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 45
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M. W. PEARL, A, B., A. M. Among the highly educated and practical teachers of Oklahoma should be numbered the mathematics teacher of the Oklahoma City High School, M. W. Pearl, a man whose tenacity of purpose and well directed energy brought him through vicissitudes of financial embarrassment in his early years and crowned him with two college degrees. He is a scholar as well as teacher and has done much original research in the field of psychology.
Born at Dixon, Illinois, June 22, 1875, he is a son of James M. and Mary E. Pearl. His father in early life was a carpenter, but later became a farmer. The paternal ancestry has participated in all wars in which the United States has been engaged back to the revolution, and Mr. Pearl himself is a veteran of the Spanish-American conflict. His mother, who was born at Portland, Maine, and graduated from the Dixon Normal at Dixon, Illinois, was a woman of remarkable intellect, and after gradu- ating from a medical college in San Francisco, Cali- fornia, was for twenty years a practicing physician in that city. Mr. Pearl has one brother, Byron W. Pearl, now engaged in farming near Muskogee, Oklahoma.
His high school education was obtained in the public schools of San Francisco. In 1893 he graduated from high school, and a number of years later won the degree Bachelor of Arts from the Iowa State Teachers' College. His degree, Master of Arts, was awarded by the Univer- sity of Oklahoma in 1913. His professional career began in 1894, and for three years he was assistant to the prin- cipal of the Lincoln High School in San Francisco. In his high school graduating class he stood eighth and was among those permitted under the law to teach in the public schools with a high school diploma as a substitute for a teacher's certificate. On being given a choice of positions as teacher, he chose mathematics, a subject in which he has extensively specialized. Later for three years he was superintendent of schools at McCallsburg, Iowa, and for one year superintendent at Gilbert, Iowa. After removing to Oklahoma, he was for several years a resident in Garfield County, and while there was defeated by only a narrow margin as candidate for county superintendent of schools. In 1913 he was elected superintendent of schools at Walter, Oklahoma, and the following year was re-elected, but was compelled to secure the abrogation of his contract on account of the ill health of his wife, which made it necessary for both of
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them to seek the climate of Colorado. Returning to Oklahoma in 1914 Mr. Pearl was chosen assistant superin- tendent of the Harrah public schools. While teaching in Iowa he served several times as president of the Teachers' Association and has always taken an active interest in educational association work. While superintendent of schools at MeCallsburg, he served a term as mayor, and in that time conducted and won a notable campaign against local vice and corruption. It was from Iowa that Mr. Pearl went into the army during the Spanish- American war. He enlisted April 25, 1898, and was with the Seventh Army Corps in Cuba until mustered out May 13, 1899. He served under Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, and in the same corps were Col. William J. Bryan and Col. Theodore Roosevelt.
At Pontiac, Illinois, September 3, 1903, Mr. Pearl married Miss Musetta M. Markland. Mrs. Pearl is a finished musician, being a graduate of four well known conservatories, and also has the distinction of being the first woman to finish the course of the law department of the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 1915. Prior to her graduation she had been admitted to the Oklahoma bar, and in 1915 took up regular practice in Oklahoma City, where she still is practicing. Mrs. Pearl is a graduate of the State Normal School at Bloomington, Illinois, and for ten years prior to her marriage was a successful public school teacher. She belongs to a prom- inent family, and one of her relatives was governor of Ohio.
Mr. Pearl is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and has affiliations with the Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges. He belongs to the Oklahoma County Teachers' Association and the Oklahoma Educational Association. As a student of psychology he has pursued his investiga- tions for a number of years and eventually expects to obtain a higher degree with a thesis on that subject. This thesis he designs as the basis of a text book which he hopes to publish. Mr. and Mrs. Pearl reside at 2408 South Harvey Street, in Oklahoma City.
CHARLES D. FERGUSON, M. D. As specialists in diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat probably no firm of medical practitioners in Oklahoma enjoys a better repu- tation and a larger practice than that of Ferguson and Ferguson. These are two capable physicians, both men of broad experience in general as well as in special fields of practice, with fine endowment of natural ability and broad and liberal training both in America and abroad. Dr. Charles D. Ferguson is the junior member of the firm, and joined his brother in practice at Oklahoma City in 1907.
