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 15
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Doctor Risen found the period of his boyhood and early youth compassed by the conditions and influences of the home farm and his preliminary education was acquired in the public schools of his native county. In 1886 he entered East Lynn College, at Buffalo, Kentucky, where he pursued a higher course of study for one year, and in 1887-88 he was a student in Athens Seminary, at
Greensburg, Kentucky. Thereafter he devoted four years to successful service as a teacher in the schools of his native state, and he was then matriculated in the Hospital College of Medicine in the City of Louisville, in which institution he was graduated with honors, on the 17th of June, 1890, and from which he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In his junior year in this college he was awarded the first scholarship of his class.
After his graduation in the medical college Doctor Risen engaged in the practice of his profession at Sum- mersville, Kentucky, where he continued his zealous services as a physician and surgeon and where also he conducted a drug store until 1906, when he came to Oklahoma and established his residence at Hooker, where he has built up a large and representative practice and gained high place in popular esteem, both as a loyal and public-spirited citizen and as a man of marked pro- fessional ability. At Hooker he is proprietor of a well appointed drug store, wihch is now under the personal supervision of his elder son, who is a graduate in phar- macy. For eight years Doctor Risen served as county health officer in Green County, Kentucky, and since 1907: he has been the incumbent of the same official position in Texas County, Oklahoma.
Unfaltering in his appreciation of the consistency and economic value of the basic principles of the democratic party and long a zealous and efficient worker in its ranks, Doctor Risen never appeared as a candidate for political office until he was made the nominee of his party for representative of the first senatorial district of Oklahoma in the State Legislature, in 1914. In the first election after the admission of Oklahoma to statehood, in 1907, Doctor Risen showed marked finesse in the maneuvering of political forces, as he had the management of the campaign of Hon. Joseph Morris who was elected the first senator from the First District and who is now secretary of the state election board, at Oklahoma City.
Doctor Risen was elected to the State Senate by a plur- ality of 488 votes, notwithstanding his district is nor- mally republican by fully 350 votes. In the Fifth Leg- islature the doctor was chairman of the committee on school lands and also a valued member of each of the following named committees: Education, hospitals and charities, public health, drugs and pure food, public- service corporations, insurance, and advisory to the gov- ernor. With no desire for the spectacular exploitation of his opinions or policies, Doctor Risen proved a careful, sagacious and valuable working member of the Senate, and among the bills introduced by him was one whose provisions were to prevent a tenant from selling or otherwise disposing of any part of rental products be- longing to the landlord or lessor; a bill designed to regulate the practice of pharmacy; a bill providing for the employment of convicts on public highways; and others relative to public roads and highways, and to the sale of public-school lands.
Senator Risen and his wife are members of the Bap- tist Church, and in the Masonic fraternity his affiliations are with Hooker Lodge No. 366, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, in his home city; with the chapter of Royal Arch Masons at Guymon, judicial center of Texas County; with the Commandery No. 55, Knights Templar, at Liberal, Kansas; and with the Order of the Eastern Star. At Hooker he holds membership also in Lodge No. 347, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
Doctor Risen is local surgeon for the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad, and holds membership in the Texas County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society, the Surgical Clinical Congress, the Oklahoma State Association of Orificial Surgeons, and the American Medical Association. The doctor has one brother and one sister, his brother, Louis F., being now a retired mer-
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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
chant of Campbellville, Kentucky, he was engaged in the drug and general merchandise business for several years at Summersville, Kentucky, after which he was traveling representative for a wholesale drug house. The sister, Mrs. Chris L. Close, is the wife of a prosperous farmer of Green County, Kentucky.
On the 9th of October, 1890, was solemnized the mar- riage of Doctor Risen to Miss Henrietta J. Poteet, who had been a successful teacher in the public schools at Bloyd, Kentucky, her father having been for thirty-five years a representative merchant at that place and at Buf- falo, Kentucky, and being now a substantial capitalist at Hodgensville, where he is living retired. Doctor and Mrs. Risen have two sons: George L., who was born in 1892, was graduated in the School of Pharmacy of Oklahoma University, as a member of the class of 1913, is a mem- ber of the Oklahoma Pharmaceutical Association, and now has charge of his father's drug store at Hooker, as previously noted. He is an athlete, six feet and three inches in height and weighing 195 pounds, and has special predilection for all athletic sports. He was a member of the track team of the University of Oklahoma in 1913 and in that year made the state record for discus throw- ing. The younger son, Homer J., who was born in 1898, was graduated in the high school at Hooker and is a member of the class of 1914 in the University of Okla- homa, where he is taking the course in arts and sciences.
