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. IV, Part 119

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 656

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. IV > Part 119

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).

Having lost his father so early, William Perry Free- man's early education was confined to ten months in a backwoods country school before he was ten years of age. He had no college education. At the age of ten he went to the county seat and entered a printing office as a devil to learn the printer's trade. A printing office has always been considered one of the best universities in the world, and he not only learned to set type and perform the routine work of such an establishment, but he read books and newspapers, and to his reading he brought a judgment that enabled him to sift and dis- criminate. He read varions text books used in the schools and a large amount of standard literature and history. He has had a thorough experience as a news- paper man, having graduated from the composing room to the news department, and was successively reporter, editor and manager. He naturally took up politics as a side interest. He was also a journeyman printer and newspaper man, and wandered pretty much over the country, seeing all sorts and conditions of men, and keeping himself in close touch with the world's interests.

In 1886 Mr. Freeman was elected clerk of the Circuit Court of Miller County, Missouri. He filled that office eight years. During 1884-85 he was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. In 1886 he was defeated for the office of secretary of state. Then in January, 1898, he was appointed clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Indian Territory, and continued to perform the duties of that office until statehood in November, 1907.

Mr. Freeman resides at McAlester. In recent years he has been most actively identified with banking. He

is chairman of the board of directors of the First Na tional Bank of MeAlester, president of the Scipio Stat Bank of Scipio, and a director in the First Nationa Bank of Allen and the First National Bank of Calvir all in Oklahoma. In a business way he has been pros pering, though he has no ambition to rank among Okla homa's wealthiest citizens.

Asked to define his stand in politics, Mr. Freeman states that he is a republican, equally removed fror progressivism and reactionaryism. In fact, he says "I am just a plain old-time republican and offer ne excuse or apology for being one. I voted for Taft and grow prouder of the act each day. I am praying an hoping and have implicit faith that we will return again to safe and sane policies the next time the opportunity i presented. "'

His interest in Masonry are of long standing. I was in 1914 that he served as grand master of Mason of Oklahoma, and he is not only a Knight Templar and : member of the different branches of the York Rite bu has attained the supreme and ultimate thirty-third de gree in the Scottish Rite. He belongs to the Roya Order of Scotland, the Red Cross of Constantine and the Order of Eastern Star, and is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Benevolen and Protective Order of Elks and the Modern Woodmer of America. He is a member of the Christian Church or Church of Christ at MeAlester.

On September 19, 1881, in Camden County, Missouri he married Miss Alice Harris, daughter of Robert B Harris. They have one daughter, Elsie, who married Lewis A. Ellis, a son of Edward S. Ellis of MeAlester.

EVERETT A. STAPP. One of the leading industries of the prosperous and growing little city of Sentinel, il Washita County, is the Lyon & Matthews Inmber Com pany, a business originally founded in 1902 by William G. Stapp. Much of the success of this enterprise is due to the efforts and able management of the founder's son, Everett A. Stapp, who since 1908 has occupied the position of manager, and who has devoted himself whole- heartedly to its interests.

Mr. Stapp was born in Ray County, Missouri, October 31, 1886, a member of a family whose members were pioneers of Bowling Green, Kentucky, from whence they moved to Missouri. In the latter state his father, Wil liam Golson Stapp, was born in 1853, and several years before the birth of Everett A., moved to Ray County where he continued his operations as a lumberman and sawmill operator. In 1897 he removed to Conroe, Mont gomery County, Texas, and in 1902 came to Sentinel where he founded a lumber yard in September and conducted it successfully until December 5, 1908, when he disposed of his interests to the Lyon & Matthews Company, and moved to his grape ranch at Fresno, California, where his death occurred in December, 1909. He was a democrat in politics and a member of the Church of Christ, and belonged to Conroe Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and to the Odd Fellows order. His first wife was a Miss Jones, who died in Missouri, leaving two children: Inllian, a farmer of Conroe, Texas; and Mary, deceased, who was the wife of L. B. Dorton, a miller of Orrick, Missouri. Mr. Stapp was again married to Miss Susan Jane Ayres, who was born in Missouri in 1860, and who still survives him and resides at Sentinel. They became. the parents of four children : Ola, who was married first to William Adams, and second to H. T. Vanderford, and resides on a farm one mile east of Sentinel; William E., who is engineer for an oil company at Coalinga, California; Everett A .; and Nellie, who is the wife of Raymond Welch, a blacksmith of Fort Worth, Texas.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Everett A. Stapp attended the public schools of Con- roe, Texas, and assisted his father in the sawmills until sixteen years of age, at which time he accompanied the family to Sentinel, where he was employed in the lumber yard and furthered his education by attending the high school. When his father sold the enterprise, December 5, 1908, Mr. Stapp was made manager for the new firm of Lyon & Matthews, and has continued to act efficiently in that capacity to the present time. He is considered one of the city's enterprising and progressive young men of business and has made a firm place for himself in the confidence of his associates. He has also been active in civil life, having served as a member of the council for several years, and at the present time is city treasurer of Sentinel and one of the city's most popular and energetic officials. His political support is given to the men and measures of the socialist party. Mr. Stapp and the members of his family belong to the Church of Christ. He is affiliated with Sentinel Lodge No. 152, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a past master and was worshipful master in 1913, and is a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to Consistory No. 1, Valley of Guthrie. He also holds membership in Sentinel Lodge of the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows.

