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 24

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 24

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).

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One of the cousins of Jont Gore was Thomas Gore, of Owensboro, Kentucky, who was the father of Newton W. Gore, an attorney at law practicing at Idabel, the county seat of McCurtain County. Newton W. Gore did not come to the Indian country until after such men as his father's cousin had helped to develop it to a point where it was ready for statehood, but his arrival was at a time when it was possible to witness and take part in the most remarkable development that statehood was capable of producing. For instance, when he and his family reached Idabel, December 22, 1909, there were but seven brick buildings in the town, whereas, six years later there were fifty-two brick buildings, practically all of which were occupied. In 1909 the Town of Idabel had about 700 population; in 1915 its census showed a population of 3,000.

In April, 1910, Newton W. Gore was appointed deputy prosecuting attorney of McCurtain County, under Robert Steel, the first elected prosecuting attorney after state- hood. On September 1 following, he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Steel, and during the month of September, in the District Court, he secured fourteen convictions in the trial of fifteen criminal cases. In one week of the January, 1911, term of the County Court, Mr. Gore obtained fourteen convictions in the prosecution of seventeen cases wherein bootlegging was charged, and his term of county attorney ended January 9, 1911, when he retired from office with a particularly commendable and honorable record for public service. After six months of practice alone, Mr. Gore became senior member of the firm of Gore & Horton. This part- nership lasted eighteen months and thereafter for a like period Mr. Gore again practiced by himself, when the present partnership, that of Gore, Hosey & Jones, was created. One of the strongest legal concerns in this part of the state, it has been identified with a number of the most important cases tried in the courts here in recent years, and its members are highly regarded in the profession as thorough, learned and honorable legists.

Newton W. Gore was born at Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky, in 1871, and is a son of Thomas and Naunie (Hollingsworth) Gore. There was one other son in the family, Thomas K., who is still a resident of Owensboro, where he is chief of the city fire department. Newton Hollingsworth, a brother of Mrs. Gore, was mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, at one time, and another brother, Gordon Hollingsworth, was minister to Peru under the administration of President Hayes and judge of the Eighth Judicial District of Kentucky following the close of the Civil war. Miss Mary Hollingsworth, a sister of Mrs. Gore, founded in 1866 the Louisville Bap- tist Orphans Home, at Louisville, Kentucky, beginning with a five-room cottage. In 1909 Mary Hollingsworth became bereft of her eyesight and was retired on full salary for the remainder of her life by the board of trustees of the institution, and died in 1911 at the age of eighty-one years. The institution which she founded then occupied a modern five-story building and had 230 inmates. Dr. Carter Helm Jones, one of the leading Baptist ministers of the South, then pastor of the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, returned to Louisville to preach her funeral sermon. Another sister of Mrs. Gore is Mrs. John J. Hickman, wife of a temperance worker of national reputation, who lives at Columbia, Missouri.

The early education of Newton W. Gore was acquired in the public schools of Kentucky and later he attended the private college of Mell and Williams, at Bowling Green. He studied law in the office of Judge Burkhead, now occupying a place on the bench of Kentucky, and was admitted to the bar in 1892, although he did not begin practice until 1902, when he opened an office at Vol. III-6

Morgantown, Kentucky, in the meantime having been engaged in business as a druggist and having become a registered pharmacist.

Mr. Gore was married in 1892 at Morgantown, Ken- tucky, to Miss Lelia Rone, who had been a classmate at school. They have one son, Rice, who is assistant cashier of the First National Bank at Idabel, and who, when he was given that position, at the age of twenty-one years, was the youngest officer of a national bank in the United States. Mr. Gore is a member of the Methodist Church, in which he has been steward for fifteen years. He is a member of the Masons, in the Blue Lodge, Chapter, Commandery, Consistory and Shrine, and in Kentucky was grand preservant of the Masonic Grand Lodge. Mr. Gore is a member of the MeCurtain County Bar Associa- tion and the Oklahoma Bar Association and holds mem- bership also in the Commercial Law League of America. Formerly he belonged to the National Geographic Society.

