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 79

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 79

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In 1908 Doctor Darling organized the Darling Tele- phone Company and built a telephone system through this district. He it was who built the first telephone line into the oil field, and it is a notable fact that he carried the line through in five days, that being the fastest work on record. In 1915 he sold his system to the Pioneer Telephone Company, since which time he has devoted himself exclusively to his profession and his drug store.

Doctor Darling is now serving as city physician, and he was a member of the school board here in the years prior to statehood. He has long been a member of the Church of Christ and is prominent in its support and in the work of that body. He is independent in politics, and fraternally is associated with the Masons, Wilson Lodge No. 76, A. F. & A. M., and Pecan Camp No. 116, Woodmen of the World, and a charter member of that camp. He is prominent in both orders, and has held various offices in the years of his membership.

In 1891 Doctor Darling was married in Hunt County, Texas, to Miss Betty Blewett, a native of Missouri. They have three children. William B., the eldest, ably assists his father in the management of the drug store. Esther C. is a student in the local schools and Myrtle is yet too young to enter school.

Doctor and Mrs. Darling have a host of staunch friends in and about New Wilson, where they have been long and favorably known, and they are leaders in the best social activities of the town and county. They are rep- resentative of a type of citizenship that makes for solidity and character in any community, and they have been worthy influences in shaping the trend of thought and action in their home town.

HON. MARTIN EDWIN TRAPP. The present lieutenant- governor of Oklahoma is thirty-eight years old. His father was an eighty-niner, and the son grew up in the atmosphere and imbibed the exhilarating characteristics of a new country. As a political figure his career has been one of exceptional interests both from the stand- point of service and the high honors which were paid to him unsolicited and at such an early age. He was a mem- ber of the first state administration of Oklahoma, hav- ing been elected the first state auditor, and in 1914 was recalled from the management of a prosperous business at Muskogee to assume the duties of lieutenant-governor and president of the senate. He still claims the City of Muskogee as his permanent home, but resides during his official term at the Skiwan Hotel at Oklahoma City.

Born in Kansas in 1877, Lieutenant Governor Trapp is a son of Charles F. and Mary C. (Capps) Trapp, the

former a native of Missouri and the latter of Mississippi. His grandfather was a noted pioneer character in Mis- souri. Rev. William Trapp, who was born in Tennessee and was long familiarly known as "Uncle Billy Trapp'' went to Missouri when a youth about the time the state was admitted to the Union, and for many years lived in close touch with the Indians, even to the extent of speak- ing their language. He became identified with the Chris- tian Church as a minister and was especially well known for his work with that church and as an evangelist of great persuasion and ability. He was three times honored by election to the Missouri Legislature but was chiefly known for his evangelical work. He died in 1876 when about seventy years of age. Charles F. Trapp grew up to become a farmer, was a pioneer in Kansas in 1861, and on April 22, 1889, arrived in Okla- homa with the original settlers. He secured a home- stead seven miles from Guthrie and developed it and made for himself a substantial reputation as a farmer. He is still living while his wife passed away in 1894.

Twelve years old when he came to Oklahoma, Martin Edwin Trapp continued to attend school in some of the early institutions of the territory, and did his academic work in the Capitol City Business College at Guthrie. In 1898 he was enrolled in the profession of teaching and was employed in that vocation during the years 1898- 99-1900. While teaching he also continued study along special lines, taking three branches each year, and at the end of the school term of 1900 passed a successful examination and was granted a special territorial pro- fessional certificate qualifying him for life as a teacher.

