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 61

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 61

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

It was while Josiah Timmons and Elizabeth, his wife, were residents of Carrolton that the schoolmaster's home

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was brightened by the advent of the child who received the name of Samuel C. The date of his birth was December 16, 1873, and he was one in whom rapid development of mind and talents was early noted. His was the good fortune of professional tutelage at home, and such was his progress that he was permitted to aid in his own support at the early age of twelve. The size of the young family and the frailty of his father's health were no discouragement to the ambitious lad, but rather served as a spur to his best efforts. It was in Wichita, Kansas, that he first fared forth as wage earner. After three years of this unpretentious associa- tion with newspapers, the alert lad entered the office of the Wichita Daily Journal, where he swiftly and thoroughly learned the trade of printing. He spent several years, observing, from that excellent vantage- point, all practical phases of newspaper production. In 1892 he became manager of the Daily Star of Oklahoma City. In 1895 he returned to Kansas and in Valley Center he established a paper which he christened The Index. As both editor and publisher of this sheet, he remained in Valley Center for three years. At the end of that time, he purchased The Wichita Star, which he edited for one year. He then became reporter of The Daily Beacon, another Wichita newspaper, with which he remained for several years. In 1905 he bought The Ingersoll Review, of which he had charge for three years. At the conclusion of that successful period, Mr. Timmons became interested in Aline and her affairs and purchased The Chronoscope. Ever since that time he has been one of Aline's most patriotic citizens and has steadily grown in influence and in the esteem of his fellow citizens. In 1909 he was appointed postmaster at Aline, where he held that important and responsible office for the term of four years. In 1913 he became president of the Bank of Aline, one of the leading financial institu- tions of Alfalfa County. He is also one of the pro- prietors of Aline's only drug store. It is thus easily to be seen that, efficient in his several important capacities, Mr. Timmons is really one of the indispensable as well as leading citizens of Aline.

Mr. Timmons' home life begau in 1899. On May 5th of that year, he was united in marriage with Miss Della McPherson, daughter of Samuel and Rachel McPherson, of Sedgwick County, Kansas. Mrs. Timmons is a native of Illinois, where she was born September 18, 1880. She and her husband are the parents of one child, Margaret Lois, who was born June 27, 1902, at Valley Center, Kansas.

The Timmons family are social leaders in the com- munity. Mr. Timmons is a popular member of both the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He is one of those to whom the citizens of Aline and the surrounding com- munities look for leadership in coming growth and progress of this section of Oklahoma.

MILES C. JONES. One of the oldest residents of East- ern Oklahoma is Miles C. Jones, who for a number of years has been a resident of Dewey and is now a mer- chant of that little city and also one of the county commissioners of Washington County. Mr. Jones, who is now past three score and ten, claims the unusual dis- tinction of being a native son of Oklahoma. His father was one of the prominent early missionaries among the Cherokees, and in fact the family, have lived in old Indian Territory since the removal of the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi.

Miles C. Jones was born in what is now Adair County, Oklahoma, November 30, 1844, a son of Rev. Evan and Pauline (Cunningham) Jones. His father was a native of Wales and died at the venerable age of eighty-four

years at. Talequah in the Cherokee Nation in 1873. He spent his early life in London, England, and had a brief experience in merchandising there, but abandoned that work early in life in order to become a Baptist minister. He finally emigrated to America, locating at Philadel- phia, and soon after became a missionary among the Cherokee Indians in Tennessee and North Carolina. He had charge of a large party of these Indians when they were removed from their old home to the Indian Terri- tory, and continued his work as a missionary among the tribe and about 1835 established a mission in what is now Adair County near Westville. He was one of the prominent spiritual leaders of the Cherokees until the Civil war and in 1862 entered the Union army as a chap- lain and his services continued until the close. The Mis- sionary Board then had him take charge of the Potta- wattomie Mission near Topeka, Kansas, for two years, and for a time he lived at Chetopa, Kansas. He finally returned to the Cherokee Nation and labored among those people so far as his strength would permit until his death. He is one of the men who for his devoted labors as a missionary among the Indian tribes will always have a high place in the early history of Indian Territory.

