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 73

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 73

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).

Mr. Young was born in Lauderdale County, Alabama, on the 25th of July, 1858, and is a son of William B. and Mary (Powers) Young, his father having been a thrifty, prosperous and progressive agriculturist and a citizen who always commanded unqualified popular con- fidence and respect. He was a native of North Carolina, was for a time a resident of Tennessee, but both he and his wife passed the closing period of their lives in

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Alabama. Of the other surviving children the following brief data may consistently be given: Dr. J. E. Young is engaged in the real-estate and farm-loan business at Ardmore, Oklahoma; Samuel H. Young is a successful dealer in live stock at Florence, Alabama; Mrs. Mattie E. Roach is a resident of Purcell, Oklahoma; Mrs. John Simpson maintains her home at Florence, Alabama; and Mrs. Emma P. May lives at Cloverdale, Alabama.

After due preliminary training in the public schools Andrew M. Young completed a course in the Goodman Business College at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1875, and at the age of nineteen years he assumed a position in the hardware establishment of O. Ewing & Co. of that city. When but twenty-two years of age he became a partner in the hardware firm of Bransford & Co. of Nashville. This advancement indicated his rapidly developing acu- men as a business executive, for at the time he was the youngest man in the South to be admitted as an inter- ested principal in a firm of such importance and sub- stantial order. Later Mr. Young was a traveling repre- sentative of the Simons Hardware Company of St. Louis, for which extensive wholesale concern he was a successful and valued salesman through a wide territory in Ala- bama, Tennessee and Mississippi. Finally impaired health caused him to sever this association, and he estab- lished his residence at Manchester, Tennessee, where, in 1892, he became president of the Coffey' County Bank and initiated his successful career as a financier and bank executive. Within the ensuing few years he and his partner, J. G. Wilkinson, established several banks, in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, and all of which were successful. The two interested principals then extended their activities into the Southwest and became the founders of prosperous banking enterprises in Texas and Oklahoma. In 1904 Mr. Young established his resi- dence at Muskogee, Indian Territory, where he became cashier of the Bank of Commerce, a position which he retained until the admission of Oklahoma to the Union, in 1907, when, as before stated, he accepted the important and exacting office of state bank commissioner, being the first incumbent of this position under the state regime, which he resigned to become associated with the Mechanics and Metals National Bank of New York City as general convention man and special representative in the South and West. At that time eastern capitalists manifested a distinct reluctance to making investments in securities in the new State of Oklahoma, and it is undoubtedly due to Mr. Young in greater degree than any other one man in the state that this skepticism was removed and that from other eastern sources millions of dollars have been invested in Oklahoma securities.

Though not imbued with ambition for political office, Mr. Young accords unswerving allegiance to the demo- cratic party and is essentially liberal and public-spirited as a citizen of broad views and utmost loyalty. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

At Florence, Alabama, on the 28th of December, 1878, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Young to Miss Ollie House, and they have six children, concerning whom brief record is given in conclusion of this review: Earline is the wife of George S. Ramsey, a representative member of the bar of the City of Muskogee, Oklahoma; Orville is first assistant in the office of the state insur- ance commissioner of Oklahoma; Milton is cashier of the Exchange National Bank of Muskogee; Dr. Andrew M. Young, Jr., is a leading physician and surgeon in Okla- homa City; Henry is engaged in the insurance and farm- loan business in. Oklahoma City and Edward S. is assist-

ant cashier of the First National Bank of Tulsa, Okla- homa.

NAPOLEON B. MAXEY. Not only as one of the prom- inent and influential members of the bar of Muskogee County but also as representative of the county in the Fifth Legislature of the state does Hon. Napoleon B. Maxey merit definite consideration in this history, but also by reason of his being one of the pioneer lawyers of Indian Territory and one who has attained to marked precedence as one of the leading exponents of his pro- fession in the State of Oklahoma.