At Hobart, Oklahoma, in 1907, Mr. Stapp was married to Miss Alma Tidball, daughter of Dr. William and Jennie (Heiney) Tidball. Doctor Tidball is the pioneer physician and surgeon of Sentinel, where he . has been engaged in a successful practice since 1901. Mr. and Mrs. Stapp are the parents of four children: Sue, born in June, 1908; Martha, born in January, 1910; Mary, born in May, 1912; and Cecelia, born in May, 1915.

JOHN L. RICE. Clerk of the District Court for Cana- dian County, John L. Rice represents a family of Okla- homa '89ers, and from early boyhood he has lived in and has been identified with the activities of the western section of Oklahoma during its many changes and de- velopments. For a number of years his work was satisfactorily and efficiently performed as a teacher, and he has brought the capable qualities which made him successful in the management of the school into the performance of his duties as clerk of court.

John L. Rice was born April 27, 1875, in Elk County, Kansas, but grew up in Missouri and Oklahoma. His father, Theodoric B. Rice, a native of Bath County, Kentucky, was a printer by trade, followed that voca- tion in early life, and subsequently became a farmer. Soon after his son's birth in Kansas he removed to Missouri, and thence in 1889, the year of the great open- ing, came to Oklahoma and found a home on a farm in Canadian County near El Reno. From that early year he gave an account of himself as a farmer until his death in 1911 at the age of sixty-seven. His wife's maiden name was Elizabeth Ridenour, who was born in Wabash County, Indiana, and is still living, occupying the old homestead in Canadian County. She was the mother of fourteen children, and nine of them are still living.

John L. Rice had the environment and influence of a farm during his youth, and has many interesting recol- lections of early days in Oklahoma Territory. He gradu- ated from the El Reno High School, and spent some time as a student in the University of Oklahoma at Norman. For eleven years his chief work was as a teacher in the public schools. Six years of this time were spent in country district schools, and for five years he was prin- cipal of town schools. In 1912 the democratic party of Canadian County selected him as candidate for clerk of the District Court, and his election followed by a sub-

stantial majority. His acceptable service in this office is verified by his re-election in 1914.

Mr. Rice is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and belongs to the Methodist Church. In 1899 he married Miss Fannie Coykendall, also an " '89er,"' a daughter of Capt. John R. Coykendall, cap- tain of Company "G," Eleventh Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. They are the parents of three sons, Kirk, Roderick and Gordon.

ELISHA J. GRAY, M. D. It is not only at Tecumseh, where he located more than fifteen years ago, that Doctor Gray is well known and his services held in high esteem as a physician and citizen. He has been in active prac- tice for more than a quarter a century, chiefly in the State of Arkansas before coming to Oklahoma, and has made a record of consistent ability, skill, faithful attend- ance to duty and integrity of character wherever he has been and whatever has been his associations. He is now one of the older physicians of Tecumseh, and established his home in that little city when it was in the early stages of its growth, and very few if any of his profes- sional associates and rivals of that time are still in active practice in the same locality.

