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 11

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 660

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 11

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).

Mr. Kopplin was born on a farm near Wausau, Mar- athon County, Wisconsin, on the 20th of November, 1873, and is the eldest of a family of ten children, -- three sons and seven daughters,-all of whom are liv- ing except one son. Mr. Kopplin is a scion of a promi- nent and honored pioneer family of Wisconsin, where his venerable father still resides and where his mother died in April, 1913, at the age of sixty years,-a woman of gentle and gracious personality and one whose mem- ory is revered by all who came within the compass of her influence. He whose name introduces this article is a son of Rev. August H. and Sophia L. (Oldenburg) Kopplin, whose marriage was solemnized at old Fort Howard, Wisconsin, in 1870, that place having been the nucleus of the present beautiful and thriving City of Green Bay.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Rev. August H. Kopplin was born in Germany, where he acquired his rudimentary education, and he was fourteen years of age at the time of accompanying his parents on their immigration to America. The family home was established on a pioneer farm near Water- town, Wisconsin, and in that state he was reared to man- hood. Through his own efforts he gained a liberal edu- cation and prepared himself for the ministry of the German Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he has been a distinguished and prominent clergyman for nearly half a century, within which he has filled various pas- toral charges both in Wisconsin and Illinois. He cele- brated his sixty-ninth birthday anniversary in 1915 and is now living virtually retired in the City of Green Bay, after having labored with all of consecrated zeal and devotion in the service of the Divine Master and having endured to the full "the heat and burden of the day." He initiated his services as a minister of the gospel when twenty-one years of age and still finds call for his interposition in the service to which he has devoted so many years of his long and earnest life. The cherished and devoted wife of this venerable clergyman was born in Wisconsin and was a daughter of Gerhard Oldenburg, who was born at old Fort Howard, that state, her parents having come from Germany and having become very early settlers of Wisconsin. Gerhard Oldenburg became a prominent and influential citizen of Fort How- ard and was closely identified with its development and upbuilding, making possible its evolution into the present fine City of Green Bay.

To the public schools of Wisconsin and Illinois Fred- erick W. Kopplin is indebted for his early educational advantages, and this discipline was supplemented by a course of study in Wallace College, a German institu- tion at Berea, Ohio, at which place he thereafter pur- sued higher academic studies in Baldwin University, an excellent institution maintained under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was the wish of his father that he should enter the ministry, but his in- clinations lay along other lines, and in his profession he has achieved a success that fully justifies his choice of vocation.

For a time before entering the university Mr. Kop- plin held a position in the postoffice at Baraboo, Wiscon- sin, and he then received appointment to a position as clerk in the United States railway mail service, under the presidency of Cleveland. He was assigned to a run that gave him his "lay-overs" in the City of Minneap- olis, Minnesota, and his ambitious purpose was signified by his making use of his incidental opportunities and completing a course in the law department of the Uni- versity of Minnesota, in which he was graduated in

1908, as previously noted in this context. In the same year he established his residence in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and here he has continued in active general practice to the present time, the scope and importance of his clientele attesting alike his professional ability and his secure hold upon popular confidence and esteem. For several years Mr. Kopplin served as secretary, treasurer and attorney of the Tulsa Retail Merchants' Associa- tion, and since his resignation of the dual office of secretary and treasurer he has continued his service as attorney for this important organization. Though a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party and known for his progressiveness as a citizen, Mr. Kop- plin has considered his profession worthy of his un- divided attention and has manifested no ambition for public office. He is affiilated with Tulsa Lodge, No. 71, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; Tulsa Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Tulsa Council of Royal & Select Masters; Trinity Commandery, No. 20, Knights Templar; Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the

Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; and Tulsa Lodge, No. 946, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks.