SAMUEL S. GREGG, M. D. Although one of the young- est of the states, Oklahoma is one of the most progressive and up-to-date. This she owes to the ambitious and energetic character of her citizens, who, coming from the various other states of the Union, have succeeded in a remarkably brief time in building up a great and flourishing commonwealth. Among these energetic citizens was the late Dr. Samuel S. Gregg, one of the principal founders of the Town of Capron, Woods County. Doctor Gregg was born on the homestead of Robert Washington, cousin of George Washington, near Wheeling, West Virginia, on January 23, 1846, and died at Capron, Oklahoma, June 13, 1911, when in his sixty- sixth year. Reared on the old Washington plantation near Wheeling, he showed remarkable proficiency in his studies, graduating from the high school at the age of eleven years. . At the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted in Company I, Twelfth Regiment of New Jersey Volunteer Infantry, and served three years. He was with Sherman on the march to the sea, and was in many important engagements, but was never seriously wounded. During the greater part of his service he was attached to the medical corps, acting as a sergeant. At the close of the war he made a prospecting tour to the West Indies. On his return from this trip he entered the medical department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated after a four years' course. He then located in Lincoln, Nebraska, but in 1871 removed to McPherson County, Kansas, and par- ticipated in the organization of that county, being a member of the original town site company of McPherson. He was the first physician there and established the first drug store in the town. He shot buffalo on the town site and was thoroughly identified with the pioneer life of the vicinity. In 1882 he removed to Harper, Kansas, where he was engaged in medical practice for one year. At the end of that time he removed to Attica in the same state and there practiced his profession until 1893, also conducting a drug store. In the last mentioned Doctor Gregg was one of those who participated in the rush for land in the newly opened Cherokee strip, and secured a tract now occupied by a part of the Town of Capron. He was the first physician in the town, which was originally named Warren, and was one of its builders, as already mentioned. Owing to the confusion resulting from the existence of another town with a similar name, the name of Warren was afterwards changed to Virgil, in honor of a son of Doctor Gregg. Later it was changed to Capron for a similar reason. Benjamin Gregg, a brother of the doctor, was the first postmaster.

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Newton, Kansas, to Miss Mary A. Finnan, eldest daugh- ter of James and Katherine (Wheeler) Finnan, and who was born at Des Moines, Iowa, June 28, 1856. Her father was a native of Pennsylvania and her mother of Boston, Massachusetts. Two children were born to Dr. and Mrs. Gregg-Virgil Hugh and Maude Alma.

Virgil Hugh Gregg, born at McPherson, Kansas, October 23, 1878, was educated at the University of Kansas and became a musician. In 1897 he enlisted as such in the United States army and spent two years in the Philippine Islands as instructor in the Thirty-second Regimental Band, having the rank of corporal. After his discharge from the army he was one of eighty out of 500 who passed the examination for teacher in the Philippine service. After teaching two years at Canton he became principal of a normal school at San Fernando, and was later supervisor of schools of the Island of Cebu, spending in all thirteen years in the service. He was married in 1914 to Miss Lulu May Reid, of Salt Lake, Utah, in which city he now resides, being business manager of the Utah Mining News.

Maude Alma Gregg, born January 23, 1884, at McPherson, Kansas, was graduated in 1898 from the high school at Attica, that state, and in 1901 from the University of Illinois. She is now a registered phar- macist, and a landscape artist of ability. She was married, October 8, 1913, to Guy C. Boling, who was born and reared in this town. He is a descendant of the Boling family of Virginia, and is one of the founders of the Kansas Rural Credit Association of Emporia, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Boling make their home with her mother.

In 1915 Mrs. Gregg laid off Gregg's Second Addition to Capron, and now owns 640 acres adjoining the town on the east. Her residence is one of the most modern and finely appointed in Woods County, being supplied with a private electric light plant, sewerage and other modern facilities. A lady of refinement and education, she is also a first class business woman and is widely known and respected throughout the county. Her chief pride is in the memory of her husband's character and achievements, and in her two children, who have reflected credit upon their upbringing.

