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 32

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 32

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Charles A. Coakley received his early education in the public schools of Iowa, following which he attended the state university there and later the University of Min- nesota, his degree of Bachelor of Laws being secured from the latter institution in 1906. His higher educa- tion was acquired with funds which he had earned him- self while going through school. In 1908 Mr. Coakley be- came a stenographer and court reporter in Oklahoma, and in 1909 was admitted to the bar, receiving the high- est grade of the class before the Oklahoma State Bar examiners. At the beginning of his practice, Mr. Coak- ley formed a partnership with F. E. Kennamer, which association has continued to exist save for the two years he served in the capacity of county attorney, an office to which he was first elected on the democratic ticket, and in which he served until 1915. Prior to that time he had established an excellent reputation as city attorney of Madill, where he continues to make his home and practice his vocation. Mr. Coakley is a member of the Marshall County Bar Association and of the Oklahoma State Bar Association, and aside from his profession is identified with the Madill Commercial Club and the Madill Library Association. With his family, he holds mem- bership in the Catholic Church. Not only is Mr. Coak-

ley well known in professional circles, but as a business man and influential democrat, being president of the Democrat Publishing Company which publishes the Mar- shall County News-Democrat at Madill.

Mr. Coakley was married in 1910 to Miss Elizabeth Langley, of Madill, who is well known in literary and social circles of this city. The inception of the move- ment at Madill for the establishment of a public library probably was due in greater degree to the efforts of Mrs. Coakley than to those of any other person in the city. Mrs. Coakley, Mrs. J. P. Rierdon and Mrs. M. Scott formed a committee that investigated plans for the library movement, and their efforts put about 600 vol- umes in the new courthouse as a nucleus. The county commissioners set aside two rooms for library purposes and there became available in 1916 a source of public revenue that assures the library being a permanent insti- tution at Madill.

HON. THOMAS CARNES WALDREP. One of the young- est and at the same time most brilliant members of the Fifth Legislature was Thomas Carnes Waldrep, from Pottawotamie County. Mr. Waldrep was twenty-five years of age when elected to the Legislature in 1914, and after taking his seat in the Legislature carried on and finished his final studies preparatory to admission to the bar. It was his commendable ambition to secure experience that would prove specially valuable to him in his profession that led Mr. Waldrep to take advantage of his vacation in 1914 to make the race for legislative representative.

Thomas Carnes Waldrep was born February 16, 1889, at Birmingham, Alabama, a son of Thomas and Eliza- beth (Murphy) Waldrep. Mr. Waldrep has a brother and sister: Lloyd C., who is engaged in telephone and electrical work in Shawnee; and Eva, who lives with her mother in Shawnee. The father, who died in 1893, was a planing mill operator in Birmingham, and the paternal grandfather was a soldier in the Confederate army, as was also the maternal grandfather, who died in 1902.

Thomas C. Waldrep was a student in the public schools as far as the fifth grade at the time his mother removed to Ardmore, Oklahoma. Soon afterwards, owing to the limited financial circumstances of the family, the father having died, he abandoned schooling in order to assist in earning a livelihood for the family. In 1898 his mother removed to Shawnee, and while there he attended night school and in the intervals of his regular work nearly completed the equivalent of a public school education. In 1909 Mr. Waldrep entered the Central State Normal at Edmond, spent three years there as a student, and displayed that talent in oratory and debate which has received a severe practice and discipline in subsequent years and has brought him much of his success in public life. During the last year in Edmond he was a member of the debating team and won the first individual place prize. In 1912 he entered the College of Law of the University of Oklahoma, and by working between terms paid his way until graduating in June, 1915. During his first year in law school he led the debating team of the college in a debate with the University of Colorado. In 1913 he won the first individual place prize in a tryout in which sixty-two students participated, and in the debate won the prize offered by George Butte, a Mus- kogee lawyer. In 1914 he was the leader of the debating team which defeated a similar team from the University of Colorado, the decision being unanimous for the Okla- homa team.

Mr. Waldrep made a characteristically vigorous and aggressive campaign for the Legislature. He was nomi- nated by a plurality of 400, with six candidates running

garages. O. Den, M. D.

