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 57

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 57

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A stalwart democrat from the time of attaining his majority, Mr. Woodson was secretary of the first demo- cratic organization ever established in Oklahoma, at Oklahoma City. He was likewise chairman of the county central and territorial central committees there, has helped to organize the party in five different counties in Oklahoma, and has been very active in all state and county conventions. He is both a forcible writer and eloquent speaker, and his voice and pen are always at the service of his party, as they are also at the command of movements which promise advancement and progress in the affairs of his city, county and state. Mr. Wood- son has long been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is at present superintendent of the Sunday school. His various fraternal connections include membership in the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World. Of recent years he has disposed of all his farming interests, and now devotes himself unre- servedly to his journalistic duties and his political activities.

Mr. Woodson was married in May, 1880, at Glasgow, Missouri, to Miss Nellie Cockrell, who was born at Glas- gow, Missouri, daughter of the late Maj. H. Clay Cock- rell, who was a major of reserves in the Union army during the Civil war. Mrs. Woodson, a graduate of Pritchette College and of the Southwestern Conservatory of Music, has been prominent in club, religious, charit- able and social work, and is at present secretary of the Oklahoma L. T. L. Six children have been born to Mr.

and Mrs. Woodson: Lalla is the wife of John Keithley a banker and agriculturist of O'Fallon, Missouri. Marion Marle, a graduate of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, at Stillwater, Oklahoma, is now a commercial salesman, with Lexington, Kentucky, as his home. He was for a number of years at the head of the demonstra- tion department of agriculture of the State of Oklahoma, and as such in charge of the exhibits of the state in the Dry Farming Congress in the Lethbridge Exhibition, in Canada, in 1912. Benjamin Nelson, Jr., is manager for the Emerson-Brantingham Implement Company at Kan- sas City, Missouri. James Clay graduated May 28, 1915, from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Okla- homa with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Genelle attended the Agricultural and Mechanical College, Still- water, Oklahoma, and is now a teacher in the Walters public schools, and John Mortimer will graduate from that institution with the class of 1917.

FRANK P. HOPWOOD. There is an interesting chapter of Oklahoma history that should be written in all es- sential details,-a chapter relating to the call of oppor- tunity in Oklahoma to young men of the North and East, and the response of these young men to the call, with due reference to their activities after establishing! residence in the vital new commonwealth. The decade preceding 1915 was marked by the immigration of the young men from older states of the Union. Every com- munity has one or more of this class. Most of them have made investments and become a very part personally of the community life. Out of colleges and univer- sities many of them have come, and nearly all have brought experience in business or the professions. The adaptation of their ideas to those of the community and the reforms and advances they have quietly but surely instituted have done much to conserve civic and material progress of stable order. These men are vig- orous and refreshing, and commercial and industrial activities have responded to their touch. They are creating better conditions and giving to Oklahoma a staunch and distinctively individual type of citizenship that can be claimed by no other state. The political economist could here find subject matter for a volume as interesting as any that has ever been written on the subject. The coming of these men has tended to energiz- ing the progressive activities on the part of young men who have been reared to a greater or less extent in this section of the country. The activities of the two elements have made a harmonious blend that is interest- ing to contemplate.

A vigorous and popular representative of the class of new-comers in Oklahoma is Frank P. Hopwood, who is engaged in the real-estate, loan and insurance business at Atoka, judicial center of the county of the same name. He is a native of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Hon. Robert F. Hopwood, who represents the Twenty-third district of Pennsylvania in the United States Congress. Frank P. Hopwood settled at Atoka, Oklahoma, in 1911. He made investments in land and 1 purchased the oldest insurance business in the old town of Atoka. To this he added a farm-loan business, and in the three lines of enterprise he has extended his busi- ness activities over the entire county, as well as into parts of adjoining counties. He and his brother Samuel are the owners of valuable farm lands that they are improving and which they are devoting to diversified agriculture and the growing of live stock.