Charles D. Ferguson was born at Port Stanley, Ontario, in 1874, a son of Dugald and Sarah (Shearer) Ferguson. His father was born in Canada of Scotch parents and his mother was a native of Pennsylvania. The Fergu- sons were pioneers in Western Ontario, having come from Argyleshire, Scotland. Dugald Ferguson was reared in Ontario, and spent his entire active career as a progres- sive farmer.
Dr. Ferguson attended the public schools of Port Stanley and the collegiate institute at St. Thomas, On- tario. In 1901 he was graduated M. B. from the Uni- versity of Toronto, and with this equipment he came to the United States and began practice at Cameron, Texas. That was his home for about six months, following which for about two years he was house surgeon for the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Hospital at Temple, Texas. For three and a half years he did a general practice at Silsbee, Texas. Like his brother, Doctor Ferguson was early led to specialize in practice, and in 1907 gave up his business in Texas in order to take post-graduate work for six months at the Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat
Infirmary at Chicago, and in the New Orleans Post- Graduate Hospital. In 1910 he again interrupted his practice in order to pursue his studies and observations in the Royal Ophthalmic Hospital in London, England. Doctor Ferguson joined his brother, Edward S., at Okla- homa City, and together they have confined their atten- tion to their specialty in diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat.
Doctor Ferguson is a member of the Oklahoma State and County Medical societies and the American Medical Association. He is affiliated with the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club and the Oklahoma City Men's Dinner Club. In June, 1910, he married Miss Maud Munson. Her father is William B. Munson of Denison, Texas, one of the most prominent men in the northern part of that state, long identified with the real-estate business and also a banker at Denison. Doctor Ferguson and wife, who have no children, reside at 309 West 16th Street. His offices are in the State National Bank Building.
EUEL MOORE. The possibility of a successful future in the forthcoming State of Oklahoma, and the inspira- tion of his teacher, who afterwards became successful in law, led Euel Moore to complete his education in the University of Texas, after graduating from the high school at Clarksville, Texas, in 1904. The tentative plans of preceding years were completed in the year 1912, when Mr. Moore came to Coalgate, Oklahoma, and en- tered into partnership with George Trice, the friendship and strong attachment for whom had been formed while the latter was a teacher in the public school at Bagwell, Red River County, Texas. The firm has prospered in the new state and its members rank among the repre- sentative lawyers of the southeastern section of the com- monwealth.
Euel Moore was born in Jackson County, Alabama, November 2, 1884, and is a son of Charles H. and Mary (Stephens) Moore, both of whom are yet living, in Red River County, Texas. The paternal ancestry is of Eng- lish origin and the generations whose lives have been passed in America have been men of thrift and intellect, the greater number having been engaged in the field of agriculture, although they have also contributed to the professions and to the marts of trade and commerce. The paternal grandfather of Mr. Moore was a soldier in the Confederate army during the war between the North and the South. His paternal grandmother sprang from a stock of Holland Dutch and on his mother's side there was a predominancy of Scotch and English. Rep- resentatives of both sides of the house came to America shortly after the close of the War of the Revolution.
Mr. Moore's fundamental education was obtained in the public schools of Red River County, Texas, and the high school at Clarksville, in that state. After complet- ing the course of study at the latter school, in 1905 he entered the University of Texas, completing the course in the law department in 1909. During the term of 1909- 10 the honor of quiz master was conferred upon him by the university. In 1909 he was admitted to the bar in Texas, but did not begin practice until he came to Coalgate in 1912 and entered into partnership with Mr. Trice. In the university he took an active interest in democratic politics, in view of the close association of that science with the profession of law, as well as in athletics. Having been reared on a farm, he was possessed of the physique and vigor of the successful athlete, yet he never permitted that subject to interfere with the serious study of those subjects more vital to the profession of his choice.
Mr. Moore's fraternal connection is with the Blue
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Lodge of the Masonic order at Coalgate. He is a val- ued member of the Coal County Bar Association and stands high in the esteem and confidence of his fellow- members in that body. Unlike many others, he did not cease to be a student when he left college halls, but has continued to apply himself closely to study of law and its many perplexities. While he has taken an active interest in matters pertaining to the public and commercial welfare of the city, he has not taken a leading or conspicuous part.