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and three to elect. In the general election he won by 250 more votes than were cast for any other man on the democratic ticket in the county. In the Legislature he was made chairman of the Committee on Municipal Cor- porations, and a member of committees on labor and arbitration, revenue and taxation, judiciary No. 2, legal advisory, criminal jurisprudence, and cotton warehouse and grain elevators. Mr. Waldrep was a joint author of a bill divorcing cotton gin companies from cotton seed oil companies, declaring a cotton gin to be a public utility. Another measure of his created a tax commission, and another conferred upon the state commissioner of labor the authority to demand that elevators in buildings be equipped with automatic lockers. He was also interested in legislation affecting good roads, and a member of the subcommittee of the committee on commerce and labor that drew a workman's compensation bill demanded by the State Federation of Labor. For a young man of his years he has already served his community, state and himself honestly and well, and the future gives promise of splendid usefulness. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of the Delta Sigma Phi college fraternity and the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity. He is a member of the Young Men's Democratic Club at Shawnee, and is secretary of the state organization of Young Men's Democratic Clubs.

WILBUR C. MADISON. Now successfully engaged in the practice of law at Purcell, Wilbur C. Madison is perhaps best known over Oklahoma as a business man, and prior to coming to this state ten years ago spent twenty years as a prominent leader of the Methodist Episcopal church in the State of Colorado.

It is a matter of interest to note that Mr. Madison is a direct descendant from a member of the prominent Virginia family of Madisons, and one of his direct ancestors was a brother of President James Madison. Wilbur C. Madison was born at Edgewood, Iowa, Janu- ary 9, 1858. His father, Francis Conway Madison, was born in Virginia in 1820, but when young was taken to Kentucky, moved on to Illinois, and in the pioneer period of that state located in Iowa, where he followed farm- ing and stock raising until his death at Edgewood in 1905. He was always an active member of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, for many years served on its official board. In politics he was a republican. Francis C. Madison was three times married. The only child of his first wife is Irvin, who is a retired farmer at Edge- wood, Iowa. There were no children by the second wife. For his third wife he married Miss Julia A. Crawford, who was born in New York State in 1830 and died at Edgewood, Iowa, in 1907. Her children were: Wilbur C .; Motier, who is an electrician living at Los Angeles, California; Curtis B., who has been successful in the handling of general business and property affairs and still lives at Edgewood, Iowa; Eliza B., of Edgewood; and Harriet, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, where her husband is manager of a military outfitting concern for the United States Government.

Wilbur C. Madison spent the early years of his life on his father's farm at Edgewood, where he attended the public schools. He was liberally educated, largely as a result of his own determination and efforts. For three years he pursued a preparatory course in the Upper Iowa University and then followed that with the full university course of four years, until graduating in 1883 with the degree A. B. Two years later the same university bestowed upon him the degree A. M. During the years 1884-85 he was a regular member of the Iowa Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Rev. Mr. Madison in 1885 moved out to Colorado and

for twenty years was pastor and presiding elder in that state, and one mark of his service in the ministry is the honorary degree of D. D. For about six years Doctor Madison took post-graduate studies in the University of Denver, by which he was awarded the degree Ph. D.

After a number of years of service as presiding elder in Colorado Doctor Madison in 1905 came to Oklahoma City to become manager for the loan department of the Burton Loan and Mortgage Company. While engaged in post-graduate studies in Denver he had acquired a substan- tial legal education, and in 1913 he gained admission to the Oklahoma bar and has since looked after a rapidly growing civil and criminal practice in Purcell with offices in the Union National Bank Building. Since com- ing to Purcell he has acted as justice of the peace.

He is a member of the Purcell Methodist Episcopal Church, is a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Mason, his local affiliation being with Purcell Lodge No. 27, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

At Manchester, Iowa, in 1883, Mr. Madison married Miss Adaline Holmes, whose father, the late W. H. Holmes, was at one time a brick manufacturer in New York City and subsequently moved out to Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Madison became the parents of two children: Francis, who died at the age of fourteen; and Agnes Adaline, who is the wife of Glen D. Boardman, manager of a farm loan company at Clinton, Oklahoma.

