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 17

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 17

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The Court of Appeals should have jurisdiction on appeal only from the District Court in all ordinary civil or probate matters where the amount involved was less than $3,000 and more thau $100. The District Court should have original jurisdiction of all matters, probate and civil, where the amount involved exceeded $100, and appellate jurisdiction from the courts of justices of the peace where the amount involved exceeded $20.

There should be no appeal from the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, but the Court of Appeals should have the right to certify any case or any question to the Supreme Court for its decision, or the Supreme Court should have the right on its own motion under its gen- eral supervisory control to order the Court of Appeals to certify any case or any question to it for its decision, and any litigant was given his remedy to apply to the Supreme Court or any judge thereof for writ of review or certiorari to the Court of Appeals, and in the event such writ was issued by the Supreme Court or any judge thereof, such case should be certified by the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court and there stand for hear- ing the same as if originally appealed to the Supreme Court.

The state was divided into three Court of Appeals Districts, each district to elect three judges of such court to sit together as such Court of Appeals in such district, in the principal cities and towns of said district. The clerk of the District Court of the county wherein the Court of Appeals sat should be ex-officio clerk of such Court of Appeals and the sheriff of such county should attend such court. All appeals to the Court of Appeals should be on the original papers from the Dis- trict Court and no printed records or briefs required, and the cost of appeal in the Court of Appeals should not exceed $5. The Court of Appeals was required to render short, concise, written opinions "referring to the law by virtue of which every judgment is rendered and adducing the reasons on which their judgment is founded," but such opinions should not be published.

The object and purpose of these changes was to limit the Supreme Court to a small number of judges and thus strengthen and make more uniform the jurisprudence of the state, eliminate opportunity for the jurisprudence of the state to become conflicting, and to provide an easy, inexpensive and expeditious remedy in all ordinary matters of litigation, the decision of which should be only the law of that case.

It provided that the Criminal Court of Appeals might be abolished by the Legislature and appellate jurisdic- tion in such event conferred by the Legislature on the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals or both, and limited criminal appeals from the District Court to cases where the punishment actually imposed was a fine of

$200 or over or imprisonment in the county jail of more than sixty days.

Other important changes provided were: Abolish- ment of trial by jury in civil cases in justice of the peace courts; in the District Court, "in all civil cases where the cause of action is not based upon unliquidated damages, a trial by jury shall be presumed to be waived unless specially asked for in writing by a party to said cause at least ten days prior to the term at which said cause shall stand for trial, and the Legislature shall provide for the payment by any party thereto of jury fees in all civil cases tried by jury based upon causes of action for liquidated damages; " the reduction of the number of jurors to try cases; and conferring power upon Appellate Courts to render judgment in cases on appeal without remanding for new trial.

Justices of the peace were given original jurisdiction in all civil cases where the amount involved did not exceed $100, except in actions for libel and slander, probate matters, or when the estate of a decedent is a defendant, or when the state, county or any municipal- ity or other political corporation is a party, or when the title to real estate is involved, and in all misdemeanor criminal cases in which the punishment does not exceed a fine of $100 or imprisonment exceeding thirty days, and as committing magistrates in all felony cases.

The proposed amendment contained forty-three sec- tions, worked out with great particularity to suit the conditions existing in the state, and completely recon- structing the judicial system and greatly simplifying it.

Senator Sutherlin by his own career has added some distinction to an honored family name. James Haskins Sutherlin was born in Mansfield, Louisiana, October 25, 1870, a son of John H. and Sarah (Keener) Sutherlin, being the youngest of eleven children. The Sutherlin family were early settlers in the region of Danville, Virginia, and the senator's grandfather was a captain in the War of 1812. The father, a native of Virginia, when a mere lad emigrated to the State of Alabama where, in Autauga County he married Sarah Keener, a daughter of German parents. A few years later in the early '50s he and his young wife, accompanied by wagon train and eighteen slaves, which had been the gift of the bride's father, set out across country from Ala- bama for Texas. They stopped in a then wild but fer- tile section of Northwestern Louisiana, then being set- tled, and never completed the journey to Texas. In that region, undergoing the hardships incident to pio- neering, they established a home where they reared their family and where the father eventually became an extensive land owner, his large plantation being still intact.

