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 54

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 54

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In 1905 Mr. Shackle wedded Miss Rosa May Dowell, who was born and reared in Kansas and whose death occurred at her home in Tulsa in the year 1908, she being survived by one son, Clarence Weir Shackle. In 1912 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Shackle to Miss Henrietta Hardin, a native of Meade County, Kentucky, and she is the popular chatelaine of the attractive family home in Tulsa, no children having been born of this marriage.

CHARLES L. ORR. The ambition and determination that have self-reliance as their basis will hold as insuperable no obstacles that may obtrude in their course, and this was significantly proved in the case of the present popu- lar and efficient assistant county attorney of Pontotoc County, for it was largely through his own efforts that he defrayed the expenses incidental to the obtaining of his higher academic and his professional education. Includ- ing the reri d of his work in the preparatory department of the institution Mr. Orr remained a student for a total of six years in the University of Oklahoma, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1912 and that of Bachelor of Laws in 1914. He has been a resi- dent of Oklahoma since his early youth and is now num- bered among the representative younger members of the bar of Pontotoc County, with residence and official head- quarters in the fine little City of Ada, the county seat, his tenure of h's present position of assistant county at- torney having continued during virtually the entire period of time since he was admitted to the bar. During a por- tion of his university career he was employed in the office of the treasurer of the institution, at other times he clerked in mercantile establishments at Norman, and through still other worthy mediums of employment he further added to the financial resources that made pos- sible the completion of his education and the attainment of his ambition to enter the legal profession. Oklahonia has many young men who have made their way through school by their own initiative and efforts, but it is prob- able that there are few of the number who have thus pressed forward to the goal of their desire and been mainly self-dependent during so long a period of student application as did Mr. Orr.

Charles L. Orr was born at Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas, on the 4th of July, 1889, and is a son of Dr. Charles L. and Edna (Forrester) Orr, who now maintain their home at Roff, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, where the father has been engaged in successful practice as a physician and surgeon for the past decade. Doctor Orr is a native of Texas and a representative of one of the sterling pioneer families of the Lone Star State, where he initiated the practice of his profession after his graduation in the Louisville Medical College, in the metropolis of Louisville, Kentucky. In his early profes-

sional career as a physician and surgeon in a pioneer period of the history of Southern Texas he made a rec- ord not surpassed by many of his confreres in the ad- ministering of attention to the wounds of men who were wounded through being cut or shot in the fights and brawls that were of frequent occurrence in the locality and period. The Orr family was founded in America prior to the war of the Revolution and an ancestor of the subject of this review was one Captain Orr, who was a gallant captain of the patriot forces engaged in the great struggle for national independence. In the maternal line Mr. Orr is able to claim direct kinship with the family that produced Thomas Carlyle, the distin- guished Scotch historian and miscellaneous writer and also that produced Gen. Nathaniel Greene, of American Revolutionary fame.

The early educational discipline of Charles L. Orr was obtained in the public schools of his native city. Re- moving with his family to Oklahoma, he was reared to maturity in Pontotoc County and after h's graduation in the high school in the Village of Roff, he spent a year in the preparatory department of the University of Oklahoma. He finally completed in this institution a full academic or literary course and was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1912. He did not abate in the least his student zeal and aml.ition, but forthwith gave his undivided attention to the work of the law department of the university, from which he re- ceived in 1914 the degree of Bachelor of Laws, as pre- viously noted in th's context. He was admitted to the kar in June of the last mentioned year and began prac- tice at Roff. In January of the following year he was appointed assistant county attorney, and as such he has since given efficient service, with residence at Ada, the county seat.

