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 4

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 4

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Mr. Pyle was born at Bristol, Washington County, Virginia, on the 25th of June, 1882, and is a scion of a family that was founded in America in the colonial era of our national history and one that was influential in gaining to America the boon of liberty and inde- pendence. After leaving the public schools T. Myron Pyle, who is a son of Robert and Mary (Ledbetter) Pyle, still honored citizens of Virginia, pursued higher academic studies at Kings College, in his native town, later attending Shenandoah Valley Academy, at Win- chester, Virginia, and finally entering the law depart- ment of the celebrated old University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1909 and from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws, with virtually concomitant admission to the bar of his native state. At the uni- versity he became affiliated with the Delta Chi frater- nity, served as judge of the Moot Court and was actively identified with collegiate athletics. Prior to completing his university studies Mr. Pyle had passed three years, 1904-07, on a ranch near Longmont, Colo- rado, where he gained practical experience as a cowboy, enjoyed to the full the free and vigorous life in the open, and became imbued with a deep appreciation of lie manifold advantages and attractions of the West.

Admitted to the bar on the 4th of January, 1909, Mr. Pyle served his professional novitiate as an associate u practice with C. W. Fourl, at Charlottesville, Virginia, out in 1910 he established his residence in Oklahoma, where he has since made an excellent record for success- 'ul work in his profession. In 1912 he formed a pro- 'essional partnership with George W. Fry, under the irm name of Pyle & Fry, and the firm built up a sub- tantial general practice in Oklahoma City. Mr. Pyle las been a zealous and effective worker in behalf of the

cause of the democratic party during the years of his residence in Oklahoma, and in 1914 he was a candidate on the party ticket for the office of county judge of Oklahoma County, but was defeated in the primary elec- tion. In the autumn of the same year he was appointed by Revenue Inspector H. L. Bolen to his present office, that of chief deputy collector of internal revenue, the duties of which position now demand the major part of his time and attention. As a stalwart in the ranks of the democratic party Mr. Pyle has held influential position in the Oklahoma County committee of the party, as well as the city committee of Oklahoma City. He is actively identified with the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, and in the capital city he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with Siloam Lodge No. 136, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He is a popular and appreciative member of the Oklahoma County Bar Association and the Oklahoma State Bar Association.

In April, 1910, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Pyle to Miss Ruth Hidy, of Charlottesville, Virginia, and their one child is T. Myron, Jr. Mr. Pyle has one brother and two sisters-Robert O. is a successful con- tractor in the City of New Orleans, Louisiana; Mrs. Phil S. Lansdale resides in the City of Chicago, Illinois, where her husband is a physician and surgeon; and Miss Gertrude now maintains her home in Longmont, Colorado.

JOHN M. CLOVER. Pennsylvania may consistently be

. termed the mother state of the petroleum industry and within the borders of that historic old commonwealth have been trained many of the men who have become prominent and influential in connection with the develop- ment of the oil and gas fields in the newer fields. In Pennsylvania Mr. Clover gained his initial experience in the oil industry when a mere lad, and he has put this experience into effective use in the Tulsa oil fields of Oklahoma, to which district he came while this sec- tion was still a part of Indian Territory. He maintains his residence in the City of Tulsa, with business offi- ces at 301-303 Unity Building, and is successfully con- cerned with contracting and producing operations in the Tulsa oil fields, the while he stands forth also as one of the liberal and progressive citizens of this favored section of the state.

Mr. Clover was born at Venango County, Pennsyl- vania, on the 11th of October, 1874, and is a son of Henry B. and Agnes E. (Neeley) Clover, the former of whom was born in Venango County, Pennsylvania, in 1830, and the latter in Clarion County, that state, in 1843. The father died in 1904, and the mother still maintains her home in Ohio. Of the seven children all but one still survive.

