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 35

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 35

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).

1064

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

went to Western Kansas and became a cow puncher, with headquarters at Fort Dodge, where he remained until 1882, and then located in St. Joseph, where he was employed in various capacities until 1889.

On the opening day, April 22, 1889, Mr. Sutton was among those who sought homes in the new paradise. His first year was spent in Guthrie, and since then, for a quarter of a century, he has been identified by residence and business activities with the now capital city. For a number of years Mr. Sutton was associated with Adolphus Busch of St. Louis, acting for him in a confidential capacity and attending to his investments in Oklahoma City. These investments up to 1907 amounted to a mil- lion dollars. After a year and a half spent in travel, Mr. Sutton turned his attention to the rapidly develop- ing oil resources of Oklahoma, and for several years was also a bank official. Between 1909 and 1912 he was cashier of the First State Bank of Oklahoma City and at the same time president of the Harrah State Bank of Harrah. His present business position is chiefly as secre- tary and treasurer of the Mid-Continent Oil Company, dealing in oil lands, secretary and treasurer of the Osceola Oil Company, and a stockholder in the Mincing Lane Oil and Development Company.

His fraternal associations are with the various bodies of York Rite Masoury, including Oklahoma City Lodge No. 36, A. F. & A. M., Cyrus Chapter No. 7, R. A. M., Oklahoma Commandery No. 3, K. T., India Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and Order of the Eastern Star, and also with the Order of Amaranths and Oklahoma City Lodge No. 417, B. P. O. E. He is a charter member of the Old Time Trail Drivers' Association of San Antonio, Texas, and of the National Order of Cowboys and Rangers of Denver, Colorado. These two orders are composed of ex-cowboys and rangers. He belongs to the Oklahoma City Men's Dinner Club, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, and is a member of the Christian Science Church both in his home city and at Boston, Massachusetts. For eight years he served as a member of the board of education.

Mr. Sutton's first wife, whom he married in 1882, was Miss Margaret Graham, a daughter of Judge William Graham of Atchison, Kansas. She died January 6, 1892. On October 17, 1895, occurred his marriage to Mrs. Jennie (Cox) Mckeever, a daughter of James A. and Mary C. Cox of Oklahoma City. Her father has spent almost his entire career on the frontier and on the cattle ranges. He was a settler in Iowa when it was a terri- tory, then followed the westward moving frontier to Nebraska, went into Kansas in the early days, and was in the run of April 22, 1889, to Oklahoma. Now at the age of over eighty he is still pioneering in Arizona.

Mrs. Sutton was educated in the college at Topeka, Kansas, and after graduating and when but seventeen taught her first school. She joined in the Oklahoma rush on the eventful April day of 1889, located and eventually proved up a good farm on the South Canadian River. There for the first month she lived alone in a brush house until able to get a more suitable dwelling erected for her. In that house she tanght what is be- lieved to have been the first school for white children in Oklahoma. A little later in Oklahoma City, in the rear portion of a hardware store, she opened the first school in that city. In all the subsequent years education has had no more sincere friend and active supporter in Okla- homa than Mrs. Sutton. In 1912 Governor Cruice ap- pointed her one of the state commissioners to the Panama- Pacific Exposition at San Francisco, and her associates have entrusted to her practically the entire management. of the plan for raising funds to erect the state building and make the Oklahoma exhibit. She was appointed by the present governor, Robert Williams, and the Panama

Commission as custodian of Oklahoma State building, and had absolute charge and control of it until the close. She spent the summer of 1914 in San Francisco, has worked steadily for two years, and Oklahoma's excellent representation at the fair is mainly due to her efforts.

She is a member of the Oklahoma Historical Society and originated the movement for the erection of a sepa- rate building on the state capitol grounds as an ade- quate home for the splendid collection now owned by the society. She is a past matron of the Order of Eastern Star, a member of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution and of the Colonial Dames. Mrs. Sutton organized the society, "Women of 1889," a state-wide organiza- tion, and became its first president and was nnanimously elected life president of the organization. One of the recognized leaders among Oklahoma women, she enjoys that position both as a pioneer and as a broad-minded and vigorous worker for everything affecting the welfare of city and state. While a member of a number of liter- ary clubs, her time is mainly given to movements for the social welfare. She is also a member of the Christian Science Church at home and in Boston, Massachusetts.

