107 West Sixteenth Street.
At Chickasha, on the 2d of June, 1909, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Ervin to Miss Jeanette Bennett, a daughter of James M. and Jennie Woods (Shepherd) Bennett, the former a native of Mississippi and the latter of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Ervin have three children-Eleanor, who was born August 7, 1910; Gor- don Ellerbe, who was born December 10, 1912; and John Witherspoon, Jr., who was born May 10, 1915.
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CLIFFORD LINDEN JACKSON was born in Dayton, Ohio, on November 25, 1857. His parents were George and Ann A. Jackson. Mr. Jackson was reared partly in Louisiana and partly in Missouri and was educated in the country schools of Pettis County, Missouri. He studied law in the office of his older brother, George P. B. Jackson. On April 17, 1895, he married Kate Pugh Williams, of Brownsville, Tennessee.
Mr. Jackson has held several official positions as fol- lows: Deputy Circuit Clerk, Pettis County, Missouri, 1880-1; District Attorney Second Judicial District, New Mexico, 1887-8; United States District Attorney for Indian Territory, 1893-4; United States District Attor- ney, Northern District Indian Territory, 1895-7. He has been active in bar association work and has been president of the Muskogee Bar Association during three different terms as follows: 1905-6, 1910-11, 1912-13. The Muskogee Bar Association is the oldest bar associa- tion in the State of Oklahoma and was organized in 1899. Mr. Jackson was also president of the Indian Territory Bar Association in 1902-3 and president of the consolidated Oklahoma-Indian Territory Bar Association during 1906, and during 1907 he was president of the Oklahoma State Bar Association. In 1910-11 he was vice president of the American Bar Association.
Mr. Jackson has always been more or less active in the work of building up his home city and in 1907-8 was president of the Muskogee Commercial Club. In his effort to assist in the industrial development of Oklahoma he, in the year 1914, took an active part in the organiza- tion of the Oklahoma State Poultry Federation, which has held two successful state poultry shows and lias pro- moted poultry development in every county and in every school district in Oklahoma. He was president of this federation during the year 1914. Mr. Jackson is a member of the Muskogee Town & Country Club, the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club and the Ozark Club. In politics he is a democrat.
HON. JOHN FLETCHER SHARP. In every state the dig- nity of the highest court is a matter of jealous watch- fulness on the part of the people. A seat on the supreme bench instantly confers a distinction upon any incumbent,
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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
and not only the members of the profession from which are drawu the judges but the general public have without exceptiou exercised a discriminating judgment in electing only men emineutly qualified for so exalted au office.
One of the newer members of the Oklahoma Supreme Court is John Fletcher Sharp, who has been identified with the practice of law in old Iudian Territory and iu the new State of Oklahoma for more than a quarter of a century, and who has built up and maintained a spotless record in the profession and in all his relations with the public life of the territory and state. He was born March 2, 1865, on a farm near Camp Point, Adams County, Illinois. His parents were James and Permelia Jane (Bates) Sharp. Judge Sharp was the oldest of four sons. His brother William died iu infancy, the secoud brother is James Baxter, while Marvin Bates dicd at the age of nine.
Spending his early life on a farm in Western Illinois, Judge Sharp atteuded the public schools aud for four years was a student in Chaddock College at Quincy. With the class of 1889 he graduated with the degree of LL. B. from the Missouri State University, was admitted to practice in Howard County, Missouri, and in the week following his graduatiou, came to the Indian Territory, attended the first session of the United States Court at Muskogee, and at once located for practice of his pro- fession at Purcell, Other than the tribal courts of the Indians, the only court in the territory at that time was, located at Muskogee by Act of Congress of March 1, 1889. He rapidly acquired prominence in the law aud soon became recognized for his qualities as a leader among men.
For two years he served as mayor of Purcell, and on behalf of the towu delivered the address of welcome to the first joiut Indian Territory and Oklahoma Press Association at its organization at Purcell April 30, 1890.
A lifelong democrat, Judge Sharp took an active part in the organization of his party in the old Indian Terri- tory, aud was a party leader at the Muskogee Conven- tion in 1892, when the first territorial organization of the democratic party was effected. It was in that con- veution that Hon. R. L. Owen of Muskogee aud Colonel John S. Sneed of Purcell, now deceased, were chosen delegates from the Indian Territory to the Democratic National Convention at Chicago, who after a bitter struggle were seated as the first representatives ever accorded to old Iudian Territory in a national party convention. From that time forward until statehood, save for four years, Judge Sharp was a member of the Indian Territory Democratic Executive Committee, and after statehood was on the committee until his appoint- ment to office. In 1900 he was one of two delegates at large from Indian Territory to the national democratic convention in Kansas City.
