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 91

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 91

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George F. Johnson was reared and educated in Illinois, spent his early years on his father's farm until the spring of 1881, then became associated with his father in the mercantile business at Ashmore in Coles County, Illinois, and from 1883 until 1885 was engaged in the same line at .Clinton, Vermillion County, Indiana. Another early experience was a year and a half as a traveling salesman, with Terre Haute as his headquarters. He afterwards sold goods as a traveling salesman, with headquarters at Chicago, until March, 1892.

At that date he left the road and applied himself assiduously to the study of law at Chicago, where he was admitted to the bar in March, 1895, before the Supreme Court of Illinois. From 1895 to 1904 Judge Johnson was engaged in a successful practice at Chicago, and with all that varied experience in business and in the law came to Indian Territory and is now one of the prominent attorneys in the southern rart of the state.

He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and served as an elder at Blanchard. He also belongs to the Columbian Knights, the McClain County Bar Asso- ciation and the Oklahoma State Bar Association.

At Ashmore, Illinois, in 1883, Judge Johnson mar- ried Anna A. Mathewison Turner. She was born and reared in Illinois. Her father's name was Mathewison, but she was reared from the age of four years by her aunt, the mother of Dr. A. E. Turner, and for this reason she took the name Turner. Her cousin, Dr. A. E. Turner, is a very prominent educator, was at one time president of Lincoln University, Illinois, also was at the head of a university in Pennsylvania, another univer- sity at Waxahachie, Texas, and of Hastings University at Hastings, Nebraska. He is now most widely known as a lecturer and platform manager, and is prominent in Chautauqua work throughout the eastern states, hav- ing his headquarters at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Judge and Mrs. Johnson are the parents of two chil- dren. C. Porter is engaged in the real estate and insur- ance business at Blanchard, Oklahoma. Marguerite is the wife of D. W. Strickland, who was connected with the stock yards at Oklahoma City until he was incapaci- tated for further service in an accident which caused him the loss of an arm in October, 1914.

VICTOR E. HARLOW. Mr. Harlow has been prominent and influential as an educator, as an editor, as a public official and as a resourceful factor in business enter- prises of important order. He stands exponent of the highest civic ideals, he had the distinction of serving as the first incumbent of the office of secretary of the Okla- homa State Board of Public Affairs, the important work and functions of which he was primarily instrumental in formulating; and in Oklahoma City he is now president

of the Harlow Publishing Company, the publishers of Harlow's Weekly, of which he is editor, this attractive and representative periodical being designated as "a journal of comment and current events for Oklahoma."

Victor E. Harlow was born in Lincoln County, Mis- souri, on the 23d of November, 1876, and is a son of Dr. James Harlow and Mary A. (Davis) Harlow, who still maintain their residence in the State of Missouri. Doctor Harlow is a native of Illinois and represented that state as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war, enlisting in an Illinois volunteer regiment. He has long been successfully engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery and has been a prominent and honored repre- sentative of his profession in Lincoln County, Missouri.

To the public schools of his native county Victor E. Harlow is indebted for his preliminary educational dis- cipline, and in that state he was gradnated in LaGrange College as a member of the class of 1896 and with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Thereafter he completed a post-graduate course in Shurtleff College, at Upper Alton, Illinois, from which institution he received the degree of Master of Arts, in 1899. In 1897-8 he held the chair of Latin and Greek in Webb City College, Missouri; in 1898-9 he held a similar professorship in LaGrange Col- lege; and in 1899-1901 he served as president of Webb City College. In 1904 Professor Harlow came to Okla- home Territory and established his residence at Enid, where he held for two years the position of principal of the Northwestern Academy, and where he later became editor of the Garfield County Democrat.

In 1907 Mr. Harlow removed to Shawnee, Pottawatomie County, and in the same year, that which marked the admission of Oklahoma to statehood, he directed the campaign of Hon. Charles West, who was the successful candidate for the office of attorney general of the new commonwealth.