The ancestral history of Mr. Maxey is one of interest- ing order and designates long and worthy identification with American annals. Three centuries ago three brothers of the Maxey line who were French Huguenots and lived in the Province of Lorraine, now a part of Germany and the present stage of bitter conflict between the great contending forces in the most frightful war- fare in the world's history, were compelled to flee their native land on account of the religious persecution inci- dental to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and found hospice in England. From the "right little, tight little isle" they came to America and became members of a Huguenot colony and settlement known as Monokin Town, near the present site of the City of Richmond, Virginia. It is altogether probable that from these worthy progenitors are descended the great majority of those bearing in the United States the name of Maxey, and the lineage is traced in an authentic way by him whose name initiates this article, the maternal ancestors of Mr. Maxey having come to America from Scotland and the paternal grandfather of his mother having been John Douglas O'Day.

Napoleon B. Maxey was born in Smith County, Ten- nessee, on the 15th of July, 1853, and is a son of Thomas J. and Mary B. (O'Day) Maxey, who continued their residence in that state until the time of their death. Mr. Maxey is indebted to the public schools of Tennessee for his early education, which was supplemented by a two years' normal course in the old Chicago University. He left that institution in 1878 and thereafter was for seven years a successful teacher in the schools of Union County, Illinois, in the meanwhile studying law in the office of Judge Monroe C. Crawford, who has held for nearly half a century a position on the bench in Illinois. At Jonesboro, that state, Mr. Maxey was admitted to the bar in 1881, and thereafter he continued in the practice of his profession in Union County, Illinois, until the autumn of 1888, when he removed to Gainesville, Texas. A year later he came to Indian Territory and established his permanent residence at Muskogee, where he became a charter member of the first bar association organized in the territory, so that he is eminently entitled to be considered one of the pioneer members of the bar of the present State of Oklahoma, which he has dignified by his character and achievement.

During the long years of his residence at Muskogee Mr. Maxey has been influential in political affairs but that he has considered his profession worthy of his maximum fealty is shown by the fact that never until 1914 did he consent to become a candidate for public office aside from the direct line of his profession. In that year there were ten candidates for representative of Muskogee County in the State Legislature, and in the primaries Mr. Maxey was nominated by a plurality of 650 votes. Illness contracted the day before the an- nouncement of his candidacy prevented his making a per- sonal campaign incidental to the primary election, and the illness of his loved and devoted wife, who was sum- moned to eternal rest November 9, 1914, made impossible his participation in the canvass of the count incidental

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to the general campaign that ensued. Thus his election attested even more fully and significantly his inviolable place in the confidence and esteem of the people of the county that has been his home for thirty years and to whose civic and material development and progress he has contributed his quota.

In the Fifth Legislature Mr. Maxey was chairman of judiciary committee No. 2, and a member of judiciary committee No. 1, besides holding membership also on the following named committees of the lower house: Legal advisory, congressional redistricting, publie build- ings, insurance, constitutional amendments, and penal institutions. In consonance with the democratic plat- form, he introduced a bill providing for the reorganiza- tion of the judicial system of the state and the election of nine members of the Supreme Court. He introduced also a bill creating a board to fix fire-insurance rates and have general supervision over the agencies of fire-insur- ance companies operating in the state. Another im- portant bill introduced by him was that whose object was to enlarge the province of the state fire marshal to such an extent as to permit him to condemn unsafe build- ings, to regulate the storing of explosives, and to define and direct additional measures for the prevention of destructive fires.

In his home city Mr. Maxey is affiliated with Lodge No. 28, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons; Muskogee Chap- ter, No. 3, Royal Arch Masons; Muskogee Council, No. 1, Royal & Select Masters; and Muskogee Commandery, No. 1, Knights Templar, as is he also with Muskogee Camp, No. 525, Woodmen of the World. For the past sixteen years he has been a director of the Sovereign Camp of the Woodmen of the World. He is past grand high priest of the Oklahoma Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons and also has the distinction of being a member of the Grand Chapter of the United States. He is ac- tively identified with the Muskogee Chamber of Com- merce and takes vital interest in all that touches the wel- fare of his historic home city.

It is specially interesting to record that Mr. Maxey's credential to practice before the United States courts in Indian Territory is the fourth in number of the first five that were granted, on the 1st of April, 1889, and by virtue of the same he became a charter member of the first Indian Territory Bar Association. Credential No. 1 was granted to Z. T. Walrond, now deceased, who was the first United States district attorney for the territory ; No. 2 was held by D. Stewart Elliott, who, as a member of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteer Infantry, under Gen. Frederick Funston, was killed in the Philippine Islands at the time of the Spanish-American war; No. 3 was held by T. N. Foster, who died a few years ago, at McAlester, Oklahoma; and No. 5 is held by W. A. Ledbetter, a member of the bar of Oklahoma City at the present time. Mr. Maxey is a member of the Muskogee County and Oklahoma State Bar associations.

