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 7
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116
ROBERT BUNTON HUTCHINSON, merchant of Checotah and one of the prominent citizens of the place, was born at Hillsboro, Illinois, on March 10, 1862, but was reared principally at Vincennes, Indiana. His father, James G. Hutchinson, the eldest son of his parents, was born in England, and came with them to America when a child. The father was a minister of the Episcopal Church, and passed his lite in the service of the church. He settled with his family in Illinois, and there James Hutchinson, father of the subject, grew to manhood. Aiter his mar- riage to Mary C. Beeler, Mr. Hutchinson lived a short time in Illinois, and then removed to Vincennes, Indiana, in which place his wife was born and reared. She was a relative of one of the oldest and most prominent families in Vincennes, the Buntons, a member of which was the principal character of the well known novel, "Alice of Old Vincennes." In Indiana Mr. Hutchinson became a prominent newspaper man and politician. He served on the staff of Hon. Oliver P. Morton, the war governor of Indiana, and he died at Vincennes in 1868. His widow married a second time, and removed to Cairo, Illinois, where a part of the youth of Richard B. Hutchinson was spent. Later the family took up its residence in Little Rock, Arkansas, in about 1879, and it was from that city that Mr. Hutchinson came to Muskogee, Indian Terri- tory, in 1889.
Mr. Hutchinson had gained a common school education and on locating in Muskogee secured a clerical position with the Patterson Mercantile Company. He remained at Muskogee until 1906 when he came to Checotah and here engaged in the merchandise business. For years the firm, under the name of the Hutchinson Mercantile Company, but now The Hutchinsons (Inc.), has carried on a leading business in general merchandise in and about Checotah. They have also dealt largely in cotton, oper- ating a number of cotton gins, etc.
Mr. Hutchinson has been prominent as a factor in the development of the thriving Town of Checotah, and it may safely be said that he has in some manner been identified with almost every important enterprise in the community. For some years he has given much of his time to the real estate business, and is now the owner of a considerable property in the town and county, includ- ing valuable farm lands.
Always a democrat, Mr. Hutchinson has never been an office holder or a seeker after political favors. He has given his loyal support to the party, but his first interests in a political way are in the interests of his town and county. He is a Mason of the Scottish Rite branch, and a Knight Templar. He is a member of the Episcopal Church, the faith of his fathers. He has been twice married, and has two sons who are associated with him in his business enterprises.
970
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
GEORGE E. JAHN. The incident that resulted iu mak- ing George E. Jahn a permanent citizen of Oklahoma became one of historic value in the annals of the state. After devoting a number of years to the newspaper business in Monroe County, Illinois, and at St. Louis, Missouri, Mr. Jahn went South to take charge of the Tribune, at Fort Smith, Arkansas, at that time owned and edited by Captain Everly. While there he became attracted by the novelty and change of frontier life in the Indian nations just over the Arkansas border and resolved to enter that interesting land. Accordingly he went to Muskogee, oue of the oldest towns of the Indian country, where he was employed for some months on the Phoenix, at that time owned by Dr. Leo Bennett, later United States marshal of the Eastern District of Okla- homa. From there he transferred to Atoka, and set up in type and edited the compilation of the Chickasaw laws and constitution in the Choctaw language and also the translation into the English language. These two books were published in the office of the Indian Citizen, at Atoka, one of the oldest papers of the two Indian nations, were bound at St. Louis, and became valuable contributions to the legal literature of that day. Hav- ing by this work established himself in the Indian conn- try, Mr. Jalın determined to make it his home and in 1893 he established the Coalgate Independent, which was one of the pioneer papers of the Choctaw nation, Suc- ceeding consolidations and transfers of plants have made this paper the beginning of the Record-Register, which is now the leading newspaper of Coal County.