JOSEPH A. DEEN, M. D. As an early settler in that section of Oklahoma once known as the Chickasaw Nation, Doctor Deen has made his life one of exceptional value in the old Indian country and has helped to estab- lish modern communities where not many years ago were profligate red men, large untilled areas of forest and prairie, cattle ranches and hiding places of mon accused of violating every law of God or man. His brain and hand were partially instrumental in the building of the Town of Hickory in Murray County, where he deserves some of the credit for the building of two churches and a modern school building and the organization and provision of a home for the Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges. For several years Doctor Deen has been well established in his practice as a physician and surgeon at Ada.

He was born in Austin, Texas, in 1876, a son of John R. and Mary (Bacon) Deen. His father, also a native of Austin, was an early business man of that city, and married and reared his family there, his wife being also a native of the same city. Doctor Deen has one brother and one sister living: T. W. Deen, a banker at Ardmore, Oklahoma; and Mrs. Stone W. Webster, wife of a furniture dealer at Oklahoma City.

Doctor Deen's primary education was obtained in the public schools of Texas, and after leaving high school he entered the Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas, where he was graduated A. B. in 1894. In 1896 he began his medical education in the Barnes University at St. Louis and took his degree M. D. from that insti- tution in 1902. He has never since ceased to be a student and has kept himself apace with all the develop- ments of modern medicine. In 1909 he completed a. post-graduate course in the Tulane Medical School at New Orleans, and in 1912 took a hospital post-graduate course in Barnes University.

In 1902 Doctor Deen located for practice at Ardmore, Oklahoma, and remained in that city two years. He then removed to the new Town of Hickory, and was for seven years engaged in caring for a large practice there and also in promoting the general upbuilding of the community. For three years after leaving Hickory he practiced in Western Oklahoma, and in 1912 located at

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Ada, where he now has a large and satisfactory practice. Doctor Deen is a member of the Pontotoc Medical So- ciety, the Oklahoma Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is a member of the Pontotoc County Insanity Commission.

Doctor Deen was married at Hickory, Oklahoma, in December, 1904, to Miss Ada Mitchell. They have two children, Othel, aged ten, and Gerald, aged eight. In Masonry Doctor Deen is affiliated with the Lodge and Royal Arch chapters, and is also a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is secretary of the Democratic County Central Com- mittee of Pontotoc County, 'secretary of the Pontotoc County Democratic Club, secretary of the Democratic County Finance Committee and a member of the Demo- cratic Central Committee of Ada from the Fourth Ward. Above these various interests Doctor Deen can be called an enthusiastic member of that large organization of men in Oklahoma known as boosters, and is one of the solid, substantial citizens of his home town.

DEROOS BAILEY. The legal fraternity of Muskogee has an able representative and exponent in the person of DeRoos Bailey, whose connection with numerous im- portant cases has won him something more than local reputation. A thorough and profound lawyer, close and careful student, and strict adherent to the highest ethics of his calling, he has won, in the fullest measure, the confidence of those whose legal business he has transacted, and the respect of his fellow-members in the profession. Mr. Bailey is a native son of Arkansas, born in Carroll County, May 27, 1857, his parents being William Wilson and Harriet (Wasson) Bailey.

The first representative of the Bailey family in Amer- ica came from England and settled in Virginia, and members of the family subsequently migrated to North Carolina and thence to Tennessee, where William Wilson Bailey was born. He received a good education, taught school in both Arkansas and Oklahoma, and was well known as an educator at Webbers Falls and Grand Saline in the latter state. While in Arkansas he was a member of the convention that adopted the present state constitution, and also was a resident of that state when he enlisted under the flag of the Confed- eracy for service during the war between the North and the South, in which his valiant services won him promotion from the ranks to captain of his company. He was married in Arkansas and settled on a farm in Boone County, subsequently becoming sheriff, a position which he held for two successive terms. He died at the age of eighty years. Mrs. Bailey, also a native of Tennessee, and of Scotch-Irish descent, was taken to Arkansas by her parents when a child. She died when past sixty years of age, and bore her husband two chil- dren: Josephine, who is now deceased; and DeRoos, of this review.

