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 33

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 33

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Mr. Hopping is known and honored as a loyal and progressive citizen, is a democrat in politics, is actively identified with the Tulsa Commercial Club, and in the Masonic fraternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his ancient- craft affiliation being with Tulsa Lodge No. 71, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and his fraternal spirit being still further shown through his membership in Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Tulsa, and in Tulsa Lodge No. 746, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

On the 25th of February, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hopping to Miss Alice M. Hartman, who was born in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, and they have two daughters and one son-Esta Pearl, who is a member of the class of 1915 in the University of Kansas, at Lawrence; and Velma L. and Norris J., who are at the parental home.

EUGENE T. JOHNSON. Prominent among those who have been prominent and influential in connection with the furtherance of civic and material development and progress in Atoka County is Eugene T. Johnson, who now holds the dual office of vice president and manager of the American National Bank of Atoka, and who has been prominently identified with governmental affairs in Oklahoma. He had been an active member of the bar of the State of Texas for a period of ten years prior to

coming to Oklahoma, and has given patent assurance of his abiding loyalty and public spirit as a citizen of this vigorous young commonwealth. .

Under appointment by Hon. Frank A. Hitchcock, then secretary of the Department of the Interior of the United States Government, Mr. Johnson was for seven years engaged as collector of revenues for several Indian tribes, and the superintendency of the segregated and other domains of the Cherokee, Creek and Choctaw na- tions of Indian Territory. Some of the features of Mr. Johnson's work in this connection constitute an im- portant phase of the more recent history of that section of Oklahoma, inasmuch as the work of which he had supervision resulted in the restoration to the tribes the original status of these reservations and set up a system of governmental supervision that yields the greatest pos- sible returns from their common property. This work embraced the ejection of timber-cutters from the timber reservation of the Choctaw Nation, though this result was not compassed until after many arrests had been made and seventy-three indictments had been returned against alleged trespassers, the cases being brought before the Federal Court at McAlester.

For many years the valuable timber of this reserva- tion, amounting to many millions of feet, had suffered from depredations. Hundreds of men, some of them having control of large saw mills, had, without author- ity of law, created and profitably carried on an immense lumber business from which the Choctaw Nation received no revenue. Ineffective efforts had previously been made to eject these trespassers and when Mr. Johnson under- took to accomplish this end the status of affairs was such that the trespassers looked upon the interference on the part of government officials in the light of a joke. The task of finally clearing the reservation of such men and mills was therefore a difficult one and required the most mature judgment and the most circumspect and deliberate action. Government men were subjected to rebuffs and threats, and at times open warfare became imminent. Men were ejected and in a few days re- entered the reservation from some other route and resumed operations. Superintendent Johnson finally was compelled to take possession of a considerable amount of their property and to report the names of offenders to the Federal grand jury. One hundred and two saw mills were located, and the removal of this property from the reservation was an event of a magni- tude not equaled in importance since the days of troubles with the cattle men who opposed ejection from other Indian reservation in the western part of Indian Terri tory. Many times Mr. Johnson's life was threatened, for men of wealth were being compelled to desert a source of income that has been worth millions of dollars to them. The restoration of this large and extremely valuable timber reservation to the Indians re-established a firm basis for the conduct of Indian business that will produce the maximum revenue for the tribe.

The timber reservation of the Choctaw Nation en- braces a large region of the Kiamichi Mountains, in the fastnesses of which many men had established them- selves. The ejection of a man from a mountain-top home thirty-five miles east of Taliliina constitutes an example of the arduous duties of the Government men. For three years this sturdy mountaineer, far removed from rail- roads and white settlements, had lived in a log hut which he had constructed on a mountain top several miles inside the reservation. He had cultivated a small tract of land, on which he grew such products as his family could consume, and in the mountains he killed bear, deer, turkey and other game. The furs and hides thius ob- tained were a profitable source of income. This inan was a trespasser. His habitation was reported to Mr.