Mr. Orr is found aligned as a staunch advocate of the principles of the democratic party and is a member of the Young Men's Democratic League of Oklahoma. He is identified with the Pontotoc County Bar Association and the Oklahoma State Bar Association, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is affi- liated with the Kappa Sigma, the Phi Delta Phi, and the Pe-et college fraternities, the last mentioned Leing an Indian society of honorary rank in the senior year of the course at the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Orr took an active and influential part in athletics while a stu- dent in the university and was captain and manager of the baseball team of the institution. He made a special study of economics and in his law practice has given much attention to public utilities and the legal features pertaining to the same, his professional work having had much to do with this special line of practice. He still permits his name to be enrolled on the list of eligible young bachelors in Pontotoc County. It may be noted that Mr. Orr has three brothers: Benjamin F., who holds a position in the offices of the Texas Light & Power Company, in the City of Dallas; J. Fred, who is engaged in business at Roff, Oklahoma; and Guy, who remains at the parental home, at Roff. The two brothers first mentioned have been students at the University of Oklahoma.

ANDREW J. HARTER. A prominent place among the agriculturists of Woods County must be accorded Andrew J. Harter, who has accumulated a handsome property by hard labor, prudent economy and business shrewdness, and who is now occupying a well improved farm located 31% miles southwest of Dacoma. Of late years he has also branched out into financial lines, being at this time president of the Bank of Dacoma, and has also been well known in public affairs, having served in a, number of offices within the gift of his fellow citizens.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Mr. Harter was born October 21, 1848, on a farm in Carroll County, Indiana, and is a son of Lewis and Catherine (Mayer) Harter, uatives of Virginia. His father was born in 1814 and as a young man removed to Carroll County, Indiana, where he pa sed the remain- ing years of his life in agricultural pursuits, dying in 1869 in moderate circumstances. He was a member of the Dunkard Church. Mr. Harter was married three times, his first wife being Catherine Mayer, to whom he was married in 1835 and who died in 1852. They became the parents of four sons and three daughters, namely: John; Martha, deceased; Martin, deceased; Polly; Moses, deceased; Andrew J., of this notice; and Elizabeth. Mr. Harter was again married in 1859 when united with Mary Ann Betts, who died in 1867, having been the mother of five children: Jacob; David, deceased; Nathan; and a son and a daughter, twins, who died in infancy. Mr. Harter was married the third time, in 1868, to Lydia H. Humbert, and they became the parents of one son, who died in infancy.

Andrew J. Harter grew up amid the surroundings of the farm and passed his boyhood days between attending the public schools of Carroll County, Indiana, and assisting his father in the operation of the homestead farm. He received somewhat better educational advan- tages than the majority of farmers' sons of his day, completing his schooling at Bourbon College, Bourbon, Indiana. His education finished, in 1869, Mr. Harter embarked upon his career as a teacher, and shortly thereafter went to Oregon, where for three years he had various schools. At the end of that period he returned home, and in 1874 engaged in business at Atwood, Indiana, where he became proprietor of a drug store. This business he conducted until 1878, when he went to Kansas and again took up farming on a Government tract in Stafford County, and there resided for seventeen years. He became one of the substantial and influential men of his community and in 1892 was elected a member of the board of county commissioners. Mr. Harter came to Oklahoma in 1895, in which year he purchased a tract of land in Woods County, 31/2 miles southwest of Dacoma. Here he has developed an excellent property, all now under cultivation, on which he does scientific diversified farming, following modern methods and making his land pay him in full measure for the labor he exrends upon it. He has also been successful in his operations as a stockraiser, particularly of sheep, of which he ships a large number annually. Mr. Harter bears an excellent reputation in business circles, and is honored and respected not only for what he is, but for what he has accomplished in the promotion of the county's growth and the establishing of its material prosperity. In 1908 he became connected with the Dacoma Bank, and since becoming the directing head of this concern has made it one of the sound and sub- stantial financial institutions of Woods County. His operations have been safe and conservative and his depositors' interests have at all times been closely protected.