The public schools of Mountainville, Venango County, Pennsylvania, afforded to John M. Clover the advantages through which he laid the foundation for the broad and practical education which he has since rounded out in connection with his association with men and affairs. When bnt thirteen years of age he found employment in the operation of pumping machinery at the oil wells of Pennsylvania, and later he was engaged in drilling wells. In his native state he finally became superintend- ent of oil leases and at the age of twenty-six he engaged in contracting in the Pennsylvania oil fields. In 1901 he became one of the organizers of the Ioua Drilling Com- pany, and of the same he has been president from the time of its incorporation. This company initiated opera- tions in the oil fields of Kansas and Oklahoma, and in 1903 Mr. Clover removed from Ohio to Independence, Kansas, where lie was engaged in oil producing until 1907, when he sold his business in that state and estab-

er. to

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

lished his residence in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had come to the Tulsa oil fields in 1904 and instituted operations. Upon locating at Tulsa in 1907 he organized the Iron Mountain Oil Company, of which he has since been presi- dent and which has developed a substantial business in producing oil. Mr. Clover is an adept in all details of the oil industry and his long and varied experience makes his dictum authoritative in this connection. He accompanied his parents on their removal to Ohio and was identified with oil operations in that state prior to his removal to the West.

Mr. Clover is independent in politics and gives his support to men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment. At St. Mary's, Ohio, he still retains affiliation with Mercer Lodge, No. 121, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; at Independence, Kansas, he holds membership in Independence Chapter, Royal Arch Ma- sons, and Independence Commandery, Knights Templars ; and at Fort Scott, that state, he is affiliated with and has received the thirty-second degree in the consistory of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. At Tulsa he is a member of Akdar Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and Tulsa Lodge, No. 946, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, besides which he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

On the 11th of April, 1903, Mr. Clover wedded Miss Golda Ransbottom, who was born in Allen County, Ohio, and they have three sons,-Jack, Edward and Harold.

WASHINGTON E. HUDSON. The State of Oklahoma lias been signally favored in calling to her standard men of high professional attainments, sterling character and great civic loyalty in making up the personnel of the bench and bar of this vigorous new commonwealth, and he whose name initiates this paragraph had achieved splendid success and prestige in his profession prior to coming to Oklahoma, where he has found ample oppor- tunities for broadening the scope and importance of his achievement and where he has impregnable vantage- ground as one of the really representative members of the Oklahoma bar. He has been in a significant sense the artificer of his own fortunes, has overcome many seem- ingly insuperable obstacles in pressing forward to the goal of his ambition, and aside from the work of his chosen vocation he has proved himself a most loyal and progressive citizen, his place in popular confidence and esteem being indicated in his election as representative of Tulsa County, one of the most important in the state, to the Fifth Oklahoma Legislature, in which he has made a record of service that fully justified the preferment thus accorded him. He is engaged in the general practice of law in the City of Tulsa and is an influential figure in the ranks of the local contingent of the democratic party.

At an historical spot known as Neeley's Bend, in Davidson County, Tennessee, Washington E. Hudson was born on the 8th of October, 1868, and he thus came into the world only a short time after the close of the Civil war, which had brought disaster and untold depression to his native state and other commonwealths of the South. He is a scion of a family that was founded in America in the colonial era of our national history, the original progenitor of the Hudson line having immi- grated from England and representatives of the name having been patriot soldiers in the Continental line in the War of the Revolution. Mr. Hudson is a son of Horatio and Nannie Hudson, who were natives of Kentucky and who were numbered among the first settlers at Neeley's Bend, Tennessee, where the father died in 1882, leaving his widow and three children, of whom Washington E., of this review, was the eldest, his age at the time hav- ing been fourteen years. The mother eventually con- tracted a second marriage and of the children of the first

union Washington E. is now the only survivor, his brother, Isaac, having died at the age of twenty-seven years, and his sister, Mary, at the age of twenty-five years. The mother's death occurred in 1911, and the only surviving child of her second marriage is Mrs. Herbert Talbot, a resident of Guthrie, Kentucky.