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Johnson, who took the lead of a party of his men and set forth for the trespasser's cabin. They surrounded the primitive domicile undiscovered by its occupants, and tlen relieved the man of his guns and ammunition, con- sisting of rifles, Winchesters, pistols and quantities of powder and shells. His cabin was a veritable fortifica- tion and he intended to fight to retain possession of the same. Every personal article of the family was removed from the spot and hauled out of the reservation. The man had paid no rent, no taxes and no other revenue of any sort to the tribe, and was living a leisurely but profitable existence on tribal property. The ejection of this man afforded an object lesson that probably caused a complete evacuation of the reservation on the part of men of his habits who had slipped in from the Arkansas side.

To rid the segregated coal lands of the Choctaw Nation of trespassers was another of the duties that devolved upon Mr. Johnson. There are 2,500 farms on these lands, and many of them had been occupied by white men without the permission of the Government, which received no rentals from the property. The entire area of half a million acres was cleared of trespassers and there was established a system of rentals through which the treasury of the Indians was vastly enriched. This piece of work also constitutes an important phase in the annals of the Indian nations, for it represented a dividing line between the era of unprofitable and loose management of Indian matters and an era of scientific system that makes the treatment of tribal property both lucrative to the Indians and of inestimable benefit to the value of the property leased for the use of white men.

Until system had been brought out of chaos, the use · of grazing lands in the Creek and Cherokee nations had been a troublesome problem to the Government. There were instances of cattle men leasing one section and then proceeding to fence fifteen sections, thereby gain- ing use of the additional and far greater tracts by pay- ing rent only for the one section. This resulted in many disputes and much actual and threatened litigation. Mr. Johnson, with characteristic circumspection and zeal, worked on the problem from the ground up, and he finally evolved a system that made rentals and acreage satisfactory to both the cattle men and the Indians, besides opening a large grazing territory to the cattle men of Texas. In order that there might be no ques- tion about lease titles and acreage, and in order that the tribes might obtain the largest consistent revenue from their grazing lands, Mr. Johnson made trips to Texas to assist in the execution of leases.

Another of the important duties which Superintendent Johnson and his assistants were called upon to perform was the checking of the invoices of merchants, to deter- mine whether or not they were paying the proper amount of tax into the tribal funds. In the Creek country this tax was one-half of 1 per cent of the merchant's invoice, and in the Choctaw country the rate was one-third of one per cent. Mr. Johnson found upon investigation that many merchants had neglected or refused to pay this tax, some of them for many years. His activities of enforcement caused the institution of a suit to test the validity of an old law, under which the tax was levied, and during the pendency of this suit, two and one-half years, no taxes were paid, the stipulation being, how- ever, that if the law were upheld all taxes for that period should be paid. The Court of Appeals of the United States upheld the law, and thereupon Mr. Johnson revised the system of collection and put it upon a sub- stantial and satisfactory basis. Within his period of service several million dollars were collected and turned into the treasury to the credit of the Indian nations. Collections were not easy, however. Occasionally a mer-

chant lid his invoices and sought to evade the law of the Government. Until some of these merchants were threatened with prosecution if the taxes so assessed were not paid the troubles did not end.

Eugene T. Johnson was born at Spring Ridge, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, in 1875, and is a son of Benjamin F. and Livey (Williams) Johnson. His father was a native of the State of Mississippi and became a substantial planter in Louisiana, where prior to the Civil war he owned a large plantation and many slaves. Mr. John- son's preliminary education was gained in the public schools of his native state and was supplemented by a course in an academy in that state. Later he was graduated in the Texas State Normal School at Hunts- ville, Texas, and in Lebanon University at Lebanon, Ohio. Thereafter he devoted four years to teaching in the public schools of Texas, and later he completed a course in the law department of Valparaiso University, in the City of Valparaiso, Indiana, in which celebrated institu- tion he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. In the defraying of the expenses incidental to acquiring his higher academic and his professional edu- cation Mr. Johnson depended entirely upon his own exertions, and in this work, as in all other practical affairs of life, he is most appreciative who thus feels the lash of necessity. That his ambition was one of courage and action needs no further voucher than the statement that within a period of five years Mr. Johnson received five college degrees and diplomas.