On the 17th of July, 1897, Mr. Kopplin wedded Miss Mary Rogers, who was born at Harvard, McHenry County, Illinois, a daughter of DeForest P. Rogers, a representative of a sterling pioneer family of MeHenry County; his father, James Rogers made the overland trip from the State of New York to Illinois in an early day and became one of the pioneer settlers on Bigfoot prairie, McHenry County, where he developed a valuable farm and was a successful agriculturist and stock- grower until the time of his death. DeForest P. Rogers was among the first to engage in the buying of Texas cattle and in driving them through from that state to Illinois, and he was for many years engaged in the live-stock business on an extensive scale. Mr. and Mrs. Kopplin have no children.

SYLVESTER H. WELCH, M. D. The medical profession of Woods County is ably and worthily represented at Dacoma by Dr. Sylvester. H. Welch, who has been engaged in practice here since 1905 and has attracted to himself a representative practice through the posses- sion of more than ordinary talent. Like many other members of the Oklahoma medical fraternity, Doctor Welch attained his own education, and the success which he has gained has been entirely the result of his own efforts.

Doctor Welch was born January 28, 1883, on a farm in Allen County, Kentucky, and is a son of Anthony and Mary L. (Read) Welch, and a grandson of Sylvester H. and Martha L. (Read) Welch. His grandfather, a native of Indiana, moved in young manhood to Ken- tucky, where he was married to a native of that state, and engaged in agricultural pursuits, subsequently becoming the largest slaveholder in Allen County and the owner of a large plantation. Anthony Welch was born at Scottsville, Allen County, Kentucky, January 30, 1854, and has been engaged in farming all of his life in Kentucky, where he still resides. He was married in 1878 to Mary L. Read, who was born August 26, 1854, on a plantation in Allen County, Kentucky, a daughter of James A. and Jane (Berry) Read, natives of Cul- peper County, Virginia. They have four children : Nellie, born February 19, 1879, who married in 1897 Bernard Griggs, a merchant of Scottsville, Kentucky, and has two children, Thelma Sylvester and Gladys; Jack, who was born August 26, 1881, is single, and is assisting his father in his agricultural operations; Dr. Sylvester H .; and Olivia, born March 5, 1886, lives with her parents.

Sylvester H. Welch received his early education in the public schools of Allen County, Kentucky, and in 1901 graduated from the Portland (Tennessee) High School. In the same year he began the study of medicine at Van- derbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, where he paid for his tuition and expenses by working as college jani- tor, and graduated with the class of 1905. So proficient was he in his studies that he won the honors of a hospital appointment. but because of failing health did not accept this offer, although he easily passed the examination of the State Board of Health of Kentucky. Looking for a suitable location in the West, he moved to New Mexico, but conditions in that state did not appeal to him and in 1905 he came to Oklahoma and located at Dacoma, where he subsequently passed the examination of the state medical examining board, and was awarded the third best grade in a class of twenty-two applicants for state licenses. He has since built up a large and renre- sentative professional business, and has advanced steadily to a leading position among medical practitioners of

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Woods County. He is also the owner of a flourishing drug business at Dacoma. Doctor Welch is a member of the Woods County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Asso- ciation. The high esteem in which he is held by his fellow-practitioners has been evidenced by his election to the presidency of the county organization. Frater- nally, he is affiliated with the Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. In all movements that have made for better citizenship and better municipal conditions he has played an active part.

On October 5, 1910, Doctor Welch was married to Miss Mabel Ann Austin, who was born January 10, 1889, on a farm in Pratt County, Kansas, a daughter of Frank R. Austin, a native of Illinois, a pioneer of the Cherokee Strip, where he settled at the opening, September 16, 1893, and now a prosperous farmer of Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. Doctor and Mrs. Welch are the parents of a son and a daughter: Austin Read, born July 10, 1911; and Mary Winnifred, born August 8, 1913.

