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 99

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 99

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).

The first marriage of Mr. Armstrong was with Nancy Jackson, a full-blood Delaware Indian, and she is sur- vived by one son, Henry, who is a prosperous farmer near Bartlesville. She was a consistent member. of the Baptist Church, and of the same the present wife of Mr. Armstrong likewise is a devoted member. After the death of his first wife Mr. Armstrong wedded Mrs. Maggie Davis, who is entirely of Caucasian blood, and who was at the time a widow with one daughter, Myrtle, who remains with her mother at the pleasant family home. Lucinda, Mr. Armstrong's only daughter by the first marriage, died at the age of twenty-one years.

Readily may it be understood that this sterling pioneer, a credit to his race and to the state in which he resides, has a rare fund of information concerning the conditions and incidents relative to the early days in Indian Terri- tory, and he has so ordered his life as to merit and receive the confidence and high regard of all who know him.

DR. P. M. ADAMS. In this era of almost marvelous achievements in surgery, medicine and all branches of therapie restoration and conservation, the profession of a physician seems perhaps most enviable in its oppor- tunities for human service and most serious in its respon- sibilities. No work is more delicate, more intricate, more severe in its demands than is that of the alienist. The chief and leading exponent of that branch of medical science in this part of Oklahoma is Dr. P. M. Adams, a

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man who may be said to be exceptionally young to have reached so high a rank as a physician.

Doctor Adams is a descendant of one branch of the old Virginia Adams family. His father was Edmund F. Adams, born in 1853 in the Old Dominion State, but reared and educated in Kentucky; he married Louella M. Tatum, a native of Arkansas, in the year 1861. Edmund Adams and his wife established their home in Texas, settling at Celester, in Hunt County of that state. Locating in that comparatively new country in 1880, he made a noteworthy success as a dealer in lumber and cotton. He is a prominent Mason and a staunch demo- crat. Nine children came to the Texas home of Edmund F. Adams and his wife. The first-born of these was P. M. Adams, whose birth occurred at Celester on January 31, 1884.

The college education of P. M. Adams was obtained at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. When he liad completed his course in that institution, he entered Barnes Medical College at St. Louis, Missouri, front which insti- tution he was graduated in the class of 1905. For his initial practice, Doctor Adams located at Big Cabin, Oklahoma, where he became well known as a physician of keen scientific insight and of reliable judgment. His prestige soon outgrew the horizon of his actual prac- tice and the time came when he was called to more con- spicuous honors and heavier responsibilities.

In 1913 Governor Lee Cruce appointed Doctor Adams to the position of superintendent of the East Oklahoma Hospital for the Insane, which institution is located at Vinita. Doctor Adams accepted the appointment and became a resident of Vinita and of the hospital plant. On his staff are Drs. E. L. Bagby and P. L. Hayes, both of whom are physicians of high personal and pro- fessional status. The hospital force includes eighty-one assistants and nurses and its patients at present num- ber 701.

Doctor Adams is not only distinguished as a physician, but is also very popular personally. Many fraternal societies number him among their members. In addition to membership in his college fraternity, he belongs to Adona Lodge No. 99, of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons; to Indian Consistory No. 1 at McAlester; is a thirty-second degree Mason; and a member of Vinita Lodge No. 1162, of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is also a member of the order of Knights" of Pythias. The doctor's political alignment is with the democratic party.

The family of Doctor Adams consists of Mrs. Adams and one son. Indian Territory was the birthplace of Mrs. Adams, who before her marriage was Miss .Mame Buttler. The son bears his father's full name and is known as P. M. Adams, Jr.

J. EMMET HARRIS. The year following the close of the Civil war, when the Choctaw Indians for the first time received the real inspiration for agricultural progress-the inspiration that raw necessity implanted in the minds of white men just back from the battle- fields-Betsy Harris, a Choctaw woman known far and wide over the Indian Nation, foresaw the possibilities of a peaceful life and established near Red River, in the southern part of what is now McCurtain County, what has since been known as the Betsy Harris place. She and the negroes who had been her slaves cleared trees and underbrush from the wilderness and built a log cabin overlooking the fertile and picturesque land of Texas.

