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 65

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 65

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After the war Mr. Scott was engaged in farming in Kentucky and Arkansas up to 1876. In that year he removed to Abilene, Kansas, a city which had pre- viously been one of the most conspicuous points in the cattle driving industry, and was there engaged variously iu mercantile, farming and stock raising business for six years. His next removal was to Reno County, Kansas, where he continued as a farmer until 1893. Then came the opening of the Cherokee Strip and his location at Alva, where he opened one of the first stores in the town. He has been continuously in business since that date, and in 1908 erected the Scott Block, one of the most modern business structures in Northern Okla- homa.

With the organization of Alva as a city, Mr. Scott was honored by being chosen to the first city council, representing the first ward. In 1912 he was one of the presidential electors on the Oklahoma democratic ticket, and in a public way has also served as justice of the peace.

On April 20, 1873, at Marion, Kentucky, Mr. Scott married Miss Martha H. Jackson, daughter of James and Peggy (Mayes) Jackson, who were also natives of Kentucky. Mrs. Scott was born March 28, 1850, in Kentucky. No children have been born to their union. Mr. Scott is a member of the Presbyterian Church, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in Masonry has reached the Knight Templar degree.

JAMES P. BARTLEY, M. D. Among the medical men who came to Indian Territory during the late '90s to take up the work of their chosen profession at the time of early pale-face occupation, is Dr. James P. Bartley, now one of the foremost physicians of Comanche. A man well known for scholarship, thorough knowledge of and close devotion to his calling, and surgical skill of

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

moved to Albany, New York, where he became private secretary for James F. McElroy, a consulting electrical engineer, and liis studies while acting in this position were along the line of theological subjects. In 1899 he entered the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and July 20, 1900, was ordained by the Presbytery of Albany, New York, as a minister of the Presbyterian Church, his first charge being at Montcalm, New Jersey. Later he went to New York City and then to Haddon Heights, New Jersey, and after spending ten years as a minister of the gospel decided to come to the West. In 1910 he located at Vinita, where he again took up the practice of law, in partnership with S. Riddle and A. D. Ben- nett, the firm style being Riddle, Bennett & Mitchell. They carry on a general practice, although some spe- cializing is done in banking and corporation law, and the combination is known to be a strong and learned one. Mr. Mitchell is a man of decided literary talent and is a frequent and welcome contributor to various religious journals, and to the Saint Louis Mirror. He is well read and widely traveled, and has had charge of four dif- ferent European touring parties. He is also in urgent demand as a speaker, his style of delivery being easy and attractive, and the subject matter of his speeches clearly, pithily and eloquently presented. To his sub- stantial and brilliant traits as a lawyer and his stanch character as a man, he is possessed of the sociable and attractive qualities of the cultured gentleman.

On February 8, 1913, Mr. Mitchell was united in marriage with Miss Jessie F. Mathews, of Philadelphia.

ERSKINE WILLIAM SNODDY. In the law and in the realm of practical affairs the name Snoddy has many distinctive associations with Oklahoma, beginning with the pioneer development of the old territory. Erskine W. Snoddy is a prominent lawyer of Alva, and his father before him was distinguished in the same profession, both in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

Erskine William Snoddy was born March 4, 1871, at Sedalia, Missouri, a son of William W. S. and May M. (Long) Snoddy. His father was born January 25, 1837, in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, of Irish parentage. When twenty years of age he began reading law, and was in practice at Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, until the out- break of the Civil war. He enlisted in Company C of the 137th Regiment of Pennsylvania Infantry, and on the organization of the company was elected sergeant, and subsequently was advanced to the rank of captain. This company was mustered out of service June 1, 1863. Captain Snoddy at once undertook the organization of a new regiment, which was mustered in as the 207th Pennsylvania Infantry, with him as lieutenant colonel. He continued as one of the commanding officers of the regiment until the close of the war. This regiment saw much hard service, and as captain and colonel he par- ticipated in some of the most noteworthy engagements of the war, including Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fred- ericksburg, and in all of the important battles in and around Petersburg. He was at Appomattox in April, 1865, when General Grant accepted the surrender of Lee's forces. Following the assassination of President Lincoln his regiment was on provost guard duty at Wash- ington during the trial and execution of the conspira- tors. Colonel Snoddy was twice seriously wounded dur- ing the war.