In 1909 Governor Haskell appointed Mr. Harlow the first secretary of the newly established State Board of Public Affairs, and in this capacity he organized the board and formulated the regulations and system which still obtain and which have made this body one of maxi- mum importance in connection with governmental affairs in Oklahoma. After an effective service of eight months Mr. Harlow resigned this office and became editor and manager of the Shawnee Herald, where he earned the reputation of one of the most forceful editorial writers and students of government affairs in the state and to the supervision of which he continued to give his atten- tion until 1911, when he removed to Oklahoma City and effected the organization of the Harlow-Ratliff Printing Company, of which he was president and which grew into one of the best equipped general printing plants in the capital city. Somewhat later Mr. Harlow sold his interest in this company, and in 1915 established the Har- low Publishing Company, which continues the publication of Harlow's Weekly, begun in 1912, and of which jour- nal, an exponent of the interests of the state and one of specially high literary tone, he has since been the editor.

Mr. Harlow is affiliated with Oklahoma Lodge, No. 1, Knights of Pythias, and with Oklahoma Lodge, No. 1, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His business offices in Oklahoma City are in the fine Terminal Building, and his residence at 1515 West Thirty-seventh Street.

In 1899 Mr. Harlow wedded Miss May Van Hooser, daughter of Aaron Van Hooser, of Nokomis, Illinois, who was summoned to the life eternal in 1903, being survived by two sons, Victor E., Jr., and Van Hooser. In 1911 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Harlow to Miss Gertrude Gindling, daughter of John Gindling, of Nokomis, Illinois. There are two sons of this union, James G. and John Hampden, and a daughter, Dorothea.

1256

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

JUDGE C. S. FENWICK. Among the most interesting features of American history are the stories of the pio- neers and frontiersmen who carried the flag of civiliza- tion into the wilderness and while earning a precarious existence by hunting and trapping blazed a trail for the more permanent settlers who followed in their footsteps. The days of Boone and Kenton have long passed by, but men of similar mould still exist, and if their life today is less dangerous than such a life was two or three gen- erations ago, it still possesses the element of romance. It was in this primitive occupation, hunting and trapping, that Hon. C. S. Fenwick, the present county judge of Johnston County, obtained the means to make a favor- able start in life, and his subsequent career has furnished abundant evidence of that courageous energy and force of character that are his natural heritage.

Judge C. S. Fenwick was born in Collin County, Texas, June 11, 1884, the son of H. S. and Sallie M. (Stanton) Fenwick. His paternal family is of English origin and some of his forbears were members of the colony of Lord Baltimore that settled in Maryland. The Judge's grandfather was born in Maryland and went west to Missouri in the latter part of the eighteenth century, becoming a pioneer surveyor of that state. Judge Fen- wick's mother's ancestors were early settlers in Ala- bama. Her father, Charles A. Stanton, was a Baptist minister, lawyer and educator and well known citizen of Alabama, being at one time president of a college at Tuscaloosa. Before the Civil war he owned a large plantation and many slaves. During the war he was a captain in the Confederate States army, and later was for twelve years judge in Macon County, Alabama. He was an early settler in Texas, and was pastor of a small Baptist church in Dallas when that now large and flour- ishing city was a village. The judge's father, who was born in Missouri and went to Texas from that state on horseback in 1870, is now a farmer at Greenwood, Wise County, Texas.

C. S. Fenwick as a boy attended the public schools of Wise County, Texas, and subsequently the Decatur Bap- tist College at Decatur, that state. He then entered Baylor University at Waco, Texas, but owing to a lack of financial resources was unable to complete the course in that institution and in 1903 returned to his father's farm in Wise County. After remaining on the farm for one year he again left home and entered the Indian Territory, having resolved upon a plan for earning means to secure a legal education. Locating at Ravia, now a prosperous town of Johnston County, he began the career of a hunter and trapper. Mink, coons and skunks abounded and there was always a market for their furs and hides in St. Louis. Thieves and outlaws had been banished from the territory, so he incurred no great danger, but the life was full of the charm of action, of close touch with nature and of healthful and invigorating exercise. In was in the fall of the year when he began and by the following spring he had enough money to rest and study law. In the next fall he resumed his hunting and trap- ping, this work being varied at times by cutting rail- road ties, building railroad bridges or farming. After several years of alternate labor and study he was ad- mitted to the bar, June 9, 1911, and began the practice of law in Ravia, "the possessor of two law books and fifty cents in cash." It was not long, however, before he had built up a good practice and was appointed city attorney. In September, 1911, he moved to Tishomingo and formed a partnership with J. S. Ratliff, which con- tinued until his election as county judge the following year. Two years later he was re-elected without opposi- tion in his party. Owing to the great number of estate and guardianship matters growing out of Indian Terri- tory affairs the responsibilities of the office have been

