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 33

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 33

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JOHN N. DAVIS. Earnest and effective service as a teacher in the public schools of Oklahoma has given to Mr. Davis no little prestige in educational circles in the state, and his secure place in popular esteem is indicated by his having been called upon to represent Sequoyah County in the Fifth General Assembly of the State Legislature, to which he was elected in 1914 and in which he proved a loyal, progressive and judicious worker on the floor of the lower house and in the deliberations of the various committees to which he was assigued. He maintains his residence at Sallisaw, Sequoyah County, and is a leading representative of the pedagogic profession in that county.

John N. Davis was born at Huntsville, the judicial center of Madison County, Arkansas, in the year 1881, and was the first in order of birth of fifteen children born to Jos. W. and Joanna (Powell) Davis, the other surviving children being as here noted: Zemri is principal of the high school at Gore, Sequoyah County, Oklahoma; James B. is a prosperous agriculturist in the State of Oregon; Albert is a successful farmer near Braggs, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, as is also Oswald T .; and Charles C., Luther, Ollie and Nettie remain at the parental home, near the village of Braggs, this state. Tho father of Mr. Davis was born in Illinois and be- came one of the pioneer farmers of Madison County,

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Arkansas, where he established his residence about the year 1872 and where he remained until his removal to Oklahoma. His wife is a native of Arkansas, her father having been a sterling pioneer of that state and having served as a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war.

To the public schools of Arkansas and Oklahoma John N. Davis is indebted for his early educational discipline, and in 1906 he completed a course in the High School Department of Hiram-Lydia College, at Altus, Arkansas, after which he attended the school of mechanical engineering of the University of Arkansas for one year. For six years Mr. Davis was successfully engaged in teaching in the schools of his native state, and an equal period of service in this line has been given by him during the period of his residence in Oklahoma, within whose borders he established his home in 1908, the year following the admission of the state to the Union. For four terms he held the position of principal of the public schools at Roland, Sequoyah County, and thereafter he served one term as president of the high school at Gans, this county. While a resident of Roland he was called upon also to serve as township clerk and as justice of the peace. In 1914 further public honors were conferred upon him, in his election as representative of the same county in the Lower House of the State Legislature, in the Fifth General Assembly of which he served as a. member of the following named house committees: Education, General Agriculture, Congressional Redistrict- ing, Public Buildings, Fish and Game, and Relation to the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indians. Mr. Davis introduced a bill for the enabling of county commission- ers to levy a tax of one-half mill for the acquiring of building sites and the erection thereon of homes for neglected and dependent children, to whom is thus granted also the privilege of attending school. Another bill introduced by him makes provision for the uniform rate of three per cent interest on daily deposits of all state and county funds. As a legislator he manifested special interest in the furtherance of measures tending to advance the general educational facilities and systems of the state. He supported measures for the benefit of the Northeastern State Normal School, at Tahlequah, in which he intends to complete his training for his profession, and for other educational institutions in his section of the state. He was particularly active in promoting measures providing for the county unit sys- tem in educational work.

Mr. Davis is a democrat in his political allegiance and both he and his wife hold membership in the Christian Church. At Roland he is affiliated with the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has passed the various official chairs in the same. He is a prominent member of the Sequoyah County Educational Association and is identified also with the Oklahoma Educational Association.

At Ozark, Arkansas, in 1906, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Davis to Miss Emma Eichenberger, her maternal grandfather, Rev. F. M. Payne, D. D., having been a pioneer missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, among the Indians of Indian Territory, where he was stationed for varying intervals at Fort Gibson, Port Coffey, Fort Towson and other points, his wife, who was one of the revered pioneer women of the territory, having died in 1914, at the venerable age of ninety-two years and having long survived her husband. Mr. and Mrs. Davis have two children, Lucille and Edward.

JOHN S. WOOFTER. There is probably no man in Creek County whose word and counsel are more esteemed in

business and public affairs than John S. Woofter, who is secretary and treasurer of the Hammett Oil Company of Sapulpa. He is one of Sapulpa's leading business men, and particularly in republican polities is well known all over the state.