Before his elevatiou to the Supreme bench Judge Sharp had a law practice which was state wide both in extent and importance. From 1895 to 1898 he was closely associated with that group of men who promoted aud built the Oklahoma Central railroad from Lehigh to Chickasha. Judge Sharp is a Knight Templar Mason and an Elk and he and his family are members of the Episcopal Church.
On September 1, 1911, he was appointed by the Okla- homa Supreme Court a member of the Supreme Court Commission, and was reappointed September 1, 1913. This appointment came without solicitation by himself or friends, and he remained a member of the commission until January 11, 1915, when he resigned in order to qualify as associate justice of the Supreme Court, having been elected to that office in November, 1914. At the biennial organization of the court in January, 1915, he was chosen vice chief justice. A trained lawyer of
ripe experience, Judge Sharp possesses in a high degree the judicial temperament so necessary to his present important station. Possessing rare attainments as a lawyer, Judge Sharp is besides an indefatigable worker. His splendid ability is reflected in the soundness of his judicial utterances in the form of his opinions as a member of the state's highest tribunal. It is this work that has brought to Judge Sharp his most enduring fame.
On November 23, 1892, Judge Sharp married Miss Bessie C. Pickrell of Arkansas City, Kansas. Mrs. Sharp is a woman of broad culture and should be credited with an important share in her husband's advancement to eminence in Oklahoma affairs. She was born in Knox County, Illinois. They have two children, a daughter and a son. The daughter, Helen Irene, born November 27, 1893, graduated from the Purcell High School, also attended school at Oklahoma City, was a student in the noted Belmont College at Nashville, Teunessee, in the State University of Oklahoma, and graduated from the Oklahoma State Central Normal at Edmond. She has been thoroughly trained in music, the classics and in all departments of literary culture. On February 16, 1916, she married James Franklin Buck, a prominent young banker of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Mr. Buck was born at Mckinney, Texas, November 1, 1890. The son of Judge and Mrs. Sharp is John Fletcher, Jr., born November 18, 1895, and who is a graduate of the Oklahoma City High School, class of 1912, and of the Oklahoma State University, class of 1916.
It is citizens of the high character and profound legal learning possessed by Judge Sharp the state delights to honor.
WILLIAM ALLEN MAURER. For over twenty years engaged in the practice of law in Oklahoma, and a leader in his professiou and iu civic affairs at El Reno, William Alleu Maurer is perhaps as widely known over the state as any other individual lawyer.
He was born at Altoona, Pennsylvania, October 25, 1872, a son of George and Eliza (McCartney) Maurer ; came to El Reno in 1890. His early education came from the public schools, aud he prepared himself by individual study for the practice of law, in which he engaged in 1893, the year he reached his majority.
Siuce that time his name has been one of increas- ing prominence in and about El Reno. In 1897 Mr. Maurer was elected city attorney of El Reno, serving two years. In 1910 he was elected judge of the County Court and re-elected in 1912, being the only republican in that county chosen to an office in 1912. For a great many years he has been a leader of influence and substantial ability in the Oklahoma republican party. In 1916 the sixth district chose him as its delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, where Charles E. Hughes was nominated as the party standard bearer.
Besides his position in the law Mr. Maurer is also a business man and for the past ten years has been a direc- tor in the El Reno Wholesale Grocery Company. He was exalted ruler of Lodge No. 743 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at El Reno in 1915, and in 1916 was representative to the grand lodge. He is also a Royal Arch Mason, a member of the El Reno Country Club, and his religious tendencies are towards the Presbyterian Church.
On December 26, 1897, at El Reno, he married Hettie D. Evans, daughter of Neal W. and Sallie Evans. Neal W. Evans is one of the prominent old-time characters of Oklahoma, and his career is sketched on other pages. Mr. and Mrs. Maurer arc the parents of two children: Neal Evans Maurer and William Allen, Jr., aged seven- teen and twelve years respectively.
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RALSA F. MORLEY. From the standpoint of the scrip- tural aphorism, "By their works ye shall know them,'' it is but consistent to designate the personality and achievement of Mr. Morley as being distinctively marked by versatility, by deep appreciation of the true values in the scheme of human thought and action, by exalted ideals and by productive usefulness. He is now engaged in the successful practice of law in the City of Tulsa, judicial center of the county of the same name, his busi- ness acumen has been shown in his progressive enter- prise in connection with the physical development and upbuilding of his home city; and he has proved effec- tively his powers as a strong and resourceful attorney and counselor at law. These brief preliminary state- ments justify the claim made above, to the effect that he is a man of distinctive versatility of talent, and it may further be said that he is one of specially high in- tellectual attainments but one with naught of intel- lectual intolerance or bigotry. A true type of the world's productive worker, his career is pleasing to re- view in even the contracted epitome here possible to offer.