great and onerous, but he has succeeded in reducing the labor materially by a system he inaugurated whereby guardians have been compelled to give regular and com- plete accountings to their wards. Judge Fenwick is a member of the Tishomingo Commercial Club, the Auto- mobile and Good Roads Clubs, and of the county and state bar associations. He has been especially active in the cause of good order and the elevation of morals and has succeeded in ridding the county of a majority of the "bootleggers" and gamblers. In earlier years, as a member of the Anti-Horse Thief Association, he assisted materially in putting an end to the wholesale theft of horses and cattle. He is a member of the Baptist Church; also of the Masonic order, in which he belongs to the Blue Lodge, Chapter, Council and Consistory, the order of Woodmen and the Odd Fellows, in 1915 being noble grand of Tishomingo Lodge in the last mentioned organ- ization.

Judge Fenwick was married in April, 1914, at Tisho- mingo, to Miss Aline Crume, daughter of a now deceased pioneer of Mill Creek, Oklahoma. Mrs. Fenwick was educated in the Masonic Orphans' Home at Atoka and remained a student in that home after it was removed to Darlington. She is a refined and amiable lady and she and her husband are popular members of the best county society.

Courage and self-reliance form a large part of Judge Fenwick's character, and as these qualities were intensi- fied during his life as a hunter, a few of his observations in regard to the value of such mental and physical train- ing, together with an anecdote or two pertaining to that period in his life will be of interest to the general reader. "From the cunning of the mink," says Judge Fenwick, "I learned a lesson in human nature. This is an exam- ple of the education value of the experience of a trapper. I learned a thousand lessons from wild animals, lessons that are invaluable in professional and public life. The study of trees and streams and flowers, besides being interesting, became an important part of my education. Being next to nature and getting the fresh air and sun- shine and exercise of the outdoors were productive of good health and an excellent constitution. Trapping was a fundamental education just as surely as the education of a college. I have been a hard worker in the office of county judge, but I have been equal to the task mentally and physically, yet I have not lived down and do not expect to live down the delightful sobriquet of 'The Coon Hunter." " This epithet was applied to him by some of his friends at the time he was running for the office of county judge, and was freely used during the campaign which preceded his election.

Some of the Judge's experiences in the wilds read like a page torn from the early history of the Southwest when the Indian and the white adventurer were al- most the only inhabitants of the territory now largely included in the states of Missouri, Arkansas and Okla- homa. At one time he and another young man who, like himself, sought a livelihood from the wilds, raised the necessary money to make a journey into Southwestern Arkansas. With traps, guns, ammunition, cooking uten- sils, food, and a dog, they took train to Garvin, Indian Territory. Then they began an inland journey, their belongings packed in sacks. Reaching Little River, they purchased a small boat and set out down the stream. There were deer, wolves, turkey, mink, coons, skunks and other kinds of wild animals in abundance. "We hunted and trapped along the river for several days," says Judge Fenwick, "and soon discovered that we were out of meat. I left my companion with the boat and with my gun went into the timber to shoot some animal that would be fit to eat. A few rods out I found a pack of wild hogs. One of these I killed with the first shot and

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

1257

returned with it on my shoulder to the boat. We rolled the hog in a sack, put it in the end of the boat and set out for a landing place for camp. Choosing a fit spot we disembarked and prepared to cook the meal. Then I discovered that my hog was principally skin and bone and very tough and we concluded it was not worth the cooking. So we sat on the verdant bank of a beautiful stream surrounded by delightful woodland and pictur- esque hills, wherein abounded game sufficient to supply thousands of people, and were hungry for meat.