He was born near Auburn, West Virginia, October 25, 1860, a son of Andrew and Mary (Simpson) Woofter. His paternal grandparents came from Holland, first set- tled in New Jersey and afterwards on a farm in West Virginia. Sheriff Woofter's parents were born near Weston, West Virginia, and died there, the father at the age of eighty and the mother at seventy-eight. They died within three months of each other. They were substantial farming people and Andrew Woofter was a man of con- siderable prominence in his home county, where he served as county assessor and in several other positions of trust. In the family were six sons and two daughters: T. J., . now deceased; George A., a minister of the Baptist Church at Bridgeport, West Virginia; Sarah, wife of Joshua Adams of Harrisville, West Virginia; Francis A., a farmer at Millett, Texas; Columbia, wife of F. M. Bush of Auburn, West Virginia; Clark, of Parkersburg, West Virginia; John S .; and Ellet of Charleston, West Virginia.

John S. Woofter lived on the West Virginia farm where he was born until he was seventeen years of age. He received an average education and for several years was a teacher himself. His first business experience was as a salesman in a wholesale grocery firm, but in 1903 he went to Texas, and became identified with the Beaumont Oil District. Since then he has been continuously identi- fied with the oil industry in one capacity or other. In 1904 he moved to Houston, Texas, and since 1907 has been a resident of Sapulpa. He is now secretary and treasurer of the Hammett Oil Company, of which C. E. Barrett is president and W. W. Fondrew of Houston is vice president. This company has some valuable oil leases and is doing a good deal to develop and operate in the Oklahoma oil belt. Mr. Woofter is an expert account- ant, and has given his services in that capacity to several business firms in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

For five years he served as treasurer of the Sapulpa School Board, and in the primaries of 1916 he received the largest vote of any man in Sapulpa for re-election to same office. In September, 1915, when the Creek County sheriff was temporarily suspended for investigation and exonerated, Mr. Woofter was appointed to the vacancy by the court, and he attracted a good deal of attention by his efficiency and vigor in cleaning up Sapulpa. During his first two weeks in office he destroyed liquor and gam- bling outfits to the value of about eleven thousand dol- lars. He served about five weeks.

Mr. Woofter is a republican, has served for several years on the state committee, and in 1910 was nominated at the primaries for clerk of the proposed Superior Court of Creek County, though the election never came off, since the court was not granted owing to lack of sufficient population. Mr. Woofter is a member of the Baptist Church, in Masonry has attained the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite and belongs to the Mystic Shrine, and for two years was patron of the Chapter of the Eastern Star. He is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Loyal Order of Moose and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is past exalted ruler of Sapulpa Lodge No. 1118, and represented this lodge in the con- vention at Portland in 1912.

At the time of statehood Mr. Woofter was chosen as one of the committee of three to locate the county seat at Sapulpa and provide for the issue of bonds to the amount of one hundred and forty-five thousand dollars

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1455

to construct the present courthouse. Everywhere he is known he enjoys esteem and confidence for his business ability and integrity, has frequently been consulted in regard to business deals, and has served as receiver for several oil companies. In 1914 he was on the republican ticket at the preferential primaries in Oklahoma as can- didate for state examiner and inspector.

IRWIN DONOVAN. The vigorous and importaut City of Muskogee claims as one of its representative lawyers and progressive young men of marked civic loyalty the popular citizen whose name initiates this paragraph and who had here maintained his residence since 1904, so that he became a member of the Oklahoma bar about three years prior to the admission of the state into the Union. In the general practice of his profession he has built up a substantial law business and his status as one of the able lawyers and highly esteemed citizens of Muskogee County well entitled him to specific recog- nition in this history of the state of his adoption,-a state in which he has found ample opportunity for earnest and fruitful service and achievement.