Mr. Jahn was born at St. Louis, Missouri, September 24, 1851, and is a son of John T. and Katherine Eliza- beth (Kraus) Jahn, both parents being born in Germany near the birthplace of the German emperor. His father, who was a jeweler, came to America in 1849 and settled at St. Louis. At the outbreak of the Civil war he eutered the Union army, and while still a soldier died from exposure incurred during that conflict. In 1852, the family had moved to Monroe County, Illinois, and it was there that George E. Jahn secured his public school education, which he later supplemented with the training that comes from a career in the profession of journalism. At the age of thirteen years he entered that vocation, in whose ranks he remained a member for a period of forty years. At one time he was the youngest news- paper editor in Illinois and the youngest editor of a democratic paper in the United States. Among his earlier experiences in the profession was that as editor of the Waterloo Times which was owned by Col. Bill Morrison, for many years one of the leading men of Illinois. During that period he revived his study of the German language, which had been neglected by his parents after they had become Americans, and for three years he edited a German newspaper and also wrote articles for German publications at St. Louis. He also taught in the German schools of that section, but abandoned the educational profession to accept a posi- tion on the Post-Dispatch, at St. Louis, where he was employed for four or five years as proof-reader, resign- ing that position to go to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Mr. Jahn recalls that during his stay at Fort Smith he em- ployed as reporter on the Tribune a bright, energetic young man from Kansas, whom it later developed was Frederick Funston, now a general in the United States army. At Fort Smith, also, Mr. Jahn became acquainted with Doctor Bennet, who was an Indian agent in the Choctaw country and who persuaded him to go to Mus- kogee. The newspaper that he established a short time later at Coalgate for a long time was the only democratic paper published in the Choctaw Nation.
Throughout his life Mr. Jahn has been an active demo- crat who has believed in fighting for the principles of
his party. After having concluded to remain perma- nently in the Indian country, he helped to initiate a movement for the permanent organization of that party in the Indian Territory as far back as 1892. For a num- ber of years that region had been ruled from Washing- ton, where a republican administration was in power. Robert L. Williams of Durant, Oklahoma, now governor of the state; William H. Murray, of Tishomingo, now congressman; Presley Lester, of McAlester, now post- master at McAlester, and Presby B. Cole, now dis- trict judge at McAlester, were among the representa- tive men of the Indian couutry who joined in the move- ment. The party was organized and began its fight for statehood. Its first important participation in national politics was in 1896 when its delegates sat in the conven- tion at Vinita, where Bland was suggested for the presidency at the solicitation of Bryau, who was the favorite, and who was nominated in the same campaign at Chicago.
Mr. Jahn acquired a general knowledge of the law through home study, newspaper work and observation, and was admitted to the bar July 27, 1909, by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. The previous year he had been elected a member of the Oklahoma Legislature from Coal County, and in that body, as a member of the Committee on Printing, took a leading part in printing matters and awarded contracts that effected a consider- able saving to the state over the cost of printing during the First Legislature, For twenty-seven months he was in the district clerk's office in Coal County, and he has also served as mayor of Coalgate, as well as president of the Coalgate Commercial Club, of which he is at this time secretary. He retains his loyalty to the democratic party and participates actively in its campaigns. Mr. Jahn has been a useful citizen of the town almost since the time of its inception and has been a stirring part of the force that has developed an excellent water system, a modern sewer system, up-to-date street pavement and other improvements, and proenred for the town a branch of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad that runs from Atoka to Oklahoma City.
In 1888, at Wagoner, Indian Territory, Mr. Jahn was united in marriage with Miss Alice Johnson, and to this nnion there have been born three children, namely: Mrs. Katrina Cusenberry, who is the wife of an official of the Folsom-Morris Coal Mining Company, at Lehigh, Oklahoma; Lota, who is general manager in the Coalgate District for the Pioneer Telephone Company; and Lester Bryan, who was named after Presley Lester of McAles- ter, Oklahoma, and William Jennings Bryan, of Lincoln, Nebraska, and who has just graduated from Coalgate High School and in 1916 will become a student in the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Jahn is a member of the Lutheran Evangelical Church, and also holds member- ship in the bar associations of Coal County and Okla- homa. His residence is maintained at Coalgate.