"We reembarked and floated on down stream, reach- ing at last the mouth of Mountain Fort in the Kiamichi Mountains, which was an objective point. There we killed small game and feasted and prepared for a journey overland. We packed our provisions and other belong- ings and set out. After traveling fifty miles through a wild unpeopled country, we pitched our camp near the Arkansas line. Our provisions then consisted of corn meal and molasses. We found an Indian habitation near and traded molasses for meat, whereby we obtained another square meal. Deer and turkey abounded in this region, but we were young and our ammunition was lim- ited and we killed no more of these than were necessary for meat, and not always were we lucky enough to kill them when we needed meat. Before we found the home of the Indian I was out scouting with my gun and ran upon a herd of five young deer. When I was in position to shoot our dog frightened them away. The next wild animal I shot was a mink: I wanted his hide anyhow, for it was worth five dollars, and I thought we'd try his meat. Two Indians had joined us at the camp and we had agreed that we'd eat the next animal we killed, regardless of its name or kind. I killed the mink and skinned it, and it was prepared for dinner. The fellows set to. The meat was not good and I slipped a good portion of mine to my dog behind me. The other men thought I liked it, for I took several helpings from the tin plate, so they forced it down and we disposed of most of the mink.''

The above narration is good reading and lacks only the spice of an adventure with hostile Indians to equal a page from the life of Boone or Kenton in the early days of Ohio or Kentucky. There are a few young men or boys of American birth and blood who would not wish to emulate Judge Fenwick's example when he was laying the foundation of his successful career as lawyer, judge and representative citizen of the young and vigorous State of Oklahoma.

TERRIE TRUETT VARNER, lawyer and resident of Poteau, LeFlore County, Oklahoma, is a native son of Arkansas, born near Greenwood, Sebastian County, December 15, 1872. His parents are Robert A. and Janetta O. (Pender- grass) Varner, now living in Poteau.

Robert Varner came of an old and highly respected family of the South, and he was born in Hamilton County, Tennessee, which state was long the home of the family. He served with gallantry throughout the Civil war as a Union soldier, and after the war had closed he married the daughter of a well known Tennessee family, soon after which event they moved into Arkansas and settled in Sebastian County. There Mr. Varner lived a farming life until 1904, when he retired from active life and settled in Oklahoma.

Terrie T. Varner was reared on his father's farm in Arkansas, and in the country schools of Sebastian County he laid the foundation for his further education. For seven years he taught in the public schools of his native state, and for two years he was a student in the Uni- versity of Arkansas. He also spent a year in the National Normal University at Lebanon, Ohio, and in 1892 he was graduated from the last named institution,

upon completion of the normal course of training. Mr. Varner studied law at Greenwood, Arkansas, and was admitted to the bar in that state in 1894. At Greenwood he practiced law until 1897, when he located at Cameron, Indian Territory. Soon after he was appointed clerk of the United States Court for the Cameron Division of the Central District of Indian Territory, and he held that office until 1905, when he resigned and formed a law partnership with Hon. W. E. Rosser, settling at Poteau, where he has since been engaged successfully in practice. With the coming of statehood to Oklahoma, the firm dissolved and Mr. Rosser entered upon his duties as dis- trict judge, to which office he had been appointed. Since that time Mr. Varner has conducted an independent practice and has gained a splendid clientele in the county.

Mr. Varner is a republican in politics, and his fra- ternal affiliations are with the Masons and the Knights of Pythias. In 1892 he married Miss Ella E. Smith, of Greenwood, Arkansas.

PINCKNEY W. TUCKER. The advent of Pinckney W. Tucker in Stephens County, Oklahoma, occurred in 1901, in which year he came to the vicinity of Comanche and drew a homestead. From that time on he was engaged in a variety of pursuits, all conuected with the rising com- mercial and industrial interests of this community, and from 1913 acted in the capacity of postmaster of Coman- che, an office in which he fairly won the right to be numbered among the men whose activities have served to advance the growth and good government of this thriv- ing Oklahoma city.