However, his active connection with that profession was terminated when, in 1900, he became a commercial traveler and for the following four years sold goods to the retail merchants all over Oklahoma. In this way he acquired an extensive acquaintance and had a great following of loyal friends all over the territory but in Logan County particularly. While still traveling as a commercial representative in 1904, without any solici- tation on his part, indeed in the face of his personal objections, he was nominated on the democratic ticket for the office of county clerk of Logan County and in November of the same year elected by a majority of 1111 votes. That was an expression of confidence which at- tracted wide attention in political circles in Oklahoma, since Logan County was from the beginning of territorial days a republican stronghold and under normal condi- tions gave a republican majority of about 1500 votes. His service as county clerk continued from January 1, 1905, until the close of the territorial regime. While in that office he was again made the object of a spon- taneous call for further public service. In spite of his public statement to the effect that he could not consent to become a candidate for the office, his name was placed on the democratic ticket as the nominee for the office of state auditor, and in the first election for state officers his name added great strength to the ticket and he was chosen by a substantial majority. From the beginning of statehood on November 16, 1907, Mr. Trapp was state auditor of Oklahoma until January 9, 1911. At that date he left office and established himself in the muni- cipal bond business at Guthrie, and continued that work until January, 1913. In the meantime, since No- vember, 1913, he has made his home in Muskogee.

At the democratic primary election of 1914 he was nominated for the office of lieutenant-governor, and the general election of November, 1914, resulted in another handsome tribute to his high political standing. He entered upon the duties of his office January 11, 1915, for a term of four years. As lieutenant governor Mr. Trapp's policy has been always guided by a desire to do those things which the law contemplated he should

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do and leave undone those things which the law con- templated he should leave undone. As presiding officer of the senate he has personally presided throughout the entire session of the Fifth Legislature and the senators givo him great credit for expediting the work of that body. He has improved the efficiency of the organiza- tion and increased the volume of its work by having the sessions commence early in the morning and con- tinue all day, with frequent night sessions. In conse- quence the senatorial session recently concluded has set a high record in the number of bills it has considered and in the passage of a great number of laws of urgent importance. It has also performed a great deal of cor- rective legislation, made necessary by reason of the rush of inadequate laws that were enacted as urgent measures following the admission of the new state.

Mr. Trapp is one of the leading Masons of Oklahoma, having taken thirty-two degrees of the Scottish Rite, belongs to the Oklahoma Consistory of the Valley of Guthrie, and has local affiliations with Guthrie Lodge No. 35, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Guthrie, Guthrie Lodge No. 426 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Modern Woodmen of America. In 1900 he became a charter member of Guth- rie Council of the United Commercial Travelers' Asso- ciation and still has membership in that organization.

On November 7, 1907, only a few days before Okla- homa became a state, Mr. Trapp married Miss Lou C. Strang who was born in Kansas, a daughter of Judge J. C. Strang, a native of New York State, and now a resident of Guthrie. Judge Strang was at one time a member of the Supreme Court of Kansas, and since locating at Guthrie served as attorney general of Okla- homa Territory.

JOHN T. STEPHENS. For nearly thirty years John T. Stephens has been closely associated with the work of the Baptist Church, the field of his ministry having been in North Carolina, Kansas, and Oklahoma. His home has been in Lawton since 1904, and in recent years, though still taking his place in the pulpit every Sunday, he has developed a paying business as an insurance man, ' with offices in the First National Bank Building.

John T. Stephens was born near Boone, Watauga County, North Carolina, March 11, 1864. The Stephens family came originally from England, and were among the early settlers of North Carolina. Lazarus Stephens, the father, was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1837, and is now living in advanced years at Todd, North Carolina. His occupation has been farming all his life, and from his birthplace he removed to the vicinity of Boone, and when John was a child went to Ashe County. He has been a traveler over most of the United States, and in politics has supported the repub- lican party. Lazarus Stephens married Mary E. John- son, who was born in North Carolina in 1841 and died at Todd, October 2, 1913. John T. was the oldest of their seven children, the others being: George, a farmer at Junction, Oklahoma; Mary Ann, wife of Henry Ray, a North Carolina farmer; Julia, who married a Mr. Stephens, and lives on a farm in East Tennessee; Roby, Callie and Newton, all of them occupying farms in North Carolina, Callie being married.