Ou the 25th of December, 1881, at Jonesboro, Illinois, · was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Maxey to Miss Augusta C. Miller, whose death occurred November 9, 1914, as previously noted. His brother, John D. Maxey, is serving a second term as county auditor of San Joaquin County, California, of which Stockton is the judicial center, and her sister Maggie (Mrs. Davis) is the wife of a prosperous stockman living at Mule Shoe, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Maxey became the parents of four children, of whom three are living: Susanne, who is now at the paternal home, was graduated in Henry Kendall College, at Muskogee, and in Hardin College, at Mexico, Missouri, after which she was for several years a popular and effi- cient teacher in the public schools of Wagoner and Muskogee, Oklahoma; William, a graduate of Henry Kendall College and of William Jewell College, at Lib-

erty, Missouri, is a civil engineer by profession but i: serving in 1915 as deputy county clerk of Muskogee County; Louise is the wife of Henry S. Shuler, who is president of the Muskogee Chamber of Commerce and also the head of one of the leading general insurance agencies in Muskogee; Thomas Miller, the youngest of the children, died October 30, 1895, at the age of five years and six months.

HON. GIBSON A. BROWN. One of the present justices of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, Gibson A. Brown brought to that exalted position qualifications the result not only of thorough scholarship and knowledge of the law, but a long experience in judicial affairs and a thorough sympathy with the activities and life of the people of the Southwest. Judge Brown is in many ways a typical pioneer of this southwestern country, was one of the pioneer members of the bar in the Panhandle country of Texas, practiced and held court in practically) all the counties along the Upper Red River, and from the Texas side watched the first openings and the early development of Oklahoma, and finally about twelve years ago transferred his residence permanently to the Oklahoma side. He is a resident of Mangum in old Greer County, with which section of Oklahoma he has some interesting historical associations.

Gibson A. Brown was born of a prominent family in Texas in 1849, a son of James P. and Mary A. (Bryan) Brown. Both his parents were natives of Georgia, his father born in 1830, and in 1847 he moved to Texas, where he spent his life as a farmer.

Judge Brown was educated in the Texas common schools, and studied law in the office of Throckmorton & Brown at Sherman in Grayson County. His preceptors were former Governor Throckmorton and Thomas J. Brown, the latter an uncle and at the present time chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, of which court he has been a member for over twenty years. Gibson A. Brown was admitted to the bar at Sherman in 1873, and at once was made junior partner of the firm of Throck- morton & Brown, and continued with that firm until 1882. In that year by special request he moved to the Texas Panhandle. His first location was at Clarendon iu Donley County, and in the same year he was elected county judge of the newly organized county. Up to about that time county government had existed only in name iu all the Panhandle and Upper Red River dis- triet of Texas, aud for a number of years the entire region was given over to the cattlemen and their indus- try. For several years Judge Brown held court and practiced as a lawyer iu a country distant from the near- est railroad by several hundred miles. He served as county judge in Donley County until 1883, and then resigned to devote all his attention to a general practice. In 1889, when the Forty-sixth Judicial District of Texas was created, Governor L. S. Ross appointed him judge of the new district, and he then removed his residence to Vernon, Wilbarger County, which had only recently been connected with the outside world by railroad. He was three times elected district judge, and held the office fourteen years, until January, 1903.