A native of Arkansas, Elisha J. Gray was born at Batesville, Independence County, January 27, 1863. His great-grandfather, Gilbert Gray, came from France to Fayetteville, North Carolina, some four or five years before the beginning of the Revolutionary war. Like many of the patriotic Frenchmen who came later he . served throughout the war for independence, fighting in the armies commanded by General Washington and Gen- eral Greene. Later he spent his years as a farmer and died in Fayetteville in North Carolina. Elisha C. Gray, father of Doctor Gray of Tecumseh, was born in North Carolina in 1832 and died at Hickory Valley, Arkansas, in April, 1911. Reared in North Carolina, he went when a young man to Independence County, Arkansas, and after his marriage spent his years quietly and indus- triously as a farmer and stock raiser. During the war between the states he was a soldier in the Confederate army, and always gave his support to the democratic party. He took quite an active interest in politics, and in 1877 and again in 1879 represented his home county in the Arkansas State Legislature. Religiously he was a member of the Protestant Methodist Church. Elisha C. Gray married Anne Meacham, who was born in Hick- ory Valley, Arkansas, in 1838, and died at the old home there in May, 1908, aged seventy years. These worthy parents gave their lives chiefly for the benefit of their children, and they brought into the world fifteen boys and girls. A brief account of this large household is as follows: Julius Braxton, who is a farmer and mer- chant at Hickory Valley, Arkansas; Aurelius G., a farmer and cotton buyer at Cave City, Arkansas, and a present . state senator of that state; Mary E., wife of Samuel Simmons, a farmer at Cave City, Arkansas; Mrs. Sarah A. Davis, living at Cave City and widow of Mr. Davis, who was a farmer; Christopher C., who is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and a successful physician and surgeon; Martha, who died when two years of age; Dr. Elisha J .; James Edmond, a farmer in the State of Wyoming; Queen Esther, who died at the age of twenty- seven, married a Mr. Yarbrough, who is now a teacher in Rockwall, Texas; William A., who became a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was formerly at Fayetteville, Arkansas, but his present whereabouts are not known to the members of the family; John W., who graduated from Washington University of St. Louis and is a physician and surgeon at Quinton, Oklahoma; Thornsbury A., a farmer at Cave City, Arkansas; Virgil O., also a farmer at Cave City; Aurora, wife of Mr.

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Ball, a farmer at Pfeiffer, Arkansas; and Lily, who married Mr. Jackson, and they live on the old homestead farm in Hickory Valley, Arkansas.

Dr. Elisha J. Gray spent his boyhood and carly youth on an Arkansas farm. He had the usual round of pleasures and interesting incidents of boyhood, inter- miugled with much hard and sturdy toil, and he had to use his own efforts largely to pay for his higher education. He attended the common schools of Independence County, took his three years' course in Arkansas College, Bates- ville, and left that institution in 1887 to enter the Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, where he was graduated from the medical department with the degree of M. D. in the class of 1889. Some years later, in 1901, Doctor Gray returned to his alma mater to take post-graduate work.

His practice began in 1889 at La Crosse, Izard County, Arkansas. He remained there one year, at Cave City three years, at Kenyon, in Jackson County, Arkansas, two years, and at Hickory Valley two years.

Up to that time he had hardly looked upon any one location as a permanent home. He found his permanent work and residence at Tecumseh, Oklahoma, where he arrived in January, 1898. Since then he has worked up a large general medical and surgical practice, and has enjoyed many of the best successes of the competent professional men. His offices arc in the First National Bank Building. He is a member of the County and State Medical societies, and does all in his power to promote the welfare of the profession and of the community at large.

In politics he is a democrat, aud for eight years served as a member of the city council of Tecumseh. He is a steward in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and is quite active in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being past noble grand of Tecumseh Lodge and representing the lodge in the Grand Lodge.

At La Crosse, Arkansas, iu 1891, he married Miss Ollie Gardner, daughter of J. O. Gardner, who was a farmer in Arkansas, but is now deceased. To their marriage have been born three children: Maud E., who graduated from the Tecumsch High School and from the Central State Normal School at Edmond, and is now a popular teacher in Tecumseh; Bernice, is the wife of Earl Waldorf, who is bookkeeper for the Theodore Max- field Sons, one of the large wholesale firms of Oklahoma City; and Gilbert, who is still attending to his studies in the public schools of Tecumseh.