Mr. Hopwood was born in the year 1884. His father has for many years been a prominent lawyer and polit- ical leader in his section of the old Keystone State. He bears the reputation of being a leader in the move- ment for clean politics, and in 1914 he was nominated

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for Congress without opposition, on an agreement that there was to be no fighting and no illegitimate prom- ise-making in the campaign. He had been defeated for Congress in 1884, because he refused to subscribe to a system involving money considerations and the making of undue campaign promises. The Hopwood family was founded in Pennsylvania prior to the opening of the nineteenth century. In 1769 the original progenitor laid out in Pennsylvania the Town of Woodstock, the name of which was subsequently changed to HIopwood. This pioneer settler removed to Pennsylvania from Strat- ford County, Virginia, where the original representa- tives of the name settled upon coming to the American colonies. Rice G. Hopwood was county attorney of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1837. John Miller, an ancestor of Frank P. Hopwood on the maternal side, was likewise a pioneer in Pennsylvania, where he set- tled about the same time as did the first Hopwood in that commonwealth. Jacob Miller, of a later genera- tion, became one of the leading figures in political af- frirs in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania.

The parents of Mr. Hopwood still reside at Union- town, Pennsylvania, and concerning their other children the following brief data may consistently be entered : Samuel C. is associated with his brother, Frank P., in the various business activities which they control from their headquarters in the thriving Town of Atoka, Okla- homa; Mrs. Jasper T. Shepler still resides at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where her husband is a representative business man ; Miss Edith remains at the parental home; Mrs. David W. Kaine is the wife of a business man at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in which place Robert F., Jr., the youngest of the children, remains at the parental home.

The early education of Frank P. Hopwood was ac- quired in the public schools of Pennsylvania, and this discipline was supplemented by his attending the Penn- sylvania Military College at Chester. After leaving school he engaged in civil engineering work, in the em- ploy of the H. C. Frick Coke Company. In 1904 he assisted in the building of an electric interurban rail- way from Honessen to Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. The next year he became assistant engineer for the South Fayette Coke Company, and while in the employ of this corporation he superintended the construction of two coke plants. Later he became associated with the Ram- age & Gates Contracting Company, and in this connec- tion he had charge of the construction of more than 100 coke ovens for the Elkins Syndicate of West Vir- ginia. He next became superintendent of the plant of the Whyle Coke Company, and for this company he supervised the construction of an entirely new plant.

Later he entered the employ of the Whitney-Kemmerer Company, of New York, which corporation he repre- sented one year in Cincinnati and one year in Pittsburgh. Upon severing this association he came to Oklahoma, in 1911, as previously noted. He and his brother are associated in the ownership of 1,000 acres of fine black land on Boggy Bottoms, and are bringing to bear the most approved modern methods in the improving of this property. Mr. Hopwood was the first treasurer of the Atoka Club, a commercial organization with which he continues to be actively identified, and in his native city in Pennsylvania he is still enrolled as a member of the Uniontown Country Club. He is affiliated with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Epis- copal Church, South.

In 1913 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hop- wood to Miss Lucy Lankford, whose father was a pio- neer physician of Atoka, he being now engaged in the practice of his profession in the City of San Antonio, Texas: his brother, J. D. Lankford, served as state

bank commissioner of Oklahoma under the administra- tions of Governors Cruce and Williams ..

EDWIN R. PERRY. As a vigorous and ambitious law- yer, representing the best ideals of the modern legal fraternity, Edwin R. Perry for nearly ten years has had a successful career and one of great promise at l'ulsa. The qualities of a fine mind, the endowments of a natural orator and leader among men, and a steady and perse- vering industry have brought Mr. Perry well to the top of his profession.