One of the counties included in his original jurisdic- tion was Greer County, then in Texas, and now a part of Oklahoma. What is known as the Greer County case is one of the interesting chapters in Oklahoma history and also in Texas history, Up to 1896 the land lying between the north and south forks of the Red River was claimed and was occupied by Texas settlers, under the jurisdiction of Texas and court civil officers. By a decision March 16, 1896, the United States Supreme Court determined that the south fork of the Red River

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should constitute the northern boundary of Texas and this decision threw Greer County out of Texas and into Oklahoma. Judge Brown has the distinetion of presid- ing over the last court in Greer County, Texas, and by a noteworthy coincidence some years later also presided over the first state court in Greer County, Oklahoma, after Oklahoma had become a state. Judge Brown was presiding as judge of the Forty-sixth Judicial District Court at Mangum in Greer County, on March 16, 1896, and was engaged in the trial of a ease when he received a telegram announcing that the United States Supreme Court had rendered its decision to the effect that Greer County was in Oklahoma and not a part of Texas. In imparting this information to his court he stated: "We opened court in Greer county, Texas, but will close court in Greer county, Oklahoma." Following this an- nouncement considerable apprehension was felt as to the status of the settlers, and whether they should be able to hold the lands which had been settled upon by them. At a mass meeting held the same day of the pub- lication of the decision, Judge Brown was selected by the people to go to Washington, and protect their in- terests. With the assistance of the then attorney gen- eral of the United States, Judson Harmon of Ohio, and of the Oklahoma delegate to Congress, Dennis Flynn, Judge Brown succeeded in getting an enactment from Congress to protect the preference rights of home with 160 acres of land, and the right to purchase an addi- tional 160 acres, to the Greer County residents.

Judge Brown continued to serve as district judge in Texas until January, 1903, and in that year removed to Oklahoma, locating at Hobart in Kiowa. County, where he practiced as a member of the firm of Brown, Morse & Standever from January, 1903, to December, 1903. At that time, obeying the urgings of his many friends in Mangum in Greer County, he located at Mangum, and continued practice among the people with whom he had first become acquainted as a Texas judge. In 1907, when Oklahoma came into the Union, Mr. Brown was elected district judge of the Eighteenth Judicial Dis- trict of Oklahoma, and was re-elected in 1910 and con- tinued to serve on the district bench until elected justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma to fill the unexpired term of Judge Duun. His present term as a member of the Supreme Court expires in January, 1917. During court sessions he lives in Oklahoma City, but his regular home is in Mangum. When Judge Brown opened the first state court at Mangum he had the pleasure of hav- ing among his jury some of those who had served as jurors during his last session of the Texas State Court at Mangum more than ten years before.

Judge Brown is a York Rite Mason, being past master of the lodge, past high priest of the Royal Arch Chapter, and a member of the Knights Templar. In 1875 Judge Brown married Miss Adela H. Davis, daughter of Dr. E. K. Davis of Louisiana, and a step-daughter of John A. Fain of Denton, Texas. Mrs. Brown is prominent in literary and club circles in both Oklahoma and Texas. They are the parents of four children: Floyd R. Brown, an electrician living in Chicago; Peyton E. Brown, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and a practicing attorney at Mangum; Leon H. Brown, a student in the law department of the University of Oklahoma in the class of 1915; and Genevieve A. Brown, a member of the faculty of Buford College at Nashville, Tennessee, where she is instructor of piano, and from which institu- tion she graduated in music and expression in 1913 and in voice in 1915.

GABE E. PARKER. "Through the devious trail of poli- tics Gabe E. Parker, a one-eighth blood Choctaw Indian, has just achieved the ambition of his life. Without

solicitation or even knowledge on his part he was taken from the principalship of an Indian boys' school in Oklahoma and made register of the United States Treas- ury. Mr. Parker gave up his chosen work-that of help- ing his own people to become competent, self-reliant, contributing men and women-only after a struggle. Now he is about to return to Oklahoma as superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes, with broader opportunity than ever before to accomplish the task he had origi- nally set for himself."'

The foregoing paragraph is copied from the Long Branch Daily Record, of January 15, 1915, as an intro- duction to the review of the life of a man whose career cannot fail to be of interest to every Oklahoman. An intense earnestness, a love of and belief in his people, a constant striving after better things for his race, and ability to achieve, rather than talk about, accomplish- inents, have always characterized . the activities of this modest and unassuming son of Oklahoma. It has not been the privilege of the writer of this biographical sketch to meet Gabe E. Parker, and he must, therefore, draw largely from the newspaper articles at his command ; but from his perusal of these reviews he may be allowed to say that his task is a pleasant and interesting one.