On March 5, 1874, Mr. Harter was married to Miss Mary Melissa Bowling, who was born May 1, 1855, on a farm in Piqua County, Ohio, a daughter of Thomas and Eliza (Bowman) Bowling. Mr. Bowling was born in 1820 and spent practically all his life in the Middle West in farming pursuits, passing away after a long, active and useful life, in 1913, aged ninety-three years. Mrs. Bowling, who was born in 1837, died in 1883. To Mr. and Mrs. Harter there have been born three sons and three daughters, namely: Mattie Belle, born Decem- ber 9, 1874; Claude LeRoy, born March 27, 1877, who died January 5, 1894; Thomas Lewis, born June 10,

1879, died July 20, 1890; Edward Ernest, born October 18, 1881; Lula Maude Grace, born October 7, 1884; and Eva Blanche, born October 25, 1888.

JOHN T. OWSLEY. The general insurance agency of Mr. Owsley, who is au underwriter of virtually all lines of insurance except that of life, has gained prestige as one of the most successful and important in the State of Oklahoma, and it is doubtful if there is another agency of the kind in this vigorous young commonwealth that has developed and controls as great a volume of business as does this representative institution, the head- quarters of which are in Suite 412-13 First National Bank Building in the thriving City of Chickasha, the metropolis and judicial center of Grady County. The career of Mr. Owsley has been one distinguished by remarkable initiative and executive ability and he has proved himself a veritable captain of industry, the while his advancement has been achieved entirely through his own efforts. The City of Chickasha can claim no more reputable, straightforward and popular business man and no citizen of greater civic loyalty and public spirit, so that consistency is observed in according, in this his- tory, due recognition to Mr. Owsley.

John T. Owsley was born at Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas, in the year 1867, and is a scion of a colonial American family of distinguished lineage, the genealogical line tracing back to Sir Thomas Owsley, who bore also the title of captain and who evidently was of English birth and ancestry. This distinguished ancestor came from the West Indies to America prior to the War of the Revolution and the supposition is that he acquired his military title through service as an officer in the Continental line in the great war for national independence. In a later generation another specially distinguished representative of this family was Hon. William Owsley, who served as governor of Ken- tucky and who was a member of the Supreme Court of that state at the time of his death.

James R. and Jane Antoinette (Furlow) Owsley, parents of him whose name introduces this review, were both born and reared in Alabama, where their marriage was solemnized. James R. Owsley removed to Arkan- sas at the time of the Civil war and there enlisted in the Confederate service, as a member of a gallant Arkansas regiment that took part in many engagements and made an admirable record. Mr. Owsley continued his service as a loyal soldier of the Confederacy until the close of the war and then turned his attention to agricul- tural pursuits. He later engaged in the merchandise business in Arkansas, in which state he continued his residence until 1901, when he came to Chickasha, Okla- homa, where he has since been actively engaged in the marble business and where he is still alert and vigorous as a man of affairs, though both he and his wife are now venerable in years.

The early educational discipline of John T. Owsley was acquired in the schools of his native state and was effectively supplemented by a course of higher study in Bethel College, a well ordered institution in the State of Kentucky. When but ten years of age he initiated his association with practical business by assisting in the general store of his father, and during this period of service as a clerk he attended school only three months of each year. Prior to attaining to his legal majority Mr. Owsley was appointed deputy circuit clerk of Columbia County, Arkansas, and of this position he continued the incumbent five years. He then, in 1890, assumed an executive position in the Gate City National Bank of Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas, where he con- tinued his services until 1892, when he resigned to accept -