In 1890 Mr. Johnson engaged in the practice of law in Karnes County, Texas, and later he removed to Marlin, the judicial center of Falls County, that state, where he continued in control of an excellent law business until 1900, when impaired health led him to go to Colorado, where he remained one year and recuperated his physi- Ral health. He then came to Oklahoma, and at varied intervals has here been engaged in governmental affairs and in banking. His appointment in connection with the work of the Department of the Interior, previously noted in this article, was made in 1904, and he con- tinued the incumbent of this position until 1911, when he resigned and became associated with the American National Bank of Atoka, this being the only national bank in Atoka County. The institution is affiliated with the Federal regional reserve bank in the City of Dallas, Texas, and it is affiliated also with the Oklahoma Bank- ers' Association and the American Bankers' Association. As before noted, Mr. Johnson is vice president and executive manager of the institution. After his gradua- tion in law he gained valuable experience through being associated for one year with the representative law firm of Follansby, O'Connel & Athers, of the City of Chi- cago, and prior to engaging in the practice of his pro- fession at Karnes, Texas, he had been engaged in active practice in the City of San Antonio, that state. Mr. Johnson has achieved definite and worthy financial suc- cess through his own well ordered efforts, and in addi- tion to his banking interests he has valuable farm and ranch holdings in Oklahoma and Texas. In the Masonic fraternity he has completed the circle of both the York and Scottish rites. He is affiliated also with the Benev- olent and Protective Order of Elks, and in politics he pays unswerving allegiance to the democratic party. His name is still enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors in Oklahoma.

FRANCIS B. DILLARD. The firm of Dillard & Blake, at Tulsa, with offices in the Central National Bank Build- ing, handle all the law business of the Texas Company in Oklahoma, and also have a large general practice as lawyers. Mr. Dillard represents the substantial old southern stock, has been a practicing lawyer upwards of

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thirty years, and has been identified with the three states of Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma. In ability and influ- ential connections he ranks among the leaders of the Oklahoma bar.

Francis B. Dillard was born at his grandfather's home at Auburn, Alabama, April 30, 1861, a son of Col. Francis W. and Mary H. (Scott) Dillard. His father was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1823 and died in February, 1865, at the age of forty-two. The mother was born in Harris County, Georgia, in 1838 and died October 20, 1903. Of their six children two died in infancy, and Francis B. was the fifth in order of birth. His father was a cotton commission merchant at Columbus, Georgia, under the firm name of Dillard-Powell Company during the years before the outbreak of the war. In the war, though incapacitated by reason of ill health for field service, he did a valuable part as a business man in promoting the cause and contributing to the resources of the Confederate government. He was a personal friend as well as political supporter of President Jefferson Davis. During the war he held the offices of quarter- master and colonel and did much for the cause in organiz- ing and preparing troops for service. In 1864 the gun- boats of the Federal Government were present in large numbers off the coast near Appalachicola, Florida, main- taining a rigorous blockade, and it was feared that they would come up the Chattahoochee River to Columbus and destroy the town. In this critical situation Colonel Dil- lard bought up all the cotton he could procure, loaded it on boats, and choosing a favorable opportunity ran the blockade and succeeded in landing all his cargo in Liver- pool. For this cotton he received $800,000 in sterling exchange gold, and at once reinvested a fourth of the proceeds, $200,000 in Confederate government bonds, a sum of money which proved a great boon to the govern- ment which was then in hard straits, both financially and otherwise. These bonds were of course valueless after the war ended. Colonel Dillard was a splendid represen- tative of the old southern aristocratic gentleman.

Francis B. Dillard was four years old when his father died. He received his early education in the common schools of Alabama, was graduated from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama on June 26, 1879, and the following six years were spent as a teacher in Ala- bama. In September, 1886, he located at Fort Gaines, Georgia, and was engaged in the practice of law there until June, 1893. He then removed to Sherman, Texas, continued as a member of the bar in that city until Sep- tember 1, 1909, and this was the date of his coming to Tulsa. At Tulsa he practiced under the firm name of Kellough & Dillard until August, 1911, after which he was alone for a time, and in March, 1912, formed a co- partnership with Mr. Blake under the firm name of Dillard & Blake. As already stated, this firm acts as attorneys for the Texas Company and its allied interests in connection with the oil producing industry in Okla- homa.