MONTY F. COTTINGHAM. The rural problem-i. e. the problem of maintaining in our farm and village com- munities a Christian civilization with modern American ideas of happiness, efficiency and progress-is the fun- damental question Prof. Monty F. Cottingham is assist- ing to solve by devoting his schoolroom time to its many angles. It is an established fact that the rural school is the foundation stone of our educational system, and it is therefore, to the rural school that the rural prob- lem must go. Character is taught both in the home and in the school, and it is character that Professor Cottingham seeks to implant in his students, feeling that this quality in the years to come will bring about the realization of the importance of a rural civilization.
For eight years Mr. Cottingham has given his time and energies to the teaching of rural schools in Texas and Oklahoma, and at the present time is superintendent of the Wade schools with four teachers under his direc- tion. During the summer months he attends the sum- mer school of the Southeastern State Normal School of Durant, in order to keep in touch with the educational brotherhood and to note the various advances constantly being made in the profession.
Monty F. Cottingham comes of pioneer Texas pa- rentage and was born in Collin County, Texas, at Gray- bill, January 28, 1887. His parents, P. and Theodosia (White) Cottinghamn, natives of Alabama and Texans for forty years, settled first in Red River County, Texas, where the father was engaged in farming until his re- moval to Collin County in the same state. There he also followed farming for many years, and won suc- cess through able management and constant industry. He married in Collin County Miss Theodosia White, and they became the parents of five children, as follows: Artie, who became the wife of Dr. L. W. Watkins, a practicing physician of Leonard, Texas; Nettie, who became the wife of John League, now of Albany, Okla- homa; Vernon, who is a resident of Eastern Texas; Monty F., of this review; and Oma, who is the wife of Guy Thompson of Leonard, Texas.
The paternal grandfather of Professor Cottingham was a soldier in the Confederate army with three of his sons. Professor Cottingham was educated in the common schools of Texas, and was graduated from the East Texas Normal College with the degree of Bachelor of Science in 1909. In securing his normal course, Mr. Cottingham taught school during the winter months in order that he might secure the means to pursue his studies in the summer, making a specialty of mathe- matics. Since he has been teaching, however, history has grown more important in his mind, and at present Oklahoma history occupies a foremost place among his favorite departments of research. Professor Cot- tingham came to Oklahoma in 1911, and immediately began to devote himself to the teaching of the rural youth. In 1914 he was elected to fill the superintend- ency of the Wade schools, and in 1915 was re-elected to succeed himself in that position. In his school career he has seen his salary advanced from $40 to $100 a
month. He is a general favorite with teachers, pupils and parents, and possesses not only that rare faculty of being able to impart his own broad knowledge to others, but has also executive and business ability of a high order. With such qualifications, he should rise much higher in his chosen vocation.
In 1906 Professor Cottingham was married to Miss Lorena Blankenship, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Blankenship, and to this union there have been born four children. In addition to his labors as an educator, Mr. Cottingham has also been busily engaged in minis- terial work, being a minister in the Missionary Baptist Church. He began to preach when only twenty years of age, and has preached in various communities, where he has always made a favorable impression, being a concise, convincing and forceful speaker. He is at pres- ent serving as clerk of the First Bryan County Baptist Association. As a politician, he is a stanch democrat, and uses his influence for the advancement of good citizenship and clean government.
WILLIAM GRANT ROGERS. One of the first men to interest themselves in the townsite of Dewey and since extensively engaged in farming and the real estate busi- ness at that place, William Grant Rogers has spent prac- tically all his life among the Cherokee people, and an eighth portion of his own blood is of that race. He has been one of the influential men in the old Cherokee Nation as he is also in the County of Washington. In the early days he served for two years as a posseman under Gratton and Robert Dalton when they were United States marshals at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and his work as a deputy helped to secure a large number of prisoners.