A lad of fourteen years at the time of his father's death, Washington E. Hudson early gained fellowship with measurable adversity and was called upon to assume heavy responsibilities, especially in connection with the work and management of the homestead farm, which was somewhat encumbered with debt. He was ambitious to acquire an education, but laudable as this desire was he made the same secondary to the duty which devolved upon him in aiding his widowed mother and the two younger children, and his first strenuous work was to pay the financial obligations which his father had left. After this end had been achieved he entered the Woolwine Training School at Nashville, Tennessee, and after there continuing his studies one year he was matriculated in the South Kentucky College, at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in which he completed the regular four years' course in two years and in which he graduated on the 8th of June, 1890, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. At the Van- derbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, he became actively affiliated with the Sigma Epsilon Alpha frater- nity. Soon after graduation Mr. Hudson entered the office of George K. Whitworth, clerk of the chancery court at Nashville, Tennessee, where later he began the study of law in the office of the firm of De Moss & Malone. In the following autumn he entered the law department of Vanderbilt University, in the same city, and his assiduity and remarkable mental powers enabled him to complete in one year a prescribed curriculum that ordinarily demanded three years of application. He was graduated in June, 1892, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and, which is virtually attendant, admission to the bar of his native state.

Mr. Hudson served his professional novitiate in Nash- ville and the same was of brief duration, as he soon proved his powers as a trial lawyer and able counselor and made substantial headway in his practice, besides gaining reputation as an effective public speaker. Two of his public addresses and his acknowledged professional talent brought him to the attention of Robert Vaughn, the district attorney, in whose office he was appointed an assistant-a position which he retained seven years and in which he gained most valuable experience in all phases of legal work. Incidentally he received from the Su- preme Court of Tennessee the compliment of being declared the ablest indictment draftsman in the state, this tribute finding ample justification when it is stated that during his seven years of service as an assistant to the district attorney not a single error was found in an indictment drawn by him. He resigned his position in the public service in 1902, the year when he came to Oklahoma Territory.

In May, 1902, Mr. Hudson established his residence at Lawton, the present judicial center of Comanche County, this state, where he was engaged in the practice of law until 1907 and where he was most influential in effecting the organization of the forces of the democratic party in the section that had been formerly the Kiowa and Co- manche Indian Reservation which had been opened to settlement in 1901.

In 1907, the year that marked the admission of the State of Oklahoma to the Union, Mr. Hudson removed to Frederick, the county seat of Tillman County, and there he found the stage of his successful professional activities until his removal to the City of Tulsa, in 1912. He has gained in this important oil and gas district of the state a foremost position at the bar and also as a

W Hudson

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

zealous worker in the furtherance of industrial and civic progress. In 1914, without having made a personal can- vass or campaign, Mr. Hudson was elected representative of Tulsa County in the lower house of the State Legisla- ture, opposing factions of the democratic party in the county having united to compass his nomination and election. In the Fifth Legislature he became one of the leading candidates for the position of speaker of the House, but before the end of the contest he withdrew in favor of Hon. Alexander McCrory, who was elected. He was appointed chairman of the committee on oil and gas, and was the author of several bills that were designed to remedy many untoward and unjust conditions existing in the oil and gas belt. As an earnest supporter of the administration of Governor Williams, he did his part in fostering legislation insuring retrenchment and reform.

Mr. Hudson was selected by the Legislature as one of three, to draw articles of impeachment against A. P. Watson, one of the corporation commissioners of the State of Oklahoma.

After the impeachment articles were presented to the House of Representatives, then Mr. Hudson was selected as one of the prosecutors of Mr. Watson.

This Watson case made history in the new State of Oklahoma, and he was ably defended by a firm of able lawyers and they resorted to every possible and honorable means to acquit him, but under the splendid management of Mr. Hudson, together with his colleagues, C. L. Pinkham and Judge Dickinson, Mr. Watson was impeached under several of the impeachment charges.

It was practically left to Mr. Hudson to sum up the evidence in the case and it is the consensus of opinion of all who heard his speech that it was one of the most powerful and brilliant speeches ever made in the State of Oklahoma.