JAMES L. KENNEDY, M. D. Doctor Kennedy merits special recognition in this publication, for he was not only one of the pioneer physicians and surgeons in the City of Tulsa, but he has also been a prominent factor in connection with the civic and industrial development of this section of the state. Since his retirement from the active practice of his profession he has given the major part of his time and attention to the supervision of his fine farm property, which is one of the model landed estates of Osage County. In the early years of his service as a physician at Tulsa, when the present thriving city was a mere frontier village, Doctor Ken- nedy had his full share of arduous toil, as he endured many discomforts and hardships in performing his humane mission among those in affliction and distress throughout a wide range of sparsely settled country. His unselfish devotion gained to him inviolable place in the confidence and affectionate regard of all classes of citizens and both he and his brother, Dr. Samuel G., with whom he was associated in practice, have a host of appreciative and valued friends throughout this section of Oklahoma. On other pages of this work appears a brief review of the career of Dr. Samuel G. Kennedy, and so close were the parallel lines of the service of the two brothers that there is special consistency in reading consecutively the sketches of their lives as presented in this volume.

Dr. James Lincoln Kennedy was born on the old home- stead farm of his father, near Stockton, Cedar County, Missouri, on the 24th of October, 1862, and is a son of Allen B. and Matilda E. (Gilmore) Kennedy. The father was a native of Tennessee, an early settler and successful farmer in Missouri, and passed the gracious evening of his life in Oklahoma, where he died in 1910, at the venerable age of eighty-four years. The mother was born in Kentucky, in 1842, and she was summoned to the life eternal in March, 1913. Of the twelve chil- dren the subject of this review was the third in order of birth, and of the number ten are still living.

Allen B. Kennedy was six years of age at the time of his parents' immigration from Tennessee to Missouri, in 1830, and his father died a short time after arriving in the latter state. In 1833 the family made settlement near Sauk River in Cedar County, Missouri, and from the original county were later formed two new counties. Allen B. Kennedy was reared under the environment and influences of the pioneer days and in later years fre- quently recalled in his reminiscences that his schooling was mainly received in a primitive log schoolhouse whose facilities were of meager order. He became one

of the substantial agriculturists of Cedar County, and was called upon to serve in various offices of local trust, including that of county assessor. In politics he was originally aligned with the whig party, but he united with the republican party soon after its organization, his great admiration for President Lincoln and General Grant having led him to name two of his sons in honor of these distinguished Americans.

Doctor Kennedy continued his studies in the public schools of his native county until he had completed the curriculum of the high school at Stockton, and there- after he took a course in Spaulding Commercial College, in Kansas City, besides which he attended for some time the Southwest Baptist College at Bolivar, Missouri. In 1888 he was graduated in the Kansas City Medical College, and shortly after receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he established himself in the practice of his profession at Caplinger, a village in his home county. There he remained until 1891, when he and his younger brother, Dr. Samuel Grant Kennedy, came to Oklahoma Territory, which had shortly before been opened to set- tlement, and the two became the pioneer physicians and surgeons in the Village of Tulsa, nucleus of the fine city that is now the judicial center and metropolis of Tulsa County. Concerning their early experiences further data are given in the sketch of the career of Dr. Samuel G. Kennedy, on other pages of this work, but incidentally it should be noted that both were prominently and worthily concerned with the civic and material develop- ment and upbuilding of what is now one of the fore- most cities of this vigorous young commonwealth. The brothers continued to be associated in the control of a large and representative practice until 1901, and since that time Dr. James L. Kennedy has devoted his atten- tion principally to the developing of his fine landed estate of 620 acres, in Black Dog Township, Osage County, and about two miles distant from Tulsa. Upon this extensive farm he has made the best of modern improvements, including the erection of a commodious stone house and two large barns, one of which is of stone and the other of frame construction. The doctor has shown much discrimination in diversifying the agricul- tural products of his farm, has been one of the success- ful growers of alfalfa in this section of the state, and in the raising of live stock he has the best grades of full-blood red Durham cattle and Duroc-Jersey swine. As a lover of fine horses he has been prominently identi- fied with the raising of the best of thorough-bred and standard-bred types, his farm having turned forth a number of splendid roadsters and turf animals. The doctor bred and raised on his farm "Golden Rod," a horse that made a record of 2:30 after having been in training only thirty days. On his farm Dr. Kennedy has a vineyard of 11/2 acres and in connection with the same has proved that the finest varieties of grapes can here be raised with distinctive success. His well devel- oped apple orchard comprises four acres; two acres are devoted to peaches; and 3/s of an acre given to the propagation of blackberries gave a splendid yield in 1914, as shown by the fact that in addition to supplying fully the demands of the family the sale of berries reached an aggregate return of fully $200. The doctor raises also the blackcap raspberries, and devotes eight acres to the raising of whitetop sweet clover. He finds both satisfaction and profit in his experimentation and progressive activities as a farmer and horticulturist, and he takes deep interest in all that tends to conserve the social and industrial advancement and well being of the county and state of his adoption.