Gabe E. Parker was born at Fort Towson, Choctaw County, Oklahoma, September 29, 1878, and is a son of John Clay and Eliza Emily (Willis) Parker. His father was born in Boyle County, Kentucky, and in his veins there flowed a mixture of English, Scotch-Irish and French Huguenot blood. He came of a wealthy and highly-respected family, 'and immediately after the close of the Civil war, which scattered the fortunes of the family, came to the West to "make good." Here he married Eliza Emily Willis, a quarter-blood Choctaw Indian, born at Fort Towson, in the same house in which her son, Gabe E. Parker, was subsequently born. She was well educated and taught in the Choctaw schools in which her son received his early training. Nine children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of whom four are living, Gabe E., James W., Lucile and Georgia. When Gabe E. Parker was about one and one-half years old his parents located on a ranch near Nelson, Oklahoma. There the father became a prominent stockman and rancher, and there both parents died. Their son, James W., remains in the management of the ranch and farm interests of the children. He married Miss Edna Reed and they have two children. Lucile is employed at Washington, D. C., and Georgia has her home with her brother Gabe and is attending school. The daughters have been practically reared in the home of their brother, Gabe E.

Mr. Parker largely owes his education to the Choc- taws, who contributed from tribal funds to defray his expenses while at college. In 1894 he completed a course of study at Spencer Academy, and in 1899 was grad- uated from Henry Kendall College, then at Muskogee but now at Tulsa, with the degree of Bachelor of Science, being valedictorian of his class. It had been Mr. Parker's ambition to enter the law, but the death of his mother diverted him from his pursuance of his studies in that profession, and after a term in the Kansas State Normal School he accepted the appointment, in the fall of 1899, to the position of assistant teacher at Spencer Academy. Three months later his abilities were recog- mized by his appointment to the position of principal teacher, which he retained until the destruction of Spencer Academy by fire, in July, 1900. In the fall of that year he was transferred to Armstrong Academy, a school for Choctaw boys, where he became principal teacher, and in July, 1904, was made superintendent of that institution. He was serving in this capacity, in September, 1913, when called to the office of register of

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tho United States Treasury, at Washington, D. C., enter- ing upon his duties October 1, 1913, and resigned Decem- ber 31, 1914. On December 22, 1914, he was appointed superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes, and assumed the duties of this office January 1, 1915. The following is quoted from the article referred to above:

"The job Mr. Parker goes to in Oklahoma to fill is a big one. It involves the welfare of 102,000 Indians of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole and Cherokee tribes, who desire to become citizens in fact as well as in name. Under the constitution of Oklahoma they are citizens of the state. They are wards of the nation so long as the government retains a control in trust of the 15,000,000 acres of their land, including the richest oil fields of the world and 450,000 acres of coal and asphalt lands. Mr. Parker's job is to carry out the policies of the present administration and to discharge into full and complete citizenship as many of these 102,000 Indians as are ready for the change, or may become so under his direction. This policy is a new one, and, iu a sense, a revolutionary one in view of the policy of the government pursued up to this time. Mr. Parker promises to approach it cautiously. * * If enthu- siasm for the work at hand is an asset Mr. Parker is one of the best equipped men for his new job that could be found anywhere. He exudes it and with difficulty tries to suppress it, but it is there. *

* * Mr. Parker. believes in his people. He believes in the government of the nation and the state and iu their intentions toward them. He designed the seal of the great state of Okla- homa, which symbolizes the 'sisterhood of states' and intermingles the former seals of Oklahoma territory and of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Indian territory. He is known as 'Great Seal' Parker for this achievement. He served on many important committees in the consti- tutional convention of Oklahoma with special reference to the Indians, the schools and taxation, and declined to enter politics when his work was through. As between the two phases of the Indian question, the personal and the property phases, Mr. Parker desires to emphasize the personal as preeminently important. As a schoolteacher he was deeply interested in solving problems which would bring his charges to a full and complete realization of the responsibilities of citizenship, and he endeavored to give them such a practical application of their book learning as would accomplish that purpose. Mr. Parker is a man whose earnestness of purpose sticks out of every word and deed. The policy of this administration toward his people is his policy because he believes in it. Whether right or wrong, it is certain to have a genuine test under his administration in Oklahoma."

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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