A native of the Badger State and a scion of one of its honored pioneer families, Mr. Morley was born at Baraboo, the judicial center of Sauk County, Wisconsin, on the 12th of December, 1874, the second in order of birth of the three children of Ralsa A. and Rose Mary (Clark) Morley, the eldest son being Rolla C. and the youngest Robert W.
Ralsa A. Morley was born in the State of Kentucky in the year 1831, and his death occurred in Sauk County, Wisconsin, in 1894, his widow being still a resident of that state: she was born in Walworth County, Wisconsin, in 1830, and this date fully indicates that her parents were early pioneer settlers of that fine commonwealth of the Union. Ralsa A. Morley acquired his early edu- cation in his native state and was a lad of sixteen years when he accompanied his parents on their immigration to Wisconsin. In making the long overland trip to their destination the family transported their limited house- hold effects and on the journey the father and son found ample demand upon their time and patience en route, as a number of cattle and sheep were by them driven through the entire distance from Kentucky to Wisconsin. Settlement was made in the wilds of Sauk County, in the central part of the state, and there the parents, Thomas and Mary Morley, passed the residue of their lives, sterling pioneers who endured the labors and trials incidental to the development of a pioneer farm, and who proved true and steadfast in all of the relations of life. Ralsa A. Morley assisted in the reclamation of the homestead farm, attended the pioneer schools, gained much advancement in scholarship through self-applica- tion at home, and finally read law and became eligible for the bar, though he never found it expedient to en- gage in active practice. The major part of his active career was one of close identification with farming, stock-growing of Short Horn cattle and Percheron horses, and for many years he was engaged in the buying and shipping of live stock, his purchase of stock being made principally in Wisconsin and shipment being made to the Chicago market. During the closing period of his life he resided on his farm in Sauk County and gave his at- tention principally to the raising of live stock. Mr. Morley was one of the honored and influential citizens of the county that was his home for many years, and for virtually a period of fifteen years he served as a member of the board of county commissioners of Sauk County. As an official he was loyal and progressive and his in- fluence was potent in furthering the civic and material advancement of his home county. Within the long period of his service as county commissioner many excellent
county buildings were erected, and he had active super- vision of much of the work, including that of the court house and the county asylum for the care of the insane. In politics he was an old-line whig until the organiza- tion of the republican party, when he transferred his allegiance to the latter, the cause of which ever after- ward had his zealous support. He was a consistent and influential member of the Methodist Church, of which his venerable widow likewise has long been a devout adherent.
He whose name initiates this article continued his studies in the public schools of his native county until he had completed the curriculum of the high school in the City of Baraboo, in which he was graduated as a mem- ber of the class of 1891, and thereafter he was for three years a student in the great University of Wisconsin, in the beautiful little City of Madison, the lake ensconced capital of the state, his studies having been in the liter- ary or academic department of the university. After leaving Wisconsin Mr. Morley continued his studies in Lake Forest University, at Lake Forest, a suburb of the City of Chicago, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He thereafter completed the prescribed curriculum in the McCormick Seminary, in Chicago, in which he was grad- uated as a member of the class of 1901. With seemingly insatiable appetite for intellectual pabulum, and realiz- ing that his contemplated application would prove of great value to him in his service to humanity, Mr. Mor- ley next entered the law department of the great Univer- sity of Chicago, and in the same he was graduated in 1903, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He had de- pended almost entirely upon his own resources in defray- ing the expenses of his long continued scholastic disci- pline, and this fact made him the more earnest and appreciative in his efforts, the more enthusiastic in his determination to make his life one of usefulness to others and expressive of the high ideals which he has firmly held from his youth to the present time.
In February, 1905, two years prior to the admission of Oklahoma to the Union, Mr. Morley came to the terri- tory, which assumed the dignity of statehood in the following November, 1907, and established his residence in the ambitious young City of Tulsa. With marked circumspection and realization of possibilities and de- mands, he turned his attention to the securing of real estate in the city and erecting thereon houses of the better order. He thus erected and sold a total of fifteen houses, and in this initial venture of his adoption he not only contributed materially to its upbuilding but also realized a merited profit in a financial sense. Mr. Morley now owns a large amount of real estate in the City of Tulsa and vicinity. He is at the present time erecting a substantial business block.
In May, 1907, Mr. Morley opened his law office in Tulsa and thus became a "charter member" of the bar of the state, which became a sovereign commonwealth a few months later. He has since continued in the suc- cessful general practice of his profession, with a sub- stantial and important clientage, and he is honored not only as a representative member of the bar of Tulsa County but also as a loyal and public-spirited citizen and as a man whose ability, high ideals and civic pro- gressiveness make him a citizen of unequivocal value to the community and one worthy of the unqualified respect of his fellow men in all walks of life. Mr. Morley is a democrat in his political proclivities.
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