Though Black Dog Township is recognized as a demo- cratic stronghold and Doctor Kennedy is equally well known as a stalwart republican, such is his status in

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popular esteem that in 1912, without his knowledge, he was nominated for member of the board of township trustees, his election following and showing a gratifying majority in his favor. He served one term, of two years, and spared neither time nor attention in discharg- ing his official duties with characteristic loyalty and judgment. In a fraternal way the doctor is affiliated with Tulsa Lodge, No. 964, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and he is a valued member of the Okla- homa State Medical Association, as is he also of the Tulsa County Medical Society. Though he has virtually retired from the active practice of his profession he finds it impossible to deny his services as physician to some of his many friends whose importunities are based on confidence and high regard.

In the year 1892 Doctor Kennedy wedded Miss Minnie Lombard, who was born in California, and who died about ten months after her marriage; she is survived by a son, Albert A. On the 30th of October, 1903, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Kennedy to Miss Mabel Lombard, a sister of his first wife, and they have two children, a daughter, Beatrice, and a son, Edward Lombard.

SAMUEL G. KENNEDY, M. D. A pioneer physician and surgeon who is held in the highest esteem in the City of Tulsa is Dr. Samuel Grant Kennedy, who here engaged in practice in 1891, in company with his older brother, Dr. James L. Kennedy, concerning whom individual men- tion is made on other pages of this volume. With all of zeal and self-abnegation Doctor Kennedy labored in the alleviation of human suffering in the early days when his work compelled him to traverse long distances and be oblivious to fatigue, adverse climatic conditions, ill de- fined trails and roads and general physical discomfort, and he and his brother long controlled a practice that extended over a wide radius of country from Tulsa as its center. Both assisted in the development of the frontier village into a thriving city of metropolitan facilities, and few of the pioneer citizens of this part of the state are better known, while none is held in higher popular regard than he whose name initiates this article. The doctor ha's kept in touch with the march of progress in Oklahoma, has made judicious investments in real estate and has achieved financial independence, so that he has felt justified in retiring from the arduous work of his profession, after years of earnest and efficient service.

Doctor Kennedy was born on the parental homestead farm near Stockton, Cedar County, Missouri, and the date of his nativity was June 9, 1865. He is a son of Allen B. and Matilda E. (Gilmore) Kennedy, the former a native of Tennessee and the latter of Kentucky. The parents passed the closing years of their long and useful lives in Oklahoma, where the father died in 1910, at the venerable age of eighty-four years, and where the mother died in March, 1913, at the age of seventy-one years. Of their large family of children the subject of this review was the fourth in order of birth. Allen B. Kennedy was a lad of six years when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Missouri, in 1830, and his father died soon after their arrival at their destina- tion. In 1833 the widowed mother and her children made settlement in Cedar County, near Sauk River, and under the conditions and influences of the pioneer epoch in the history of Missouri Allen B. Kennedy was reared to manhood. His alert mentality, self-reliance, industry and ambition enabled him to achieve definite success in his activities as a farmer and stock-grower and he was long numbered among the honored and influential citi- zens of the county in which he maintained his home for many years and in which he served in various public

offices, including that of county assessor. He was originally an old-line whig but was an early supporter of the cause of the republican party, to which he there- after paid uncompromising allegiance till the time of his death. He was a strong Union man during the climacteric period of the Civil war, and this fact is indicated by his having given to two of his sons their second personal names in honor of President Lincoln and General Grant.