CHARLES L. WILSON. One of the vigorous, able and popular representatives of the newspaper fraternity in the State of Oklahoma is Charles Luther Wilson, who is editor and publisher of the Weekly Messenger, and post- master at Cherokee, the judicial center and metropolis of Alfalfa County.
Mr. Wilson is a scion of fine old Southern ancestry and was born on a farm in Pendleton County, West Vir- ginia, on the 13th of February, 1868. He is a son of George Thomas Wilson and Mary Eunice (Kile) Wilson. George T. Wilson was of the same family line as Presi- dent Woodrow Wilson, was born in the same county as was the present President of the United States and was active in the same Presbyterian Church, at Staunton, West Virginia, of which the father of the President was pastor for a long period. George T. Wilson was a man of fine intellectual attainments and much of his active career was devoted to the pedagogic profession, in which he specialized as a teacher of languages. He was a gallant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war, during the entire period of which he was in service as a member of a Virginia regiment that was much of the time attached to the command of General "Stonewall"' Jackson. He was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, and after the close of the war he was a resident of West Virginia until 1873, when he removed with his family to Illinois. There he remained until 1885, when removal was made to Harper County, Kansas, where he passed the residue of his life and where he was engaged in the mercantile business at Crisfield for fifteen years prior to his death, which occurred on the 27th of June, 1903. He was a man who took deep interest in public affairs, was an able orator and writer, was uncompromising in his allegiance to the democratic party, was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and the United Confederate Vet- erans, and both he and his wife were earnest members of the Presbyterian Church. The marriage of George T. Wilson and Miss Mary E. Kile was solemnized in 1860, she having been a daughter of Isaac Kile, a native of Germany. Mrs. Wilson was born at Uppertract, Pendle- ton County, West Virginia, on the 26th of November, 1839, and she survived her husband by about five years, her death having occurred at Crisfield, Kansas, on the
first of January, 1908. Of the family of five sons and three daughters all survive the honored parents and their names are here indicated in respective order of birth: William Z., Lee B., Cora, Charles L., Maggie D., Arthur, Frederick T., and Effie D.
Charles L. Wilson was about five years of age at the time of the family removal from West Virginia to Ver- milion County, Illinois, where he was reared to adult age and was afforded the advantages of the public schools, as well as being fortified by the gracious influences of a home. of distinctive culture and refinement. In 1885, at the age of seventeen years, he accompanied his parents on their removal to Kansas, and in the Sunflower State he served a virtual and thorough apprenticeship to the printer's trade. As a journeyman he worked at his trade at various places in Kansas until 1889, when he came to Oklahoma, at the time when the new territory was thrown open to settlement.
In 1894 Mr. Wilson engaged in the general mer- chandise business at Driftwood, in what is now Alfalfa County, and at the same time he entered claim to a home- stead of 160 acres of land, situated near that village. In 1901 he removed his stock of merchandise to Chero- kee, and in 1905 he sold his stock and business to turn his attention to the newspaper business, in which he had received excellent experience in earlier years, as previously noted in this article. Ou the first of Febru- ary, 1905, Mr. Wilson became the founder of the Chero- kee Weekly Messenger, which is an exponent of the prin- ciples of the democratic party and which he has made a specially effective force in exploiting and furthering the attractions aud advantages of Alfalfa County and the City of Cherokee. The newspaper and job-printing plant of the Messenger are of modern order, and the facilities include the latest model of the linotype type- setting machine. The Messenger is the only democratic paper in Alfalfa County, is ably and vigorously edited and is a model in makeup and letterpress. The paper has an excellent circulation of representative order, its advertising patronage is liberal and the business in general is established on a substantial and profitable basis. Mr. Wilson is a leader in public sentiment and action in Alfalfa County and is a progressive and loyal citizen who has the high regard of the community. He is affiliated with the local organizations of the Indepen- dent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodwen of America.