Rev. Evan Jones was first married in London, Eng- land, to Elizabeth Launigan, and she and her four chil- dren accompanied him to America. She was the mother of six children, as follows: Evan, who died as a young man soon after the family came to Indian Territory; Elizabeth, who married Doctor Parks; Samuel, who was killed during the Quantrell raid upon Lawrence, Kansas, during the Civil war; Anna, who married W. R. Latta, and both are now deceased; Hannah, who was the first of these children to be born in America, married Rev. B. H. Pearson, a Presbyterian minister who died at Fort Smith, Arkansas, when ninety years of age; and Rev. John B., who was educated for the Baptist ministry in New York, labored for many years as a missionary among the Cherokees, and was said to speak the Chero- kee language better than the natives of that tribe, and his death occurred in Colorado while seeking health. About 1830, while in Tennessee, Rev. Evan Jones mar- ried Pauline Cunningham, who died at Talequah, Okla- homa, in July, 1876, at the age of sixty-seven. The children of this marriage were: Pauline D., now deceased, who married Richard Bird of Little Rock, Arkansas; Mary L., deceased, who married C. N. Smith of New York; Pracilla, who died when about twenty- two years of age; Herman Lincoln, who was third in order of birth, and was killed while serving as a Confed- erate soldier; Johanna V., who was the youngest of the children born in Tennessee, and who died at Tacoma, Washington, in December, 1914, as the wife of G. H. Hard; Evan, who died in Indian Territory in 1852 at the age of twelve years; Miles C .; and Ella P., who is now living at Lawrence, Kansas, as the widow of O. W. McCallister.

Miles C. Jones spent his boyhood up to the Civil war on a farm at the old Baptist Mission in what is now Adair County, and attended a school taught by a mis- sionary, W. P. Upham, from Boston. In 1862 the family removed to Kansas, and while there he attended the public schools of Lawrence a few months. In 1864, at the age of twenty, he enlisted in a Kansas regiment of militia, the Third Kansas Cavalry, and was with the command on its campaign through Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas during the fall of 1864. His parents remained at Lawrence until 1866 and for two years he had prac- tical experience at the hardware trade. In the spring of 1866 he returned to Indian Territory and located at Fort Gibson, but after a year went to Chicago and was a student in a business college in that city for six

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

months. Returning to Fort Gibson in 1867, he engaged in the hardware business for himself, and for nearly half a century has been almost continuously identified with business affairs in Eastern Oklahoma.

In 1868 Mr. Jones married Miss Margaret Stevens of Schenectady, New York. After several years in Fort Gibson he sold his hardware store and became a farmer and stock raiser. It was in 1879 that Mr. Jones located at what was then called Cotton Valley, now located in Washington County, Oklahoma. He has thus been a wit- ness of all the remarkable development that has occurred during the past thirty or forty years in this section of the state. For a number of years he continued farming and stock raising, and about 1902 moved to Dewey as one of the pioneer settlers in that town. For about ten years he was a grain buyer and shipper, but that business became of less importance through the development of the oil resources, and Mr. Jones, like nearly anybody else who had any capital to invest, became more or less of an oil operator, and lost considerable money in that way. Since 1911 he has been in the grocery business at Dewey, and now divides his time between his store and his duties as county commissioner, to which office he was elected in 1914. Before Oklahoma became a state he served as treasurer of the Town of Dewey and was its mayor at the time the territory was admitted to the Union. Mr. Jones has always been a democrat, and is radical in his adherence to that party. For four differ- ent terms he was elected assessor of Dewey. He is also owner of a farm, and it is situated in the oil district, and he has several oil wells on his land. Mr. Jones is a member of the Baptist Church at Dewey. His father was for forty years one of the most intimate friends of John Ross, the famous chief of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. Jones is affiliated with the Masonic order and with the Loyal Order of Moose. His only child, Eva P., now living at home, was educated in the School for the Blind in Kansas City and in spite of her affliction is a young woman of most happy temperament, keeps in close touch with everything that goes on in Dewey, and often drives about the country alone.

