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 12

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 12

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"Fiddler Bill" Coker had acquired a considerable for- tune as a trader and cattle dealer. Part of his property censisted in gold and silver that he had buried in the ground to le resurrected when the war was over. Prob- ably shortly after his return his money was taken and through some unknown process he was relieved of nearly all of the remainder of his property and he and his wife were taken to their graves. The returned son of "Fid- dler Bill" Coker, is Dr. James Martin Coker, of Yell- ville, Arkansas.

An account of the adventures and wanderings of "Fid- dler Bill" Coker has not been recalled in many years and probably few are liviug who remember his activities. He was a daring and picturesque character. During the same years there lived in the Indian country two of his cousins, each from a different branch of the family, one being "Prairie Bill"' and the other "River Bill. '' "Fiddler Bill" was a horseman of parts and owned a private race track on which he trained his blooded stock. It is said that his string of race horses brought him a considerable part of his fortune.

Back into the Indian country has come a grandson of "Fiddler Bill" Coker to make his fortune. He is James Herbert Coker, of Idabel, who was born at Yellville, Arkansas, in 1891, and who is a son of Dr. James Martin and Martha May (Cantrell) Coker. Doctor Coker, who is a graduate of Barnes Medical College, of St. Louis, Missouri, and who has taken post-graduate diplomas from Chicago and Little Rock schools, has been a practicing physician of Marion County, Arkansas, for a period of thirty-five years. He was a member of the Arkansas Leg- islature in 1896-7 and for many years has taken an active and leading part in democratie polities, once being a dele-

gate to the Democratic National Convention. He was a supporter and active campaigner for Jeff Davis and Senator Clark. A half sister of Doctor Coker is Mrs. J. W. Black, of Marion County, Arkansas, whose husband has been a member of the Arkansas Legislature. John Coker, a brother of Doctor Coker, lives at McAlester, Oklahoma, and another half brother, Calvin Coker, makes his home at Cotter, Arkansas.

James Herbert Coker was educated in the public school and the high school at Yellville, Arkansas, and on the completion of his studies entered the abstract business. For a time he was employed in the home office of the Arkansas Guaranty Title and Trust Company, at Little Rock. In 1911 he became associated with H. C. Perkins and organized at Idabel, Oklahoma, the Southern Okla- homa Abstract Company, in connection with which enter- prise they do a real estate and farm loan business. Mr. Coker has four brothers: E. A., who now lives at Mc- Kinney, Texas, and who for four years immediately fol- lowing statehood was deputy district clerk of Muskogee County, Oklahoma; C. W., a resident of Butte, Montana ; John McPherrin, who resides at Joplin, Missouri; and B. L., who resides at Idabel. Two sisters of Mr. Coker are Mrs. M. D. Woodruff, of Seattle, Washington; and Mrs. H. C. Perkins, of Idabel.

JOSEPH HARRY CARTER. Much of the prosperity of the western section of our country has been due to the great cattle industry, which is still one of the leading business interests. The care of cattle on the western ranges has been the duty of a hardy class of men, whose adven- turous lives have often been the theme of the novelist and excited the interest of audiences in moving-picture theaters all over the country, and, indeed, throughout the world. The "cowboy" is one of the most popular and typical American characters, and it is probable that his fame will not die out for generations to come, even after modern conditions and new methods may have changed or modified the nature of his occupation. A good representative of this western type of American is Joseph Harry Carter, of Alva, Oklahoma, who, how- ever, retired from range work several years ago. Mr. Carter was born at Kansas City, Missouri, October 25, 1868, a son of Joseph H. and Mary (Hayden) Carter. His paternal grandfather, also named Joseph H., was a native of Kentucky. The father, Joseph H. Carter, 2d, was born in 1810 at Harrisville, Missouri, and became a well known and picturesque character of the West. He was educated in the public schools with Cole and Bob Younger and was well acquainted with the James brothers, being reared with them. His life-long occupa- tion was that of printer, publisher and editor. At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted in a Confederate regiment under the command of Gen. Joseph Shelby, and took part in the border warfare between Missouri and Kansas, being present at the battle of Westport, now Kansas City. During the war, with others of his regi- ment, he went to Mexico and, settling in Monterey, learned the Spanish language and established a Spanish newspaper. Later he was manager for the government of an army printing office at Santa Fe, New Mexico. After the war he returned to Kansas City, where for some time he worked at the printer's trade. In 1879 he established the Caldwell Post, at Caldwell, Kansas, a weekly newsparer devoted to live stock news on the range. Later Mr. Carter established a paner at Hunne- well, Kansas. In 1884 he established the Review of Coldwater, Kansas, the first paper in that town, after- wards publishing papers at Protection, Lexington and Ashland, in the same state. He preemnted land in Clark County, Kansas. In 1888, one year prior to the original opening of Oklahoma, Mr. Carter removed to "No Man's