An interstate road had been established about that time and the Indian Territory landing of the ferry over Red River was directly in front of her cabins. She

called the place River View, and her grandson, J. Emmet Harris, of Haworth, who selected the place as his allot- ment when Congress passed the Severalty Act, has pre- served the name and some of the buildings. The Betsy Harris place is known to numerous of the old-timers of North Texas and Indian Territory, and for a half a century it has been a convenient stopping place for thousands of sportsmen coming from four or five states to Clear Lake, a mile distant from the place, which has been for years one of the most popular fishing resorts of the Southwest.

So slowly was white settlement made in that region that up to fifteen years ago there was not a residence within four miles of the Betsy Harris place. After the allotment of lands a transformation began and the bottom lands of Red River became fertile fields of cotton and corn. J. Emmet Harris and his family have 650 acres of this land, most of it surrounding the Betsy Harris place, and, with 45 acres of this in alfalfa, Mr. Harris is demonstrating that something else be- side cotton and corn will contribute to the income of the agriculturists.

J. Emmet Harris was born in 1877, in one of the lit- tle cabins of hewed logs. His father, John G. Harris, a one-eighth Choctaw and a cousin of Judge Henry Har- ris, was reared in Eagle County, Choctaw Nation. He was a farmer and local leader in politics and served one term as sheriff of Red River County, the county seat of which was Kullituklo. He and his wife were the parents of three children: J. Emmet; Mrs. Neely Young, the wife of a farmer at Foreman, Arkansas; and Ernest, who is engaged in farming at Bokhoma, McCurtain County. John Ward, the father of J. Emmet Harris' mother, was for a number of years one of the most widely known plow-makers of the Southwest, and lived in Bowie County, Texas, on Red River, at the month of Mik-creek Farm where in his little pioneer black- smith shop was made the old-time wooden mold-board plow. His product was marketed in four states and many pioneer farmers of the Choctaw Nation never had any other make of plow.

One of the first tribal schools founded in the south- ern part of the Choctaw Nation was established on the farm of Betsy Harris, this being built of logs and seated with split logs. In those days there were no markets for farm products in that part of the Choctaw country, and it was necessary to ferry cotton, etc., over Red River to De Kalb, Texas, or to Rocky-Comfort, Little River County, Arkansas. In 1903 the first im- portant public improvement in that section was con- summated. It was the building of what was known as the Arkansas and Choctaw Road now known as the Frisco Railroad.

After attending tribal schools for a few years, J. Emmet Harris entered the Polytechnic College, at Fort Worth, Texas, where he remained two years. He then returned to his farm on Red River, where he has since resided, with the exception of one year that he has been engaged in the grocery business at Haworth. After statehood he was for two years trustee of Frisco Town- ship, and during his administration the township was cleared of debt of $1,200, and was on a sound financial basis when he retired. During those two years, also, he assisted in the building and establishment of an important highway, running from Bokhoma to Red River, and the entire period of his incumbency was characterized by faithful and public-spirited service. Mr. Harris is well known in fraternal circles, being a member of the Masonic lodge at Idabel, the county seat, the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, at Bokhoma, and the Woodmen of the World

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Lodge at Idabel. His home is at Haworth, where he is well established in public esteem and confidence.

It is an interesting fact of local history that one of the last acts of Judge Henry Harris, the well-known Choctaw jurist, was in performing the ceremony that made Miss Maggie Manning the wife of J. Emmet Harris. The ceremony was performed March 5, 1899, under the tribal customs, and so recorded. Mr. and Mrs. Harris have one child: Emma M., who is seven years of age.

PATRICK J. WHITE. Some of the keenest, most re- sourceful, and vigorous types of business men in the Southwest are found in the ranks of those determined and forceful men connected with the oil and gas industry. This is a business, which, like lumbering, mining, rail- road building, brings out the elemental strength and virtues of hardy manhood. As the greatest figures in the lumber industry of the past generation came from the rugged slopes and forests of Maine, so the State of Pennsylvania was the training ground for a large num- ber of the most successful captains of the oil industry. Oklahoma has not a few operators and producers in the oil and gas field who claim Pennsylvania as their native state, and one of the ablest and best known of these is Patrick J. White of Tulsa.