Mr. Dillard is a member of the Tulsa County and tho Oklahoma State Bar Association. During his residence at Sherman, Texas, he served from 1898 to 1909 as referee in bankruptcy for nine counties of the eastern district of Texas. Politically he is a democrat, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and with Tulsa Lodge No. 946 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, while his church is the Methodist Episcopal, South.

On November 15, 1889, Mr. Dillard married Jimmie B. Hatchett. She was born in West Point, Georgia. Of their four children, Francis W., the oldest, was educated in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and in 1911 graduated from the law department of Cumber- land University at Lebanon, Tennessee, was engaged in general practice at Cleveland, Oklahoma, until 1914, and Vol. III --- 8

now has an office and independent practice at Tulsa. The three youngest children are James H., Ralph V. and Claire Beaty.

JAMES CULBERSON. There is no man in the Choctaw Nation better acquainted with Choctaw politics than is the Hon. James Culberson, deputy tax assessor of Bryan County, at Durant, Oklahoma. For a number of years he has been actively associated with the promi- nent men of that nation in the successful conduct of its affairs. From the age of twenty-two until the ad- mission of the Indian Territory to the Union, with Oklahoma, he was associated with Governor Green McCurtain, and perhaps no man knew the life and char- acter of this famed and brainy Choctaw better than did Mr. Culberson.

It has been said, and with some degree of accuracy, that the politics of the State of Oklahoma are as child's play in comparison with the political manoeuvers of the Choctaw and Cherokee politicians. These two tribes are by nature given to the study of politics, and their sons are trained carefully in the art and chicanery that is ever the key to political supremacy. They are leaders among the tribes in matters of education, and their combined talents make them formidable opponents in all matters bearing a political aspect. And Chief Green McCurtain was foremost among them all. Mr. Cul- berson, in speaking of Chief McCurtain said: "He was a powerful orator." And again he said: "He was an honest man, and the smartest man we ever had."' Other leaders whose privilege it was Mr. Culberson's to know intimately, were Governor Dukes, Wilson Jones, Joe P. Tolsom, Allen Wright and Dick Locke, the latter now governor.

James Culberson was born in old Skullyville County of the Choctaw Nation on April 21, 1870, and he is the son of John and Lucy (McDonald) Culberson. The father was a full-blood Choctaw, while the mother was a white woman of Texas birth. They were married in 1869 and they became the parents of three children. James, of this review, is the eldest. E. W. is a resident of Bower, Oklahoma. Joan married J. P. Lee, a farmer of Albany, Oklahoma. John Culberson came from Mississippi with the first delegation of Choctaws in 1832. At that time he was only a little boy. When he grew up he located near Skullyville, then a steamboat landing on the Arkansas River, and there lived until the Civil war broke out, when he enlisted in the command of Gen. Douglass H. Cooper. He passed through the war with only minor injuries, and when peace was re- stored he returned to Skullyville and resumed his life as a ranchman. Mr. Culberson was a man of a deeply religious nature, and was a devout member of the Methodist Church. His wife was the daughter of a Scotchman who had come into the territory prior to the war and conducted a blacksmith shop at old Skullyville. It was there the young Choctaw met and wou the white daughter of the Scot, and they were married in 1869, as has already been stated.