WALTER L. OWEN. After about seven years of suc- cessful practice in his native State of Kausas, Walter L. Owen identified himself with the bar at Cherokee soon after Oklahoma became a state, and is now one of the leading lawyers both in ability and success of prac- tice in Alfalfa County. While he has confined himself quite rigidly within the limits of his profession, he has always been known as a public spirited factor in local affairs, aud is one of the men npon whom the community counts for assistance in forwarding any movement for local betterment.
His birthplace was one of the typical Kansas palaces of the early '80s, a sod honse in Barber County, in which humble dwelling he first saw the light of day November 19, 1882. His parents are Joseph H. and Nannie
fa
A
971
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
(Thompson) Owen, who represent the sturdy pioneer element from which the State of Kansas derived its great power to accomplish things in the modern age of agriculture and progressive citizenship. Joseph H. Owen was born April 2, 1845, on a farm in Kentucky. When he was five years old his parents removed to another farm in Mercer County, Missouri, and while growing up there he attended a school conducted in a log house. At the beginning of the Civil war, though still under age, he enlisted in a company with a Missouri regiment as a private, and saw active service throughout the war. He was in many important battles, but was never seri- ously wounded and was never taken prisoner. After the war he continued farming in Mercer County, Missouri, until 1880, and then joined in the exodus to the new homes of Barber County, Kansas, where he endured the many vicissitudes of Kansas life in those years, per- sisted through countless discouragements, and is now enjoying prosperity and the comforts of a retired life at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. For many years he has been an active republican and is a member of the Masonic Order. He and his wife were married December 10, 1865, in Mercer County, Missouri, and at this writing they are both in good health and anticipate the celebra- tion of that impressive ceremony known as a golden wed- ding toward the close of 1915. Mrs. Owen was born in Mercer County, Missouri, June 16, 1846. They were the parents of six children, four sons and two daughters, and only one of them is now deceased, Minnie, who was born in 1866, having died in 1902. May, the next born, in 1868, was married in 1886 to William E. Marquard, and they live in Barber County, Kansas. Charles W., born in 1870, is a locomotive engineer with the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, living at Wellington, Kan- sas, and was married in 1890 to Hattie Vandiver. J. Thomas, born in 1872, is now living at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and was married in 1892 to Rachael LaDew. William H., born in 1875, is a locomotive engineer with the Santa Fe Railway, his headquarters being at Chanute, Kansas, and was married in 1895 to Etta Beaver.
Walter L. Owen, the youngest of the six children, is the only one to choose a professional career. He received his early education in the public schools at Medicine Lodge, graduating from the high school with the class of 1901, and then for one year studied in a law office, after which he entered the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and was graduated from the law department of that institution with the class of 1904. In the same year he opened a law office at Kiowa, Kansas, and prac- ticed there until January 6, 1908. At that date he estab- lished his office and home at Cherokee, Oklahoma, and his practice has been growing steadily in all the courts. Mr. Owen is an active republican, is affiliated with the Masonic Order and is a member of the Baptist Church. On December 6, 1911, at Cherokee, he married Miss Pearl Allen, daughter of L. D. Allen, a merchant of St. Joseph, Missouri. Mrs. Owen was born June 20, 1885, in the State of Iowa.
FRANK A. HASKELL. A resident of Oklahoma since 1904 and of the City of Tulsa since 1913, Mr. Haskell is vice president and general manager of the Okla Oil Company, is a prominent figure in connection with the operations in the oil and natural-gas fields of this state and acquired his initial experience in the oil-producing business when a youth, in Pennsylvania, his association with this line of enterprise having continued during the long intervening years and definite and worthy success having attended his efforts, the while he is a recognized authority in the details of the important industry. Mr. Haskell claims the historic old metropolis of the Key- stone State as the place of his nativity and is a scion
of a sterling family, of English lineage, that was founded in New England in the colonial era of our national his- tory, his great-grandfather, Capt. Job Haskell, having served in the army of General Washington in the War of the Revolution and having held commission as cap- tain of his New England company, so that the subject of this review is eligible for membership in the noble patriotic order, the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
Frank H. Haskell was born in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 2d of June, 1868, and is a son of Harvey M. and Amelia (Miles) Haskell, the former of whom was born at Tunbridge, Orange County, Vermont, in 1831, and the latter of whom was born in the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, her home being now at Pleasantville, Venango County, that state, where she has resided since the death of her husband, in 1887. Of the five children four are now living and the first born was he whose name introduces this article. Harvey M. Haskell was a son of Job Haskell, Jr., who passed his active life as a substantial farmer in Orange County, Vermont, the family having been one of no little prom- inence and influence in that section of the old Green Mountain State for many years.