Mr. Hudson is identified actively with the Tulsa County Bar Association and the Oklahoma State Bar Association. He is a valued member of the Tulsa Chamber of Com- merce and is president of the Workman Oil & Gas Com- pany, which has important mineral holdings in the eastern part of the state and which is instituting the development of these properties. Mr. Hudson is a charter member of the lodge of Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks in the City of Nashville, Tennessee, and in Tulsa he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

At Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on the 8th of May, 1894, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Hudson to Miss Annie . Dade, whose father was a scion of an old and distin- guished family of Virginia, that gracious cradle of much of our national history. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson have two children, Bessie and Robert, aged respectively eighteen and fifteen years, in 1915.

HON. CHARLES B. STUART, one of the most prominent members of the Oklahoma bar, is a native of Virginia, born April 4, 1858, near the Town of Boydton, in Meck- linberg County, the original seat of Randolph-Macon College. His paternal grandparents, John Stuart and Lucy Horne, were of Scotch-Irish descent, and came from England to Virginia. His maternal grandparents were Edward Toone and Mary Wilson, both natives of Scot- land, who came to America. His father, John W. Stuart, with an elder brother, Charles B. Stuart, after whom the subject of this sketch was named, were educators and professors in the State of Virginia, whence they removed to Louisiana about 1860, locating at Mansfield, where the Methodist State College is located, and became respectively president and manager of that institution, of which they had charge about twenty years. Young Stuart attended the state schools of Louisiana until 1873, when his father died. His widowed mother and his uncle removed to Texas, but he returned to his native state,

and received his academic education at Randolph-Macon College, which had then been removed from Boydton to Ashland. Having pursued a course in the study of law, he was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession at Marshall, Texas, where he was assistant attorney of the Texas-Pacific Railway Company. After- ward he removed to Gainesville, Texas, and in 1903 be- came a citizen of Oklahoma, when he was appointed by President Cleveland as United States Judge for the Indian Territory, being the second incumbent of that position. In Gainesville, Texas, he attained great prom- inence and success in his profession, being successively the head of various law firms which included as associates Joseph W. Bailey, afterward member of Congress and United States senator; Yancey Lewis, subsequently judge of the United States Court for the Central District of the Indian Territory, professor of law and dean of the law department of the University of Texas; J. L. Harris, who founded a law firm in Dallas, Texas, and acquired great reputation and an immense practice. The eldest brother of Judge Stuart, John E. Stuart, was taken very ill at Marshall, Texas, in 1883, and on February 3d of that year, another Brother, G. W. Stuart, sent a telegram from Waco to Charles B. Stuart announcing the serious illness of their brother and asking him to come on the first train. This telegram was not delivered until some time after the brother was buried. Charles B. Stuart informed the telegraph authorities that if they would discharge the employees who were at fault in the delay he would not bring suit, that he intended to punish those that were responsible in some way for the wrong. At this time he had not been long in practice, and some of the ablest lawyers of the State of Texas advised him that he could not recover, and endeavored to dissuade him from bringing the suit. However, he persisted in his determination, brought action in the District Court of Harrison County, Texas, and won his case, thus estab- lishing a precedent which has ever been followed in the State of Texas, and in several other American states, some of which have adopted statutes, and others have established the principle by virtue of decisions. Speak- ing of this decision Judge Stuart said: "The doctrine announced in this decision may not be the better and the sounder one, but to say the least it is the more humane and more in accord with a high conception of concrete justice." Judge Stuart obtained several other decisions which have become established precedents, and in his subsequent career upon the bench made decisions which are today the recognized authority in similar cases. In the case of a railroad company against a citizen in Texas he was leading counsellor, and succeeded in estab- lishing the doctrine in that state that in case of a physical interference with any right, public or private, which the owners or occupants of the property are entitled by law to make use of in connection with such property, even though it gives an additional market value, the owner or occupant is entitled to a compensation if by reason of such interference the property, as property, is lessened in value even though no property is actually taken. In another pioneer case not only in Texas, but almost in American jurisprudence, wherein the principle is an- nounced that when insolvent merchants, for the purpose of maintaining their credit, make false statements to a commercial agency as to their financial ability and con- dition, expecting their statements to be circulated and acted upon, and having by means thereof made a pur- chase of goods, the seller discovering the fraud can re- claim his goods, even against an attachment levied by other creditors upon them. This is a familiar doctrine now in practically every state. Judge Stuart was leading counsel for the side in that case that contended for this rule. In 1893 Mr. Stuart was appointed United States