Mr. and Mrs. Sutton reside at 1111 North Broadway. The children are: Edwin B. Sutton, anditor of the Security Trust Savings Bank of Los Angeles; LaVerne, a graduate of Phillips University and an accomplished musician, is the wife of Dr. W. A. Aitken, of Enid; Monte C. is state bank examiner of Oklahoma; and Inez E., a graduate of the Kansas City College, is now engaged in teaching.

ALBERT L. KATES. For more than twenty-two years Albert L. Kates has been a progressive, and for much of that period, a prominent factor in the newspaper and political activities of Claremore. His standing as a citi- zen is firm and broad, as a leader of the democratic party, his reputation has extended into a state influence, while his splendid public service in the capacity of post- master has resulted in the achievement of much for his adopted city.

Mr. Kates was born in Salem County, New Jersey, April 27, 1861, and is a son of William C. and Harriet J. (Johnson) Kates, natives of that county. The father, a lifelong farmer, carried on extensive operations on the old homestead, where he died at the early age of forty- seven years, in 1882. He was well known in his com- munity and a factor in civic life, and in 1876 was elected on the democratic ticket to a seat in the New Jersey Legislature. Mrs. Kates survived him for a long period and was sixty-three years of age at the time of her death. Of their four children, three are living, of whom Albert L. is the eldest.

The public schools of his native county furnished Albert L. Kates with his educational training, and as a youth he worked on his father's farm. His predilection for the newspaper business, however, soon became too strong to be denied and, leaving the farm, he entered the office of The Register, which was published at Woods- town, New Jersey, and where Mr. Kates learned the printer's trade and received his introduction to journal- ism. He afterward published the Register for about six years. In June, 1893, seeking a new field for the dis- play of his abilities, he came to Claremore, Indian Ter- ritory, and this city has continned to be his home to the present. On his arrival he took over the Claremore Progress, a weekly newspaper, of which he has con- tinued to be the owner and publisher. He has extended its subscriptions yearly and it is known as one of the most influential organs of the democratic party in Oklahoma. On November 29, 1913, Mr. Kates' son, William C., became editor, the father having been ap-

p be

on A

th 01 of

at tog

Ne Co

0: a

in 0

M m C

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

1065

pointed postmaster of Claremore, the duties of which office he assumed January 1, 1914. The service is in- debted to him for practical and permanent improve- ments, and his earnestness, honesty and unassuming ability reflect the attributes of his Irish ancestors whom he traces back to the Fenwick settlement in New Jersey ..

On December 23, 1886, Mr. Kates was married to Miss Nellie C. Moore, who was born at Swedesboro, Glouster County, New Jersey. Four children were born to this union, of whom three are living, one having died in in- fancy. The survivors are: John M., an Annapolis graduate of the year 1913, who was an ensign on U. S. S. Utah, the battleship in charge of the landing recently at Vera Cruz, and now an ensign on the U. S. S. Sara- toga, the flagship of the Pacific fleet, now in Chinese waters; William C., who is editor of the Progress, and one of the best known among Oklahoma 's younger news- paper men, and Harry.

FRANK BRUCE COLLINS. Among the concerns recog- nized as leaders in the investment field of Oklahoma is that of The F. B. Collins Investment Company of Oklahoma City, the president of which is Frank B. Col- lins. A man of broad and varied experience in this line of business, he has developed a reliable and prominent concern which bears a high reputation in investment circles and has the unqualified confidence of his clients. Mr. Collins was born at Agency, Wapello County, Iowa, on February 21, 1859, and is the son of Jacob and Arabella (Whitmore) Collins.

Jacob Collins was born August 9, 1820, at Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio, and Mrs. Arabella (Whit- more) Collins, February 2, 1826, at Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, and both moved with their parents to Iowa in 1845, where they were married in 1846, and settled upon a farm in Wapello County. When Frank B. Collins was two years of age the family moved to Jeffer- son County, Iowa, where they resided on a farm six miles west of Fairfield until 1880. There the youth had the advantage of a common school education and later was graduated from the Oregon State University. Immedi- ately after the completion of his educational training, Mr. Collins engaged in the mortgage and loan business at Summerville, Union County, Oregon, and remained so engaged there until 1894 when he moved to Pitts- burg, Crawford County, Kansas, and there in 1901 or- ganized the Pittsburg Mortgage & Investment Company and served as its president and manager until disposing of his business in September, 1907, to come to Oklahoma City.

