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 13

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 13

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ARCHIBALD MCCOLL, LL. B., D. C. Secretary of the ('arver Chiropractie College of Oklahoma City, Doctor McColl has had an interesting career, and had already

reached an important official position in railway life before he devoted himself to the science of chiro- practic.

Born at Bothwell, Ontaria, Canada, in 1869, he is a son of Hugh and Mary (Patterson) McColl, his father also a native of Ontario. In 1879 the family moved to Michigan, where the father followed farming. Doctor McColl attended the rural schools and the high school at Bay City, Michigan, and coming south became a student of law in the Fort Worth University at Fort Worth, Texas, where he was graduated LL. B. in 1898. However, he has never formally practiced the law, though the knowledge has been useful to him in many ways. Prior to taking up legal studies, he was employed in the engineering department of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company as a civil engineer, and went through the various grades of the department from field survey to the completion of the road and its operation. In 1902 he was advanced to division superin- tendent for the Rock Island Company, and held that office until he resigned in 1907 to take up the study of chiropractic. He came as a student to the Carver- Denny Chiropractic College at Oklahoma City, was grad- uated in 1908, and Doctor Denny soon afterwards leav- ing for California, his position as secretary of the col- lege was given to Doctor McColl. Besides having charge of the business affairs of the institution, he is also a practitioner and teacher and has demonstrated his ability as a master of the science and in many ways has justi- fied his wise decision in leaving a business for a pro -. fessional career.

In 1895, Doctor McColl, while still in the railway service, married Miss Alice M. Butler. Her father was Colonel Butler of Abilene, Texas, prominent as a district judge and man of affairs in that state. To their marriage were born four children: Archie (now deceased), Archibald C., Jr., Mary Alice, and James William McColl. The family reside at 818 West 21st Street, Oklahoma City.

WILLIAM H. EVANS. If there existed any imaginary boundary line between thievery and outlawry in Okla- homa's wild west days, a little band of men known as the Swafford Gang almost obliterated it, for their opera- tions over the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Pottawatomie and Seminole nations were marked by daring raids, holdups and probably murder. This was said to be the most daring little band of thieves that ever existed in the West, and their activities had been at white heat for about three years until one of their number was killed and two others captured on Delaware Creek, near Bromide, May 29, 1899. William H. Evans, then a posseman under Deputy United States Marshal J. H. Bridges at Tishomingo, led a party of officers in pur- suit of the Swaffords, overtaking them on Delaware Creek, and the result of a running fight was the com- plete breaking up of the band.

The nagging of Evans at the heels of this band for weeks is important in a chronicle of the events of those stirring days. Evans had come up from Texas at the age of twenty-one and settled on a farm near Emmet, owned by Douglas H. Johnston, now governor of the Chickasaw Nation, and later establishing a ranch seven miles north of Tishomingo for Treadwell & Lucas. Thievery was rampant, and had been for years. The country was then being settled by respectable white peo- ple, and as communities grew the necessity for tho elimi- nation of the thieves became more apparent. It was this necessity that enticed Evans from a peaceful farm life to the exciting forefront of tho law-enforcement life. He thereforo hounded and made life generally miserable for

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law breakers. For a night and day he and his men had been on the trail of the Swafford band when they over- took them in a log house on Delaware Creek. Upon the approach of the officers the band mounted and fled into the timber, firing as they went. The officers returned the fire, killing Charles Hailey, a leader of the gang. This broke the organization, and Thomas Hailey and John Finley were captured. Arthur Swafford, eldest of the trio of that name, was wounded, but escaped. A year later he, in company with a noted outlaw, one Bert Casey, was killed by a sheriff of Pottawatomie County on the Canadian River, near Johnsonville. Walter and Oscar Swafford later were arrested and convicted, and thus ended the depredations of this band of outlaws.

Another event of the life of Mr. Evans illustrates the character of what was commonly accepted as jus- tice in the early days of the Chickasaw Nation. A man known as "One-Eyed Ward, " who lived near Madill, killed a man named Harkey at Oakland. Evans, who at that time was serving as a deputy under United States Marshal Ben H. Colbert, arrested Ward and confined him in the United States prison at Tishomingo. A few weeks later Ward announced his intention of making bond. Feeling was high against him and Evans advised him to remain in jail, saying he was sure to be assassi- nated. However, Ward was obdurate, and he made bond, returning to Madill. Three days later in the after- noon, while he was driving toward Oakland with R. J. Toppey, both men were shot from ambush and killed. Although an effort was made to locate the assassins, it was unsuccessful, and many pioneers in this section looked placidly upon the matter, in quiet intimation that the score was settled.