Senator Sutherlin has two brothers and one sister living. One of them is Judge Edgar W. Sutherlin of Shreveport, Louisiana, who was for eight years a mem- ber of the Court of Appeals of Louisiana and one of the leading lawyers of the state. ' The other brother is Dr. William K. Sutherlin, also of Shreveport, head of a large private sanitarium there and recognized as one of the leading surgeons of the state, and who in the course of his preparation spent five years as a student in Berlin and Paris, graduating in medicine from the Fred- erick William University at Berlin. The sister is Mrs. G. A. White of Louisiana.

When ten years of age Senator Sutherlin lost his mother and at twelve his father. He was reared in the home of his elder brother Judge Sutherlin, and under the direction, care and tutelage of both brothers, judge and doctor. At twelve years of age he was placed in a French family in South Louisiana for the purpose of learning the French language, where he remained two years. At

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fifteen he entered Thatcher's Institute, a military col- lege of respectable standing, at Shreveport, where he remained for four years and from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1889, then being senior captain of the corps of cadets and as valedictorian of his class.

In 1SS9 he entered the classical department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville and was grad- uated from that institution in 1892 with a B. A. degree. He was subsequently admitted to the bar, and after a brief practice in Mansfield, in 1894, removed to Santa Fe, New Mexico. During his four years' residence in New Mexico he was city attorney of the City of Santa Fe and also master in chancery in the United States Court, and United States commissioner under Judge N. B. Laughlin, then associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico. In 1898 he re- turned to Louisiana, practiced law there ten years, and since 1908 has been a resident of Wagoner, Oklahoma.

Senator Sutherlin was married in 1894 at Mansfield, Louisiana, to Irene Elam, daughter of Joseph B. Elam, who was a member of the Secession Convention of the State of Louisiana, speaker of the House of Representa- tives of the Louisiana Legislature during the Civil war, and for a number of years represented the Fourth Louisiana District in Congress. Mr. Sutherlin has a family of four children: Mary E. and Sarah K., who are graduates of the Wagoner High School, Irene and Edgar W.

Senator Sutherlin is a member of the Episcopal Church and belongs to the Wagoner County and Oklahoma Bar associations. He has been one of the leading spirits of his home town in its growth during the last few years. As a member of the Board of Freeholders elected to draft a charter for the city under the commission form, he largely drew the charter, which is one of the most modern of commission form documents. When the char- ter was adopted he declined to become a candidate for the first mayor under the new form of government, when his election was practically assured without op- position.

W. ROBERT KIRBY. When surveyors of the United States Government party accompanying the Choctaw In- dians to the new land of promise, early in the '30s, discovered that they were approaching the eastern bound- ary line of that section, their announcement to the Indians was greeted with mild expressions of joy, and the missionaries recommended that the band stop for a season of thanksgiving. The party went into camp, pitching its tents and putting its horses and oxen out to graze. This spot was then christened Ultimathule, the word meaning "the last stop." A little later, just over the line in Indian Territory, another camp was made which developed into a settlement, and the Indians and missionaries gave to it the same name as that which had been borne by the first camp, which had been in Arkansas. Save for the rotting logs of a few pioneer huts, there is nothing left at this day to mark the site of the last Indian camp, which, in reality, was the first camp of the Indian in the Choctaw Nation.

The population of Ultimathule was never large and only a few men and women living today were born there. Among these is found W. Robert Kirby, of Haworth, whose father's home was established on Rock Creek. Wyatt T. Kirby was a white man, a native of Tennessee and a Confederate veteran of the Civil war, who settled among the Indians several years after the close of the struggle between the North and the South, taking his place among the well known citizens of the community. He married a daughter of William Harris, a white man who accompanied the Choctaws on their migration from

Mississippi and married a member of the tribe with whom he had probably fallen in love before they started on their long journey. Judge Henry Harris, one of the last members of the Supreme Court of the Choctaw Na- tion, who filled many offices in the tribal government and was the establisher of the somewhat noted Harris Ferry on Red River, was a son of William Harris.