Soon after coming to Oklahoma City, Mr. Collins organ- ized The F. B. Collins Investment Company, which has grown into one of the really big farm loan companies of the state, extending its business throughout practi- cally every county in Oklahoma and also loans on im- proved farm lands in the states of Kansas, Arkansas and Texas. Mr. Collins' experience as a loan man before locating in Oklahoma gave him the advantage of being able to at once organize his business on an extensive plane and he has drawn to his assistance some of the most experienced credit men of the Middle West and interested them in his enterprise.

At Mulberry, Kansas, November 1, 1886, Mr. Collins was married to Miss Mollie K. Wilson, daughter of Levi B. and Nannie (Guthrie) Wilson, natives of Ken- tucky.' To this union there have been born two children : Frank L., born October 28, 1887, now a member of the company of which his father is president, and is located in charge of the loan company's business at Guymon, Oklahoma. Nan A., born December 29, 1889,. who is the wife of Dr. Virgil Morrison, a physician of Atchi- son, Kansas and the mother of one daughter, Nancy Jane

Morrison, born October 21, 1910. Mrs. Mollie K. Col- lins died November 8, 1908, and Mr. Collins was married a second time at New London, Connecticut, April 30, 1910, to Miss Nellie Smith Williams, daughter of Leonard N. and Nancy E. (Smith) Williams, both natives of · Connecticut. One daughter has been born to this union, Sidney Clyde, born June 22, 1913. Mrs. Collins is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Collins is a Master Mason and a member of the Elks Lodge, his member- ship in the latter lodge being still at Pittsburg, Kansas, Lodge No. 412.

ROBERT E. LONG. From cow trails to modern public highways, from log huts to modern homes, from grazing lands to cultivated farms, from a form of Indian civiliza- tion to a cosmopolitan and modern society, from the era of the cow thief to that of the law-abiding citizen, ex- tends the span of more than thirty years that Robert E. Long has spent in the historic Choctaw country. The span is of vital interest to him for he has had an im- portant part in this locality's development. The agile hands that threw the rope on the cattle ranges of the nation became possessed of a sort of magic when he abandoned the career of a eow-puncher and took up that of contractor and builder. The frontier village of Atoka was transformed into a modern little city because of the activities of such men as he. His ideas and his hands conceived and helped to construct the beautiful McArthur home that is now owned by J. O. Kuykendall, one of the wealthiest mnen of Eastern Oklahoma, the W. H. Reynolds home, the J. A. Cline home, the L. C. Le- Flore home, the William Hildwell residence, the J. R. Ray home and the residence of R. R. Phillips. These are the names of men and families that during the last forty years have been conspicuous in Atoka's progress and they dot the span that reaches from the early Indian and missionary settlements to the modern days.

In more recent years the activities of Mr. Long have again been conspicuous, for as a member of the board of county commissioners he took a leading part in the con- struction of a modern brick county courthouse and jail that cost $67,100. It became his duty-the duty of his board-under recent state laws to survey and build public highways. This accomplished a transformation of important history value, for the county was for fifty years without roads save those the pioneers traveled out through convenient routes. The transformation was practically from cow trails to modern highways. Two state highways were made to thread the county, one run- ning north and south and the other east and west. County highways were also established, and in the three years following 1912, when Mr. Long entered the office of county commissioner, rapid progress was made in laying out and improving section lines. In this respect Atoka County took the lead of some of its neighbors in the Indian country. One of these county highways extends from Atoka to Wapanucka through the historic Village of Boggy Depot and another traverses the lands formerly held by Chief Atoka, after whom Dr. J. S. Murrow, founder of the Village of Atoka, named this village. In 1915 about seventy bridges, of more or less magnitude, had been constructed. One of these that cost $7,000 was erected in the mountain region east of Atoka on the east-west state highway. The board of county commissioners, of which in 1915 Ira Stephenson of Caney and T. M. Dyer of Wardville, were the other members, also has taken a forward step in the agricultural development of the county in making annual appropriations for part of the salary of a United States farm demonstration agent.