achiederes

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Land," and was editor of the Beaver Democrat, at Beaver City, also homesteading land, and thus became a pioneer of that section. After remaining in Oklahoma until 1909, Mr. Carter returned to Clark County, Kansas, where he made his home with his son, Grover Cleveland Carter, until his death, September 18, 1912, his remains being interred at Protection, Kansas. He was well known throughout the West for his work as a western newspaper man and for his devotion to friends and principles.

Joseph H. Carter, 2d, was three times married. His first wife, Mary Hayden Carter, the mother of the sub- ject of this sketch, died in 1871 at Kansas City, Mis- souri. By her he had two children, Joseph Harry and Laura. The latter, born May 9, 1870, is unmarried and lives in St. Louis, Missouri. By his second wife Mr. Carter had no children. His third wife, whose maiden name was Emma Hamilton, bore him three children, Julia, Grover Cleveland and Francis.

Joseph Harry Carter, of the present generation, resided in Kansas City until 1879. At that time, being eleven years old, he removed to Caldwell, Kansas, and two years later, in 1881, he took up the work of a cowboy on the range in the old Indian Territory. This occupation he was engaged in for many years, working on different ranches, making a number of trips to Texas and driving cattle up the trail to the open ranges in Indian Terri- tory. He was for seventeen years range and ranch manager for different large cattle companies. In 1898 he homesteaded land in Woods County. In 1911 Mr. Carter abandoned range work and took up his residence in Alva, where he is now a well known and respected citizen. He is an active member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, being now manager of Lodge No. 1184, of Alva. Mr. Carter has never married.

BENJAMIN C. CONNER. As almost a complete record of the history of Tulsa could be contained within a period of ten years, Benjamin C. Conner, who began his practice as an Oklahoma lawyer at Tulsa in 1907, will by later generations be regarded in the light of a pioneer member of the local bar. Mr. Conner is a Chi- cago man who received his education in that city and his early experience as a lawyer, and since locating in Tulsa has enjoyed distinctive prestige as a skillful at- torney and influential citizen.

Benjamin C. Conner was born in Crisfield, Maryland, October 12, 1879, a son of John W. and Emma (Mc- Cready) Conner. Both parents were natives of Mary- land. His father was born January 13, 1839, and died in Chicago November 12, 1892. There were nine chil- dren in the family, two of whom died in infancy, while the widowed mother, who was born January 26, 1839, and seven of her children, are still living. John W. Con- ner for a number of years before his death had been a prominent and influential merchant in Chicago. His early life was spent on a Maryland farm, and he also taught school in his native state. He enlisted in the Union army for service in the Civil war, made a record of efficiency and fidelity as a soldier, and at the close of the war became deputy collector of customs at Cris- field, Maryland, a position he held several years. With the organization of the Lycoming Rubber Company he removed to Boston, and was a member of the firm of Sanford & Conner, selling agents for the company, with headquarters in Boston. About 1385 he took up his resi- dence in Chicago, and had personal supervision of the Western Agency of the Lycoming Rubber Company until his death. He was a man of excellent business judgment, of thorough integrity, and had many lovable traits as a man and citizen. He was active as a church

worker, and in many ways charitably disposed and active. He was one of the leading members of the Park Avenue Methodist Church of Chicago and superin- tendent of its Sunday School.