The recollections of W. Robert Kirby cover a dramatic period in the history of the government which his father helped to found in the virgin country known as Indian Territory. It was an era during which the increase in white population was due principally to fear of punish- ment for crimes committed in nearby states. During a period of twenty years from the early '70s, it was a safe guess that fully two-thirds of the men who settled in that part of Indian Territory were seeking refuge from the law in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, or other states. Unfortunately, a generation of young In- dians were compelled to grow up in communities where white blood of this kind was getting its root in the domi- nation of public affairs. Thus it was that missionary activity became a public necessity.

Among the early tribal schools established in the Choe- taw Nation was one at what was called Pleasant Hill, located six miles south of the present site of Haworth, and this was where W. Robert Kirby began the study of Webster's blue-backed spelling book and McGuffey's readers, taught in a log schoolhouse, devoid of desks and seated with split logs. Mr. Kirby's first teacher in this school was Rev. James I. Irvin, a Methodist preacher, and his next, Alexander Williams, a full- blooded Choctaw Indian, who was also a preacher. Later he attended Spencer Academy, which was situated ten miles west of the preseut site of the Town of Antlers. This academy was then under the able superintendency of Prof. Alfred G. Dockiug, and among the students attend- ing at that time were Solomon Homer, who later was said to be the most brilliant and learned lawyer the Choctaw Nation ever produced; Henry Sexton, who became a prominent party leader and legislator in tribal govern- ment; and Thomas Hunter, now a member of the Okla- homa Legislature and once governor-elect of the Choctaw Nation.

Mr. Kirby was one of the first settlers of Haworth when that town was established in 1905 and his was the second store here. He was a member of the first school board, which employed Miss Lucy Johnson as teacher, and helped to build the first schoolhouse. Mr. Kirby was likewise the first justice of the peace of Haworth after statehood, aud was a member of the town board of trustees which installed a municipal water and electric light system, in 1915, an undertaking that cost $25,000.

At the time he left school Mr. Kirby engaged in farm- ing on his own account in McCurtain County, and agri- cultural pursuits have continued to interest him through- out his career, he being at present the owner of a large and valuable property with modern improvements and good buildings. In recent years he has given a part of his time and activities also to mercantile ventures, being now the proprietor of a grocery establishment at Haworth, where he has built up a good trade through honorable dealing and energetic business methods. Every good movement has his stanch and generous support. In his religious connection he belongs to the Methodist Church, while fraternally he is identified with the local lodges of the Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Mr. Kirby was married to Miss Pearl Maynor, for- merly a teacher in the federal schools before the attain- ment of Oklahoma's statehood, and they have three

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children, namely: Kate, who graduated from the Choc- taw Female Academy at Tuskahoma in 1915, and who is now pursuing a special course in music, for which she has undoubted talent; W. Robert, Jr., who is seven years of age; and Winifred, who is five years old. Mr. Kirby has one brother, Edward Kirby, who is suc- cessfully engaged in agricultural pursuits in the vicinity of Haworth, MeCurtain County. His sisters are Mrs. Anna Randolph, the wife of a farmer of Bokhoma, this county; and Mrs. Sallie Stanford, whose husband is a business man of Idabel, the county seat of McCurtain County.

THOMAS B. LEVERETT. One of the older white resi- dents of Jefferson County is Thomas B. Leverett, whose home has been in this section of Oklahoma for twenty years, and who after a long and active career as a farmer is now devoting his time and attention to the County Assessor's office at Waurika. Mr. Leverett has himself had a useful career, and his life is also interest- ing for the large family which he has around him, com- prising a number of enterprising sons and daughters.

Thomas B. Leverett was born in Randolph County, Alabama, June 10, 1855. The Leveretts were early settlers in Alabama, and the family originated in France. His father, J. R. Leverett, who was born in Alabama in 1827, was a Confederate soldier, having served for three years in an Alabama regiment. He was finally taken prisoner, and about the close of the war, in 1865, moved to Grayson County, Texas. He was active as a farmer and stock raiser, and his death occurred at Cleburne, Texas, in 1881. He was a democrat, for many years a deacon in the Baptist church, and also had membership in the Masonic fraternity. He married Mary Sheppard, who was born in Georgia in March, 1835, and died in Wise County. Texas, May 7, 1907. Of this union there were four children, Thomas B. being the oldest. Eula died at the age of eighteen; Mollie is the wife of William Couch, a rancher at Higgins, Texas; and G. M. is connected with a music house at Elk City, Oklahoma.