ELMER E. BROWN. The present secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of Oklahoma City, Elmer E. Brown, has been a resident of this city for more than a quarter of a century, and during this time has been en- gaged in a variety of pursuits, in all of which he has been connected more or less closely with the growing commercial and civic importance of this thriving western community. At various times he has been called to fill positions of trust and responsibility, and at all times has displayed a commendable desire to assist other stirring and public-spirited men in advancing the city's interests.

Mr. Brown was born in Wyandotte County, Ohio, July 17, 1861, and is a son of Jacob C. and Alvira (Hull) Brown. He secured his early education in the public schools of his native locality, this being supplemented by a course at the normal school at Paola, Kansas, and thus prepared entered upon his career as an educator, being engaged in teaching school for two years. In 1887 Mr. Brown moved to what was known as No Man's Land, a tract of land which had been ceded to the United States Government by Texas, in 1850, but which for a number of years had no government. This is now in- cluded in Beaver County, Oklahoma, and there is prob- ably no man in the state who is more familiar with the history of this interesting locality than is Mr. Brown, who is considered an authority and has been frequently called upon to settle disputes regarding its history. While residing there, Mr. Brown devoted his attention to newspaper work, for which his talents peculiarly fitted

him, and it was in this same capacity that he made his appearance in Oklahoma City, in July, 1889.

Mr. Brown continued to be engaged in journalistic labors with several newspapers here until 1903, and in the meantime identified himself with politics, so that in 1895 he was appointed chief clerk of the Territorial Senate. His work in that body impressed itself favor- ably upon the administration, and in 1901 he was ap- pointed territorial oil inspector, a position which he held during that and the following years. He continued his newspaper connections while holding office, but in 1903 again entered public life, when he was appointed post- master of Oklahoma City, and retained that office until 1912, having at that time completely abandoned news- paper work. During his administration the service was greatly improved, and he made a record which estab- lished him in the confidence of the people and gave him the reputation of being a man who could accomplish things. Always an enthusiastic booster of Oklahoma City's interests, when he left the postmaster's office in 1912, he was chosen as secretary of the Chamber of Com- merce, and has continued to devote his energies and talents to the duties of that position to the present time.

Mr. Brown is a republican of the progressive variety and has continued actively interested in the community's affairs. He maintains offices on the twelfth floor of the Colcord Building, and his residence is at No. 125 West Ninth Street. At the present time he is one of the working members of the advisory board of the city. He has no membership in clubs or secret societies, and is unmarried.

BENJAMIN A. MCFARLAND. In the important domain of operations in the handling of high-grade securities, the underwriting of insurance and the specializing in mortgages on farm and city realty, the firm of McFar- land & Bernbrock holds recognized precedence and con- trols a large and substantial business in the City of Tulsa, with offices at 13 West Third Street. As senior member of this firm, the reputation of which constitutes its best business asset, and as one of the progressive, loyal and popular citizens of Tulsa County Mr. Mc- Farland properly finds representation in this history of his adopted state.

Benjamin A. McFarland was born at Portsmouth, a fine little city that is situated on the Ohio River and is the metropolis and judicial center of Scioto County, Ohio. The date of his nativity was January 30, 1868, and he is a son of John J. and Fannie (Stanton) Mc- Farland, the former of whom was born at Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, on the 21st of December, 1825, and the latter of whom was born in the City of Balti- more, Maryland, on the 6th of March, 1828, their mar- riage having been solemnized at Portsmouth, Ohio, in the year 1848. Mrs. Fannie (Stanton) McFarland was summoned to eternal rest on the 23d of December, 1879.

John J. McFarland became prominently identified with the iron industry in Scioto County, Ohio, as a mechanic in various shops in Portsmouth aud as a builder of barges for use in transportation service on the Ohio River. He retired from active business affairs in 1885 and passed the closing period of his life in the City of Topeka, Kansas, where his death occurred on the 18th of April, 1892. As a young man he served as chief of the fire department in Portsmouth, where he was for many years a valued member of the board of education, and his high standing in the community is significantly in- dicated by the fact that from 1878 to 1884 he held the office of mayor of the City of Portsmouth. He was inflexible in his support of the cause of the republican partv, and his sterling character and unqualified popu- larity brought to him official preferment of notable

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order, notwithstanding the City of Portsmouth elaimed a large democratic majority in its normal manifest of political complexion.