Harvey M. Haskell was reared to adult age under the conditions and influences of the old homestead farm in New England and was indebted to the schools of his native state for his early educational discipline. About the time of attaining to his legal majority he went to Madison, the capital of the State of Wisconsin, in com- pany with his older brother, Frank A. Haskell, who was a gallant soldier in a Vermont regiment in the Civil war and who took part in numerous important engagements, including the famous battle of Gettysburg: he later wrote a careful and concise history of this sanguinary battle and this is looked upon today as the most authentic and authoritative published record of the momentous battle. In the early '60s Harvey M. Haskell served as clerk of the county court of Dane County, Wisconsin, of which the now picturesque and metropolitan little City of Madison is the judicial center, but he returned to the East after remaining a few years in the Badger State. In Pennsylvania he became one of the pioneers in the development of the oil industry, and after establishing his home at Pleasantville, Venango County, that state, he effected the organization of the Citizens National Bank, of which he served in turn as cashier and presi- dent, besides having continued his association with the production of oil in the Pennsylvania fields. His po- litical allegiance was given to the republican party but he was essentially a business man and manifested no ambition for political office.
Frank A. Haskell fully availed himself of the ad- vantages of the public schools of Pleasantville, Pennsyl- vania, and supplemented this discipline by a course of higher academic study in Allegheny College, at Mead- ville, that state. He was nineteen years of age at the time of his father's death, and as the eldest of the children he was called upon to assume supervision of the various business interests with which his father had been connected. During the intervening years he has never entirely severed his active association with the oil industry, and he has been identified with producing activities in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, West Vir- ginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Kansas and Oklahoma, so that he has kept pace with the develop- ment of this enterprise in the new fields that have been successively opened in these different states of the Union, his broad experience having given him authoritative knowledge of the business in all of its details.
As previously stated, Mr. Haskell came to Oklahoma Territory in 1904, and he has been one of the leaders
972
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
in developing and exploiting the great oil and natural- gas resources of this commonwealth, both under the ter- ritorial and state regimes. He is identified with the Okla Oil Company, and for seven years prior to extend- ing his activities in states farther to the west he had held the position of manager of the Associated Pro- ducers Company of Illinois. At the present time his time and attention are given largely to his executive and teclinical duties as vice president and general manager of the Okla Oil Company, which has extensive holdings and controls large producing properties in the Okla- homa oil and gas fields.
Mr. Haskell is a stockholder in the National Bank of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has other important capitalistic investments in the East, as well as in Okla- homa. In national politics he is a republican, but in local affairs, where no general economic and govern- mental issues are involved, he gives his support to the men and measures meeting the approval of his judg- ment and without being in the least constrained by strict partisan lines. Reverting to the agnatic genealogy of Mr. Haskell, it may be recorded that he is a direct descendant of William Haskell, who immigrated from England to America in 1632 and established his resi- dence in the historic old City of Salem, Massachusetts.
June 24, 1896, recorded the marriage of Mr. Haskell to Miss Jane M. Brown, who was born at Pleasantville, Pennsylvania, and who was a childhood schoolmate of her husband. They have one son and two daughters, namely: Richard M., Frances K., and Rebecca K. Mrs. Haskell is a daughter of Alexander W. and Minerva (Mitchell) Brown, both natives of the State of Pennsyl- vania and representatives of honored colonial families. Mr. Brown was prominently identified with oil, banking and general merchandising interests in his native state, where he continued to reside until his death.