Having gained distinction as a soldier, Colonel Snoddy then located at Scdalia, Missouri, and was in practice of the law there until 1885. In that year he removed to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and from that point went to participate in the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893. He was one of the successful homestead seekers and located a claim of Government land three miles south of

Alva. He continued the practice of law at Alva until his death, which occurred suddenly at Montrose, Colorado, August 12, 1908. In the year of statehood and the year preceding his death he was the republican nominee for justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Colonel Snoddy was married to Miss Long in 1863 at Selin's Grove, Pennsylvania. She was born in Pennsyl- vania, June 30, 1844. To their marriage were born nine children, five daughters and four sons. One son and three daughters died in infancy, and those who reached maturity were: Claude L., who was born January 25, 1867, and died at Alva, Oklahoma, June 23, 1899; he was a lawyer and journalist, and never married. The second in the family is Erskine W. James Cook, born June 30, 1874, now a farmer and stock man, was married in 1909 to Miss Carrie Gamble, a native of Wallace County, Kansas. Edna May, born in 1877, was married in 1898 to Elmer M. Decds, and now lives at Los Angeles, Cali- fornia. Beulah C., born in 1881, was married in 1902 to David C. (Pat) Oates, and has two children, Marjorie and William. Pat Oates was a conspicuous character in Oklahoma affairs. He was a pioneer settler and a peace officer of old Woods County, Oklahoma, having served by election as sheriff of the original county for two terms prior to statehood. He was assistant sergeant at arms in the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention in 1907, and in 1908 was appointed a deputy warden of the State Penitentiary at McAlester, and assisted in the work of building and supervising the new state prison until January 19, 1914, when he was killed in a prison out- break, at which time six other persons lost their lives. Pat Oates was born in Alabama in August, 1871, and was also a veteran of the Spanish-American war, having been sergeant in a company in the First Territorial United States Volunteers.

Erskine W. Snoddy grew up and received his educa- tion partly in Missouri and partly in Kansas. He attended a Catholic school at Sedalia, Missouri, and in 1887, at the age of sixteen, began work as a teacher and for four years followed that vocation in Barber County, Kansas. In 1891 he was appointed a United States deputy marshal for the Territory of Oklahoma, and thus came into close touch with affairs during some of the important openings of new territory. It was an office of great hazard and responsibility during the wild and woolly period of Northwestern Oklahoma, and he discharged his duties in that capacity for a period of seven years. In the meantime he had taken up and pursued steadily the study of law under the direction of his father. In 1900, having been admitted to the bar, he began practice at Alva. In 1901 he was appointed referee in bankruptcy for the old Sixth Judicial District, and held that office until Oklahoma became a state in 1907. In 1902 came election as city attorney of Alva, an office which by repeated reelection he has filled to the present time. For many years he has been one of the leaders in the republican party in Northern Oklahoma, and in 1911 was nominated by that party for justice of the Criminal Court of Appeals. Mr. Snoddy is a mem- ber of the Masonic Order and the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks.

At Kiowa, Kansas, December 1, 1892, he married Miss Sarah Nicholson, who was born March 4, 1873, at Shawneetown, Illinois, a daughter of Andrew and Martha Nicholson, early settlers of Barber County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Snoddy have. one daughter, Frieda May, who was born November 4, 1895, and completed her education in the Oklahoma Northwestern State Normal School at Alva. On March 25, 1915, she married Harold White, a building contractor of Oklahoma City.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

JAMES S. TWYFORD. That a young man still in his early thirties should have been able to display such marked abilities as to obtain a foremost position among the leading lawyers of Oklahoma City evidences beyond fear of question the possession of great and unusual faculties and talents; that such a position has been at- tained through individual effort and without the aid of outside influences makes this record a still more note- worthy one. James S. Twyford, to whom the foregoing refers, one of Oklahoma City's leading legists and at various times the incumbent of high and responsible official positions, was born at Florence, Marion County, Kansas, June 17, 1883, the youngest son of Samuel B. and Lucy (French) Twyford, and a descendant, on the paternal side, of an old Welsh family.