Pinckney W. Tucker was born in Cherokee County, Alabama, November 19, 1878, and is a son of James W. and Jane (Brock) Tucker. The family originated in England and prior to Revolutionary days the progenitor settled in Tennessee. In that state was born the grand- father of P. W. Tucker, James W. Tucker, who followed farming throughout a long and active career and died in 1851 or 1852 in his native state. James W. Tucker, father of Pinckney W., was born in Tennessee in 1850, and was brought up on his father's farm, although he did not himself follow the vocation of agriculturist, hav- ing learned the trade of blacksmith in his youth. From his native state he removed about the year 1868 to Cherokee County, Alabama, where he remained until 1882, then going to Red River County, near Clarksville, Texas, a community which continued to be his home un- til 1886. That year saw his removal to the Choctaw Nation, where he settled near the present site of Shawneetown, Oklahoma, and in 1888 he went to Pike, Texas, where he lived from 1888 to 1892. His next home was at Commerce, Texas, where he lived from 1892 to 1899, then going to Lehigh, Indian Territory, where he lived for two years, and in 1901 to Comanche County. In 1908 he moved to his present home at Byers, Clay County, Texas. Mr. Tucker has been a blacksmith all his life and in the various communities in which he has resided has been known for his skilled workmanship and faithful fulfillment of contracts. He is a democrat in his political views, and he and Mrs. Tucker are faith- ful members of the Methodist Episcopal church. She is a native of Alabama, and they have been the parents of the following children: Lulu, who is the wife of Dr. John W. Swindell, a successful eye, ear, nose and throat specialist of Greenville, Texas; Roger V., who is a car- penter and builder of Byers, Texas; Pinckney W., of this review; and J. Arthur, who is engaged in agricultural pursuits at Dixon, Texas.

Pinckney W. Tucker attended the public schools of the various places in which the family resided in his boy- hood and youth, and at Lehigh, Oklahoma, attended the

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

high school. He spent two years as a coal miner at that place and in 1901 came to Comanche County and took up a homestead, on which he lived four years. In 1907 he located at Comanche, where he was for two years en- gaged in the real estate business, and March 1, 1910, purchased the American, which he edited until March 1, 1913, when he leased it to James M. Nichols, its present editor. A democrat in his political views, Mr. Tucker was always an active worker in his party, and July 1, 1913, his long and faithful service was rewarded by his appointment to the office of postmaster of Comanche, by President Wilson. In the various activities and fields in which Mr. Tucker was engaged, he showed himself resourceful, energetic and pos essed of practical views and good judgment. In his official capacity he was able to accomplish much for his adopted eity in elevating the standard of its mail service. He evidenced a conscien- tious appreciation of the responsibilities of public ser- vice and proved a very popular and highly efficient official. He was a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, of which he was head consul, and an ex-member of the Knights of the Maccabees.

Ou September 15, 1904, at Comanche, Mr. Tucker was united in marriage with Miss Jessie Bourne, daugh- ter of E. A. Bourne, the founder of the American, who is now a well known attorney of this city. Four chil- dren were born to Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, all but the last named being students in the public schools of Comanche: Lucile, born March 8, 1906; Dorothy, born July 8, 1907; Lulu Frances, born July 5, 1909; and Idena Madge, born December 23, 1914. Mr. Tucker died November 17, 1915.

JENS A. HOLMBOE. With the birthright of courage and steadfast purpose inherited from sturdy and worthy ancestors, Jens Anthon Holmboe came from the far Norseland of his nativity to the United States as a young man of twenty-one years, and though he found his financial resources limited to a single dollar at the time of his arrival he was admirably fortified by nature and practiced discipline, as he had but shortly before been graduated as a civil engineer, his degree having been received from Polytechnic Institute of Christiania, the fair capital city of Norway. Making his way to the City of Chicago, Mr. Holmboe obtained a position as draught man in the employ of the Union Steel Com- pany, and his ability, energy and close application have enabled him to make advancement to his present well established position as one of the representative civil engineers of the Southwest, his residence and profes- sional headquarters being maintained in Oklahoma City and it having been his to develop a large and important business as a contracting and consulting engineer. He has well appointed offices at 312 Majestic Building and has been a resident of Oklahoma since 1909.

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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