Mr. Donovan was born in the City of St. Louis, Mis- souri, on the 3d of August, 1879, and is a son of Joseph T. and Mary Lucy (Mahoney) Donovan, who became the parents of five sons and three daughters. Joseph T. Donovan has been a resident of the City of St. Louis from the time of his birth, and for a long period has there been successfully established in the real-estate business. His father, Daniel H. Donovan, was a native of Ireland and was a boy at the time of the family emigration from the fair old Emerald Isle to the United States, the family home having early been established in St. Louis, where Daniel H. was reared to manhood and where his father, Daniel Donovan, passed the remain- der of his life. Daniel H. Donovan became collector of internal revenue for the port of St. Louis under the administration of President Buchanan and was other- wise prominent and influential as a citizen and man of affairs. Joseph T. Donovan was a gallant soldier of the Confederate service in the Civil war and though he is now of venerable age he is still actively identified with business interests in his native city, where he commands unequivocal popular esteem. As a young man he wedded Miss Mary Lucy Mahoney, who is now deceased. She was born in the City of Dubuque, Iowa, and was a daugh- ter of Dennis A. Mahoney, who was for many years owner, editor and publisher of the Dubuque Telegraph and a leader in the activities of the democratic party in the Hawkeye State. He served as county sheriff and at the time of the Civil war he was his party's candi- date for member of Congress, his successful republican opponent having been the late Hon. William B. Allison, who long represented Iowa in the United States Senate. Mr. Mahoney was a native of Ireland and was a man of specially alert mentality aud fine intellectual powers.

Mr. Donovan acquired his early education in the pre- paratory school knowu as Smith Academy, affiliated with Washington University at St. Louis, After completing a two years' academic course in Cornell University, at .Ithaca, New York, Mr. Donovan returned to his native city and entered the St. Louis Law School, the law de- partment of Washington University. In this excellent institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1901 and from the same he received his degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was forthwith admitted to the Missouri bar, and for the ensuing three years he was engaged in the work of his profession in St. Louis. He then, in 1904, came to Muskogee, Oklahoma Terri- tory, in the capacity of law clerk for the Dawes Com- mission in its association with the affairs and interests of the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, as they are

familiarly designated. Of this position Mr. Donovan continued the efficient incumbent two years and he then engaged in the general practice of law at Muskogee, where he has built up and controls a law business of broad scope and important order and where he has proved himself a resourceful trial lawyer as well as a well forti- fied counselor. As attorney for the Oklahoma State School Land Department, Mr. Donovan passed judgment on titles to lands offered as security for loans from the school funds of the state during the first two years of the administration of Governor Haskell. While his prac- tice has been of general order it has been principally iu the department of civil practice, with special atten- tion given to real-estate law and as representative of im- portant oil and gas corporations operating in the Okla- homa fields. He holds membership in the Oklahoma State Bar Association and the Muskogee County Bar Association, is a stalwart and effective advocate of the principles of the democratic party, is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and both he and his wife are communi- cants of the Catholic Church.

In 1903 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Donovan to Miss Laura Virginia Edwards, daughter of Major John N. Edwards, who was for many years editor of the Kansas City Times and who was a distinguished soldier and officer of the Confederacy in the Civil war. The major was the author of a number of volumes touching the period of the war between the North and the South, and one of these which received specially wide circulation was entitled "Shelby and His Men." Mr. and Mrs. Donovan have no children.

ROBERT M. RAINEY. With the exception of a few clauses that were called too radical by a few conserva- tives in both dominant political parties, the Oklahoma Constitution had the almost unanimous approval of the people whose organic and basic law it is. The fact that it is a true document of human liberties, couched in republican form, gives cause for the sentiment that is associated with it. Big men wrote the Oklahoma Con- stitution, put it in form with cool and deliberate intel- leet, and year after year its finer qualities become more evident and appreciated.

It was the formal phrase given to the new constitu- tion that touched the spiritual attitude and atmosphere in which the work of the first State Legislature was inaugurated. The first Legislature had no more than organized when Robert M. Rainey, representative from Atoka County, introduced a resolution calling attention to the genuine, throbbing soul of the constitution and duly praising the men who wrote it. Then followed nearly two days of oratory in the House of Representa- tives, presided over by William H. Murray, former president of the constitutional convention. The constitu- tion's soul was bared in that discussion. Human liber- ties were defined in terms of the heart rather than of the head. The occasion was memorable and will remain so in the annals of Oklahoma history, for its effect can not be more lasting than that of a prayer.

The touch of sentiment which Representative Raiuey had instilled into the minds aud hearts of his fellowmen, continued its mellow influence upon their future delib- erations.