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the position of general utility clerk in the Texarkana National Bank, with which institution he remained seven years and rose through the verious grades of promotion until he became its chief clerk. In 1899 he resigned his position and engaged iu the fire-insurauce business at Texarkana, where he continued his association with this enterprise for three years. Within this period he became interested also in the wholesale grocery business, as vice president of the Texas Produce Company, his home city in Arkansas lying near the line between that state and Texas and thus gaining its title of Gate City. In 1902 Mr. Owsley sold his insurance business and assumed the active management of the business of the Texas Produce Company, which he served in this capac- ity, as well as its vice president, for the period of seven years. Within this time he effected the organiation of the Clay Products Company, of which he become presi- dent, and this corporation is still actively and success- fully engaged in the manufacturing of pottery and other like products, with headquarters at Texarkana, Arkansas. In 1909 he orgauized the Mexican Tropical Fruit Com- pany, of which he became president. This company placed in commission a line of steamships between Port Arthur, Texas, and the State of Tabasco, Mexico, for the purpose of transporting bananas and other tropical fruits from that section of Mexico to the markets of the United States. The company leased a number of large banana plantations in Tabasco, the same lying along the Griholm and affluent rivers, and after opera- tions had been carried forward about eighteen mouths the company was forced to abandon its business, owing to disastrous floods, which destroyed all the banana plantation and practically inundated the extensive area of land through which the company was operating.

In January, 1911, after disposing of the most of his business interests in Arkansas and Texas, Mr. Owsley came to Oklahoma and established his residence at Chickasha, where he purchased a half interest in the Price Insurance Agency. A few months later he acquired the entire control of the business and the agency has since been conducted under his name and able management, the while he has shown great dis- crimination, energy and progressiveness and placed the enterprise upon a most substantial basis, with a busi- ness that is constantly expanding and is excelled in scope by that of few, if any, similar agencies in the state. As a practical insurance man of fine conceptions of the functions and benefits of fire and other material indem- nities aside from the domain of life insurance, Mr. Owsley has a high reputation and this, with his careful and honorable methods and policies, constitutes his best business asset, his agency being representative of an appreciable number of the strongest and best fire insur- ance companies operating in Oklahoma, and his facilities also being unexcelled in the underwriting of reliable insurance against tornadoes, floods and other material forces that may cause loss or destruction of property. Mr. Owsley is a member of the National Association of Local Insurance Agents and is specially active and influential in the affairs of the Oklahoma State Associa- tion of Local Insurance Agents, in which he is chairman of the executive committee.

As may naturally be inferred, Mr. Owsley is found aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party and is emphatically loyal and pro- gressive in his civic attitude. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his affilia- tion being still with Arkansas Consistory, No. 1, in the City of Little Rock, the while he still retains member- ship also in Sahara Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Paine Bluff, that

state. His basic York Rite affiliatiou is with Texarkana Lodge, No. 341, at Texarkana, Arkansas, where he is affiliated also with Texarkana Lodge, No. 399, Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks, which he served two terms as exalted ruler. In his uative City of Magnolia, that state, he has held all of the official chairs in the lodge of the Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chancellor, and he is identified also with the Sigma Nu college fraternity. He is a charter member of the Chickasha Country Club and was chairman of its golf committee in 1915.

In December, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Owsley to Miss Elizabeth Sharman, daughter of Robert R. Sharman, who was a pioneer at Magnolia, Arkansas, and who owned and conducted the largest and most important mercantile business at that place. Mrs. Owsley was summoned to the life eternal in 1897, and is survived by two children, Sharman and Hazel.

JOHN V. CABELL. Since the spring of 1910 Mr. Cabell has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Oklahoma City, where he gives his attention prin- cipally to general civil and corporation law, and his definite success attests alike his personal popularity and his admirable equipment for service as an attorney and counselor, his well appointed offices being in Suite No. 1014-17 Colcord Building. He is a man of fine intel- lectual and professional attainments and is a valuable acquisition to the legal coterie in the capital city of Oklahoma.