SIMS DUVALL BEVILL, M. D. Possessed of ability, independence and originality, Sims Duvall Bevill, M. D., since the beginning of his practice at Heavener, has shown a tendency to think for himself and, while careful and conservative, to draw away from many of the ancient dogmas which have held the medical profession in leash for many years. Only thirty years of age, his talents, hard work, conscientious devotion and persever- ing zeal have already led him to an established place in his profession and in the esteem of the people who have watched his growth and development.

Doctor Bevill was born at Winfield, Scott County, Arkansas, January 5, 1885, and is a son of Doctor Cheves and Nancy (Roberts) Bevill, natives of Alabama. He comes naturally by his predilection for his calling, his father having been a practicing physician of Arkansas for thirty years, now being located at Waldron, Scott County, where he stands in the foremost rank of medical and surgical practitioners. Dr. Sims D. Bevill was reared at Winfield, where he received his early education in the public schools, and when still a youth decided upon a career in medicine. For a number of years he studied faithfully under the preceptorship of his father, and with this capable training matriculated in the University of Arkansas, where he pursued a full medical course and graduated with the class of 1911 and the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Immediately after his

graduation, Doctor Bevill located at Heavener, Okla- homa, and this city has continued to be the scene of his success in the practice of medicine and surgery. His rise, while rapid, has been consistent and fairly won, and he has gained not only a practice of satisfying pro- portions and representative character, but a reputation and standing among his professional brethren. He has spent considerable time in the clinics of the celebrated surgeons, the Doctors Mayo, of Rochester, Minnesota, and has never ceased to be a student, devoting himself con- stautly in his leisure moments to research and investi- gation. At this time he is division surgeon for the Kansas City Southern Railroad, and a member of the Southern Medical Association, the Le Flore County Medi- cal Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is well and prom- inently known in Masonry, having attained the thirty- second degree and being a member of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.

Doctor Bevill was married November 26, 1910, to Miss Eva Dixson, of Mansfield, Arkansas.

HOWARD O. MCCLURE. To such sterling, enterprising and progressive citizens as Mr. McClure does the fine City of Tulsa owe much of its progress along both civic and material lines and its definite prestige as one of the important commercial and industrial centers of the state. Mr. MeClure has here been engaged in the retail hardware and implement business since 1905, and is the leading representative of this important line of mercantile enterprises in the city. His belief in the still greater advancement of Tulsa has been manifested in action of productive order as well as through effective exploitation of the city's manifold advantages and attractions, and this municipality can claim no more loyal and enthusiastic a citizen than is he whose name introduces this paragraph and whose circle of friends in the community is co-extensive with that of his ac- quaintances.

Mr. McClure claims the fine old Hoosier State as the place of his nativity and both his paternal and maternal grandparents were numbered among the sterling pioneers of that commonwealth. He was born in the City of Wabash, Indiana, the judicial center of the county of the same name, and the date of his nativity was Decem- ber 25, 1865. In Indiana were also born his parents, Thomas W. and Anna (Silver) McClure, and there they continued to maintain their home during their entire lives, the father having passed away in 1898, at the age of sixty-six years, and the mother having been sixty-five years at the time of her death, in 1902. They became the parents of eight children, all of whom are living, and of the number the subject of this review was the second in order of birth.

Thomas W. McClure was reared on a pioneer farm in Indiana and his early educational advantages were those of the common schools of the period. He was about thirty years of age at the outbreak of the Civil war and was among the first of the loyal sons of Indiana to respond to President Lincoln's call for volunteers to assist in the preservation of the Union. He enlisted in the Fourteenth Indiana Heavy Artillery, with which well-ordered and valiant command he took part in many battles and skirmishes. In one of the several engage- ments at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, he was captured by the enemy, and he was taken thence to the odious prison pen at Andersonville. He finally escaped by means of a tunnel that had been laboriously excavated for some distance through the ground, and in thus providing a means for gaining liberty he was assisted materially by the two comrades who escaped with him, after the three