John T. Stephens spent his early life on a farm in Ashe County, North Carolina, attending the common schools, and his early life was characterized not only by the hard work which is the usual lot of a farmer hoy, but also by an earnest purpose to acquire an education and make himself useful in the world. He finally entered Milligan College in East Tennessee, and while still a student was ordained a minister of the Baptist

Church at Todd, North Carolina, in 1886. Leaving college in 1887, in that year he began his career both as a minister and as a teacher. For three years he taught in Ashe County, North Carolina, and in Johnson County, Tennessee, and as a minister his work has been done in the several states above mentioned. In 1902 Mr. Stephens removed to Tonkawa, Oklahoma, and was pastor of the Baptist Church there 11/2 years. In 1904 he came to Lawton, was pastor of the Baptist Church three years, then did district mission work four years, and is now supplying a pulpit every Sunday, while the week days are spent as special agent for the Federal Life Insurance Company of Chicago.

Mr. Stephens is a democrat, and affiliates with the Knights and Ladies of Security. In 1886 in North Carolina he married Miss Marguerite E. Whittington, whose father was Doctor Whittington of French Broad River. Their children are six in number, as follows: Clyde, who was graduated from the Lawton High School and is now a farmer at Temple, Oklahoma; Joseph Ronda, superintendent of the light and waterworks plant at Temple; Earl, who is taking a course in engineering and lives with his brother, J. R., in Temple; Clay, a senior in the Lawton High School; Paul and Ross, both in the public schools of Lawton.

HOWELL A. SCOTT, M. D. With well appointed offices in the Flynn-Ames Building in the City of Muskogee, Doctor Scott has secure place as one of the representa- tive physicians and surgeons of the younger generation in his native state and is a scion of one of the sterling pioneer families of Indian Territory, though he was but six months old at the time of the death of his father.

In the Town of Texanna, in the Cherokee Nation of Indian Territory, but now in McIntosh County, Okla- homa, Dr. Howell Austin Scott was born on the 27th of August, 1885, and he is a son of Capt. James N. and Fannie E. (Morris) Scott, the former of whom was born and reared in Mississippi and the latter of whom was born in Georgia, whence she came with her widowed mother to Indian Territory when she was a girl. The doctor's older brother, J. W. Scott, is an extensive farmer and cattle raiser.

Capt. James N. Scott served with distinction as a sol- dier of the Confederacy during the Civil war, in which he rose to the rank of captain. From his native state he finally removed to Texas, and from the Lone Star State he finally made his way to Indian Territory, where his marriage was solemnized and where he died in the spring of 1886. His widow, who still resides in McIntosh County, subsequently became the wife of William J. McClure, a substantial farmer and worthy citizen of that county, and he likewise is now deceased. Doctor Scott was reared to adult age on the homestead farm of his step-father, who accorded to him the utmost kindliness and consideration, and his earlier education was received in the Cherokee National Seminary, at Tahlequah. In 1907, the year which marked the admission of Oklahoma as a state of the Union, the doctor completed his academic course in the Bacone Indian University, in the City of Muskogee, and while a student in this institution he served as an assistant teacher, by which means he was able largely to defray the expenses of his own university course. In preparation for his chosen profession the doctor entered the medical department of the University of Nashville, at Nashville, Tennessee, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1911 and from which he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine. From May 1st of that year until June 1, 1912, he served as interne and resident physician at St. Thomas Hospital, one of the leading institutions of the kind in Nashville, and he then established his permanent residence

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in Muskogee, where for one year he was associated in practice with Dr. F. B. Fite, an old family friend. Since that time Doctor Scott has conducted an individual prac- tice and has built up a substantial and representative pro- fessional business, with incidentally secure place in popu- lar confidence and esteem and with a wide circle of friends in the state that he is proud to claim as the place of his nativity. He is a very active member of the Oklahoma Baptist Hospital Association, in which he has held for two years the chair of women's diseases. He is a popular and appreciative member of the Muskogee County Med- ical Society and the Oklahoma State Medical Society, be- sides which he is identified with the American Medical Association. His political allegiance is given to the demo- cratic party, he is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Baptist Church.

In the year 1912 was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Scott to Miss Maude Louise Sanders, a daughter of John W. and Sarah E. (Butler) Sanders, her maternal grandfather, Edward Butler, having been a prominent character in the history of what is now the State of Oklahoma. Doctor and Mrs. Scott have a daughter, Maude Louise, born November 25, 1913, and a son, Howell Austin, Jr., born September 12, 1915.