William Grant Rogers was born April 13, 1865, on Spring River, near Humboldt, on what was then known as the neutral land of Kansas. These lands were after- wards sold to the United States Government by the Cherokee Nation for what was known as "bread money."' Mr. Rogers was one of seven children born to Hilliard and Patsy (Fields) Rogers, the former a native of Georgia and the latter of Tennessee. His father was a government interpreter for the Cherokee Indians in Georgia, and had been educated partly in the Cherokee and partly in the English schools. When William G. was one year old the parents came into what is now Oklahoma, locating on Caney River, and three years later both parents died. Mr. Rogers was then taken to live with his sister, Mrs. N. F. Carr, and for four years was in the Cherokee Orphans' Home. This home was origi- nally the residence of Chief John Ross, and when Mr. Rogers was a student there its grounds comprised about three acres.
After leaving school he returned to Bartlesville and entered the employ of Mr. Carr as a cowboy. He drove cattle in those days all over the country, to the states of Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas, and even yet can rope a steer or break a horse like a professional. This was his principal work until he was twenty-six years of age, and since then he has been engaged in farming for himself. About 1908 he took up the hardware business at Dewey, and conducted the Rogers Hardware Company until he sold out in 1914 to R. V. Myers. Mr. Rogers has a forty-acre homestead or allotment, which in 1903 he platted and it is now Known as the Rogers Addition to Dewey. Mr. Rogers gave the first deed that was recorded in the Town of Dewey to R. P. Crawford, a ranchman of Washington County. His wife and five of the children have received allotments of eighty acres each on the Caney bottoms, and these children now have eighty acres of land as their share of the old tribal pos- sessions. Mr. Rogers now gives his time largely to the
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supervision of his farm and to dealing in real estate, with office at Dewey.
On May 21, 1891, Mr. Rogers married Lilly Washing- ton. a daughter of William and Eliza (Connor) Washing- ton, who were both Delaware Indians. Mrs. Rogers was born on Grand River in what was known as the Delaware District near Prairie City, May 30, 1875, and is the only daughter of her parents still living. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers have seven children: Lula May, who was born May 15, 1892, and still lives at home; William Emmett, who was born April 22, 1894, lives at Dewey, and by his marriage to Bessie Knight has one child, Patsy Bess, born in 1915; Rilla Blanche, born June 18, 1896, living at home; Eliza Jane, born December 22, 1898; Arthur Mavin, born May 18, 1903; Joseph, born December 29, 1905; and Dewey L., born December 28, 1908.
Mr. Rogers is a democrat, and was honored by elec- tion to the office of town treasurer of Dewey for one term, from 1908 to 1909. His wife and three of the daughters are members of the Baptist Church. All the daughters have a decided natural talent as musicians. Mr. Rogers is a first cousin to W. C. Rogers, prominent as chief of the Cherokee Nation.
AL BROWN. In the City of Tulsa not to know "Al" Brown is virtually to argue oneself unknown, and even as he is one of the most popular citizens of this thriving center of commercial and industrial activity, so also is he recognized as a representative business man and as one whose progressiveness and civic loyalty have caused him to make noteworthy contribution to the development and upbuilding of the city of his adoption. Mr. Brown was actively identified with commercial affairs for a long period and in the same made an admirable record, and in his individual and associate connection with the oil industry and other lines of productive enterprise he has achieved large success during the period of his resi- dence in Oklahoma. He is one of the aggressive and public-spirited citizens to whom it is most gratifying to give specific recognition in a publication of the province assigued to the one here presented.
Mr. Browu was born in the fine old Town of Bowling Green, the judicial center of Warren County, Kentucky, and the date of his nativity was July 23, 1876. He was the seventh in order of birth of a family of twelve chil- dren, of whom six are living, and is a son of James W. and Cecilia Honora (Chamagne) Brown, the former of whom was born in Ireland and the latter in France, and the marriage of whom was solemnized in the State of Kentucky. The father died in 1908, at the age of sixty- nine years, the devoted wife and mother having been summoned to eternal rest in 1900, when about sixty years of age.