DeRoos Bailey was reared on his father's farm in Boone County, Arkansas, and at the age of sixteen years entered Bellefonte (Arkansas) Academy, where he pur- sued his studies for four years. He then became a school teacher, and while thus engaged privately studied law. He was twenty-four years of age when admitted to the bar, and first "hung out his shingle" at Harrison, Arkansas, but soon thereafter removed to Yellville, in the same state and while there was twice elected first district attorney of the Fourteenth Judicial District, composed of seven counties. Before the expiration of his second term, Mr. Bailey again became a resident of Harrison, but later removed to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he remained one vear. It was from that city that he first came to Muskogee, in 1897, but after a brief residence in this city, and at Wagoner, Oklahoma,

returned to Harrison, Arkansas, and there was almost immediately nominated for the office of district attorney. He declined this nomination, and in 1900 returned to Muskogee where he has since resided and been in the general practice of law, with gratifying success. When the time came for drafting the present city charter, Mr. Bailey's fellow-citizens honored him by choosing him as one of the committee of eight chosen for that important duty. Aside from this public service, he has held no position of a public nature since becoming a resident of Muskogee. In political matters he is a stanch democrat, but has not sought political honors, preferring to devote his entire time and attention to the duties of his constantly increasing practice.

Mr. Bailey has been twice married. His first wife was Miss Lyllian McDowell, who is now deceased, being survived by one daughter, Lyllian. Mr. Bailey was married the second time to Miss Bernadine Atkins, and they have two children: Esther and Paul.

HON. ALBERT W. BARNETT. Had the republicans of District No. 198 of Indian Territory been a few hun- dred stronger, Albert W. Barnett would have been the delegate from that district to the Constitutional Con- vention of 1906, and R. L. Williams, who afterward became the third governor of Oklahoma, would not have made a reputation in the convention that culminated in his being made the first chief justice of the Supreme Court and later in his election to the highest state exe- cutive office. Mr. Barnett was the choice of the republi- cans of the district by acclamation in convention. Be- ing of Southern birth and understanding well the char- acter of a majority of the people of his district, his chances for election were far more favorable than would have been the chances of a republican from the North. The campaign was full of interest. There had been no elections in Indian Territory and it was problematical whether the voters in this election could be strongly influenced to line up with party organizations. For a time it looked like any man's victory, but the demo- crats won by a safe majority. For five years prior to the convention, Mr. Barnett had been a resident of the south- ern part, of the district. He had engaged in farming principally, but was a public-spirited and stirring citizen and his acquaintance had become wide.

Two years after statehood Mr. Barnett went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and became accountant for the Price Sand Company, a concern with which he remained for a period of three years, going to Achille in 1913 and engaging in the drug business, in which he is yet occupied. His store is one of the largest in the county outside of Durant, and his large, up-to-date stock is valued at $8,- 000. When the town was incorporated, in 1915, the people put politics aside and elected Mr. Barnett mayor without opposition. His legal title is justice of the peace, but his duties are similar to those of mayor in cities of the first class. He attends meetings of the trustees, but has no vote. The first ordinance passed under his administration fixed punishment for misde- meanors. The first case tried before Mayor Barnett in- volved the charge of assault and the trial resulted in a plea of guilty. The first fine paid into the city treas- ury was turned in by the defendant in that case.

Mr. Barnett was born in Whitfield County, Georgia, August 19, 1872, and is a son of John Wilson and In- diana (Cox) Barnett. His father, who was born in 1847, in Tennessee, is a veteran of the Civil war, in which he fought as a Union soldier, and at this time is resid- ing at Calera, Oklahoma, where he settled in 1897. There were three sons and one daughter in the family: Albert W .; Robert H., who is chief engineer of the muni- cipal water plant at Tulsa; Abraham Boyd, who is man-

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ager of the Scearce Grain Company at Calera; and Mrs. Claude Brown, the wife of a farmer living near Achille.

Albert W. Barnett was educated in the public schools of Georgia and the high schools at Flint Springs, Ten- nessee, and Anna, Texas. Later he completed a commer- cial course in a business college located at Sherman, Texas, and in 1902 settled in Oklahoma and became a farmer. Mr. Barnett was married November 17, 1902, to Miss Stella Holland, of Paucaunla, Indian Territory, and they have three children: Audrey Jnanita; Entis Constance and Dudley Holland.