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Judge for the Indian Territory, and two years later an act of Congress created three judicial districts in the Indian Territory, upon which Judge Stuart became Judge of the Central District of the Territory, and First Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals of the Territory. Within a few months thereafter he re- signed his position on the bench to become general at- torney for the C. O. & G. Railway Company, and continued in this position until the railroad was acquired by the Rock Island System, aud was thereafter special attorney for that system in the Indian Territory and Arkansas, until he resigned in 1907. As judge he was called upon to decide many important and anomalous questions. In one of these cases the Choctaw sheriff levied upon and proposed to sell certain brick buildings in the City of South McAlester on the ground that the owner was a non-citizen and not entitled to construct or own improve- ments, even within towns, on the Choctaw Reservation. Under Judge Stuart's decision the sheriff was restrained from selling this property, and the decision had great influence in paving the way for the building and popula- tion of towns within the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. In this case there were no precedents, but Judge Stuart mnet the exigency with the same fortitude, learning, dis- crimination and courage which distinguished his predeces- sors in the growth of the English law. Judge Stuart was the second president of the Indian Territory Bar Asso- ciation, and the first president of the Oklahoma Bar Association, which was formed by the consolidation of the two associations when the territories were admitted as a state. He has continued in practice with remarkable success, and his firm probably represents more coal com- panies than any other in the state, besides conducting a very large general practice. His contemporary, Hon. R. L. Williams, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, said of him: "While his career on the bench was creditable, marked with integrity and characterized by ability, yet if we were called upon to say in what field he signally excels, we would say that it was in the forum, rather than on the bench. In the realm of thought, in incisive, logical and concise discrimination, with such a magnetic and persuasive power as to overwhelm others and induce them to agree with him, he has no superior, and but few equals. He is one of the greatest lawyers of the Southwest within our acquaintance; he probably has no superior as an advocate in the trial of a case, at the same time having very few, if any, superiors as an all- . around attorney. Born in an environment of education and culture; endowed by nature with a masterful, logical mind, when thrown into coutest with the great lawyers of the country, he has no reason to acknowledge any superior. Not only is he great in the civil branch of the law, but in the criminal trials. The accused who is so fortunate as to retain his services in his behalf has occa- sion for a renewal of hope that he may escape the pains and penalties of the law. Courteous, logical, concise, forceful, discriminating, masterful and eloquent, possess- ing not only a comprehensive knowledge of all its branches, but with a wonderful perception also of the probative force of testimony, he stands in the forum like Saul of old, commanding the admiration of all. Socially a prince, ethically to be emulated-long after he has passed from this earthly home-he will be ad- mired by those who come after him."'

WILLIAM TILGHMAN. Old Indian Territory and early Oklahoma gained an unenviable notoriety as the head- quarters for some of the most famous bands of outlaws known in the history of crime. While the passing of the outlaw has been observed with relief by every industrious and law-abiding citizen, there were one or two features about the reign of the outlaw which served to illuminate

an otherwise unpleasant picture. Pitted against th train robbers, cattle thieves, and ruffians of every type were the officials of law and justice, comprising a grou] of men probably never excelled for resourcefulness, per sonal courage, coolness and promptness in times o emergency, and whose skill finally purged Oklahoma fron its stains of crime and border desperadoism. One o the most notable of these figures was William Tilghman who spent nineteen years as a deputy United State marshal, and is now living retired in Oklahoma City.

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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