JUDGE W. W. WITTEN. The name of Judge Witten, . who is now engaged in the successful practice of law at Okmulgee, has always had a high place on the rolls of the original Oklahoma pioneers. Judge Witten has been a participant or a witness in nearly all the important openings by which the area of civilization was rapidly broadened until the entire original Indian Territory has been included in the State of Oklahoma. He was at the opening in 1889 and became a very important political figure in the early life and affairs of the territory. He was also at Tecumseh at the opening of the Pottawatomie Reservation, at the opening of the Cherokee Strip, and finally of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country.

Judge Witten not only has solid attainments as a law- yer, but is a forceful and vigorous speaker and has appeared in many of the campaigns during the past twenty-five years, and always as an uncompromising dem- ocrat. In fact he is a southerner by birth, though he was reared and came into prominence professionally in the State of Missouri.

William Wirt Witten was born at Raleigh Court House, Virginia, March 29, 1860, a son of Robert W. and Sarah F. (Riggs) Witten, both of whom were natives of Vir-

ginia. His father was a descendant from Lord Balti- more, and members of the family participated in the Revolutionary war on the American side. His maternal ancestry is of Irish descent, and they also arrived in America during colonial days. In 1866 the Witten fam- ily moved out to Missouri and in the following year located in Grundy County. Many years later, in 1892, the parents joined Judge Witten in his home at Okla- homa City. Robert W. Witten died while on a visit to Okmulgee in 1911 at the age of seveuty-seven. The mother passed away in 1908 aged sixty-seven. Robert W. Witten was a physician by profession and practiced medicine for more than forty years. He used his profes- sion as his principal office and opportunity for service during the war between the states, and was a surgeon on the Confederate side under Gen. John C. McCausland.

Judge Witten had three brothers, and all of them have been men with successful careers. His oldest brother, Dr. E. W. Witten, located in Oklahoma City in 1890, practiced medicine very successfully there until his death in 1911, and at one time held a chair in the medical col- lege at Oklahoma City. The second brother, Thomas A., has for the past thirty years been a member of the bar at Kansas City, Missouri. The youngest is Robert Pickett, who is connected with the city government in Oklahoma City.

Though Judge Witten came out to Missouri with his parents when about seven years of age, he went back east in 1877 to Guyandotte, West Virginia, and pursued his studies in law there. He was admitted to the bar in 1880 and at once returned to Trenton, Missouri, where in addition to a budding practice as a lawyer he edited the Trenton Times. He also became a factor in local politics, and was twice elected recorder of deeds for Grundy County.

Soou after arriving in Oklahoma City at the opening of 1889, Judge Witten settled down to the quiet routine of legal practice, and participated in much of the excit- ing and important litigation that filled the court dockets at that time. He continued in private practice until 1895. He was elected the first police judge of Oklahoma City, and there are few men still liviug who have a more intimate and comprehensive insight as to early affairs in that now capital city. During the territorial days he was a candidate for governor of the territory, and was one of five good men who made the race. Grover Cleve- land was then presideut, and his selection fell to another candidate than Judge Witten. Somewhat later he was appointed clerk of the United States District Court in Oklahoma, and he served until the opening of the Chero- kee Strip in 1893. Afterwards he succeeded Sam Small as editor of the Oklahoman published in Oklahoma City. He also went back to Missouri and for a time edited the State's Duty at St. Louis.

In January, 1900, Judge Witten established his home at Okmulgee in old Indian Territory, and for fifteen years has been regarded as one of the leaders of the local bar. At the beginning of statehood he made the race for nomination for district judge, of a district that then comprised the four counties of Creek, Okmulgee, Okfuskee and Hughes.

In 1885 Judge Witten married Miss Nannie L. Harber of Trenton, Missouri.

JAMES ALBERT MINTON. In a long and uniformly successful career the versatile abilities of James Albert Minton have found expression in activities as a minister of the gospel, as a business man, as an agriculturist, and, in recent years, as an attorney. A resident of Erick, Oklahoma since 1900, he has here risen to a leading place among the legists of the extreme western part of the

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state, and is now in control of a elientele as important as it is satisfying in a financial way.