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had been held captive for some time. Taking the North Star for their guide, the three fugitives traveled by night, and in the meanwhile subsisted on sweet pota- toes and such other eatables as they could find en route. On a rainy night they encountered the Confederate pickets, who were startled and affirighted at the appear- ance of the fugitives, whose capture, however, they finally effected. Mr. McClure and his comrades were making their way without boots or shoes, their trousers were in tatters, and to afford protection for the upper parts of their bodies they had encased themselves in flour sacks, which were drawn over their heads. Thus they must have seemed to their captors veritable appa- ritions when they first made their appearance. So extraordinary was their apparel and general appear- ance that after they had been placed on a train for the return trip to the prison, their guard placed them on exhibition in the freight car, to which they charged to spectators an admission fee of 10 cents at the various points where the train stopped en route. The three comrades remained in prison at Andersonville until the close of the war, enduring untold hardships and hor- rors, and they received honorable discharge in the City of Washington, D. C., to which place they repaired after their release. Three and one-half years of service was- given by and accredited to Mr. MeClure in the great con- flict between the North and the South, and his record was one of fidelity and valor. Returning to his native state, Mr. McClure engaged in the furniture business in the City of Wabash, where he continued to be iden- tified with this line of enterprise for more than thirty years and up to the time of his death. He was a charter member of the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic and was one of its most influential and hon- ored comrades, his political allegiance having been given to the republican party.

Howard O. McClure attended the public schools of his native city until he had attained to the age of fifteen years, when he there entered upon an apprenticeship to the sheet-metal trade. He became a skilled workman in this line and 'thereafter learned the trade of ma- chinist. He then became a locomotive engineer in the service of the Erie Railroad, and while thus engaged he maintained his home in the City of Chicago from 1886 to 1890. In the latter year he retired from the railway service and engaged in the retail hardware business in Chicago, where he continued to be identified with this line of enterprise until his removal to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he has maintained his residence since 1905 and where he holds precedence as the leading hardware merchant of the county, his business having here been established upon a somewhat modest scale soon after his arrival in the city, and fair dealings and progressive policies having enabled him to develop an enterprise of most substantial and profitable order.

For the past seven years Mr. McClure has been a member of the board of education of Tulsa, and he is now serving as its president, in 1915. For two terms he held the presidency of the Tulsa Commercial Club, with whose progressive policies and high civic ideals he has been in the fullest accord, and during his second term as president, in 1909, the club equipped what became known as the "booster train," which made an extensive tour through the East, with stopovers in the cities of St. Louis, Cincinnati, Toledo, Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Cleveland, Chicago and Kansas City. This noteworthy railway trip of exploita- tion had a duration of twenty-one days, and entailed the expenditure of $21,000 on the part of the Tulsa Merchants' Club, Commercial Club and Traffic Associa- tion. Mr. McClure was one of the most vigorous mem- bers of this expedition for the advancement and exploi-

tation of the advantages of Tulsa and the State of Oklahoma. Aside from his hardware business he has various other local interests, including real estate invest- ments, and is vice president of the First National Bank of Tulsa. His political proclivities are indicated by the stalwart support he gives to the cause of the repub- lican party. He is a member of the board of gover- nors of the Tulsa Young Men's Christian Association, is affiliated with Delta Lodge, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and with Tulsa Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

On the 9th of June, 1892, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. MeClure to Miss Matie Parcells, who was born in the City of Richmond, Wayne County, Indiana, and the only child of this union is a daughter, Loraine, who remains at the parental home and is one of the popular young women in the representative social activi- ties of Tulsa.

CHARLES WALTER MASON. In recent years no more forceful character has impressed itself upon legal cir- cles of Oklahoma than the county attorney of Nowata County, Charles Walter Mason. While his methods of procedure have at times been called spectacular, the fact remains that he has shown himself possessed of the ability and the desire to discharge well and faithfully the duties of his office, and that, not yet twenty-eight years of age, he has already attained a position gained by most men only after many years of endeavor.