To the public schools of Cedar County, Missouri, Doctor Keunedy is indebted for his early educational discipline, which included a course in the high school at Stockton, the judicial center of the county. There- after he pursued higher academic studies in the South- west Baptist College, at Bolivar that state, and he then resumed his association with the work and management of the home farm. Two years later, however, in 1886, he entered Ozark College, at Springfield, Missouri, and in addition to continuing his studies in this excellent institution he became also a successful teacher in the schools of his native state, his services in the pedagogic profession having been given at intervals during the period from 1886 to 1889, within which he also gave as much time as possible to reading medicine. Finally he entered the Kansas City Medical College, and in the same he was graduated in 1888, with the well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine.

In 1891, the year following the organization of Okla- homa Territory, Doctor Kennedy and his brother, Dr. James L., came to the new territory and established themselves in the practice of medicine at Tulsa, a frontier village that then claimed only a few business places and a small population. The town had two general stores, a modest hardware store, a drug store and one hotel, known as the Owens Hotel .. The Kennedy brothers erected, in 1898, the first brick building in Tulsa, and this was placed in use as their office. These two pioneer physicians endured their full quota of ex- perience in connection with the pioneer days and their earnest and faithful services in their profession, as coupled with their kindliness and maturity of judg- ment, made them each worthy of the title of "guide, philosopher and friend" to the many families to whom they ministered in the early days. Both by day and night did the subject of this review pursue his humane mission, often driving over the wild and thinly settled country for distances varying from thirty-five to sixty miles in a single night, and it may well be understood that his presence was hailed with satisfaction in many isolated and humble homes and that he has retained impregnable vantage-place in the esteem of the com- munity in which he is an honored pioneer.

In 1907 Doctor Kennedy retired from the active prac- tice of his profession, owing to the demands placed upon him by his business and property interests. He became concerned with the development of the oil in- dustry in the Oklahoma fields, and had the prescience to make large and judicious investments in Oklahoma land, his holdings now aggregating 3,500 acres. The major part of this extensive landed estate is rented to desirable tenants, but the doctor personally gives his attention to the supervision of a specially well im- proved farm on which he raises the best grades of cattle and swine, besides giving due attention to diver- sified agriculture.

Doctor Kennedy was one of the original members of the Oklahoma Territory Medical Society, in the affairs of which he was active and influential and as a mem- ber of which he assisted in its transformation into the present Oklahoma State Medical Association. He was a charter member of the Tulsa County Medical Society, is identified with the American Medical Association, and

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for ten years he served as a member of the board of United States pension examining surgeons for Tulsa County. He was one of the organizers of the Oklahoma Banking Company and served for several years as its president. In politics Doctor Kennedy is unwavering in his allegiance to the republican party; he is affiliated with Tulsa Lodge, No. 71, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; and in the Guthrie consistory of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry he has received the thirty-second degree, besides which he is a member of Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Tulsa.

On the 30th of September, 1896, was recorded the marriage of Doctor Kenuedy to Miss Agnes Lombard, who was born in California, and whose death occurred March 29, 1912. She is survived by seven children,- James A., Forrest L., Thelma, Cordelia, Samuel Grant, Jr., Joseph E. and Minnie.

JAMES HERBERT COKER. During the great war be- tween the forces of the North and the South, when sec- tions of the Southland had been ruined agriculturally and financially and its people who did not participate as soldiers were forced to wander from place to place, fam- ily separations contributed very greatly to the sum total of sorrow that pervaded the region. A train of wagons bearing migratory people from some other section of the South passed through Marion County, Arkansas, and gathered up the twelve-year-old son of "Fiddler Bill" Coker. "Fiddler Bill, " who, many years before the war, had been an adventurer in Indian Territory, a friend and associate of chiefs, and a pathfinder for industrial de- velopers, was at the front. The lad was taken into North Missouri and there remained for ten years, during which time he never heard from his parents. When he returned to Marion County, Arkansas, and inquired for them he was shown their graves only. Back of the pathos the graves inscribed in his mind was a tragedy that to this day has not been cleared up.

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Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941 Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society Number of Pages: 660

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 660