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 37

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 37

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David W. Griffin was brought up on the home place and reared amid agricultural surroundings, but he had early determined upon a professional career and pursued his studies with that end in view. After attending the primary grades, he entered Barnes High School, at Lenoir, North Carolina, and therefrom became a student at Rutherford College, in the same state. Subsequently, Doctor Griffin took the medical course at the University College of Medicine, Richmond, Virginia, where he was graduated in May, 1899, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine and at once began practice at Lenoir. He remained there, however, for only a few months, and in the fall of 1899 came to Norman, Oklahoma, as the resident physician of the Oklahoma Sanitarium and Hos- pital for the Insane, of which he was made superintend- ent in January, 1910, a position he has continued to fill with marked ability to the present time. This was formerly a private corporation, but July 1, 1915, came under the ownership, control and supervision of the State of Oklahoma, taking the name of the Oklahoma State Hospital. This institution now has over 1,000 patients, who are looked after by the superintendent and three assistant physicians, together with a well-trained corps of nurses. In connection with the large modern build- ings is a large farm, including what is considered to be the finest dairy in the state. Doctor Griffin has reached a high place in his calling and in the esteem of his fellow-practitioners throughout the state. In his offi- cial capacity he has displayed the possession of abili- ties of the highest character, and his devotion to the interests of his unfortunate charges is proverbial. He is a member of the Cleveland County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and a Fellow of the American Acad- emy of Medicine. Fraternally he belongs to the Lodge, Chapter and Knights Templar of the Masonic order, and has attained the York Rite degree. With his family he is a member of the Presbyterian Church, in which he holds official position.

On March 26, 1902, Doctor Griffin was married to Miss Flora May Phelps, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Phelps, of Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. To this union there have been born two daughters: Vera Louise and Martha Lee.

CHARLES CLARENCE BLACK has been one of the well- known lawyers of Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma, since the opening of the Kiowa-Comanche. County, and the founding of the city in 1901.

He was born at Hampton, Rock Island County, Illinois, May 17, 1853, a son of Francis and Charlotte Elizabeth (Brettun) Black. The family had its original seat in Scotland, but the first American of this branch was Marmaduke Black, great-great-grandfather of the sub-

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

ject of this sketch, who with his wife, Jane Richmond, came from the North of Ireland and settled at Barre, Massachusetts, in 1731. Marmaduke's son, John Black, served with the rank of captain in a Massachusetts regi- ment during the revolution and was in the battle of Bunker Hill. Francis Black was born February 20, 1815, in Barre, Massachusetts, went to Chicago when a young man, and removed to Hampton, Illinois, a few years before Charles was born. He was in the general merchandise business, and before the war supplied the steamboats on the Mississippi River with coal, wood and provisions, and was also postmaster until Johnson's administration. He was one of the early republicans, and a member of the Congregational Church. He died at Hampton in 1909. His wife was born in Guilford, Maine, in 1836, and died at Hampton in 1861. They had only two children; the younger, Archibald, died in infancy.

Charles C. Black as a boy was sent to Farmington, Maine, to attend a boarding school, in preparation for a college career at Bowdoin. However, he left boarding school in 1871, on account of ill health, and soon after- wards went west to Winfield, Kansas, where for nearly a year he was connected with the cattle industry. He then took up the study of law.

He was admitted to the bar in 1877 and has practiced law almost continually since. Was nominated and ran for state treasurer of Kansas on the democratic ticket with John R. Goodin, as candidate for governor, in 1878. Was editor and proprietor of the Winfield Daily and Weekly Telegram and a member of the city council in the earlier '80s. Was a member of the National Demo- cratic Convention at Chicago from the Third District of Kansas in 1884 and voted for Cleveland. In 1883 became vice president and secretary of the Denver, Mem- phis and Atlantic Railway and as such assisted in the building of 635 miles of railway from Chetopa, Kansas, to Pueblo, Colorado, which became a part of the Mis- souri Pacific system, upon its completion iu 1887. From 1886 to 1897 he resided and practiced law at Kansas City, Missouri, except during the two years he was at Atchison.