It is a distinction of which any business man might well be proud that the firm of White & Sinclair at Tulsa is considered among the largest producers of crude oil in the United States, and no doubt is the chief produc- ing firm in Oklahoma. The interests of Mr. White not only in the oil fields but in other lines of business are extensive, and for a number of years he has associated intimately and influentially with prominent business men all over the country. Mr. White is also president of The Exchange National Bank of Tulsa, took the leading part in organizing this large and substantial institution, and has been its executive head since February 9, 1909.

Patrick Justin White was born at Warren, Warren County, Pennsylvania, January 16, 1874, being the third in a family of five children, three of whom are still living. His parents were Patrick and Sarah (Brennan) White, both natives of Ireland. The mother died when Patrick White was two and a half years of age, and the father is now living venerable in years in Penn- sylvania.

The locality in which Mr. White was born and reared is in Western Pennsylvania, close to the heart of the oil industry which had its pioneer development in that state. Boys living along the sea coast almost inevitably find an outlet for their spirit of adventure in some experience as sailors on the deep. So also it was quite natural for young men of enterprise living in Western Pennsylvania to form at some time in their lives an association with the oil business. After attending the schools of his home town and Warren Academy, Patrick J. White found his first important employment as a clerk in the Oil Well Supply Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He soon showed himself not only diligent but trust- worthy and competent, and the company sent him as its western manager to the Kansas and Oklahoma fields, and for some time he had his headquarters at Chanute, Kansas. Leaving Chanute in 1903, Mr. White moved to Tulsa, and became one of the pioneers in the oil dis- trict around that city, which at that time was little more than a village. A detailed account of his varied interests and activities would furnish almost a resume of all the important industrial history of this section of the state. While perhaps best known as head of the firm of White & Sinclair, oil operators and producers, and as president of the Exchange National Bank, he has in- Vol. III-22

terests as a capitalist and business man in many differ- ent enterprises at Tulsa and elsewhere. As a business man Mr. White is broad-gauged, energetic and self- reliant, combines a high degree of initiative and ad- ministrative ability, and as a citizen has always shown himself liberal and progressive in his attitude toward local improvements and the public welfare. Politically he is independent of strict party lines. February 1, 1904, Mr. White married Miss Frances Laing of New Orleans, Louisiana. They have one child, Patrick Justin, Jr.

CHARLES DUANE SNIDER, who is favorably known in business circles of Waurika, where he was until recently identified with the lumber interests of this thriving com- munity, has since March, 1915, discharged the duties of the office of postmaster in a manner that leaves no doubt as to his entire fitness for the position. Mr. Snider was born at Bowling Green, Warren County, Kentucky, December 21, 1885, and is a son of Charles P. and Allie (Jenkins) Snider.

Charles P. Snider was born in Simpson County, Ken- tucky, in 1862, his father having moved there as a pioneer from Virginia. Subsequently he moved to Bowl- ing Green, Warren County, where he has since resided, carrying on diversified farming and stockraising, and the present homestead there consists of 200 acres, all under a high state of cultivation. He has led an industrious active life and has won success and position in his community. He is a democrat in politics and a member of the Baptist Church, to which Mrs. Snider also belongs. She was born in Simpson County, Kentucky, and they have two sons: William G., who is engaged in the tobacco business at Adairville, Kentucky, and Charles Duane.

Charles D. Snider received his education in the public schools of Warren County, Kentucky, and after his graduation from the Bowling Green High School, in 1903, remained on the home farm until 1904, when he began work on his own account, as a clerk in the American National Bank, at Bowling Green. In 1908 he went to Dalhart, Texas, as bookkeeper for the South Texas Lumber Company, and remained in that capacity from May until August, when he was sent to Houston, Texas, for the same company, and in the same position. In November, 1909, he came to Waurika, Oklahoma, as manager for that company 's interests here, and developed a large business, in the direction of which he remained until March, 1915. At that time he was appointed post- master at Waurika for a term of four years, by Presi- dent Wilson, and in' the comparatively short time that he has held this office has instituted a number of innova- tions that have greatly improved the service. A democrat in politics since attaining his majority, he has been an active party worker, and while residing here has been secretary of the election board of Jefferson County for two years. He has been one of the most enthusiastic members of the community in boosting Waurika's interests, and has for several years been president of the Waurika Commercial Club. He belongs to the Baptist Church, and his fraternal connections are with Waurika Lodge No. 315, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Bowling Green (Kentucky) Lodge No. 320, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