HON. SAMUEL L. JOHNSON. One of the few original Oklahomans to have a seat in the Fifth Legislature is Samuel L. Johnson, of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, who has spent fully a quarter of a century in Oklahoma, came in at the time of the first opening, was a prominent man at' Alva for a number of years, but has been identified with Okmulgee as a capitalist and oil operator for the past fifteen years. Mr. Johnson represents Okmulgee County in the Fifth Legislature.

Samuel L. Johnson was born in 1855 at Brooklyn, New York, a son of Samuel and Matilda Johnson, both natives of Ireland, who came to America when children. In 1867, when Mr. Johnson was twelve years of age, the family located at Chillicothe, in Peoria County, Illinois. He finished his education in the common schools of that county, but for financial reasons was unable to secure a college education. He utilized all the opportunities at hand and by carrying on the required studies in the office of a lawyer at Chillicothe was ready for admission to the bar soon after he attained his majority. He practiced in Illinois for several years, and in 1889 threw in his fortunes with thousands of others who peopled the strip of territory opened to settlement in that year. He is therefore eligible to membership in the Society of Eighty- niners. In 1893 Mr. Johnson participated in the second important opening of public lands, those embraced in the Cherokee strip, and thus took up his residence at Alva, in Woods County. After the organization of Alva, Mr. John- son was appointed its first postmaster, and gave seven years to that office. Though a lawyer by profession, his interests have taken a much broader scope than those of the average attorney, and while living in Woods County he was a farmer and a stock man on lands he had acquired in that part of the state. In the local history of Alva his name will always be associated with those of the pioneers, and he is remembered as a citizen who always gave his co-operation to every important under- taking. He was an organizer and one of the first officers of the first county fair association in Woods County, also helped to organize the first church at Alva, and he was chairman of the legislation committee that secured the N. W. Normal School at Alva. In 1900 Mr. Johnson removed to Okmulgee, the former capital of the Creek Nation in Indian Territory. That district was then at the beginning of its development as an important oil territory, and Mr. Johnson was among the first to take a practical part in the oil industry, a business that has been much developed in recent years and is now of ranking importance among the sources of wealth in that section. Mr. Johnson organized and was president of the Eagle Investment Company of Okmulgee, and was one of the organizers of the First National Bank of that city, serving as its vice president for several years.

He has for many years been more or less closely identified with politics in the two territories. In 1902 he was elected the second mayor of the City of Okmulgee. In 1910 he made the race for the democratic nomination for Congress in what was then the Third District, being Vol. IV-8

defeated by James S. Davenport of Vinita who was elected in the following November. In the year that Dennis Flynn, republican, of Oklahoma City, contested with Judge J. R. Keaton, democrat, of Oklahoma City, for delegate to Congress from Oklahoma Territory, Mr. Johnson was chairman of the Democratic Central Committee of the territory. He has been a delegate to nearly every democratic territorial or state convention since 1893. He was elected a member of the Fifth Legis- lature from Okmulgee County in 1914, and during the session was made chairman of the committee ou fees and salaries. He was also a member of the committees on oil and gas and the committees on constitutional amend- ments and roads and highways. As a legislator his experience has been of great value to his associates on the subject of oil and gas and the workman's compensa- tion act, matters in which his interest naturally lies, since one of the chief industries of his home county is that of oil and gas, and the large coal mines there employing about 2,500 men give prominence to labor legislation.

In 1908 Mr. Johnson was elected grand master work- man of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and after holding that position six years was re-elected in 1914. He also affiliates with the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His church is the Presbyterian. In 1880 at Chillicothe, Illinois, Mr. John- son married Miss Elizabeth Mead, whose father, Hiram Mead, was one of the early settlers in that section of the state. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are the parents of three sons. The oldest, Hugh S., is a first lieutenant in the First United States Cavalry with his present station at the Presidio in California. He has the distinction of being the first Oklahoman to graduate from the West Point Military Academy, receiving his degree and com- mission in 1900. Lieutenant Johnson is now thirty-two years of age. The second son, Mead S., is a member of the faculty of the State School of Mines at Wilburton, Oklahoma, with a special assignment to extension work and with his station in the lead and zine fields in North- eastern Oklahoma. Alexander, the third son, is United States Probate attorney for a district comprising Okmul- gee and Okfuskee counties. This appointment was in 1914 by the secretary of the interior on recommendation of the commissioner of Indian affairs.

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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