During his career as a United States officer Mr. Evans picked up the bodies of thirteen dead men, but he saw only three killed. He made twenty-six arrests for mur- der in four years. He recovered stolen horses over a territory extending as far north as Henryetta and as far south as Lindale, Texas, a distance of 200 miles from his headquarters, failing to recover only one stolen horse. At that time his duties were more than those of a county sheriff and all his deputies today.

Mr. Evans was born in Surry County, North Carolina, in 1872, and is a son of Thomas and Mary (Sparker) Evans. His father, who was a blacksmith, made wagons and shod mules for Confederate soldiers at Hillsville, Virginia, during the Civil war, returning after the war to North Carolina where he remained until 1885 and then moved to Fannin County, Texas. He died there at the age of seventy-seven, and his widow still lives at the age of eighty-two. She weighs 172 pounds, the identical weight she bore at the age of eighteen.

There are eighty-two children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren in the Evans family.

Mr. Evans began life as a farmer boy and attended the common schools of North Carolina and Texas. When he was twenty-one he came to the Indian Territory, where he did farm and ranch work until he entered offi- cial life. He served as an officer under Deputy United States Marshal J. H. Bridges, United States Marshal Ben H. Colbert and United States Marshal G. A. Por- ter. He settled in Madill in 1902, and a few years later entered the livery business. In 1907 he ran for sheriff of Marshall County on the democratic ticket, and was defeated for the nomination by 176 votes. A year later he was appointed special agent to Attorney General Charles West, and still later he served fourteen months in the secret service department in Oklahoma City, under Mayor Henry M. Scales. In 1911 he entered the real estate and farm loan business in Madill.

Mr. Evans was married March 27, 1901, to Miss Mary C. Raper, a niece of Marcus Raper, founder of the Town

of San Marcos, Texas. They have four children, Irene, Douglas H., Murlin and Raymond. Mr. Evans has four brothers and two sisters. Mrs. J. N. Evans of Denison, Texas, is the wife of an engineer who has been in the service of the Katy Railroad for twenty years. Mrs. T. H. Benton is the wife of a farmer at Madill. James W. Evans is a retired claim agent for the Santa Fe Rail- road Company, whose service continued over a period of twenty-six years. T. E. Evans is a farmer at Chillicothe, Texas. G. W. Evans is a farmer at El Centro, California. M. W. Evans is a real estate dealer at Lake Arthur, New Mexico.

Mr. Evans is a member of the Methodist Church, and his fraternal connections are with the Masonic order. He is a member of the Madill Board of Education, the Madill Commercial . Club, the Madill United Charities Association, and the Madill Good Roads Club, all of which have a generous share in his attention. The fam- ily home is in Madill.

JAMES H. GERNERT. One of the vital needs of the State of Oklahoma in its formative period was an improved system of superintending the official activities of guardians of the estates of Indians of the Five Tribes. The record of these activities for a generation contains veiled evidence of the accumulation of wealth by un- scrupulous guardians and their associates to the detriment of the financial welfare of many Indians. In nearly. every community of these nations one may hear recounted details of fraudulent transactions of this nature that took place during a period of thirty to forty years before statehood. Indian widows have been led to deed their lands to white men under the belief they were either sign- ing some other kind of a document or were getting value received for their allotments, and left destitute. Design- ing negroes, bearing purported credentials from the United States Government, have worked their wiles on innocent freedmen and robbed them of valuable holdings.

To assist in correcting these evils and to conserve the resources of the dependent Indians became the duty ot - James H. Gernert shortly before statehood, when he was appointed master in probate for the Twenty-third Record- ing District of Indian Territory by U. S. Judge Thomas C. Humphrey. His activities constitute an important part of the history of that day, for he developed a system of management and accounting that placed the handling . of Indian probate matters on a business basis. Later in his practice Mr. Gernert became attorney for many Indians who had been fraudulently deprived of their property. From a different viewpoint from that obtain- ing among inany old settlers he learned of the needs of Indian citizens and their customs and manner of living, and became acquainted with them over a wide scope of country.