Mr. Snider was married in October, 1912, at Louisville, Kentucky, to Miss Cora L. Perry, daughter of Prof. G. B. Perry, a professor of Lynman College, at Glendale, Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Snider are the parents of oue child: Ree Perry, born September 8, 1914. Both Mr. and Mrs. Snider have many friends at Waurika, and are generally popular in social circles.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

DR. EMMET STARR. Of his eminent services as Chero- kee genealogist and historian it is unnecessary to speak in this connection, since repeated references will be found on other pages of this history of Oklahoma to Doctor Starr as the authority on all subjects within his special province. He is also vice president of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Of his personal career and his individual family history, the following is a brief relation.

He was born December 12, 1870, in Going Snake District, Cherokee Nation, or in what is now Adair County, Oklahoma. His parents were Walter Adair and Ruth A. (Thornton) Starr, the former born at Cane Hill, Arkansas, and the latter near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma. They were both members by birthright of the Cherokee Nation. The name Starr is of Irish origin, and Doctor Starr's great-grandfather, Caleb Starr, was a native of Chester County, Pennsylvania, was a Penn- sylvania Quaker, and early in life went south and mar- ried into the Cherokee Indian Tribe. Doctor Starr's mother was a descendant through her father from the Virginia Thorntons of English lineage, and on her mother's side was also of Cherokee stock. The fore- bears of Doctor Starr came to what is now Eastern Oklahoma prior to the year 1831. He is the oldest in a family of five children, and the other four were: George Colbert Starr, who while in discharge of his duties as a deputy sheriff was killed by a bootlegger or whiskey peddler on September 20, 1912; Mary B. Starr, wife of Dr. Wade H. Vann, formerly of Porum but now of Cement, Oklahoma; Miss Lettie B., who lives with her brother Doctor Starr; and Joseph M. The mother of these children died when the youngest of them was about six years of age. The father married for his second wife Ella Christie of Christie, Adair County, and she became the mother of two children named Jennie and Caleb L. Starr.

In 1871 Doctor Starr's parents removed to what is now Rogers County, Oklahoma, and he grew up in that locality on a farm. His father was a very prominent man in the Cherokee Nation, and for fourteen years held the position of district judge, and was still on that bench when the national government of the Chero- kees was dissolved. Doctor Starr was graduated June 28, 1888, from the Cherokee Male Seminary at Tah- lequah, and in 1891 took his degree in medicine from the Barnes Medical College at St. Louis.

He practiced medicine first at Chelsea and then at Skiatook, but after five years of successful work in his profession abandoned it in order to devote his time to his great work as a Cherokee genealogist and historian. On August 5, 1901, Doctor Starr was elected from the Cooweescoowee District to the Cherokee Na- tional Council, and he served in that body with credit for two years, one term. That was the last but one of the councils of the Cherokee Nation. In politics Doctor Starr is a democrat, and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is a Master Mason. Doctor Starr is unmarried and his home is a farm at Claremore.

CHARLES S. STORMS. The superintendent of city schools of Waurika, Oklahoma, Charles S. Storms, has devoted his labors for fifteen years to the cause of educa- tion, a field in which he has won well-merited prominence. He was born in Clay County, Missouri, May 9, 1880, and is a son of R. H. and Mary Ellen (Malott) Storms, and a member of a family which, originating in Germany, was founded in America by his great-great-grandfather, who was a pioneer settler of Kentucky about the time of the War of the Revolution.