CHARLES A. PATTERSON. The Patterson Newspaper Subscription Agency, of which the president is he whose name initiates this paragraph, has its headquarters in Oklahoma City and in its scope of business and efficiency of service it is one of the largest and most important of its kind in the entire West. As a business man Mr. Patterson is essentially progressive and alert and his experience has been wide and varied, including prominent association for a number of years with the manage- ment of theatrical enterprises. In his present line of enterprise his mature judgment and familiarity with all details make him a specially resourceful executive, and he is consistently to be designated as one of the representative figures in the business circles of the Oklahoma metropolis, the while he stands also as a loyal and public-spirited citizen.
Charles Alexander Patterson was born at Neosho Rapids, Lyon County, Kansas, on the 11th of December, 1868, and is a scion of one of the sterling pioneer fami- lies of the Sunflower State. He is a son of Ephraim A. and Margaret Ann (Barnett) Patterson, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Missouri. When Charles A. Patterson was a lad of five years his parents removed from his native town to the City of Fort Scott, Kansas, and there he continued to attend the public schools until his graduation in the high school. When a mere boy he was connected with active service for the daily newspapers of Fort Scott, and it may be that it was thus he gained early predilection for the line of enterprise in which he has achieved such distinctive suc- cess in later years. In the practical supplementing of his education Mr. Patterson completed a thorough course in the Topeka Business College, in the capital city of Kansas, and he then assumed a clerical position in the
general offices of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail- road. From Topeka he finally went to Kansas City, Missouri, where he became actively and prominently identified with newspaper work and where he eventually figured as one of the founders of the Kansas City Post, of which he was circulation manager from the time of the issuing of the first edition. Later he became asso- ciated with others in the founding of the Daily star at St. Joseph, Missouri, and with this paper he held the position of circulation manager until the property and business were sold by the original owners.
At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Patterson iden- tified himself also with the theatrical business, as a booking agent and as the lessee of opera houses and theaters throughout Kansas and Oklahoma. With this interesting line of business he continued to be associated for nineteen years, and within this period he figured as the lessee and manager of twenty-six theaters in Kansas and Oklahoma, including the Auditorium Theater at Wichita, Kansas, in which building he maintained his general office. In 1899 he was manager of the opera houses at Shawnee and Anadarko, Oklahoma, and one at Amarillo, Texas. Shortly after the disaster by fire that caused the loss of so many lives in the Iroquois Theater in the City of Chicago, Mr. Patterson sold his entire holdings and agencies in the theatrical business to H. G. Toler & Son, of Wichita, Kansas, and since that time he has had no further association with this line of enterprise.
Returning to Kansas City, Mr. Patterson there became circulation manager for one of the leading daily papers, but soon afterward, in 1908, he came to the newly created State of Oklahoma, where, with general offices in Oklahoma City, he has built up a general newspaper- subscription agency that is equal to anything of similar order in the entire Union. From his agency, through the medium of his traveling representatives, he effect- ively covers the states of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Ar- kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, and in the connection he gives steady and remunerative employment to an average of twenty-five persons, his policy being at all times to secure the best possible talent in all departments of his business and to make the remuneration justify the results obtained. Concerning him the following pertinent and well merited statements have been written: "As manager of men in the field Mr. Patterson has no su- perior, and from the hundred whom he tries out he selects and keeps the best. So successful has he become in the selecting and handling of men that he has been paid the high compliment of being called to the larger cities of the East by newspaper circulation and business managers who were anxious to learn from him personally his methods and plans of work. In all of his endeavors Mr. Patterson has been successful also in a financial way, because he wrought on the theory that 'you can do it if you try' and will give to your efforts a system care- fully planned from the standpoint of knowledge of what you are striving to achieve and will demand efficiency in the means employed. During the period of his cir- culation building from his Oklahoma City offices Mr. Patterson has taken direct subscriptions to an aggregate number of fully 500,000.''
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.