Mr. Gernert was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, May 26, 1887. He is a son of Charles H. and Hannah Ann (Strong) Gernert, the former of whom is a native of Pennsylvania and for many years a representative merchant of Columbia. Mr. Gernert's early education was secured in the public schools of Pennsylvania, and later he graduated from the high school at Troy, then pursuing a business course in the Elmira (New York) Business College. In 1900 he received a degree from the State Normal School, at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. After teaching one term of school, he entered the University of Michigan and graduated two years later, in 1904, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He began the practice of his profession at Atoka, in May, 1905, in partnership with James H. Chambers, who afterwards was a member of the Oklahoma Constitutional Conven- tion and for seven years attorney for the State Board of Land Commissioners. He is a member of the Masonic

L. D. Mitchell

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

lodge, affiliating with the Blue Lodge, Chapter and Com- mandery at Atoka, Bedouin Temple, of the Mystic Shrine at Muskogee, and the Consistory at McAlester.

Mr. Gernert was married in Pennsylvania, March 14, 1906, to Miss Helen L. Burrows, whose father, who died a few years ago at Centrahoma, was a banker at Olney and later a merchant at Centrahoma. They have two children : Hial B., aged eight years; and Anna Christine, aged six. Mr. Gernert is a member of the Coalgate Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Atoka County Bar Association and the Oklahoma Bar Association, the Atoka Hunting and Fishing Club, the Young Men's Christian Association and the Atoka Club. He has oil and gas holdings in the noted Healdton field of Oklahoma and extensive real estate and agricultural properties in Atoka County.

LAFAYETTE D. MITCHELL. In considering the career of LaFayette D. Mitchell, of Oklahoma City, the im- partial observer will be disposed to rank him not only as one of the leaders of his profession in the state, but as an example of the sterling self-made manhood of which this country is so proud. Whether one considers the obstacles which modest circumstances and obscurity opposed to his entrance upon a learned profession, his patience and persistence in overcoming them, the talent which he brought to a difficult calling, or the success and prominence he has gained therein, he will be im- pressed that here is an individual who, instead of allow- ing circumstances to shape his life, has overcome circum- stances and made his own career.

Mr. Mitchell was born on a farm in Cherokee County, Iowa, in 1880, and is a son of Henry Clay and Nellie (Stewart) Mitchell. The family traces its aucestry back to the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts, a branch of which settled in Southern Ohio, and many of the name have become prominent in the arts and professions. A. cousin of Henry Clay Mitchell is Morrison Mitchell, head of the music department at Oberlin College, while an- other cousin is Charles H. Mitchell, a prominent Chicago legist. Bromley Mitchell, the grandfather of Lafayette D. Mitchell, was the original locator of Buena Vista, Ohio, and during the early days of steamboating and rafting on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was well known as a river man. He was an intimate friend of the great statesman, Henry Clay, and after him named his son, who was born in Buena Vista County, Ohio. Henry C. Mitchell was a pioneer of Western Iowa, going there right after the Civil war and immediately follow- ing the Sioux Massacre. There he engaged in farming until 1887, when he sold out and moved to Western Ten- nessee, locating on a farm near Jackson, where he made his home until his death in 1898.

Mrs. Mitchell, who was born at Chippewa Falls, Wis- consin, is a descendant of the Stewart family of which A. T. Stewart, the well-known New York merchant of early days, was a member, and in the terms of his will she was left a legacy. Her father and two of his brothers homesteaded what is now a part of the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but later her father, not liking the country, disposed of his interest in the property for a team of horses. Mrs. Mitchell is still living, at Jack- son, Tennessee, and her mother, who is of French-Cana- dian stock, also survives, being over eighty years of age.

Lafayette D. Mitchell was reared on his father's farm, and up to his nineteenth year received only such educa- tion as was possible to secure from the country schools of Western Tennessee. When his father died, in 1898, he became the sole support of his mother and sister, and all soon moved to Clinton, Iowa, where Mr. Mitchell learned the trade of locksmith. He secured a position with the United States Steel Lock Factory, and while he

devoted his nights to study, he worked so faithfully and assiduously during the daytime that he was not only able to support the family, but was also able to put by the money to give him the education which he considered necessary for his future life work.'