Samuel B. Twyford was born at Terre Haute, Indiana, and as a youth went to Illinois, where, when but fourteen years of age, he succeeded in enlisting in an Illinois volunteer regiment for service in the Union army during the Civil war. Although but a lad, his ingenuity, cour- age and activity commended him for scout duty, and in this capacity he acted throughout the period of warfare. At the close of hostilities he went to Mississippi, where he married and for a number of years was a planter, but later returned to Illinois and subsequently removed to Kansas, settling in Marion County, where he engaged in farming. When Oklahoma was opened to settlement, he made the run, was successful, and located a homestead in the vicinity of Waterloo, Oklahoma County, where he continued to be engaged in farming until the time of his death, in 1899.

Mrs. Lucy (French) Twyford was born in Ohio, but was reared in Greene County, Illinois, whence she was taken as a child. She was given good educational ad- vantages, and after her graduation from the Illinois State Normal School, at Bloomington, Illinois, entered upon a career in teaching which was remarkable in many respects, covering a period of thirty years in various sections of the country. After the close of the war be- tween the North and South, Mrs. Twyford went to Mis- sissippi, where she became the teacher of the first free school in the state for negroes, and was thus engaged when the notorious Ku-Klux Klan began its operations. This organization, said to have been founded in 1866, at Pulaski, Tennessee, originally for purposes of amusement only, soon developed into an association of "regulators" and became widely known for the deeds of violence com- mitted in its name, particularly in the determined strug- gle to withhold from the emancipated slaves the right of franchise. Mrs. Twyford fell under the ban of this organization as one who was trying to instill knowledge into the minds of the blacks and she was accordingly ordered to close her school. This she did, but for only one day, July 4th, when she left the county, but the following day reopened her school and courageously con- tinued to teach there until the close of the regular school year. Mrs. Twyford accompanied her husband to Okla- homa in 1889 and continued to be prominently identified with school matters, being the first principal of the first public school at Edmond, Oklahoma County, and a mem- ber of a committee which wrote the first school laws for the first Territorial Legislature in 1890, and which laws were so admirably prepared that they still exist, with some slight modifications to meet present conditions. A regularly ordained minister of the Congregational Church, this remarkable woman built and was pastor of the churches at Deer Creek, Bethel and Victory, all located in Oklahoma County. She reared two sons and two daughters to sturdy, self-reliant man and womanhood, educating them herself and preparing them for the posi- tions in life which they have since been called upon to fill. She still survives, being seventy-two years of age.

James S. Twyford received his literary training under the inspiring preceptorship of his mother, and then, turning his attention to the law, became a student at Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas, where he was grad- uated in 1906, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. During his law course he worked as a typesetter and at journalistic labors, in order to pay the expenses of his studies, and before being regularly admitted to the bar was appointed assistant city attorney of Topeka, thus early evidencing the abilities and talents that have since carried him to high position. At the time of his gradu- ation, in June, 1906, he resigned his official position and at once came to Oklahoma City, where he was admitted to the Oklahoma bar and at the same time made assist- ant city attorney of Oklahoma City under Edward E. Reardon. His incumbency of this office was made nota- ble by the prosecution of many murder cases, prominent among which was the notorious Mingle case, which attracted widespread attention. He resigned his office in 1908 and the same year was elected city attorney, on the republican ticket, serving not only the full term of two years but a period under the new commissioners, and then entering general practice. In 1911 he was the republican candidate for mayor of Oklahoma City. While city attorney, he originated, instituted and prosecuted until a final decision, the "Telephone Refund Case," which resulted in declaring the rate provisions void and the refund of $61,000 to the telephone subscribers. This action he started while city attorney, but after he had left that office remained in the case without remunera- tion until its final adjustment. Mr. Twyford also took the lead in the charter litigation, which resulted in the present form of commission government being declared constitutional, and from that time has given the greater part of his attention to constitutional and municipal law, in which branches of his profession he has no superior in the city and probably none in the state. His high standing has been evidenced on various occasions by his appointment as special judge in the Superior and County courts in special cases.