He is a native of Canada, born at Granton, Ontario, March 4, 1874, a son of William and Barbara (Legge) Perry. His father was born in Tyrone County in the North of Ireland, and died at the age of seventy-seven years in 1905 in Neepawa, Canada. His mother was born in Canada of Scotch parentage and died in 1903. They had ten children, two of whom died in infancy, while all the others are still living. William Perry, the father, came to Canada at the age of twenty-one, locat- ing in Middlesex County, Ontario, where he became a pioneer and hewed a farm from out the wilderness. He continued as a general farmer until 1891, and then moved out to the frontier, in Manitoba, where he bought a large tract of land and became extensively engaged in the wheat raising. In 1903 after the death of his wife, he retired, and lived in Neepawa until he lost his life as the result of an accident.

Edwin R. Perry, who was the sixth child in the family of the parents, received some training in the public schools of Canada, and then entered the Evanston Academy at Evanston, Illinois, and after preparing for college became a student in the Northwestern University at the same place, where he was graduated in the literary course with the class of 1900. He continued his college career in the law department of Harvard University, where he graduated with the degree of LL. B. in 1903. For the following year Mr. Perry had . the exceptional advantages of association with the law firm of Winston, Payne & Strawn, one of the strongest law firms of the City of Chicago, and thus possessed of a very liberal education and after a valuable apprenticeship in prac- tice he located and began his individual career in Coffey- ville, Kansas. He continued there in the practice of law until 1906, and then removed to Tulsa, which in that year was just beginning its phenomenal growth. Mr. Perry has since controlled a substantial general practice.

He is a member of several college fraternities, belongs to the Tulsa County Bar Association, the Oklahoma State Bar Association, while his fraternities are Tulsa Lodge No. 71, A. F. & A. M .; Tulsa Chapter, R. A. M .; Trinity Commandery, Knights Templar; Akdar Temple of the Mystic Shrine; Tulsa Lodge No. 946, B. P. O. E. Politically Mr. Perry is a republican. On October 3, 1910, he married Miss Pauline Nelson, who was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania. They have one daughter, Mary Pauline.

CHARLES A. HURD, the present county clerk of Push- mataha County, and a resident of Antlers, is of old South- ern family antecedents, and has been identified with that section of Oklahoma for the past fifteen years. Mr. Hurd is a white man, but is married into one of the most prominent Indian families of the old Choctaw Na- tion, his wife having been a McCurtain.

Three brothers in the McCurtain family have held the office of governor of the Choctaw Nation. These were Edmund, Jackson and Green. During the administration of the latter the Choctaw Nation became an integral part of the State of Oklahoma and the Choctaw govern- ment was deprived of the laws under which it had operated, and thus the administration of Green McCur-

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tain is of particular significance in Oklahoma history. The administration of Jackson McCurtain began in the romance period of Choctaw history, but his activities grew historically real before his death in 1885, for it was during his administration that the present capitol of the nation was erected, and also the Choctaw Female Semi- nary, both situated at Tuskahoma.

Jackson MeCurtain possessed about one-fourth Cauca- sian blood, enough to give him a conception of the modern, progressive government of the white man. His wife also had about the same degree of Caucasian blood, and while they spoke the Choctaw language, they taught their chil- dren English and never permitted them to learn Choctaw during the period of childhood. This is an apt illustra- tion of the progressive spirit of the intellectual Indian of earlier years who had visions of the passing of the tribal form of government. Jackson McCurtain lived near Tuskahoma and dealt extensively in live stock. He was born in Mississippi and came to Indian Territory at the time of the migration of his tribe. Near Tuskahoma he built an elegant home, the lumber for which was hauled from Stringtown, then the nearest railroad point. This home was burned in late years, but his widow, who yet lives in Tuskahoma, built another home that is more modern. Governor McCurtain was a good business man and made profitable investments. After his death his widow received some $30,000 in cash from his coal investments.

The blood of the McCurtains is fast being put into the white race in Oklahoma, for new generations of the family are getting still higher conceptions of American citizenship. Lucinda F. McCurtain, a daughter of Jack- son McCurtain, is the present wife of Mr. Charles A. Hurd. In performing his public and private duties Mr. Hurd is seeking to forward the work of good citizenship and profitable industry, and at the same time he cher- ishes the interesting activities of Jackson McCurtain and the interesting period in which he lived.