For three years Mr. Mitchell read law at night under the preceptorship of the Hon. C. H. George, of Clinton, Iowa, and then, realizing the uecessity of a collegiate training, entered the Northern Illinois College, from which he was graduated in 1905, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Following this, he entered the University of Iowa, at Iowa City, aud there, eventually, he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. During his course of study at this institution, he went to Des Moines, where, October 4, 1907, after examina- tion, he was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court Commission of Iowa. He came to Oklahoma City, Feb- ruary 11, 1908, and was admitted to the Oklahoma bar on June 4th of that year, but after passing about one year in Oklahoma City returned to the University of Iowa, where he was granted his degree, February 22, 1909. Returning immediately to Oklahoma City, Mr. Mitchell engaged in the practice of his chosen profession, in which he has continued to the present time, and the same determination and studious habits which enabled him to gain an education have been applied so well to his practice that he has steadily advanced to a prominent place. Mr. Mitchell maintains offices at No. 814 Camp- bell Building. He is held in high esteem by his fellow- practitioners, and belongs to the various organizations of his profession, and to Ivanhoe Lodge No. 45, Knights of Pythias, of Clinton, Iowa. During his connection with the University of Iowa, he was a prominent mem- ber of the Irving Literary Society of that institution. He held for a period of about four months the posi- tion of special district judge of Oklahoma County, being appointed to that position on the recommendation of the county attorney of said county.

On June 29, 1911, Mr. Mitchell was married to Miss Pearl Gertrude Branson, whom he met as a fellow-student at the University of Iowa, from which she was graduated in 1908 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, receiving her master's degree in the following year. She also spent about one year in the law department of the uni- versity, and is a member of the Alpha Beta Pi Sorority. Her father, Dr. Leon L. Branson, is a graduate of the dental department of the University of Iowa, while her mother, Dr. Laura H. Branson, Ph. D., is a distinguished physician. Dr. Branson, who is self-educated, began to teach school at the age of twelve years, took up the study of medicine as a young woman, and has risen to a place of eminence in the medical fraternity. A number of her papers have been read before the leading medical asso- ciations of the United States, and have been not ouly published extensively in this country, but have been translated for publication in the leading German medical journals. Dr. Branson's sister is also a prominent physi- cian, engaged in practice at Seattle, Washington.

Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell have had one son, Leon Julius Mitchell, born September 12, 1915. They reside at No. 3026 Classen Boulevard, Oklahoma City.

R. E. LEE VAN WINKLE. Without any injustice to later years it can be stated that the period of greatest achievement in the undertaking and carrying out of vital municipal improvements in Oklahoma City occurred during the few years immediately preceding and follow- ing the entrance of Oklahoma into the Union as a state. In the course of a few years a raw western prairie town was transformed into a metropolis that was the surprise and wonder of all the Southwest, and which in the extension and development of permanent munici-

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pal service and institutions soon placed Oklahoma City ahead of many older centers which had been cities of wealth and power before Oklahoma City had become a name in geography. It is a point of no little sig- nificance that this time of municipal upbuilding in Okla- homa City corresponds closely with the period in which R. E. Lee Van Winkle was mayor of the city. Mr. Van Winkle first served as mayor of Oklahoma City from 1899 to 1901, but it was during the term from 1903 to 1905 that his official record was adorned with its most important achievement. As mayor of Oklahoma City Mr. Van Winkle won for himself the thanks and good will of all the honest people for his able and de- termined fight for clean, wholesome administration of civic affairs. It will be recalled that at one time he brought about the indictment of six out of ten mem- bers of his city council for unbecoming conduct, known by a more familiar name as grafting. His administra- tions can. be accepted as the point of origin for prac- tically all the better public improvements such as pav- ing, before the close of his second term had given Ok- lahoma City more miles of paved streets than almost any city in the Southwest, and also the establishment of a municipally owned waterworks system.

Aside from his record of public service, Mr. Van Winkle has for a number of years been prominent in manufacturing and lumber circles in Oklahoma, and is also one of the leading Masons in the state.

R. E. Lee Van Winkle was born at Van Winkle's Mills in Benton County, Arkansas, July 17, 1863. His parents were Peter and Temperance (Miller) Van Win- kle. He acquired his early education in the home schools and in the University of Arkansas, and grew up in the rugged surroundings of the timber covered district of Northwest Arkansas. The home school which he at- tended was built and maintained by his father for a number of years. Four of the sons had been taught by private tutors in the home prior to the establishment of this school which was also attended by other children in the community.