Benjamin A. McFarland continued his studies in the public schools of his native city until he had completed the curriculum of the high school and supplemented this discipline by a course of study in the Ohio Business College in the City of Cincinnati. In 1885, when seven- teen years of age, Mr. McFarland came to the West and established his residence in the City of Topeka, Kansas, where he assumed a position in the auditor's depart- ment of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, where he continued his elerical and executive services about three years. He then became cashier in the office of the Shurmer-Tigle Company, engaged in the wholesale oil business in Topeka, and with this concern he continued to be identified about three years, in the meanwhile having been advanced to the position of man- ager of the business of the company in the City of St. Joseph, Missouri. Later he was assigned to a similar position at Sioux City, Iowa, where he remained one year.

In 1889 Mr. McFarland was one of the ambitions young men who "made the run" into the Hennessey District of Indian Territory at the time when that sec- tion was thrown open to settlement, shortly antecedent to its becoming a part of the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma. He later went to Kansas City, Missonri, but in 1900 he identified himself once more with what is now the State of Oklahoma, by becoming one of those who filed claim on town lots in the present City of Hobart, Kiowa County, when that section of the Kiowa Indian reservation was opened for settlement. He eventually perfected his title to this real estate in the ambitious town and in the meanwhile assumed the position of clerk in the office of Judge Harris Fin- ley, who was the first judge of the Probate Court of Kiowa County, the judge being the father-in-law of Mr. McFarland, and the latter having charge of the pre- paring and issuing of all deeds to the properties of the town site of Hobart. Later, by Hon. Thomas D. Fergu- son, governor of a territory, he was appointed clerk of Kiowa county, and after serving fourteen months in this office he engaged in the abstract business at Hobart, the county seat. Later he sold this business, which he has effectually developed and the entire records of which he had made authoritative, and he then removed to Vinita, the county seat of Craig County, where he be- came cashier of the newly organized Cherokee National Bank. This responsible position he retained from 1905 until 1912, in which latter year he disposed of his stock in the bank and established himself in an inde- pendent business as a public accountant, a line of en- terprise with which he had previously been identified at Hobart, where he had similarly established himself in 1904. He had served in the same capacity also during his incumbency of the position of cashier of the bank at Vinita, and in 1912 he removed to the City of Tulsa, where he has since continued his activities and become recognized as one of the alert, reliable and progressive business men of the community. He still serves as a public accountant, a field in which he is a recognized expert, and as a member of the firm of McFarland & Bernbrock, in which his valued coadjutor is L. S. Bern- brock, he has been a potent force in the upbuilding of a large and important enterprise in the lines of insur- ance and loans and the handling of high-grade bonds and other approved securities. Mr. McFarland has been concerned with each successive land opening in Okla- homa, and in this connection he was among the first to file claim to town lots in the present thriving City of Enid, in 1903. He has deep appreciation of the ad- vantages and manifold natural resources of the state

of his adoption and through his various business activ ties has contributed to the development and progress ( this vigorous young commonwealth.

In politics Mr. McFarland accords staunch allegian to the republican party, and in the time-honored Mason fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of th Ancient Accented Scottish Rite, in Indian Consistory, : Mc Alester, this state; his ancient-craft affiliation with Vinita Lodge, No. 5, Ancient Free and Accepte Masons, at Vinita, Craig County.

On the 17th of August, 1892, was solemnized the mai riage of Mr. McFarland to Miss Maude Finley, who wa born at Foxburg, Butler County, Pennsylvania, in whic historic old commonwealth were born also her parents Judge Harris Finley and Priscilla (Kirbs) Finley, he father having been one of the territorial pioneers a Hobart, Kiowa County, Oklahoma, and having server as the first judge of the Probate Court of that county as has been noted in a preceding paragraph. As : young woman of nineteen years Mrs. McFarland became one of those who "made the run" at the opening o. the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country at Oklahoma, where she filed claim to a homestead of 160 acres, to which she eventually perfected title. Mr. and Mrs. McFarlane have three children,-Marian Estelle, George C. and Lynden.