Benjamin C. Conner began his education in the Brown School in Chicago. Later attended the John Marshall High School, the Northwestern University, and finished his law course with the John Marshall Law School in 1904. The following two years were spent in the law department of the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- way, with Gardiner Lathrop as general attorney. In January, 1907, Mr. Conner came to Tulsa and became. associated with Carl C. and Percival E. Magee under the firm name of Magee, Magee & Conner. This firm enjoyed a harmonious relationship and a large share in local legal affairs until January, 1911, since which date Mr. Conner has practiced as au individual. In May, 1913, Judge Ralph E. Campbell appointed him United States Commissioner for the Eastern District of Okla- homa, and he combined the duties of that important responsibility with his large private practice. Mr. Con- ner is a member of the Tulsa County Bar Society and the Oklahoma State Bar Association. He takes much interest in local affairs, is a member of the Rotary Club. aud the Commercial Club, worships in the Methodist Church and in politics is a republican.

On December 25, 1909, Mr. Conner married Blanche M. Robinson, who was born in Wichita, Kansas. They are the parents of one son, James Benjamin.

CHARLES C. CHILDERS. As a public official Hon. Charles C. Childers has given most loyal and effective servico both in Arkansas and Oklahoma, in which latter state he represented Garfield County in both the Fourth and Fifth General Assemblies of the Legislature. He is one of the broad-minded, appreciative and pro- gressive citizens of Oklahoma, is here the owner of valuable farm property and has identified himself most worthily with the industrial and civic affairs of the state. In addition to giving a general supervision to his own farm properties he has for several years past had charge of the farm connected with the Oklahoma State Home for the Feeble Minded, at Enid, in which thriving little city, the judicial center of Garfield County, he maiutains his residence.

Charles Clarence Childers was born in Lawrence County, Arkansas, on the 1st of September, 1872, and is a son of William and Clara (Wells) Childers, the latter of whom died at the age of forty-two years. William Childers likewise was born and reared in Lawrence County, Arkansas, a representative of a sterling pioneer family of that state, and he was long one of the honored and influential citizens of Lawrence County, where he served as county treasurer and for two years in the dual office of sheriff and tax collector. In the Civil war he was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy, and in the command of Gen. Sterling Price he took part in num- erous engagements, including the battle of Vicks- burg, Mississippi. He continued to reside in Lawrence County until his death, at the age of sixty-one years, and he passed away in 1907. His first wife, mother of the subject of this review, passed her entire life in Lawrence Couuty, her parents having removed from their native State of Louisiana and become pioneer settlers in Ar- kansas. William Childers contracted a second marriage and of the children of the first union five are now living, five children of the second marriage likewise surviving the honored father. Of the first marriage the surviving children other than he whose name initiates this article are: William S., who was foreman of concrete con- struction in the erection of the fine Oklahoma State

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Capitol; John C. is clerk of Lawrence County, Arkansas; Grover C. is a farmer at Plaut City, Florida, and there also resides the one sister, Mrs. Mollie Coffman. Of the children of the second marriage it may be recorded that Thurman M., Carlisle aud App T. reside in Grant County, Oklahoma; Nelson remains in Lawrence County, Ar- kansas; and Clara Lee maintains her home in Oklahoma City.

In the public schools of his native county Charles C. Childers gained his early education, which was supple- mented by a course of study in the high school in the City of Memphis, Tennessee. Thereafter he was a student in the University of Arkansas until the close of his junior year, in 1893, when he returned to his native county and assumed a clerical position in the office of his father, who was then sheriff and tax collector of the county. Hle was elected as his father's successor in this dual office, of which he continued the incumbent for two terms of two years each, and had the distinction of being the youngest sheriff in Arkansas. He was then elected district clerk and ex-officio register of deeds of Lawrence County, and he held this position likewise for four consecutive years, his long and effective service in public office in his native county showing the estimate placed upon him and that in his case there could be no application of the scriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country."

In 1908 Mr. Childers came to the new State of Okla- homa and settled on a farm near Billings, Noble County. Two years later he removed to a farm near Covington, Garfield County, and after there remaining one year le established his residence in Enid, where he has since given much of his time and attention to the active super- vision of the farm of the State Home for the Feeble Minded. He is the owner of a well improved farm in Grant County and also of a valuable farm property in Roger Mills County, and city property in Enid.