In 1889 became president of the Fort Worth and Albuquerque Railway Company, organized to build a railway from Fort Worth, Texas, to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The company surveyed 125 miles of road, and acquired some right of way for belt line at Fort Worth and for main line, besides other concessions, and bonuses, but failed on account of the stringency that resulted in the great panic of 1893. Was assistant general attorney for the Missouri Pacific Railway at Atchison, Kansas, during 1895 and 1896.

Iu 1897 moved to Goshen, Indiana, and became attor- ney for the Indiana Electric Railway Company and city attorney of Goshen. In 1901 removed to Lawton. In 1911-12-13 was city attorney of Lawton.

He is a past master of Adelphi Lodge No. 110, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; past high priest of Winfield Chapter No. 31, Royal Arch Masons; a Knight Templar, a Shriner, a member of the Sons of the American Revo- lution, and a democrat. Was at one time an active mem- ber of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks with a membership at Kansas City, Mo.

In the last half of the year 1914 and first half of 1915 he was editor and proprietor of the Lawton News, dur- ing which time his son, S. L. Black, was secretary and business manager of the News.

Judge Black and wife, Anna Owen, have four sons: Robert C., of Chicago; Clarence G., of Oklahoma City; S. L. Black and Owen Black, of Lawton.

ALGER MELTON. He whose name initiates this article has been engaged in the successful practice of his pro- fession at Chickasha, the judicial center of Brady County, since 1899, and is consistently to be designated as one of the pioneer lawyers of this section of the state, where he has appeared in much important litigation in the various courts, has gained high prestige iu his profession and has been specially prominent and influential in public affairs, especially in the councils of the democratic party, the Oklahoma State Central Committee of which he is serving as chairman at the time of this writing, this preferment having been conferred upon him in the spring of 1915. Mr. Melton is a member of the representative law firm of Bond, Melton & Melton, which controls a large and important practice and maintains its offices at 409-11 First National Bank Building, in the City of Chickasha.

At Jefferson, the county seat of Marion County, Texas, Alger Melton was born on the 10th of October, 1874, and he is a son of Washington P. and Lucy (Trammell) Melton. Washington P. Melton, a scion of a sterling old Southern family, was born and reared in the State of Alabama and though he was a mere boy at the inception of the Civil war his youthful loyalty did not long permit him to remain unresponsive to the call of the Confederacy for volunteers to defend its cause, and when but sixteen years he enlisted in an Alabama regiment, with which he served as a faithful and valiant young soldier of the Con- federacy during the entire period of the war, though during the last two years he was detailed to special service as a courier with the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the distinguished and loved commander in chief of the gallant troops of the South. Mr. Melton was with General Lee's weary and jaded army at the time of the final surrender at Appomattox.

After the close of the war Washington P. Melton con- tinued his residence in his native state until 1869, when he immigrated to Texas, where he encountered his full quota of experience in frontier life and where he even- tually became a prominent and successful representative of the live-stock industry, with which he continued his active identification until about the year 1900, when he retired from the active labors that has so long marked his career. He was a man of superior intellectual power and much business ability, was a stalwart in the camp of the democratic party and perpetuated the more pleasing memories of his youthful military career by retaining affiliation with the United Confederate Veterans. He died April 16, 1915, while visiting his sons, at Chickasha, Oklahoma, and his age at the time of his demise was seventy years. His loved and devoted wife passed to eternal rest in 1905.