Mr. Mason was born on his father's farm in Monroe County, Ohio, December 11, 1887, and is a son of Frank and Luella (Shankland) Mason. His grandparents, George and Martha Mason, were born in Scotland, and on coming to the United States settled as pioneers in Monroe County, Ohio, where they cultivated a farm aud continued to be engaged in agricultural endeavors throughout their lives. Their first home was a log cabin, and although in later years they erected a more pre- tentious residence, the old log house still stands on the farm as a memento of the early days. Of their five sons, Frank was the third and was born at Woodsfield, Monroe County, Ohio, in 1863. He grew up in a pioneer atmosphere and assisted his father in clearing the farm and in its cultivation, in the meantime securing his edu- cation in the public schools. He was only twenty-two years of age when he decided to try for the office of register of deeds of Monroe County, there being at that time sixteen other candidates, and won handily, subse- quently succeeding himself and serving in all for seven years. In 1903 he came to Nowata, Oklahoma. and here has since beeu engaged in the real estate and abstract business. He is a democrat politically and iu fraternal affairs is identified with the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Mason married Miss Luella Shankland, who was born at Summerfield, Noble County, Ohio, in 1867, and three sons have been boru to this union: Charles Walter, Ron- ald and Claris.

After attending the public schools, Charles W. Mason entered Grant University, at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and when he had graduated therefrom became a student in the law department of Washington and Lee Univer- sity, being graduated therefrom in 1911 with his degree. He had come to Nowata with his parents in 1903, and when his college career was completed returned to this city, where in 1912 he was appointed city attorney. He served one-half a term, and was later elected for a full term, but before it was completed resigned to take up the duties of county attorney of Nowata County, in November, 1914. A number of interesting incidents attach to his race for this office, as described in an article which appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, of January 3, 1915, from which we quote: " When every-

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body told him there was 'no use, ' that he was too young and should wait awhile, and that no democrat could defeat the incumbent of the office of prosecuting attor- ney of Nowata county, Charles Walter Mason donned his uniform as leader of the noted saxaphone band, strapped his big saxaphone over his shoulder, made music and speeches during an exciting campaign and won the election by 347 votes, whereas only three other demo- crats were elected and the leader of them by only thirty- four votes. Imitating the methods of the late Bob Taylor of Tennessee, whom Mason learned to admire while he was a student of law in Nashville, and making practical some of the methods attributed to Blackie Daw, a character created by George Randolph Chester for his series of Wallingford stories, Mason won this fight, as he had won others, by assembling the crowds with his music, impressing upon them his striking personality, and making them believe that a change was needed in the office of county attorney and that he was the man to fill the bill. Mason's Scotch-Irish father had politics bred in the bone and the son suffers no lack of the talent by reason of being a generation removed. The younger Mason has been pulling nearly all his twenty- seven years to get a foothold in politics, and three times, by sheer force of will, and the exercise of strategy worthy the emulation of more doughty politicians, he has succeeded. And he's not done yet, for if the music in him holds out and his instruments do not lose their chords, he expects to advance another step in due time. When the campaign of last spring came on the demo- cratic leaders, confessing that the republican county attorney had made good and practically coneeding him another term, could find no candidate to enter the race. They hadn't looked for Mason. He didn't have to be found by anybody but Mason. 'I'll admit,' he says, 'that for the first time I didn't think I had a chance in politics, and then I got to thinking of the success of Bob Taylor and of the tactics of my old friend Blackie Daw. I gathered together the band and started the campaign. My saxaphone was a winner nearly every- where, but once in a while I reverted to the use of my old national guard bugle to get the crowds together. At the country schoolhouses I used a smaller saxaphone. Well, when the election was over, I had won by 347 votes, while the next nearest democratic plurality was that of the candidate for county judge who received a plurality of thirty-four votes. That's what I call bust- ing a political band wagon with a saxaphone.' In this campaign Mason used a freak automobile also. He took the bed from an old Ford that practically was a wreck and replaced it with a tin bent into the shape of a cigar, fat in the middle and running to a point at the ends. When he sat at the wheel only his head and shoulders were visible above the bulge. The old mill made a lot of noise, just as Mason had planned it should do, and before the end of the campaign everybody was talking about the saxaphone chap riding in a campaign cigar."

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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