Charles A. Hurd was born in Benton county, Arkansas, in 1878, a son of A. B. and Mary (Reed) Hurd. His father, who is still living at the age of sixty-eight, was born in Tennessee, but settled with his parents in Benton county, Arkansas, sixty-five years ago. The mother of Mr. Hurd died in 1894. Two other of their sons are S. W. and J. C. Hurd, now engaged in the oil business at Nowata, while a third, B. C. Hurd, is a teacher at Nowata. The daughter, Mrs. J. R. Hitch, is the wife of a farmer in Benton county, Arkansas, and another, Miss Belle Hurd, lives with her father at Nowata.

Educated in the public schools of Arkansas and the Pea Ridge Normal College, Mr. Charles A. Hurd is a man of practical affairs and his activities have been confined largely to agriculture and stock raising. In 1900 he started his independent business career at Tuska- homa, where in 1903 he married Miss MeCurtain. After statehood came he was the first assessor of his home township, and was the second county clerk of Push- mataha County after statehood, having been elected to that office in 1912 and re-elected in 1914. Mr. Hurd is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has some valuable land holdings in Push- mataha County.

WILLIAM O. BEALL. A native of the District of Columbia, where he was reared and educated, Mr. Beall has the distinction of being a scion of sterling old colonial families of Maryland, where his paternal and maternal ancestors settled long prior to the War of the Revolution; he has been prominent and influential in

various departments of governmental service, especially in connection with Indian affairs in the West; and he is now uumbered among the able and representative mem- bers of the bar of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, where he is engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the City of Muskogee, with offices in the Raymond Building.

William O. Beall was born near the City of Washing- ton, District of Columbia, on the 10th of November, 1870, and is a son of Charles B. and Adelaide (Ricketts) Beall, both of whom were born in the State of Maryland, where the respective families were founded in the colonial days, as previously intimated in this article. The parents of Mr. Beall still maintain their residence in the national capital, where the father has been for nearly half a century the efficient and honored incumbent of the office of deputy clerk of the United States Supreme Court.

Reared to adult age in the City of Washington, Wil- liam O. Beall there acquired his early education in the public schools, after which he was for three years a student in the Columbian University, which great iustitu- tion of the uational capital now bears the title of George Washington University. In this university he pursued a course in the law department and while he was not graduated he admirably fortified himself in the science of jurisprudence.

In 1890 entered Government service, as an attache of the department of geological surveys, with which he cou- tinued to be identified for the ensuing five years, during which period he was concerned with important surveying operations in Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada. In 1895 he was transferred to Muskogee, Indian Territory, and was assigned to the governmental resectioning work in what is now the State of Oklahoma. This assignment enlisted his close and effective attention until the work was completed, in 1899, when he was transferred to the important Dawes Commission, in which he first served as organizer of appraisement work and later as chief clerk of the Choctaw and Chickasaw enrollment work. In 1903 Mr. Beall was appointed secretary of the Dawes Commission, and of this position he continued the incum- bent until the commission completed its work and was abolished. In January, 1907, the year that marked the admission of Oklahoma to statehood, Mr. Beall resigned the governmental office of assistant Indian commissioner and for three years thereafter he endured fully the vexa- tion of spirit and the manifold cares that customarily pertain to practical newspaper work and enterprise. He became manager of the Muskogee Phoenix, but his asso- ciation of three years with the editorial and business affairs of this paper was attended with indifferent financial success, with the result that he was not reluctant to sever his connection with the journalistic profession.

Since his retirement from newspaper work Mr. Beall has been engaged in the successful practice of law, with residence and professional headquarters in the City of Muskogee. He had previously been admitted to practice in the local and Federal courts of Indian Territory but in 1910, when he decided to devote his attention to the practice of law, he consistently tested his reinforcement for the same by passing an examination before the Okla- homa Supreme Court. He was specially successful in this examination and his broad and accurate knowledge of the law combines with his varied and important gov- ernmental service to make him specially well fortified for the active work of the profession in which his achievement has been marked by distinctive prestige and association with much important litigation in the various courts of the state of his adoption.