Thomas B. Leverett secured his early education while living with his parents in Randolph County, Alabama, aud at Basin Springs in Grayson County, Texas. His life in the meanwhile was spent on his father's farm, and he continued to live at home until 1880. He then engaged in farming for himself several years, and for seven years participated in the stirring and active life of the Texas frontier as a cowboy. He then resumed farming in Texas, but in 1895 came into Indian Terri- tory and leased some land near what is now Healdton for three years. From 1898 to 1913 Mr. Leverett farmed and conducted a press at Ryan in Jefferson County. His active work as a farmer was terminated by his elec- tion to the office of county assessor, at which time he removed to Waurika and is now on his second term, hav- ing been reelected in 1915. The office of assessor is not the only public position of trust he has filled in Oklahoma since he was made township trustee in Black- burn Township of Jefferson County, the township in which Ryan is situated, and served in that capacity from statehood until 1913.

Mr. Leverett is a democrat, a member of the Ban- tist Church and is affiliated with Ryan Lodge No. 67, American Free and Accepted Masons, with Ryan Camp of the Woodmen of the World, and with the Knights and Ladies of Security.

His marriage occurred in 1880 in Grayson County, Texas, when Miss Mollie Duncan, of Hopkins County, Texas, became his bride. To their marriage have been born nine children : Etta, wife of J. M. Stephens, a hotel

proprietor at Custer, Oklahoma; Emma, wife of Eugene Bartholomew, mentioned in a following paragraph; Mamie, wife of F. R. McConnell, a farmer in Jefferson County, Oklahoma; Edgar, who is now serving as county surveyor of Jefferson County and lives at Waurika; Benjamin, a resident of Waurika; Charles, who con- duets a barber shop at Muskogee; Gordon, living with his parents; Loraine, who is in the eighth grade and Elmer, in the fourth grade of the public schools at Waurika.

Eugene Bartholomew, who married Miss Emma Leverett and lives at Waurika, was born July 27, 1878, in Burlington, Iowa, attended public schools there un- til 1886, when his parents removed to Waco, Texas, and he graduated from Baylor University in 1897. Two years were spent as bookkeeper in a grocery house at Waco, after which he held a similar position in Mata- gorda County, Texas, until 1900, and then for two years occupied a ranch near Chickasha, Oklahoma. In 1902 he moved to Decatur, Wise County, Texas, farmed there one year, spent the next eighteen months in the employ of the light and water department of Clifton, Arizona, and in 1905 entered the grocery business at Ryan, Okla- homa. He sold goods there for three years, farmed for two years, was engaged in public work three years, and since coming to Waurika in 1914 has been employed by the MeMann Oil Company. Mr. Bartholomew is a democrat, a member of the Woodmen of the World, and of the Baptist Church. He and his wife have four chil- dren : Mary Belle, a junior in the Waurika High School; Dimple, a sophomore in the same school; Elgeva, attending public school; and Mercedes.

W. THOMAS YOAKUM. Among the men whose work is of statewide importance in Oklahoma, W. Thomas Yoakum figures prominently as he is federal and county farm demonstration agent for Coal County, his head- quarters being at Coalgate. The necessity for improve- ment in agricultural conditions in this section became imperative in 1914 when the principal industry of mining was interfered with by reason of the high cost of the production of coal, many of the mines in the Coalgate district being shut down. Since that time special atten- tion has been given to the agricultural resources of the county and remarkable strides have been made in that direction. As the soil is naturally fertile and the rainfall usually sufficient the only vital factor lacking in agri- cultural development was the general education of farmers. This work Mr. Yoakum has had in charge since the latter part of 1914 and as he brought with him in this office of farm demonstration agent a scientific educa- tion and the experience of many years of practical appli- cation of principles his efforts have been fraught with most gratifying success.

W. Thomas Yoakum was born in Hill County, Texas, in 1874, and he is a son of Jacob C. and Mary (Jones) Yoakum, the former a native of Missouri but for many years a pioneer farmer in Texas. With his mate, Jacob C. Yoakum was lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Cal- houn County, Texas, in April, 1901, at which time he was engaged in the coast traffic business. The great-grand- father of the subject of this review was a major in the Continental army in the Revolution and lost his life in battle. Dr. W. T. Jones, maternal uncle of Mr. Yoakum, was a surgeon in the Confederate army during the Civil war.