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JUDGE ROBERT A. CAMERON. One of Woods County 's most distinguished pioneer citizens was the late Robert Alonzo Cameron, who had homesteaded a elaim near Alva at the opening of the Strip in 1893, and who for twenty years was identified with that community as farmer, lawyer, and publie official. His long career of varied activities and important achievements came to a peaceful close in his death at Alva, September 24, 1914. In young manhood he had reached the rank of captain in the Union Army, and began his career as a lawyer a few years after the war.

Robert Alonzo Cameron was born June 28, 1842, on a farm in Washington County, Illinois. His parents, Thomas Wesley and Jane (Alexander) Cameron, were natives of Hagerstown, Maryland. His father, who died in Washington County, Illinois, located in that state in 1840. He was a wagon maker by trade and for the greater part of his life followed farming. He was married in 1822 to Miss Alexander, who also died in Washington County, Illinois. The late Judge Cameron was the youngest of their nine children, four daughters and five sons, brief mention of whom is given as follows: Matthew, now deceased, was born June 5, 1823. John : William, born September 17, 1825, was in the service of the Union army with the rank of surgeon until his death at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1863. Hanna Elizabeth, born January 15, 1828, was married October 12, 1848, to Robert G. Seawell, and she died in 1850, while her husband passed away at the Soldiers Home in Leaven- worth, Kansas. Jane Ann, born January 5, 1830, was married in 1861 to James Henry, now deceased, and she died in 1912. William James, born December 14, 1834, is now living in his eighty-first year retired at Oklahoma City. Harriet Elvira, born September 5, 1832, died in 1895. Margaret Catherine, born April 30, 1837, is the widow of William White and lives in Los Angeles, California. Thomas Wesley, born March 28, 1839, died in 1896.

Judge Robert A. Cameron received part of his eduea- tion in the old Ohio College at Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning to be established west of the Alleghany Mountains. After the war he entered the University of Michigan, and was graduated in the law department with the degree LL.B. in 1868. At the beginning of the Civil war he enlisted as a private in

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Company C of the Eleventh Illinois Infantry, soon received a commission as second lieutenant, and finally commanded his company as captain. His regiment bore the brunt of a number of engagements in the South, and as his promotion shows he possessed many of the best qualifications of the soldier and was a capable leader and popular among his comrades.

After his admission to the bar Judge Cameron took up the practice of law at Carthage, Missouri, and remained in that city until 1884. In the meantime he had represented Jasper County for two terms in the State Legislature, being elected on the republican ticket. In 1884 he went to El Dorado, Kansas, practiced law there a few years, and finally removed to Medicine Lodge, Kansas. He became county attorney of Barber County, held that office four years, and enjoyed an influential position in the professional and public life of his county. From his residence on the Southern Kansas border he followed closely all the details of the succes- sive openings of Oklahoma lands, and in the fall of 1893 joined the thousands of homeseekers at the opening of the Cherokee Strip. He located a claim three miles from Alva and lived upon it several years. In 1897 he was appointed register of the United States land office at Alva, and held that responsible position four years and five months. In 1907 he had the distinction of being the only republican candidate chosen in Woods County in the election of that year. As a result of this election he took up his duties as county judge, and gave a careful and efficient administration `of his duties throughout the term.

The late Judge Cameron is remembered as a man of solid qualities and abilities, not only as a lawyer, but as an all around citizen. He possessed an unusual range of scholarly interest, and few men had a more intimate knowledge of Shakespeare and the Bible than Judge Cameron. He had the gift of eloquence and his services as an orator were in demand not only in political cam- paigns, but on all occasions of popular meetings. He was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was for many years identified with the Grand Army of the Rerublic. held at one time the office of post commander, and at the time of his death was a member of the Alva Post, Grand Army of the Republic.

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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