Alger Melton is indebted to the schools of his native state for his early educational discipline and there he prepared himself for his chosen profession by taking a special course in law and by study under private pre- ceptors. In 1899 he was admitted to the bar of the Lone Star State but he came forthwith to Oklahoma Territory and established his residence in the ambitious little village of Chickasha, the present judicial center of Grady County. For a year thereafter he was the incum- bent of clerk and general assistant in the office of the law firm of Davidson & Riddle, and he then, in 1900, entered into a partnership alliance with Reford Bond, under the firm name of Bond & Melton. This professional associa- tion has been continued during the intervening years and in 1909 Mr. Melton's younger brother, Adrian, was admitted to the firm, the title of which has since been Bond, Melton & Melton. In point of consecutive years of practice, as well as in the volume and importance of its law business, this well known firm now takes unmistakable precedence over all others in Grady County,

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and Mr. Melton has long been known as a trial lawyer of special versatility and resourcefulness and as a coun- selor thoroughly fortified in the science of jurisprudence, of which he has continued a close and appreciative student, the extensive law library of the firm being one of the best in this part of the state.

In 1900, at the time of the incorporation of Chickasha as a city, Mr. Melton was elected city attorney, and as such he was largely instrumental in framing the basic ordinances and incidental laws of the new municipality.

Mr. Melton has been a dominating force in connection with the councils and campaign maneuvers of the demo- cratic party in Oklahoma and incidental to the primary election in 1914 he had charge of the campaign of the Hon. Mr. Williams, the present governor of the state. His special facility and discrimination in the directing and controlling of political forces led to his election to the office of chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee of Oklahoma in 1915.

Mr. Melton is actively identified with the Oklahoma State Bar Association and the Grady County Bar Asso- ciation, of which latter organization he was elected presi- dent for the current year of 1914-15. He was the second incumbent of the office of exalted ruled of Chickasha Lodge, No. 755, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he is a charter member, and he is a charter member also, as well as a director, of the Chickasha Country Club. His attractive and modern residence, owned by him, is at the corner of Twentieth and Georgia streets.

In the year 1909 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Melton to Miss Cora Hamilton, daughter of M. A. Hamilton, a representative citizen of Chickasha, and the one child of this union is a daughter, Ruth.

RALPH V. SMITH, M. D. For the past fifteen years Doctor Smith has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Oklahoma and he has gained secure van- tage-place as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of the state in which he established his resi- dence in the territorial regime. Realizing the consist- ency and value of concentration in his profession, he now gives virtually his entire attention to the surgical branch of the same. His success in this department of practice has been pronounced and unequivocal and as a specialist in surgery he controls a substantial and representative practice, with residence and. professional headquarters in the vigorous and thriving City of Tulsa, the metropolis and judicial center of the county of the same name. The doctor is known as a man of high pro- fessional attainments and as one who is punctilious in the observance of the ethics of his chosen calling, which he honors alike by his character and efficient services.

On the old homestead farm of his paternal grandfather, in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, Doctor Smith was born on the 23d of January, 1871, and he is a son of Dr. Henry L. and Rebecca (Mohney) Smith. His father was born on the same old homestead farm as was he himself, and was a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of the historic old Buckeye state. Dr. Henry L. Smith was born November 16, 1845, and his death occurred at Guthrie, Oklahoma, November 16, 1898, his wife having been born in Clarion County, Pennsyl- vania, in 1847, and being now a resident of Kansas City, Missouri. Of their four children three are living: Maude is the wife of James E. Ball, of Kansas City; Dr. Ralph V. was the second in order of birth; Clyde C. died at the age of nineteen years; and Samuel M. is a resident of Guthrie, Oklahoma.