From early boyhood Mr. Van Winkle has been ac- quainted with the technical side of lumbering, gained by experience in his father's mill. For twelve years after leaving school he was in the retail lumber busi- ness, and then turned his attention to wholesale lum- bering and manufacturing. In 1896 Mr. Van Winkle organized the Oklahoma Sash & Door Company, and served as its president and manager until 1904. In that year he disposed of his interests, and has since made the wholesale business the object of his atten- tion, and is at the head of the Van Winkle Lumber Company, with offices in the Lee Building at Oklahoma City. He still holds some extensive interests in manu- facturing and wholesale concerns in the timber belts of Arkansas.

Mr. Van Winkle for several years was a resident of Pittsburg, Kansas, and while there was a member of the city council in 1886-88. In politics he is a demo- crat and is a member of the Episcopal Church. In Scot- tish Rite Masonry he has taken thirty-two degrees and is also a member of the Uniform Rank of the Knights of Pythias. He is a past master of the Masonic lodge of Pittsburg, Kansas, and on January 24, 1890, joined Abdala Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Leavenworth, Kansas. He is a past potentate of India Temple at Oklahoma City and a past representative to the Im- perial Council.

On November 14, 1883, at Lebanon, Missouri, Mr. Van Winkle married Marcella A. Faulkner. Her father, D. W. Faulkner, was a banker and railroad contractor at Lebanon. Mr. and Mrs. Van Winkle have only one

child, Vere, now Mrs. Frank B. Sorgatz. Doctor Sor- gatz is professor of pathology in the State University of Oklahoma. The Van Winkle family has been established in America many generations, and through his ancestry Mr. Van Winkle is eligible to membership in the Sons of Revolutionary Fathers.

ROBERT K. MCINTOSH. In the forwarding of its edu- cational interests the State of Oklahoma has been for- tunate in gaining the executive and pedagogie co-opera- tion of many men and women of exceptional ability and unbounded enthusiasm, and such an one is the present incumbent of the office of superintendent of schools for Bryan County, he whose name initiates this paragraph. The greatest need for the advancement of educational standards in this county exists in connection with the rural schools. This is the result of the meager facili- ties afforded prior to the admission of the state to the Union and of the contemporary difficulty in obtaining by equitable taxation the requisite funds to push for- ward the work under the state regime. Under act of Congress, based on an Indian treaty, most of the lands of the county remaining in the possession of Indians will not be subject to taxation for a number of years. This condition has retarded the development of rural schools but it has not prevented the building of modern and measurably well equipped schoolhouses. Since the ad- mission of Oklahoma to statehood the entire scheme of education within the commonwealth has called for the utmost devotion and loyal service of those engaged in or assigned to the directing and control of educational interests in the state. The foundation has been ad- mirably laid in Bryan County and it is now the purpose of Superintendent McIntosh to devote the major part of his time and thought to the development and upbuild- ing of the system of rural schools, with careful con- sideration of expediency in every movement and of the ways and means best applicable in attaining to the desired results. In this commendable work he has the influence and direct co-operation of the Southeastern Oklahoma State Normal School, which is established at Durant, the judicial center of the county and his official headquarters and place of residence. He has the further earnest co-operation of a body of teachers who, as a whole, represent a notably higher grade of competency than did those of earlier years. He has the assistance also of district boards of education that are appreciative of requirements and that are demanding teachers of higher rank and of higher grades of certificate. Superin- tendent McIntosh himself has had ample experience as a teacher in rural schools and thus has learned at first hand their greatest needs. In addition to this his experi- ence has included effective service in village schools and two years as assistant county superintendent of schools. He believes that the most vital and insistent needs of efficient rural schools are a better grouping of classes, so that more time may be given to recitations, and the raising of the standard of the instructors employed. In short, definite and circumspect organization work is de- manded and a careful employment of available means in the providing of the best possible facilities under existing conditions in the various school districts or pre- cincts. In the furtherance of the work an adjunct organ- ization whose influence is of important and benignant order is the Bryan County Teachers' Association, of which H. B. Deaton, principal of the schools at Achille, is presi- dent, and Principal Zora James, of Platter, as secretary. The educational phase of the activities of the Bryan County Fair Association, which involves contests on the part of pupils of the public schools, constitutes another fortuitous element in the local field of popular education.

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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