At Hugoton, Stevens County, Kansas, on the 13th of April, 1890, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Wilson to Miss Ella D. Calvert, who was born at Center- ville, Iowa, on the 20th of October, 1876, and whose parents, James W. and Sarah C. (Michael) Calvert, were born in Ohio, whence they removed to Iowa in an early day, later becoming residents of Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson become the parents of three sons and four daugh- ters: Frank Calvert was born May 28, 1894; Sarah Eunice, the second child, died in infancy; Charles Rus- sell was born November 2, 1896; Lizzie died in infancy; Mary Lois was born in 1902; Frances Willard was born March 1, 1906; and Clifton Luther was born November 16, 1907. All of the children are living except the two daughters who died in infancy and all of the surviving children are residents of Oklahoma.
EDGAR A. DE MEULES was born at Sauk Rapids, Min- nesota, on August 18, 1880. His parents were both natives of Minnesota. His father, Alphonse James de Meules, was a member of a French family residing in St. Paul, Minnesota; his mother was a descendant of a German family on the paternal line and of a Holland family on the maternal line.
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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Mr. de Meules' early youth was spent in the state of his nativity. After attending both public and private schools of learning, he left that State to accept a posi- tion with a wholesale hardware firm in the City of Dubuque, Iowa. In the fall of 1900 he resigned his position to enter the law department of the University of Michigan at Anu Arbor. Immediately upon the com- pletion of his law course he opened a law office in the City of Muskogee, then Indian Territory, having been admitted to the bar on August 5, 1903. In October, 1904, he formed a law partnership with Mr. C. L. Thomas, now deceased, the firm name being Thomas and de Meules. In March, 1908, this partnership was dis- solved upon the acceptance by Mr. de Meules of the posi- tion of General Attorney for the Midland Valley Rail- road Company with headquarters at Muskogee. He re- tained this position until August, 1914, when he resigned to associate himself in the general practice of the law in Muskogee with Mr. George S. Ramsey under the firm name of Ramsey and de Meules. This firm succeeded the firm of Ramsey and Thomas which was dissolved by the death of Mr. C. L. Thomas, Mr. de Meules' former partner, in July, 1914. Subsequently the firm of Ram- sey and de Meules was succeeded by the firm of Ramsey, de Meules and Rosser. Mr. Malcolm E. Rosser entered the firm of Ramsey and de Meules in July, 1915, hav- ing previously served as district judge for the Fifth Judicial District for a number of years and also as a member of the Supreme Court Commission for several terms.
Mr. de Meules at one time assumed an active interest in the politics of the state. He acted successively as chairman of the Democratic Central Committee for the Seventy-sixth Constitutional Delegate District and as chairman of the first Democratic County Central Commit- tee for Muskogee County. In addition to the activities of his practice he has served as president of the Mus- kogee Bar Association for one term and as a member of the council of the State Bar Association for one term.
In June, 1911, he was united in marriage with Miss Hazel E. Hamilton of Dubuque, Iowa. Two sons, Hamil- ton and Edgar Alphonse, Jr., have been born of the union.
HORACE H. HAGAN. The incumbent of the important position of assistant to the attorney-general of Oklahoma before he was twenty-four years of age, Horace H. Hagan early established himself in a prominent position among the lawyers of this state, a prestige which he has steadfastly maintained. At the present time he is a member of the well-known firm of West, Hull & Hagan, of Oklahoma City, and is acknowledged to be one of the leaders among the younger generation of Oklahoma's legists.