Dr. Henry L. Smith was reared and educated in his native state, and in Columbus, Ohio, he was graduated in the Columbus Medical College, as a member of the

class of 1878. After thus receiving his degree of Doctor of Medicine he engaged in the practice of his protes- sion at Kelly Station, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, where he remained until 1885, when he removed with his family to Potwin, Butler County, Kansas, which locality continued to be the stage of his professional endeavors until the opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement, in April, 1889, when he participated in the historic "run, " as it is commonly designated, and established his residence at Guthrie, the capital of the new terri- tory, where he became the pioneer physician and surgeon of that section of the present State of Oklahoma. As an able and popular representative of his exacting profession the demands placed upon him were instant and multitarious, with the result that he built up a very large and important practice, his earnest and unselfish labors in his profession having there con- tinued until the close of his noble and useful life and his death having been deeply lamented in the com- munity in which he took up his abode the year prior to the formal organization of Oklahoma Territory. He was prominently concerned in the organization and de- velopment of the Oklahoma Territory Medical Associa- tion, which formed the nucleus of the present Oklahoma State Medical Association. He was a charter member of Guthrie Lodge, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, and in politics was unswerving in his allegiance to the democratic party.

Dr. Ralph V. Smith was seven years old at the time of the family removal from the old homestead to Kelly Station, Pennsylvania, where he acquired his rudimentary education in the public schools. He was fourteen years of age when he accompanied his parents on their removal to Kansas, where he continued his studies in the public. schools and later attended the Kansas State Normal School at Emporia. That he had made good use of the educational advantages afforded him in his youth is shown by the fact that when he was but sixteen years of age he became a successful teacher in a district school in Butler County, Kansas. Through the devotion of three years to the pedagogic profession he was enabled largely to defray the expenses of his course of study in the State Normal School. Coming with his parents to Oklahoma Territory as a young man of eighteen years, he was thereafter employed about one year in the Guthrie National Bank. For the ensuing two years he was identified with the fuel contracting department of one of the railroads operating through Oklahoma, and then, in 1895, in consonance with his ambitious pur- pose and well defined plans, he entered the Missouri Medical College, now the medical department of Wash- ington University, in the metropolis of Missouri, and in this institution he was graduated, cum laude, as a member of the class of 1898 and with the coveted de- gree of Doctor of Medicine. He forthwith returned to Guthrie and became associated in practice with his father, whose death occurred about nine months later, and his ability and personality thereafter enabled him to retain the major part of the large practice controlled by his honored father and also to add materially to his clientage. He was engaged in general practice until 1909, since which time he has specialized in the surgical branch of his profession. The doctor continued his activities in the City of Guthrie until May, 1914, when he found a broader field of endeavor by establishing his residence at Tulsa, where continued and noteworthy success as a surgeon attests his splendid technical equipment, his close application and his personal popular- ity. For a period of four years Doctor Smith was chief surgeon of the Guthrie Hospital, besides having served as consulting surgeon for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company during several years of his resi-

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

ctor fes- nia, his lity For'S lence at Guthrie and also as local surgeon for the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad and the Fort Smith & Western Railroad. Since 1911 he has given most effective and valued service as assistant professor of surgery in the medical department of the University of Oklahoma, his close study and research bringing him practical familiar- ity in the advances made in both branches of his pro- ent, orie hed rri- and of fession and giving him place as one of the essentially representative members of the same in Oklahoma. The doctor holds membership in the Tulsa County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Association, the Southwestern Medical Association, and the American of Medical Association. In July, 1915, he was elected sec- im retary of the Oklahoma State Board of Medical Exam- iners.

In politics Doctor Smith is aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party and as a citizen he is progressive, liberal and public-spirited. He is affiliated with Guthrie Lodge, No. 436, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and in the Masonic frater- hity he has received the eighteenth degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his ancient craft affiliation being with Albert Pike Lodge, No. 160, Ancient Free & Ac- repted Masons, at Guthrie.

On the 28th of December, 1893, was solemnized the ns ¡marriage of Doctor Smith to Miss Eva A. Cross, who the was born and reared in Kansas, and the two children of this union are Ethel Maude, and Thelnia.