In 1912 Mr. Childers was made democratic nominee for representative of Garfield County in the State Legis- lature to which he was elected without opposition. Dur- ing the session of the Fourth Legislature he was chair- man of the Committee on Levees, Ditches, Drains and Irrigation; was the author of the law that substituted electrocution for hanging in this state, and of the bill that was enacted and provides for and authorizes the organization of farmers' mutual insurance companies. It was primarily due to his earnest efforts, also, that an appropriation was secured for the erection of an addi- tional building at the Home for Feeble Minded, an institution in which he has taken the deepest interest. In the Fifth Legislature Mr. Childers was chairman of the Committee on Insurance, and was associated with Senator William A. Chase, of Nowata, in the authorship of a bill providing for free textbooks in the public schools, besides which he was especially active in the promotion of measures designed to establish a minimum wage scale for women employed, to place the school land income in the direct jurisdiction of the state treasurer, to euable county attorneys to adjust probate matters, to establish hospitals for railroad workers, and to pension the widows of men who were killed in a fight between officers and prisoners in the State Penitentiary at McAlester, in 1814. Loyalty and progressiveness dom- inated tho course of Mr. Childers as one of the efficient legislators of the state, and his record in the Legis- lature is one that will reflect enduring honor on his name.

At Enid Mr. Childers is affiliated with the Blue Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic Fraternity, and with Camp No. 35 of the Woodmen of the World. At Covington, another of the flourishing towns of Garfield County, he holds membership in the lodge of the Independent Order

of Odd Fellows. Both ho and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

In Lawrence County, Arkansas, November 3d, 1895, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Childers to Miss Elizabeth Wells, a native of Kentucky, born December 17, 1876, daughter of Ira and Emily (Morgan) Wells, both natives of Kentucky. The father died in 1903 at Powhatan, Arkansas; the mother is still living aged seventy-two years (1916). They were parents of six sons and four daughters, all living but the youngest child, Bell, who died at the age of six years; the eldest of the family, Fred, of Oklahoma; William of Kansas; E. Jesse, of Nebraska; Nancy, of Kansas; Joseph, of Kansas; (Elizabeth) Leah, of Arkansas; John of Kansas; Madison of Arkansas, and Bell, deceased.

Their only child, Ruth, born October 20, 1897, is now a student in Phillips University, at Enid, from which she graduates in June, 1917, besides being one of the popular young women in the social circles of her homo city, she is a fine musician.

HARRISON MORTON KIRKPATRICK. A few years ago when the Choctaw Lumber Company found it necessary to build a railroad into the timber region of McCurtain County in order to more profitably develop the lumber industry, a site near the center of McCurtain County was selected as the terminus. On this site a town was built aud it was called Broken Bow. It was named after the town of that cognomen in Nebraska, the birthplace of Harrison Morton Kirkpatrick, who is attorney in MeCur- tain County for the Choctaw Lumber Company and for the Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railway Company, owners of the railroad from Valliant to Broken Bow.

The interesting relationship between the Choctaw Lum- ber Company's interests and Mr. Kirkpatrick extends farther than that, for his father, Judge John S. Kirk- patrick, of Kansas City, Missouri, was one of the pioneers of Broken Bow, Nebraska, and is general attorney for the Choctaw Lumber Company. There is still another link of local history interest. Harrison M. Kirkpatrick, after educating himself in the law, came to Oklahoma to live permanently and his identification with the new region was strengthened when he was married to Miss Mary Dale James, daughter of one of the most interest- ing and picturesqne pioneers of the Choctaw Indian country. The identification went still a step farther when Mr. Kirkpatrick possessed himself of valuable agri- cultural lands in McCurtain County and thereby became a permanent factor in the development of the new coun- try. The case of Mr. Kirkpatrick is interesting because it is an example of the embracing by a young man of some of the manifold opportunities that abide in the rich land of lore and romance occupied for a few generations principally by the Choctaw Indians. Here the young lawyer builds modernly upon a foundation of unique legal and political activity carried on by a nation of original wild men whose conception of a republican form of gov- ernment enabled them to perfect a system of government of, for and by themselves that probably was the most perfect system ever devised by an Indian nation.