JOHN N. SHEPLER is a veteran newspaper man and has been identified with this profession for about a quar- ter of a century. His home has been in Oklahoma for the past ten years, and through the Lawton Constitution, of which he is proprietor and editor, he exercises a wide influence on public opinion throughout Southwestern Oklahoma.

John N. Shepler was born in Milan, Missouri, Novem- ber 27, 1865. His father, Peter Shepler, who was born in Ohio in 1834, and is now living at the age of eighty- one, is a retired farmer with home at Green Castle, in Sullivan County, Missouri. Peter Shepler married Rachel Bickel, who was born in Ohio and died at Milan, Missouri.

John N. Shepler spent his early life ou a farm in Northern Missouri, attending the public schools at Milan, and graduating from high school. In 1885, after com- pleting a course in the Kirksville State Normal School he became a teacher in Sullivan County and followed that profession until 1888. In that year he bought the Milan Standard, and continued to edit it until 1902. With a large experience in the handling of a newspaper, gained during seventeen years of residence in Missouri, Mr. Shepler in 1902 removed to Pawnee, Oklahoma, purchasing the Pawnee Courier-Dispatch. He sub- sequently sold this paper and was in the employ of the state government two years. On December 31, 1910, he came to Lawton and bought the Lawton Constitution, of which he is now proprietor and editor. This paper is the oldest in Comanche County, having been established in 1901, the year of the opening. It is a democratic organ, and has a large circulation and influence through- out Comanche, Stephens, Jefferson and neighboring counties, and also is mailed to a large number of sub- scribers in other states. The officers and plant are situated at 409 C Avenue.

Mr. Shepler is himself a democrat, and at different times has been active in party affairs. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce at Lawton, and has affilia- tions with Lawton Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, with Pawnee Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; with Pawnee Commandery, Knights Templar; with India Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City; and with the Lawton lodges of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of

Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Modern Woodmen of America.

On May 14, 1888, at Milan, Missouri, Mr. Shepler married Miss Georgia Butler, daughter of Judge John P. Butler. Her father, who died in 1914, was for sixteen years a district judge in Sullivan County. To their marriage have been born two children: Fred, a graduate of the University of Oklahoma; and Ned, who is in the senior class of the university.

FRANK W. BRYANT. Beginning in the office of the comptroller of the currency of Washington, D. C., in 1900, Frank W. Bryant has since been continuously iden- tified with banking interests, either in a clerical relation at the national capital, as bank examiner, and since 1912 as one of the officials in the Central National Bank of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Frank W. Bryant was born in Colfax, Iowa, July 26, 1876, was educated in the Rockwell High School of that state, and after leaving school he employed himself largely in the task of earning a living and preparing him- self for better things. Mr. Bryant is a lawyer by train- ing and in 1904 graduated from the law department of Georgetown University at Washington, D. C.

From 1900 to 1906 he was a clerk and minor official under the comptroller of currency at Washington, and the following six years was a national bank examiner. In 1912 he came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to accept the office of cashier of the Central National Bank. In January, 1914, he was elected vice president of this institution, his present office. On February 24, 1915, he was elected chairman of Group 4 of the Oklahoma Bankers Federal Reserve Bank of Oklahoma.

In politics Mr. Bryant is independent. He was mar- ried February 25, 1909, to Miss Nellie Morse, who was born in New York State and prior to her marriage was a teacher in the high school of Oklahoma City. They have one daughter, Dorothy Belle.

C. M. SARCHET. It is as a newspaper correspondent that Mr. Sarchet has been best known and has done his most distinctive work in Oklahoma. His home has been in this state and territory for more than fifteen years, and he is now located at Tulsa. He is a veteran news- paper man and has come into close touch with many of the most interesting phases of Oklahoma's development, particularly in political affairs.