Mr. Minton was born at Gravelly Springs, Lauderdale County, Alabama, January 13, 1862, and is a son of John and Jennie Delila (Cannon) Minton, and a deseend- ant of a family of English origin whose founder in this country settled in South Carolina in Colonial days. John Minton was born in South Carolina in 1801 and from that state moved to Gravelly Springs, Alabama, where he was married and engaged in farming. Later he went to Hardin County, Tennessee, where he continued his farming and stockraising operations, and died there in 1895. He was an elder in the Christian Church for many years and a man universally respected and esteemed. By his first marriage he was the father of four children: Ivey, who is deceased; Lewis, a farmer of Gravelly Springs, Alabama; Jaek, now deceased, was a resi- dent of Waynesboro, Tennessee, engaged in farming; and Foster, who earries on agricultural pursuits at Gravelly Springs, Alabama. Mr. Minton was married the second time to Miss Jennie Delila Cannon, who was born in Tennessee in 1829, and died at Eriek, Oklahoma, in 1913, and they became the parents of two children: James Albert, of this review, and C. B., who is a farmer and raiser of stoek at Eriek.

James A. Minton attended the public schools of Gravelly Springs, Alabama, following which he spent two years at Mars Hill ( Alabama) College. He was graduated from the Georgia Robertson Christian Col- lege, Henderson, Tennessee (then known as the West Tennessee Christian College), with the class of 1890, re- ceiving the degree of Bachelor of Seienee, and for fifteen years was a minister of the Christian faith, holding various pastorates in Tennessee. In the meantime he had been engaged in the study of law, and in 1895 was admitted to the Tennessee bar. His advent in Oklahoma occurred in 1897, when he located at Oklahoma City as general manager of the Mutual Life Insurance Com- pany of Kentucky, having the general ageney for the territories of Indian Territory and Oklahoma. After three years of this work, he resigned and eame to Eriek, where in 1900 he was admitted to the bar. He has since been engaged in a general practice in eivil and eriminal law and has been the representative of large and im- portant interests, his praetiee earrying him into all the courts of this part of the state. His offiees are now located in the First State Bank Building. He holds membership in the Beckham County Bar Association and the Oklahoma Bar Association, and is generally regarded by his fellow-practitioners as a broad-minded and pro- gressive practitioner and a careful observer of the eour- tesies and amenities of the voeation. Politieally he sub- scribes to the principles of the democratic party. His relations with the fraternal brotherhood make him a mem- ber of Erick Lodge No. 237, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Henderson (Tennessee) Chapter, Royal Areh Masons, and Erick Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Mr. Minton was married in 1883, in Hardin County, Tennessee, to Miss Elizabeth Haddoek, daughter of the late J. L. Haddock, a farmer, who died at Erick. Mr. and Mrs. Minton have been the parents of three children: Melrose L., a graduate of Cumberland (Tennessee) Uni- versity, class of 1914, degree of Bachelor of Laws, who is associated in praetiee with his father at Erick; Laura May, who is the wife of E. E. McLane, and resides on their farm, two miles west of Eriek; and Robertson, who is in charge of his father's agricultural interests in Greer County. When he came to Erick, in 1900, Mr. Minton filed on a elaim of 160 acres in Beckham County, which he proved up, and which was sold by him in 1905,

He still continues to be interested in agricultural af- fairs, and at this time is the owner of 960 acres of valuable land located in Greer County.

WILLIAM L. PARKER was born in Johnson County, Texas, eighteen miles southwest of Fort Worth, on Mareh 28, 1878, and he is the son of R. Parker, born in Mississippi in November, 1839. The family is of Irish origin, established in Mississippi in Colonial days, prior to the Revolution, and men of the family gave service in the long struggle for American independence.

R. Parker lived in Mississipi until his marriage to Callie Bloeker, who was born in Mississippi in 1841, and following their marriage, they moved to Texas, settling first in Fanning and then in Johnson County. In 1883 the family moved to Wise County, Texas, and in 1894 they came to Washita County, Oklahoma. In 1893 they returned to Texas, and the mother died there in the same year. It was not until 1912 that Mr. Parker eame baek to Oklahoma, and he now lives retired in the Town of Dill. All his life Mr. Parker has been a farmer and stoekman, until his retirement in reeent years. He is a veteran of the Civil war, serving in the Confederate army as a member of the Ninth Mississippi Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. He saw a great deal of active service from first to last, was wounded several times, though never seriously. He is a lieensed preacher in the Baptist Church, and is heard in Baptist pulpits from time to time.

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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: 656

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 656