Mr. Kirkpatrick was born in the presidential cam- paign year of 1888, hence the Christian names given him by his parents. His father, who is a native of Iowa, be- came a pioneer of Nebraska, where he prospered early in the profession of law. In early years he was prosecuting attorney of Custer County and this was the beginning of & political career that made him a member of the Su- preme Court of the state and later of the Nebraska Game Commission. He was once a law partner of Judge Silas A. Holcomb, who afterwards was a member of the Nebraska Supreme Court, governor, and chairman of the

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

State Board of Public Control. Hon. John S. Kirk- patrick made a specialty of corporation law after leaving public life and moved to Kansas City, where he is general attorney for the Choctaw Lumber Company, several other large lumber enterprises and two railway lines. L. E. Kirkpatrick, a brother, lives in Seattle, Washington, and has been prosecuting attorney, and is now attorney for the vice commission of the State of Washington and a member of the board of trustees of the Anti-Saloon League of America. The parents of the elder Kirk- patricks live at Seattle. The mother of Harrison M. Kirkpatrick was Miss Isabel Croft, daughter of a Nebraska pioneer.

Harrison M. Kirkpatrick 's education was acquired in the public schools of Nebraska, the Lincoln High School, the Kansas City High School, the United Brethren Col- lege at York, Nebraska, and the Kansas City School of Law, from which he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1910. He was admitted to the bar of Jeffersou City, Missouri, during that year, and in the following year engaged in practice at Idabel, Oklahoma, where he has since continued. Besides being attorney for the Choctaw Lumber Company and its varied interests, he represents in a legal capacity the Wilson Lumber Com- pany of Bokhoma, and carries on a large private practice of a general character. An attorney for the Choctaw Lumber Company is one of the most important of its officials, for the purchase of land and timber in the old Choctaw Nation is beset by many difficulties in the nature of title defects, the tracing of ancestry and heirship and the opposition of rival claimants and purchasers. All these issues and others were involved in a suit in 1915 prosecuted by Mr. Kirkpatrick for the company, which involved about 200 individual Indian allotments. Under an agreement with the state, consummated a few years ago, the Choctaw Lumber Company may not buy and sell land, and its principal activities now involving land re- late to the commercial timber covering the property.

Mr. Kirkpatrick was married December 25, 1912, to Miss Mary Dale James, of Idabel. They have a daugh- ter, Dorothy James, born October 22, 1913. Mr. Kirk- patrick has three brothers and three sisters: John C., who is a ranchman in. Northwest Nebraska; Lester D., who is a farmer in Custer County, Nebraska; Martin, who resides with his parents and is attending high school at Kansas City, Missouri; Miss Ruth, who is a graduate of Westport High School, Kansas City, Missouri, and now a student in Otterbein University, Westerville, Ohio; Miss Ina, who is a graduate of Westport High School, Kansas City, and of the Leander-Clark College of Toledo, Iowa, and now a student of Northwestern University; and Mrs. Marie Bohart, who is the wife of a farmer living at Plattsburg, Missouri.

Mr. Kirkpatrick is a member of the United Brethren Church, of the Masonic lodge at Idabel and the lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Hugo, and is professionally connected with the McCurtain County and Oklahoma State Bar Associations. He is developing about 800 acres of valuable farm land which he owns in McCurtain County, and oil and gas producing lands which he and his associates have leased in Okmulgee County and in the Healdton field.

HUGH ALLEN CARROLL. One of the prominent and progressive young men who are carrying the burdens of educational leadership in Oklahoma is Hugh Allen Carroll, now principal of the high school at Lawton, and with a record of active school work for the past eleven years. Mr. Carroll is an Oklahoma product, his father having come to the territory in the early '90s, when the son was a child, and is a graduate of an Oklahoma high

school and was a student in the university before taking up his practical career in the schoolroom.

Hugh Allen Carroll was born at the little rural Village of Mirabile, Caldwell County, Missouri, May 10, 1886. He represents the historic old family of Carrolls in Maryland, one member of which was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.' From Mary- land this branch moved south to North Carolina, and next into Kentucky, and from there into Northwest Mis- souri. Dr. A. H. Carroll, father of the Lawton school principal, was born in Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1860, and died at Hennessey, Oklahoma, May 25, 1899. He graduated from the St. Louis Medical College, practiced at Mirabile for some years, and in May, 1892, came to Hennessey, Oklahoma, where he was one of the early settlers and was busied with the duties of his profes- sion until his death. He was a strong democrat, a mem- ber of the Masonic fraternity, and a capable man in all his relations. He married Miss Lucy Houghton at Kingston, Caldwell County, Missouri. She was born near Kingston in 1863, and now lives at Taloga, Oklahoma. Hugh A. Carroll was the first of their two children, and his sister is Hetta Brown, wife of Vancil Greer, registrar of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

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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