Mr. Twyford is a thirty-second degree, A. & A. S. R. Mason, and belongs to Oklahoma City Lodge, No. 36, A. F. & A. M .; Oklahoma Consistory, Valley of Guthrie; and India Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. He also holds membership in the Knights of Pythias, the 1889ers' Association and the Oklahoma City Men's Dinner, Club. With his family, he attends the Congregational Church. In a professional way, he is connected with the Oklahoma County Bar Association, of which he was secretary from 1907 to 1911, and in 1912 and 1913 vice president, and with the American Bar Association.

In September, 1912, Mr. Twyford was married to Miss Gladys A. Frees, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. S. Frees, of Minnesota. She is a graduate in domestic science from St. Antony's Park University, a branch of the University of Minnesota, and taught domestic science in the graded and high schools of Oklahoma City for several years preceding her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Twyford have a daughter, Aileen Margret, born Novem- ber 8, 1914. The family home is at No. 1821 West Park Place, Oklahoma City.

THEODOSIUS A. HENRY. For nearly twenty years Mr. Henry was one of the prominent stock men and farmers in the old Cherokee Strip, having participated in the opening rush into that country in 1893. In recent years he has become known as a banker, and is the proprietor of the Red Fork Bank at Red Fork, Tulsa County. He belongs to pioneer stock in the Southwest, and joining his record to that of his father the name has been closely associated with stock raising and with stock dealings throughout the Southwest for some five or six decades.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Theodosius A. Henry was born in Cedar County, Mis- souri, January 31, 1856, a son of James L. and Margaret L. (Brownlee) Henry. Both were born in Greensburg, Kentucky, and the father died in 1871 at the age of sixty- one, and his wife in 1885. Theodosius was the youngest of their ten children, only two of whom are still living. James L. Henry was a man of the true pioneer spirit. In 1828 he brought his wife and three children, making the journey overland, to Cedar County, Missouri, and was one of the pioneer stock raisers and farmers in Southwest Missouri, a country which at that time was hardly ex- plored except by hunters and trappers. He became known over a large section of country as a dealer in live stock, collecting his mules and horses at different points, and then driving them in herds across the country to market. One of his chief market points was Monroe, Louisiana. With the organization of Cedar County he was elected first county judge, and held that office until the time of the Civil war. In 1863 he removed to the vicinity of Sherman, Texas, and continued stock raising in that locality until 1868, and then went across the Arkansas line to Cane Hill, Washington County, where he continued business as a stock raiser and farmer until his death. Prior to the war he was a slave owner, and at one time had about sixty-five black people under his con- trol. He was one of that intelligent minority who op- posed the war and secession, and believed in the wisdom of effecting a proper settlement of the differences which divided the North and the South. During the war and afterwards he was known as a Union democrat.

Theodosius A. Henry grew up largely at Cane Hill, Arkansas, where he attended the common and high schools and also the Cane Hill College, one of the oldest institu- tions of collegiate rank in Arkansas. He was between fourteen and fifteen years of age when his father died, and thereafter a large share of the responsibilities in the management of the homestead devolved upon his youth- ful shoulders. He continued in charge of the various interests collected and left by his father for five or six years, and then took up business independently in buying and selling horses, mules, cattle and hogs, shipping to St. Louis and also to Yazoo, Mississippi. He acquired an extensive custom throughout the southwestern stock centers and became a recognized expert in purchasing and handling stock. In 1889 he went abroad to Spain to buy Spanish jacks for breeding purposes, and during his residence abroad visited the Paris Exposition of that year. After his return to this country he spent some time in St. Louis, Missouri, and then returned to Fayette- ville, Arkansas, and continued in the same line of business for several years.

On September 16, 1893, the date of the opening of the Cherokee Strin, Mr. Henry made the run into the new territory, and located in Pawnee County. He was fortu- nate in securing a homestead, and then continued his business as a stock raiser and dealer on a large scale until 1912. While in Pawnee County he took an active part in public affairs, and was one of the first county commissioners after the organization of the countv. He also served as undersheriff in 1895-96 and in 1900-01. His superior in the office was Sheriff Ton Lewis, who also was first sheriff of Tulsa County after statehood. On January 1, 1903, Mr. Henry bought the Red Fork Bank, and subsequently removed from Pawnee to Red Fork, where he is living at the present time. In politics Mr. Henry is a democrat.