James R. Storms, the grandfather of Charles S. Storms, was born in 1832, in Jessamine County, Kentucky, and about the year 1857 moved to Ray County, Missouri, where he was engaged in farming until the period of the Civil war. During that conflict, he enlisted in a Missouri regiment in the Uniou army with which he served two years, then returning to his farm where he continued to carry on operations until his retirement. He now resides at North Kansas City, Missouri, at the home of his son, R. H. Storms. The latter was born in 1857, in Kentucky, and was an infant when taken by his parents to Ray County, Missouri. He grew up amid agricultural surroundings and adopted farming and stockraising as his field of effort when starting upon his career, and shortly after his marriage removed to Clay County, Missouri, where his children were born. He developed a good and valuable farm, aud through a life of industry accumulated a competence, so that he is now living in comfortable retirement. In politics Mr. Storms is a democrat, and his fraternal affiliations are with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Masons. He has been a lifelong member of the Baptist Church, in which he is a deacon. Mr. Storms married Miss Mary Ellen Malott, a native of Missouri, and they are the parents of three children: Charles S., of this notice; Mabel, who is the wife of Dr. E. L. Dudgeon, a physician of Platte City, Missouri; and Pearl, the wife of Paul Q. Rogers, a farmer of the vicinity of Amster- dam, Missouri.

Charles S. Storms attended the public schools of Clay County, and was graduated from the high school at Liberty, Missouri, with the class of 1897. Following this, he furthered his education by three years of atteud- ance at William Jewell College, at Liberty, and in 1900 entered upon his career in the field of education as a teacher in the public schools of Clay County. His abilities at that time were recognized by his appoint- ment to the principalship of the Ward School, at Liberty, where he spent two years, being then made principal of the city schools of Smithville, Missouri, a position which he retained from 1904 until 1908, and during this time also served in the capacity of county commissioner of schools of Clay County. Mr. Storms came to Waurika in the fall of 1908 to accept the superintendency of the city schools here, and has since become known as one of the foremost and most popular educators of Jefferson County. At this time Mr. Storms has two fine schools, with fifteen teachers and 650 scholars under his super- vision, a fine new grammar school having been built in 1908 and a handsome and well-equipped high school in the following year. In addition to being a thoroughly learned and broadly-experienced teacher, Mr. Storms is an able executive, and has done much to elevate educa- tional standards and improve the school system. While he is known as a strict disciplinarian, he has the friend- ship and support of his co-workers and is popular alike with teachers and pupils.

In addition to his work in the line of education, Mr. Storms is well known in the journalistic field, being joint editor of the Waurika News-Democrat and secretary and a director of the News-Democrat Company. Politically he has always been a democrat. He was reared in the faith of the Baptist Church, of which he is a member, and at present is a deacon of the church at Waurika. His fraternal connections include member- ship in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he is past chief patriarch of the encampment; and in Waurika Lodge No. 315, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

At Liberty, Missouri, in 1903, Mr. Storms was united in marriage with Miss Arabella Warren, daughter of

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T. G. Warren, a farmer of the vicinity of Liberty. Mr. and Mrs. Storms have no children.

William W. Morrison, joint editor with Charles S. Storms of the Waurika News-Democrat, is one of the progressive and energetic young men whose labors are contributing to the upbuilding and development of this thriving little city. He was born in Bates County, Missouri; January 31, 1887, and is a son of C. H. and Mary (McElroy) Morrison, natives of Illinois. The Morrison family is of Scotch-Irish origin and was founded before the Revolution in Pennsylvania, from whence its members moved to Illinois and later to Missouri. C. H. Morrison was born in 1850, from whence he removed after his marriage to Bates County, Missouri, and in 1901 to Lawton, Oklahoma. Here he followed farming and engaged in the feed business until his removal to his present home in New Mexico.

William W. Morrison was educated in the public schools of Bates County, Missouri, and at Lawton High School, from which he was graduated with the class of 1905. In 1901 when he first accompanied his parents to Oklahoma, he evidenced the bent of his inclinations when he found employment on the Kingfisher Free-Press, but in the same year came on to Lawton, and while attending high school worked on the Lawton Republican. Mr. Morrison remained on the home farm until 1905, when he went to Butler, Missouri, and became connected with the Butler Times, but soon returned to Oklahoma, and at Walter, with Charles Shane and C. E. Davis, started the Walter World. When he came to Waurika, in 1911, he became joint-editor, with Charles S. Storms, of the Waurika News-Democrat.

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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