Corbin Marquand Sarchet was born at Charleston, Illinois, January 23, 1871. His parents were Solomon Bichard and Rose Anne (Hutchinson) Sarchet, both of whom were natives of Cambridge, Guernsey County, Ohio. They were the children of the third generation of the Sarchet and Hutchinson families in that county. The Sarchets were French colonists from the Isle of Guern- sey, while the Hutchinsons came from England by way of Jamaica. Solomon Bichard Sarchet is still living at Kinmundy, Illinois.

There is an interesting ancestry behind this quiet and hard-working newspaper correspondent of Oklahoma. The Sarchets were members of a French Huguenot colony that immigrated from Guernsey Island in 1805 and set- tled Guernsey County, Ohio, along with members of the Marquand, LaSure, Bichard, La Vires, Naftels, DeFrancis, Gibeaut, Corbet, Ogier and other families, all of French stock. Thomas Sarchet is said to have left France along in the closing years of the sixteenth or early seventeenth century because of the persecution inflicted upon the Huguenots and he found refuge with many others of his people on Guernsey Isle. Members of the family in later generations were in the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the late '50s a colony of people from Guernsey County, Ohio, emigrated to Illinois and located in Coles

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County. They came overland in covered wagons and Solomon Bichard Sarchet and bride were members of the colony.

In his native town of Charleston, Illinois, Mr. Sarchet spent his youth and early manhood. He graduated from Charleston High School in May, 1888, and for two years attended Campbell University at Holton, Kansas. With the exception of about three years spent as clerk in drug and grocery stores he has always been in some phase of newspaper work. He began as city editor of the Daily Plain Dealer of Charleston, Illinois, in 1896. A year later he went to the Daily Beacon Light at Pana, Illinois.

His experience with Oklahoma affairs began in 1899. For a few months he was on the staff of the Daily Gazette at Oklahoma City, and after February, 1900, spent three and a half years as city editor on the Daily State Capital at Guthrie. Since then he has been engaged in news- paper correspondence, publicity and magazine work, and professionally he has covered practically every quarter of the state, and has recently taken up his home at Tulsa.

His work as a newspaper man naturally brought him into close touch with politics. While living in Illinois he cast his first vote for Joseph G. Cannon for congress- man. In 1896 he was secretary of the Frank K. Dunn Republican Club at Charleston, this club being a member of the State Association of Republican Clubs organized by Charles W. Raymond. While at Guthrie he was in charge of the press bureau of the Republican State Cen- tral Committee of Oklahoma from 1908 to 1913, and was a member of the State Central Committee for Logan County for 1912-13. He has also sat as a delegate in the republican state conventions of 1908, 1910, 1912 and 1914.

His family for several generations back have been active members of the Methodist Church. Mr. Sarchet is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and has been a member of that organization since 1906. On September 1, 1900, at Guthrie he married Stella Huggins Montgomery, then a resident of Guthrie but who was born at Petersburg, Illinois, November 23, 1883. To their marriage have been born two children: Rebecca, now fourteen years of age; and Corbin Marquand, Jr., aged nine.

GEORGE M. PORTER. The City of McAlester, Pitts- burg County, claims as one of its strong and important law firms that of Fuller & Porter, of which George M. Porter is the junior member, and both principals in this representative firm have made secure their reputation as resourceful trial lawyers and well fortified counselors, as have they also as loyal and public-spirited citizens.

Mr. Porter was born at Centerville, county-seat of Ap- panoose County, Iowa, and the date of his nativity was February 19, 1878. He is a son of George D. and Hannah (Rodman) Porter, the former of whom was born in Indiana, though he was reared and educated in the State of Illinois, and the latter of whom was a native of Pennsylvania. George D. Porter effectively prepared himself for the work of the legal profession and initiated practice in the State of Missouri, but he soon after- ward removed to Centerville, Iowa, where he became one of the early members of the bar of Appanoose County and where he eventually rose to high rank as one of the leading members of the bar of that section of the Hawkeye State. Both he and his wife continued their residence at Centerville until their death, and one of their two sons, Claude R. Porter, is now engaged in the prac- tice of law at Centerville, where he is fully upholding the professional and civic prestige of the family name and where he is an influential figure in his profession and also in the domain of political activities.

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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