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In politics Mr. Beall is found arrayed as a staunch and effective advocate of the principles and policies for which the democratic party stands sponsor; he is affiliated with Muskogee Lodge, Benevolent and Protect- ive Order of Elks; he is actively identified with the Muskogee County Bar Association and the Oklahoma State Bar Association; and both he and his wife are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

In the year 1903 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Beall to Miss Elise Featherston, daughter of General William S. Featherston, a distinguished citizen of the State of Mississippi. Mr. and Mrs. Beall have no children.

FOSTER N. BURNS. The appointment of Foster N. Burns to the office of chief of police of the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which came to him unsolicited May 6, 1914, was the result both of his record for fearlessness as an officer and his executive talents. He comes of good official stock, for both his father and grandfather were officers in former years, and under his guidance and direction the police department of Tulsa is fast becoming one which is making this one of the most law-abiding cities of its size in the state.

Chief Burns was born in Dallas County, Missouri, July 4, 1867, and is a son of John S. and Nancy M. (Maddux) Burns. His grandfather, Foster B. Burns, a native of Connecticut, was one of the pioneer farmers of Dallas County, Missouri, to which locality he emi- grated during the early '40s, and was the first sheriff of that county, a position in which he served for some years. John S. Burns was born in Dallas County in 1846, was educated in the public schools, and as a young man turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. His first public office was that of constable, following which he was elected sheriff of Dallas County and served capably several terms. During President Cleveland 's first administration he was deputy United States mar- shal of the Western District of Missouri, and in the same president's second administration he was made United States marshal for Northwestern Oklahoma, hav- ing located in this state in 1893. At the expiration of his term of office, he disposed of his lands in Oklahoma and returned to Dallas County, Missouri, where he con- tinned farming until his retirement in 1902, and his death occurred in 1904, when he was fifty-eight years of age, Politically a democrat, in 1903 he served as a delegate to the democratic national convention, held at Kansas City, Missouri. Mrs. Burns, who was born in McMinn County, Tennessee, still survives her husband and lives in Woodward County, Oklahoma, at the age of seventy-two years. There were eight children in the family, of whom Foster N. was the firstborn, and five are still living.

Foster N. Burns received his education in the public schools of Dallas County, Missouri, and when but six- teen years of age entered upon his career, engaging as a teamster in hauling supplies from Harper, Kansas, to Medicine Lodge, and continuing to be thus employed for two years. He then returned to Dallas County, Mis- souri, but shortly thereafter identified himself with a newspaper at Buffalo, Missouri, resigning his position after three years to accept that of deputy sheriff under his father. During President Cleveland's first adminis- tration he was appointed deputy United States marshal for the Western District of Missouri, under Col. Elijah Gates, and at the expiration of his four-year term accepted the position of special agent for the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis Railway Company, at Springfield, Missouri. Two and one-half years later he was made constable at Springfield, and served in that capacity off and on until 1894, about twelve years, in

the meantime also occupying the office of humane officer for four years. He next became a special officer for the Terminal Railway Company of St. Louis, Missouri, for one year, and later entered the employ of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway, at St. Louis, in the same capacity. In August, 1913, he was transferred to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and May 6, 1914, as before stated, was appointed chief of police of this city, without any solicitation on his part. Chief Burns is a strict disci- plinarian, but has won the confidence of the members, of the department by his willingness to do anything that he asks his men to do. He is the kind of an officer who has always been depended upon to take hold of any especially knotty business with determination, energy and bravery, and during his long career has accom- plished some very effective detective work. Frater- nally, Chief Burns is widely known. He has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows for twenty-five years, has belonged to Springfield Lodge No. 85, Knights of Pythias, for twenty-six years, at Springfield, Missouri, and holds membership also in the Fraternal Order of Moose. and Tulsa Lodge No. 946, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His political views make him a democrat.

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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