COLLINS C. WILLIAMS. The law department of the ary ars University of Oklahoma in recent years has graduated some of the most successful lawyers of the state, and ral probably none has found himself more admirably adapted lie to the profession than has Collins C. Williams, of Ada, al for he has been unusually successful financially and in he the hold he has gained in the profession. Legal talent isis a characteristic of, the family. Mr. Williams' brother, ars Robert L. Williams, was a member of the Oklahoma Dol Constitutional Committee and the first chief justice of of the Supreme Court of the new state, and in 1914 was lected its third chief executive. The ambition to amount to something in the public service and leave the best mark of a high calling has been of most con- sequence for a number of years in Governor Williams, and he had the same ambition for his brother, whom he took up from a small town in Alabama and educated in legal and literary work.

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Collins C. Williams was born in Alabama, in 1891, and is a son of Jonathan and Sarah (Paul) Williams. The family is one of the best known among pioneer resi-

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dents of Alabama. Mr. Williams' paternal grandfather was a pioneer Methodist preacher of Pike County, and so extended became the family interests that it had its own church and burying ground iu that county. Mr. Wil- liams secured his primary education in the public is schools of Alabama, after which he attended the South- ern University, at Greensboro, Alabama. He came to

r, Oklahoma in 1909, and the following year entered the University of Oklahoma. In 1912 he graduated from d to that institution with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and that year completed two years of the institution 's al law course. He was admitted to the bar in 1912, and is established himself at Ada for the practice of law, forming a partnership, after practicing for a while, g with J. W. Dean. Later he became junior member of the firm of Crawford, Bolen & Williams, and with that y al firm remains.

As a student at the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Wil- - f liams took a lively interest in oratory and debatiug and delivered a number of addresses that show his character d as a student and public speaker. He represented the University of Oklahoma in an interstate debate with the

University of Colorado, at Boulder, Colorado, iu 1912, and won the debate. In a contest that year held to select the Oklahoma team for the Missouri Valley de- bate, Mr. Williams was defeated by Streeter Speakman, who afterwards became county attorney for Lincoln County, Oklahoma. Mr. Williams is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega college fraternity and the Pon- totoc County and Oklahoma Bar associations, and holds membership also in the Young Men's Democratic League of Oklahoma, of which he was one of the founders and for which he assisted in writing the constitution. Mr. Williams' religious connection is with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, while his fraternal affiliations include membership in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Loyal Order of Moose. His residence is at Ada.

DR. JOHN G. SHARP. The settlement of the great West is one of the most romantic chapters in the history of this country and is full of interesting events, many of which have happened within comparatively recent years. This is especially true of the young and flourishing State of Oklahoma, which at no distant date was occupied almost entirely by the Indian nations, the few white men being chiefly adventurers who roamed from place to place, hav- ing no abiding interest in the land. The advent of the white man caused a change in all the material condi- tions, but even then the first permanent settlers had many interesting experiences, sometimes not devoid of danger. Probably Indian characteristics were revealed more clearly to the white doctors who first practiced among them than to any other class of white emigrants, as the doctor, from the nature of his profession, came into closer personal contact with the red man. One of these early medical practitioners was Dr. John G. Sharp, who for seventeen years followed his profession in the Chickasaw country and can relate many interesting anec- dotes of his Indian patients.

Doctor Sharp was born in Wood County, Texas, in 1871, a son of John and Mary (Coker) Sharp. His pater- nal grandfather died while en route to Texas from Ala- bama. The Rev. E. G. Sharp, a missionary Baptist preacher at Mineola, Texas, who has been in the min- istry in Texas since 1861, is an uncle of Doctor Sharp. John Sharp, the Doctor's father, was born in Alabama and became a pioneer settler of Wood County, Texas, buying there 1,000 acres of fine timbered land at one dollar an acre. The country was then unsettled and unfenced and he and others of the family made expedi- tions over a large area of that region. Where the City of Greenville now stands-a city having a population of about 9,000 people-they were offered land at seventy- five cents an acre. The elder Sharp helped to survey and cut the principal road between Quinton, Wood County, and Sulphur Springs, Hopkins, County, Texas.

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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