After a preliminary education in the public schools of Texas Mr. W. Thomas Yoakum attended the Culberson Select School at Hillsboro, Texas, and also Baylor Uni- versity of Waco. Subsequently he was a student for two years in the manual-training department of the Uni-

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versity of Kansas; for one year he attended the Agricul- tural & Mechanical College of Texas, at College Station; and for a like period was a student in the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Oklahoma. On reaching his majority he began to teach school and he was success- fully employed in that manner for five years in Texas and for eleven years in Indian Territory, having charge of the Choctaw & Chickasaw School in the latter section for several years and of the Euchee Government Indian School near Sapulpa for three years, being principal of the latter institution.

Mr. Yoakum entered farm demonstration work in Hughes County, Oklahoma, in 1907, and since that time has devoted his attention exclusively to that line of endeavor. He has a valuable farm in Hughes County and it was the marked success he achieved on this land through scientific methods that attracted the attention of the United States Department of Agriculture and re- sulted in his appointment as federal and county farm demonstration agent. Mr. Yoakum purchased the above farm on credit and the manner in which he made it pay for itself in a few years is splendid proof of the fact that he is a practical, thoroughgoing, educated man in agricultural lines.

The loss to Coal County of a large part of its normal income from mining activities in 1914 and the failure of the county commissioners to make an appropriation for agricultural improvement work caused J. G. Loving, cashier of the Coalgate State Bank, and S. A. Maxwell, cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Coalgate, to become interested in the work with the result that they guaranteed the county's half of the expense of main- taining the demonstration department. This assistance came at a critical and most opportune time and more credit is given by Mr. Yoakum to these two men than to any other agency in making the work a pronounced success.

Under the direction of Mr. Yoakum interest in scien- tific agriculture has grown apace and there are now 421 farmers in Coal County applying modern methods. He estimates that it would require the service of seven men to answer the demands upon him for information and personal demonstration. There are seven federal demonstration farms in the county, as follows: the farm of W. H. Stevens, near Debs; A. L. McCarter, near Centrahoma; F. M. Mowdy, near Coalgate; Luther Tay- lor, near Olney; C. L. Duncum, near Clarita; Patsy Grinan, near Owl; and Edward Perry, near Coalgate. In addition to this line of work there are country clubs for the special information of boys and girls, of whom 376 are enrolled. These clubs give directions about the growing and caring for kaffir, cotton, corn, pigs and poultry and. for the canning of fruits and vegetables and for the making of bread. Mrs. L. S. Morse has charge of the canning work.

As a result of Mr. Yoakum's efforts interest has been created in crops not heretofore given much attention in the county. Alfalfa is now a profitable crop and in the last year or two the increase in the acreage of wheat has been 500 per cent; the acreage of oats three times that of 1914; the acreage of kaffir has doubled; and that of peanuts has increased from 200 acres in 1914 to 1,200 acres in 1915. The shipping of farm products has advanced many fold. To increase interest in marketing and to get the best possible markets and prices the Coal County Farmers Products Association was organized in 1914, with Centrahoma, Olney, Tupelo, Clarita and Bro- mide as shipping points and the following men as directors: B. B. Sanders, of Coalgate; D. Binns, of Parker; A. L. McCarter, of Centrahoma; and J. M. Moore, of Olney. Modern dairying methods are being introduced and the growing of thoroughbred stock is

encouraged. One of the best evidences of the value of agricultural education in the county is found in the fact that in 1915 100 grain binders have been sold in the county, this being of special interest in view of the fact that hitherto this region has been devoted almost exclusively to the raising of cotton and corn. A county fair association has been organized and it has become an important incentive in furthering the agri- cultural work. Another evidence of the value of the work is that the county commissioners, after having formerly declined to do it, are now making annual appro- priations to pay half the expense of the demonstration department. In 1915 the legislature made the demon- stration agent a county officer and assigned to him the management of all agricultural improvement work and put the department of county fairs under his jurisdic- tion. The agent works in harmony with the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater and farmers of the county are given the benefit of all research and demon- stration work carried on at this school.

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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