Robert E. Long was born at Decatur, Wise County, Texas, in 1873, and is a son of Joseph and Mary

re a 1

e a

be T'S ed re

a's to ty le. be E 70- ed

the

1066

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

(Bridges) Long. His father, who is a native of Mis- souri, settled in Texas in the '50s, and engaged in the cattle business, leaving that enterprise in 1861 to enter the Confederate army in which he served during the war between the states, following which he entered the service of the Texas Rangers with whom he was identified for several years. He is now living at Atoka at the age of seventy years. Mr. Long's mother is of Choctaw descent, her father having emigrated from Mississippi to Texas after the migration of the Choctaws to Indian Territory. Unlike many red men he was not proud of his Indian blood and never asked, but on the contrary eschewed, enrollment with the Choctaw tribe in Indian Territory. There were the following children in the family of Joseph and Mary Long: Robert E .; Mrs. L. Shope, wife of a conductor on the Texas Pacific Rail- road, at Bonham, Texas; Joseph Newton, a brakeman on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad, living at Atoka; Thomas, who is engaged in farming in Atoka County; Wesley, who was an employe of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad and was killed on that road December 13, 1900; Martha Adline Falkner, who lives at Ada, Oklahoma; Samuel H., a conductor on the Frisco Railroad, who was killed while in the service, near Frances, Oklahoma, in 1911, and Edwin Long, who lives in Coleman, Oklahoma, engaged in the drug business.

When he was nine years of age, Robert E. Long came to Atoka County with his parents, and here entered the subscription school. His first activities were as a cow- boy on the ranch of D. N. Robb, of Brush Creek, near Atoka. Later for two years he was employed on the ranch of A. L. Dulaney, leaving that work to learn the trade of carpenter under John McAfee, one of the earliest contractors in the Choctaw Nation. Still later he worked under J. H. Jackson, another early-day con- tractor. Among his early teachers were B. S. Smyser, a pioneer of Atoka County; and E. H. Rishel, now of Okla- homa City, who once was superintendent of the Atoka Baptist Academy. Among his schoolmates was Governor Locke, who is now principal chief of the Choctaw Nation.

Mr. Long was married at Atoka, in 1898, to Miss Belle Upchurch. They have four children: Mabel, who was born in 1901; Helen, born in 1903; Robert E., Jr., born in 1912 and Dorothy, born in 1914. Mr. and Mrs. Long are consistent members of the Methodist Church. His fraternal connections are with the Masons, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World, and he holds membership also in the Carpenters' Union. For six years he was district deputy grand chancellor of the Knights of Pythias lodge, and for nine years has been a member of the grand lodge of the state.

AMIL H. JAPP. The legal profession of Cotton County number among its able and thoroughly learned members, Amil H. Japp, city attorney of Walters, an office which he has held since his arrival in this city in 1912. Unlike many, Mr. Japp did not enter his practice in untried youth, for his early years were passed in agricultural pursuits, but when once entered upon his career he made steady advancement, so that today he occupies a sub- stantial and firmly-established place among the prac- titioners of Cotton County.

Mr. Japp was born in Scott County, Iowa, June 18, 1877, and is a son of John A. and Doris (Schwin) Japp, the families on both sides being old and honored ones in Germany. His father, born in 1836, in Schleswig-Hol- stein, Germany, came to the United States in 1876 and settled at Davenport, Scott County, Iowa, where he began to accumulate the means for the foundation of a home. About the year 1879 he went to Hamilton County, Iowa, where he continued his farming and stockraising opera- tions, remaining there until 1891, when he came to

Oklahoma and settled at El Reno, that being his home until 1902, since when he has lived at Lawton, retired. During his active career he was an industrious and efficient workman and through thrift, good management and well directed effort accumulated a competence that allows him to pass his declining years in comfort. He is a democrat in his political views, but is a modest, unassuming man and has never sought public office, being content to remain in private life. He and Mrs. Japp were members of the Lutheran Church. She was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, in 1831, where they were married, and died at Lawton in 1908. They were the parents of two children: Gus F., who resides at Lawton and is engaged in the real estate and farm loan business; and Amil H., of this review.