He was first married in 1879 to Miss Eran Morgan, who died the same vear, leaving one son, Allen Henry, now cashier of the Farmers & Merchants Bank at Catoosa, Oklahoma. Mr. Henry married for his second wife December 8, 1897, Miss Lou Rowell. She was born in Heidelburg, Mississippi. To their union have come five

children, four sons and one daughter: Roy H., Cecil L. Eugene G., Floyd F. and Margaret Louise.

ELIPHALET NOTT WRIGHT, M. D. Much has been written in this publication concerning the work and in fluence of the Rev. Allen Wright, formerly governor and principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, and whose happ: suggestion furnished the beautiful name of the State o Oklahoma. It was during his service on a commission of the Choctaws engaged in making the treaty of 186 with the United States Government that Governor Aller Wright suggested the name which is now applied to the forty-sixth state of the American Union.

At Olney, Oklahoma, Dr. Eliphalet Nott Wright, a sol of Governor Allen, is now engaged in the practice o: medicine. He has been a member of the medica profession in Indian Territory and Oklahoma for fully thirty years. While he has accomplished much pro fessionally, his name should be placed only second to tha of his father in political influence.

A son of Governor Allen Wright, D. D., and Harrie: Newell (Mitchell) Wright, Eliphalet Nott Wright was born April 3, 1858, at the present location of the Armstrong Academy near Caddo, Oklahoma. He ac quired his primary instruction from private tutors and at the age of fourteen entered Westminster College al Fulton, Missouri. He remained there two years and at the age of sixteen entered Spencer Academy in the Choctaw Nation, where he finished his course in June 1878. In September of that year he entered Union Col lege at Schenectady, New York, where he graduated with the class of 1882, and then prepared for his profession in the Albany Medical College, where he was graduated M. D. in 1884.

With this thorough equipment in the schools of his native country and from some of the best institutions of the East, Doctor Wright returned to practice in the environment in which he had been reared. He began practice at Boggy Depot in the Choctaw Nation. In October, 1884, he secured from the Choctaw Council the exclusive right to develop oil in the Choctaw Nation, He then organized a company, and in 1888 drilled in the first well near Atoka, which proved conclusively that oil exists in and around this location. The noteworthy feature of this undertaking was that it was the first oil well drilled west of Ohio, and antedated the oil develop- ment in the present State of Oklahoma by many years.

In 1885 Doctor Wright was employed as chief surgeon to the Missouri Pacific coal mines at Lehigh, Oklahoma, a position which he filled until 1894. In the meantime on April 26, 1888, he married Miss Ida Bell Richards of St. Louis, Missouri.

Though he has always been devoted to the interests of his profession, Doctor Wright has been called to the per- formance of public duty so much that his name is per- haps better known in public life and leadership than in the profession to which he has been devoted for more than thirty years.

In 1890 he was appointed by Governor Wilson N. Jones, of the Choctaw Nation, as national agent, having full charge of the revenues of the nation arising from the development and exportation of timber, stone and coal. These revenues amounted to about $300,000 an- nually, and were used by the Choctaw government for the maintenance of the Government and its schools.

Doctor Wright's greatest public service was in connec- tion with the negotiations between the Choctaw Nation and the Dawes Commission. In 1893, soon after the bill passed Congress creating the Dawes Commission to treat with the five civilized tribes, for the purpose of se- curing allotment of land in severalty and the breaking up of tribal relations, Doctor Wright was appointed on

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L a commission of twelve Choctaws to meet with similar delegates sent from the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles and Osages, which met at Checota, Oklahoma, een to deliberate upon the advisability of treating with the in Dawes Commission. This convention went on record und as opposing the making of any treaties.

In 1895 Doctor Wright was elected a member of the Choctaw Council. He was elected as the advocate of a policy to treat with the Dawes Commission. Thus he was the first prominent citizen of any of the five civilized tribes to advocate such a policy. His course was met by strong and bitter opposition, and as he was the only member of the council who believed in such a policy it required his strongest efforts to procure a hearing for the Dawes Commission before that body.

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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