James W. Brown was reared in his native land to the age of fourteen years and. there attended school with good results, this enabling him to lay a substantial foundation for the broader education which he was destined to receive under the preceptorship of that wisest of all headmasters, experience. At the age noted he came to the United States and disembarked in the City of New Orleans, where he was variously employed during the ensuing three years. He finally engaged in the handling of hoop-poles, and in this line of enterprise he eventually developed a large and profitable business. He purchased his stock at eligible points along the course of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and for the trans- portation of the same to his headquarters in New Orleans he operated a line of barges, his annual transac- tion having expanded in scope and importance until his business averaged from $150,000 to $200,000 a year. He continued his fruitful activities in this enterprise for
twelve or more years, and thus early in his residence in the United States he proved himself resourceful, ener- getic and purposeful, with the result that he became dis- tinctively successful, the while his sterling character gained to him the staunchest of friends. Prior to the Civil war he had made extensive investment in farm land in Warren County, Kentucky, and there he developed a large and prosperous enterprise as a substantial agricul- turist. He retained in his service a corps of about thirty-five slaves and when he finally offered them their liberty five of the number refused to leave him, with the result that he continued to care for them with kindliness and consideration, paid them consistent wages, and acceded to the request of those of the number who wished to adopt his family name.
In 1885 Mr. Brown disposed of his valuable holdings in the old Bluegrass State and removed with his family to Wichita, Kansas, in which state he engaged exten- sively in the range cattle business, with which he con- tinued to be successfully identified until 1897, after which he lived virtually retired from active business until the time of his death. A stalwart and effective advocate of the principles and policies of the democratic party, Mr. Brown was influential in its ranks both in Kentucky and Kansas, in which latter state he was appointed police commissioner of Wichita after the adoption of the commission system of municipal govern- ment, as an official under the metropolitan-police system he thus served uuder the administrations of Governors Llewellyn and Leedy. On one occasion he was made the democratic nominee for representative of his county in the lower house of the Kansas Legislature, but a repub- lican landslide in the ensuing election compassed his defeat, though by a very small majority. While a resi- dent of Anness, Sedgwick County, Kansas, he there served as postmaster during the first administration of President Cleveland. He was a close friend of Governor Llewellyn, and that honored executive of the Sunflower State not only looked upon him as a valued friend and counselor but also tendered to him the office of warden of the state penitentiary, a position which he declined. He was one of the leaders in effecting the nomination of Governor Llewellyn in the democratic state conven- tion, and he was otherwise influential in the councils of the democratic party in Kansas, his enthusiasm in the cause having been shown not only through effective personal service but also through liberal financial aid.
To the excellent public schools of Wichita, Kansas, Alexis Brown is indebted for his early educational ad- vantages, and later he attended the schools at Fort Scott, that state. At the age of nineteen years he be- came a traveling representative and salesman for the Otto Kuehne Preserving Company, which maintained headquarters both at Topeka, Kansas, and Denver, Col- orado. In this capacity he remained with this company about eleven years and was most successful as a commer- cial salesman. That his services met with due apprecia- tion is shown by the fact that the company then en- trusted him with the opening of its branch establishment in Oklahoma City, where he continued as manager of the business from this headquarters until 1907, with several traveling salesmen under his direction, and in that year, which marked the admission of Oklahoma as a state, he established his residence in the ambitious and vigorous City of Tulsa, where he held for the ensuing five years the position of city salesman for the wholesale grocery house of Ratcliff & Sanders. Upon resigning this position Mr. Brown here engaged in the fire-insur- ance and real-estate loan business, and in these lines he built up a most substantial and prosperous enterprise. He severed his association with this business in 1913, in
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the meanwhile having become concerned, as early as 1907, with the oil industry in the celebrated fields about Tulsa. Mr. Brown was associated with the opening of the western extension of what is known as the Flatt Rock Pool, and with others opened also the oil proper- ties of the Collinsville Pool and the East Glen extension. He still continued his association with the oil and gas producing industry and in consonance with his increas- ing financial success has his appreciation in a practical way, as he has made judicious investments in city real estate in Tulsa and advanced local interests by the sub- stantial improvement of his various properties. He has erected and sold nearly fifty excellent houses in Tulsa, and the major number were completed within the year 1914. Greater civic pride and loyalty has no man than this, that he shall provide means for the local enjoy- ment and exploitation of America's great national game, baseball. In this field Mr. Brown came gallantly to the front in Tulsa by establishing the Association Base Ball Park, which he improved at a cost of several thousand dollars and by this means made it possible for Tulsa to become represented in the Western League. He was the owner and first president of the Tulsa Club of this league, and has continued his enthusiastic interest in the club and in the game in general.
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