Mr. Hagan was born at Saint Mary's, Kansas, Oc- tober 13, 1891, and is a son of Horace H. and Eulalie (Droege) Hagan. His father, a native of Kentucky, was a pioneer settler of Kansas, and for ten years was one of the leading real estate dealers of Logan County, Oklahoma, where he was also prominent in democratic politics, and where his death occurred in 1903. He took an active part in the democratic national cam- paigns of 1896 and 1900 and was a particular friend and ardent champion of the cause of William Jennings Bryan. There were four children in the family of Horace H. and Eulalie Hagan: Horace H., of this re- view; Mrs. Frank Ley, the wife of a hardware mer- chant at Portland, Oregon; Eugene, a student in the University of Oklahoma; and Miss Virginia, a graduate of Sacred Heart Convent, St. Louis, who for the past two or three years has resided in Washington, D. C.
Horace H. Hagan, after attending the public schools,
finished his high school and college education at Saint Mary's College, Saint Mary's, Kansas, and there re- ceived his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1910. In 1911 he entered Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., and finished his course with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1913. In December of that year he was ad- mitted to the bar in Oklahoma, receiving the highest grade in a class of seventy-five applicants, and at once entered practice at Oklahoma City, shortly thereafter being appointed assistant to the attorney-general. Among the important cases assigned to him while in that ca- pacity was that relating to the liability of banks for assessment by the State Banking Board for the main- tenance of the Bank Guaranty Fund when such banks had taken out national bank charters after being included in the operation of the guaranty law. This was the second argument made in the case and the state was victorious, the court holding this class of banks liable for the assessment. He was also assigned to assist in the rate cases in which the state was a party, and in this connection won high honors. Retiring in 1915 from the office of the attorney-general, Mr. Hagan became a member of the firm of West, Hull & Hagan, Mr. West having been for seven years attorney-general of Okla- homa, while Mr. Hull was for several years assistant attorney-general. The firm maintains offices at No. 401 Terminal Building.
In 1910 Mr. Hagan won an intercollegiate contest par- ticipated in by Saint Mary's College, where he was a student, and nine other colleges, and while at George- town University he, with Eugene Quay and John Cos- grove, founded the Georgetown Law Journal. Mr. Ha- gan has a decided bent toward literature, particularly that relating to history and biography, and is a con- tributor to the American Law Review, of St. Louis, the Sewanee Review, of Sewanee, Tennessee, and the Georgetown Law Journal. Among his contributions are those entitled: "Sargent S. Prentiss," "Judah P. Benjamin, " "Wendell Phillips" and "Lord Mans- field." At the present writing there is in process of being printed a book of his entitled "Seven Great Amer- ican Lawyers."
Mr. Hagan is a member of the Catholic Church, and is fraternally affiliated with Guthrie Lodge No. 417, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Columbus Lodge at Oklahoma City, in which he has held the office of deputy grand knight, and the Delta Theta Phi legal college fraternity. He also holds mem- bership in the Oklahoma County and Oklahoma State Bar Associations and belongs to the Lake Mohonk Peace Society and the International Peace Association. An enthusiastic member of the Young Men's Democratic League of Oklahoma, he has been twice elected to the presidency of the Oklahoma City Young Men's Demo- cratic Club. He has also the honor of being one of the five directors of the Carnegie Library of Oklahoma City. Mr. Hagan makes his home at Oklahoma City, where he is deservedly popular with a wide circle of acquaintances.
THOMAS A. BLAYLOCK, M. D. A pioneer physician and surgeon of the Indian Territory now included within the limits of the young but great commonwealth of Okla- homa, whence he came in 1895, Dr. Thomas A. Blaylock, now one of the leading practitioners of Madill, super- intendent of health of Marshall County since the attain- ment of statehood, and at this time president of the Marshall County Medical Society, has passed through many interesting experiences and has borne his full part in the development of the state. He was born at Spring- field, Illinois, in 1869, and is a son of Rev. John Henry and Elizabeth (Dalton) Blaylock. His father, a minis- ter of the Baptish Church, was a native of Georgia, as
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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
was also his mother, and both descended from pioneer settlers of the Cracker State.