James Culberson had the best educational advantages his people could arrange for him. He was graduated from Spencer Academy and the Southwestern Presby- terian University at Clarksville, Tennessee, receiving the degree of A. B. from the latter institution in 1890. His return to his home in the Choctaw Nation was marked by his entrance into the politics of the nation, and he was well equipped in his mentality and training for that life. He was elected county clerk of Sugar Loaf County when he was twenty-two years old. He was later elected district clerk and served in that office for a term, after which he became attorney general for

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the Choctaw Nation, filling that office during the time when Green MeCurtain was principal chief of the nation. During these years Mr. Culberson attended the various political conventions held throughont the nations, and when the Sequoyah Convention was called at Muskogee in 1904, to prepare a constitutiou for separate statehood, he was made secretary, being a del- egate to that convention from old Blue County. Prior to that time, however, he had served as a member of the convention for the allotment of lands, held at Atoka. His service in the nation has been singularly valuable throughout, and it would be difficult indeed to ac- curately estimate the extent and merit of his activities since he came to manhood.

In 1897 Mr. Culberson was married to Martha Harris, daughter of M. H. Harris, of LeFlore, Oklahoma. Their children are: James M .; Mary C .; John; and Ruth. The two first named are now students in the publie schools. Mrs. Culberson is the daughter of white par- ents, and her father is a merchant in LeFlore. She was a school teacher for some time prior to her marriage.

Mr. Culberson and his family have membership in the Presbyterian Church. He is a Mason and a demo- crat in his political faith. In 1904 he moved to Durant and took up his residence, having made his allotment of land in the vicinity of this place, at the time of the Government distribution.

Mr. Culberson speaks the Choctaw, as well as the English language, fluently and has translated various court documents into the English language and which are now on file in the Supreme courts of the United States, besides acting as an interpreter at any and all necessary occasions and most especially in court pro- ceedings. All this difficult and tedious work has been done by him conscientiously and with a strict adherence to truth and for the benefit of his people. He is enrolled as a half-blood Choctaw and as A-6722.

CHARLES W. JOYCE, M. D., has been practicing medi- cine and surgery in Oklahoma twelve years, and since 1912 has been located at Fletcher. He brought to the profession thorough training and natural qualifications of high order, and the able services he has already rendered constitute a promise of many years of usefulness to any community where he lives,

A native of North Carolina, he represents a branch of the Joyce family which was transplanted from Ireland to the Carolinas many years before the Revolutionary war. Doctor Joyce was born at Westfield, in Stokes County, North Carolina, September 22, 1881. His father is J. T. Joyce, who was born in North Carolina in 1843, lived for many years at Westfield and in 1891 removed to Danbury in Stokes County, where he is still following his vocation as a farmer. In politics he is a republican and is a member of the old Quaker Church. During the war he enlisted from North Carolina in a Confederate regiment and was in service to the end, having once been taken prisoner, but rejoining his command after his exchange. J. T. Joyce married Elizabeth Jessup, who was born in Stokes County in 1843 and died at Westfield in 1885, when Doctor Joyce was four years of age. A brief record of her children is: James, now deceased; Ried P., who is a merchant at Walnut Cove, North Carolina; T. P., whose present whereabouts are unknown; Mary Belle, a teacher in Blanchard, Okla- homa; and Charles W.

The youth of Doctor Joyce was spent in his native state, and he went through the public schools at Dan- bury, graduating from high school in 1898. After one year in Davidson College of North Carolina, he spent three years in the medieal department of the University

of Tennessee at Nashville, and was graduated from that prominent institution with the degree M. D. in 1903. In the same year he came west and established his first office at Elgin, Oklahoma, practiced there ten months, and then for eight years was in practice at Wheatland, Oklahoma. Doctor Joyce moved to Fletcher May ], 1912, and in addition to a general medical and surgical practice is serving as local surgeon for the Frisco Rail- road. In 1905 he gave up his practice temporarily to take post-graduate work in New York City, He is a member in good standing of the county and state medical societies and the American Medical Association,

Doctor Joyce, like his father, was a republican and is affiliated with Fletcher Lodge No. 363, Aneient Free and Accepted Masons, and has taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite, belonging to McAlester Consistory. At his old home in Danbury, Stokes County, North Carolina, in 1905 he married Miss Cora M. Petree, whose father N. O. Petree is an attorney of Danbury. To their marriage were born three children : Charles Nathaniel, born May 10, 1906, and attending public schools; Riet Petree, born April 20, 1908, and also in school; and Frank Thomas, born October 24, 1913.

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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