In the fine little City of Bowling Green, Kentucky, John V. Cabell was born on the 15th of June, 1877, and he is a son of Rev. Benjamin F. Cabell, D. D., and Ellen Douglas (Patterson) Cabell, the former of whom passed to the life eternal in September, 1909, and the latter of whom is still living. The lineage of the Cabell family in America traces back to Dr. William Cabell, who emigrated from England in 1741 and established his resi- dence in the colony of Virginia, the paternal great- grandfather of the subject of this review having removed from the Old Dominion to Kentucky in the early part of the nineteenth century and having been a pioneer in that state. Rev. Benjamin F. Cabell was born and reared in Kentucky and was a distinguished clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as well as a prominent and influential figure in connection with edu- cational affairs in his native state. He was graduated in the Ohio Wesleyan University, in the City of Dela- ware, Ohio, where he was a classmate of Senator Stone of Missouri and Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indian- apolis, former vice president of the United States. He was identified with educational work during virtually his entire active career and for twenty years was president of Potter College, at Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his death occurred and where his widow still maintains her home.

John W. Cabell was signally favored in being reared in a home of distinctive culture and refinement and his educational advantages in his boyhood and youth were of the best. At Ogden College, Bowling Green, Kentucky, he was graduated as a member of the class of 1898 and with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. Thereafter he completed a post-graduate course in Vanderbilt Uni- versity, at Nashville, Tennessee, from which he received in 1899 the degree of Master of Science. In the law department of the same institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1901, and after receiving his degree of Bachelor of Laws, with concomitant ad- mission to the bar of Tennessee, he was engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Nashville about two years. Thereafter he passed about eighteen months in travel through the West, especially on the

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Pacific coast, and in 1904 he came to Oklahoma Terri- tory and engaged in the general practice of law at Ardmore, Carter County. He became one of the repre- sentative members of the bar of that county but in March, 1910, he found a broader field of professional endeavor by establishing his residence in Oklahoma City, where he has built up a substantial practice that shows a constantly cumulative tendency, as he is indefatigable in the work of his profession and has established an excellent reputation for effective service as an attorney and counselor at law. Mr. Cabell has identified himself most fully with Oklahoma and its capital city and is here financially interested in a number of industrial and commercial enterprises.

He and his wife are members of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, South; he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and his political allegiance is given to the demo- cratic party.

In July, 1912, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Cabell to Miss Lula Garrison, daughter of George W. and Ann Garrison, of Oklahoma City, her father having lost his life by assassination while in performance of his duty as sheriff of Oklahoma County. Mr. and Mrs. Cabell have one child, Ellen Ann.

JOHN ARTHUR CAMPBELL. In the City of Tulsa can be found many of the veterans of the oil industry, and whose experience covers every oil district in America, if not in the entire world. One of the local oil operators and producers who has been identified with practically every phase of the business and in various states is John Arthur Campbell, who has had his office in Tulsa since June, 1913, and is an extensive independent operator.

John Arthur Campbell was born in Washington County, Ohio, July 16, 1871, the third of five living children of John P. and Jane Elizabeth (Thompson) Campbell. His father was born in Connecticut and died at the age of sixty-six, and his mother in Ohio and died at the age of sixty-four. John P. Campbell was engaged in the gen- eral merchandise business at Cowrun in Washington County, Ohio, and later in the same business in Marietta, Ohio, and was one of the first to take up the development of the oil districts of Ohio. In early life he had voted with the whig party and subsequently was a republican.

John A. Campbell received his education from the public schools. His first work when quite young, about thirteen years of age, was as a farmer and farm hand. He worked in tobacco fields, and was also a tobacco stripper in Ohio up to the age of nineteen. Since that time his activities have all been centered about the oil industry. He began as a teamster, later sharpened oil well tools and then had some experience in the drilling of wells. He helped put down some of the wells in Ohio, and subsequently began as an oil well contractor, fol- lowing which he engaged in the oil business himself as an independent operator. His experience covers the different oil districts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and from those states he came to Tulsa.

Mr. Campbell is a republican in politics. On Septem- ber 23, 1896, he married Miss Clara L. Rake, who was born in Washington County, Ohio. They have two chil- dren, Glen and Grace C.

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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