Doctor Blaylock was educated in the public schools of Illinois, the Belleville Academy and the Marion Sims Medical College of St. Louis, which latter was the medical department of the University of St. Louis. He was graduated from this institution with his degree in 1892, following which he spent one year as interne in the St. Louis Hospital and several years in private practice, and in 1895 removed to Indian Territory to begin permanently the practice of medicine. After spending a few years at Fort Arbuckle, Davis and Sprin- ger, in 1902 he settled at Madill, then one of the grow- ing new towns of the Chickasaw Nation, and where he remained until statehood was granted, when he took up his present residence at Madill. While a number of years were devoted to rural practice largely, Doctor Blaylock never forgot to keep abreast of the times in his profession and took post-graduate courses at Phila- delphia, New York, New Orleans and Chicago. An interesting point in his career in the Indian country is that he entered upon the practice at Davis of Dr. T. P. Howell, one of the best known early-day physi- cians of the territory, who was then retiring from prac- tice. Doctor Blaylock has built up at Madill a large and important professional business, and is a member of the Marshall County Medical Society, of which he is president, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. At the time of state- hood his abilities gained him the appointment to the office of superintendent of health of Marshall County, and this position he has retained to the present time.
Doctor Blaylock was married at Davis, Indian Terri- tory, to Miss Nannie Shrum, and they have one son: Jennings, who is now sixteen years of age. Doctor Blaylock is a Mason, belonging to the Blue Lodge at Madill, the Consistory at McAlester and the Shrine at Muskogee. He has numerous friends and influential connections in professional, business and social life, and is known as one of Madill's most useful, stirring and public-spirited citizens.
The life of the pioneer physician of the Indian Terri- tory was fraught with many hardships and not infre- quent dangers. In the region surrounding Fort Washita, a historic spot near the present Town of Davis, there lived many men with a predominancy of the primitive in them. There were cattle and horse thieves, bank and train robbers and murderers, and until a few years before Doctor Blaylock's arrival the community had been occupied by United States troops. Even the most peaceably inclined people found it necessary to engage in fights occasionally, and the physicians of those early days had more recourse to surgery than to the adminis- tration of medicine. . Among the many experiences of Doctor Blaylock, an incident of peculiar interest may be presented. A strapping fellow, booted and spurred, and mounted on a fine horse, stopped at Doctor Blay- lock's gate one day and informed the young physician that a comrade was sick in the mountains eighteen miles away and that the services of a doctor were needed. Roads were few, and those few were in poor condition, and it was necessary to travel on horseback. Drug stores of course there were none; prescription clerks were persons to be read of only in books; the doctor of that day carried his own stock of medicines, gener- ally, as did Doctor Blaylock, in a large black bag. The doctor started off with his companion and entered an unfrequented region of the Arbuckle Mountains; roads gave out and only rough paths indicated routes toward human habitations. It was early in the day when the journey began and half midday when the two entered a
wild canyon hid far back in the hills. They stopped at a cabin that once had been the home of an Indian and near which stood a recently pitched tent, and the doc- tor's companion led the way into the cabin and pointed out the sick man, who was lying on a couch. After making an examination, diagnosing the case and admin- istering curative medicine, the doctor pushed back from the couch and while awaiting developments observed that the cabin was inhabited only by men. All were of the type of the messenger and he noticed that all were armed. After a time he gave the patient more medicine and announced that his services were no longer required for the day. When, however, he put on his hat, shouldered his "pill bag" and started to leave, he was blocked at the passage by a man who coolly informed him that he must remain there the rest of the day. "And when you do go," said the man, "it must be on condition that you keep your mouth shut. Can you do it?" The doctor replied that nothing could unseal his lips. He took a seat and remained in the house during the day, during which he took stock of his surroundings. There were several kinds of arms on the walls and floor and much ammunition. Several of the men came and went many times during the day, but the doctor noticed that one man, Winchester rifle in hand, stood or sat on guard on a big boulder near the mouth of the canyon. The men were neatly dressed and spoke excellent English, as though they had been reared in a more advanced section of the country, but although Doctor Blaylock many times sought to engage them in conversation, they only listened to what he had to say, laughed a lot at his pleasantries, and kept silent regarding themselves. Toward sundown the promise of silence was again enforced, the doctor was led back into a highway, and he rode home under the stars; but although his mind was filled with many strange thoughts, it was not until many weeks later that he suddenly realized that during that day he had been the guest of one of the most notorious gangs of outlaws in the Southwest-the Dalton band!
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