Amil H. Japp was reared on his father's farm and attended the district schools of Hamilton County, Iowa. At the age of eighteen years he began operations on his own account, continuing in Iowa for two years, and in 1889 came to El Reno, Oklahoma, taking up land south- west of the city and cultivating it until 1898. In that year he entered Fort Worth (Texas) University, where he was graduated from the law department in 1901, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and immediately entered upon the practice of his profession at Lawton, as a pioneer citizen and legist of that community. On September 10, 1912, Mr. Japp removed to Walters, where he has since continued in the practice of his profession, at this time carrying on a large general civil and criminal practice. He maintains well appointed offices in the Dyer-Blair Building, on Broadway, and is a valued member of the Cotton County Bar Association, among the members of which he bears a high reputation. A democrat in his political views, he represented Comanche and Stephens counties in the First and Second Oklahoma State Legislatures, and since coming to Walters has been city attorney, his last appointment having been received May 1, 1915, for a term of two years. He has been con- nected with a number of important cases, in all of which he has conducted himself with ability and dignity, and is justly accounted one of the men who have made their mark in the law through the exercise of their own talents. Mr. Japp belongs to Walters Lodge No. 228, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Guthrie Consistory No. 1, of the thirty-second degree in Masonry; and to Wal- ters Lodge No. 7732, Modern Woodmen of America, and has many friends in fraternal circles.

In 1909 Mr. Japp was married to Miss Carrie M. Hackenberg, daughter of Frank Hackenberg, who has been engaged in farming in Oklahoma for a number of years and is now residing at Lawton. Mr. and Mrs. Japp have no children. They are members of the Pres- byterian Church, in the work of which they have taken an active and helpful part. Both are popular in social circles of Walters.

H. GRADY Ross. It is but a brief span of years since Choctaw courts sentenced convicted defendants to punish- ment with the whip and in extreme cases to death before the muzzle of a sheriff's gun, but that span, calculated in items of general progress, seems far more than a generation removed. This contrast of years and their activities asserts itself forcibly in the life of the family of H. Grady Ross. His father, who is of Choctaw blood, lived in that, era of Choctaw history that held much of the primitive in government and political activities. He saw men convicted of the offense of theft and whipped on the bare back with hickory withes in the sturdy hands of the sheriff, and he saw men blindfolded and sent to their death by a musket ball, also at the hands of the sheriff, in expiation of the crime of murder.

Ayrady Rossy

1067

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Today his son practices law in a modern court of justice, under modern methods of procedure and in a fully civilized community. It is indeed an interesting thing to note that Thomas Watson, one of the most noted of Choctaw sheriffs, who has whipped more men under court instruction than any other living Indian, now is a client of the young lawyer whose father was his friend in an earlier day.

As a boy in what is now Haskell County, Mr. Ross became a cow puncher and his experiences there are like chapters from the written careers of the celebrated cow- men of the plains. He followed the herds on long drives, accompanied by the chuck wagon and other equipment necessary to the life of a cattle ranch. One drive he tells of will illustrate some of the hardships of cow punching in that day. It extended from Haskell County to a ranch in the Chickasaw Nation and required seven- teen days for completion, being punctuated with frequent stampedes that required indefinite delays to overcome. The country contained few fences and a comparatively few white settlers, conditions that added difficulties to a task that was no small one at best. That was during the period of the operations of the noted Belle Starr, Oklahoma's only woman outlaw, who in her early activ- ities frequently was a visitor at the Ross home near Cartersville. The fact that these incidents took place a comparatively few years ago will serve to impress upon the reader's mind something of the rapid development of the Indian country.

H. Grady Ross was born at Cache, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, August 7, 1890, and is a son of W. T. and Lizzie (Keese) Ross. W. T. Ross is a native of Mississippi, and he came to the Indian Territory, via Texas, more than thirty years ago. With him he brought to the wilderness country his young bride and they lived quietly in the sheltering woods of the northerly part of the Choctaw Nation, at a time when some of the Indians who opposed the march of civilization were at no time good neighbors and occasionally were very undesirable ones. Besides H. Grady Ross, the parents reared a goodly family of sons and daughters, briefly mentioned as fol- lows: Mrs. R. A. Rarbon is the wife of a hardware dealer at Madill, Oklahoma. Mrs. M. W. Rorie also lives . in Madill, where her husband operates a garage. A. Frank and James K. Ross are hardware dealers at Madill. Mrs. R. V. Covey, of Fort Worth, Texas, is the wife of an automobile salesman. Miss Willie Ross is still at home. Mrs. W. W. Hamlin is the wife of an attorney at Springfield, Missouri. Dwight M. Ross, the youngest child, still makes his home with his parents.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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