The feelings inspired by his resolution extended also to Governor Haskell, who had been a member of the constitutional convention and more than once the excen- tive offered to Representative Rainey some political re- ward. Rainey declined such proffers, preferring rather to complete the task his people had sent him there to do. After his term had expired and he returned home, another Legislature having made provision for moro

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district judges in certain districts of the state, Governor Haskell succeeded in expressing his long standing appre- ciation in the definite results and appointed Mr. Rainey, then little past the age of twenty-five, judge of the Seventh Judicial District, composed of Atoka, Coal, Johnston, Pontotoc and Seminole counties. This posi- tion he held six years, being reelected at the expiration of the term for which he had been appointed by the governor.

Judge Rainey was born at Sherman, Texas, Septem- ber 29, 1882, a son of Judge Jesse Rainey and Annie (Moore) Rainey. His father, a native of Tennessee, was a pioneer settler and a lawyer in Grayson County, Texas, where he served at one time on the bench of the County Court. He was a man of strong mind and noble heart. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church. Both the Rainey and Moore families were founded in America before the Revolution, and there were soldiers of both names in that war for independence. Judge Rainey has two brothers: Judge Walter M. who is now presiding on the bench of the Atoka County Court and Jesse E., who is engaged in the real estate business at Portland, Oregon.

Robert M. Rainey attended the public schools of Texas, and left the Sherman. High School with a scholar- ship and for two years continued a student in the Uni- versity of Texas. He chose the same profession in which his father had attained distinction, and completed his course of study in the Cumberland University at Le- banon, Tennessee.

In 1904 Judge Rainey came to Oklahoma as reporter in the contest department of the Atoka office of the Dawes Commission. Later he engaged in the practice of law at Atoka, in partnership with John H. and David H. Linebaugh, the former of whom later became district judge and the latter United States attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. Judge Rainey has en- tered fully into the progressive spirit of Oklahoma and lias identified himself closely and influentially with its varied interests. He is a director of the Oklahoma State Bank at Atoka, and owns valuable farm property in Ateka County. In Masonry he was in 1915 eminent commander of Atoka Commandery, K. T., and is also affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and Knights of Pythias, and with the Sigma Alpha Epsilon college fraternity. He and his wife are mem- bers of the Atoka Methodist Episcopal Church South, in which he is a steward. Judge Rainey was married in 1905 at Paris, Tennessee, to Miss Lillian Fryer. Their two sons are Robert M., Jr., and Gordon.

During the first Legislature, to which he was elected in 1907, Judge Rainey was interested in a number of important laws which were written into the statutes of the state, and among them was author of the law creating the Criminal Court of Appeals. His appointment to the District Bench came in 1909, and in 1914 he was can- didate for judge of the Oklahoma Supreme Court from the Second District to succeed Justice Williams, who was then candidate for governor. He was defeated by only a few hundred votes, his successful opponent having been Judge Rufus Hardy of Hugo, While on the dis- trict bench Judge Rainey's special characteristic, beyond his impartial administration of justice, was in effecting an expeditious conduct of the business of the court. He has given much thought and attention to the in- provement of judicial procedure, and at the annual session of the Oklahoma State Bar Association in 1913 his paper "How to Avoid the Law's Delays Under Pres- ent Procedure" which will be found in the published proceedings, attracted wide attention over the state and in legal circles elsewhere. Since retiring from the bench Judge Rainey has been looking after a large private

practice at Atoka, and though only thirty-four years of age he is everywhere recognized as one of the fore- most members of the Oklahoma bar.

HON. WILSON A. CHASE. By election to the House in 1912 and to the Senate in 1914, Wilson A. Chase has been identified with the work of Oklahoman legislation through both the Fourth and Fifth Legislatures, and has brought to that service a skillful ability and broad experience in the law and a thorough knowledge of Eastern Oklahoma affairs acquired by more than fifteen years of residence. In the Senate he is from the Thirty-third District, his- home being at Nowata.

Wilson A. Chase was born near Elija, Georgia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, October 17, 1868, a son of W. D. and Adeline (Spruel) Chase. His father was a ma- chinist and a miller. The paternal grandfather was a native of Rhode Island. The Spruel ancestors were among the first settlers in the Oglethorpe. Colony in Georgia, and Mrs. Adeline Chase' male relatives living and old enough to fight during the Civil war were all either killed or died in the army. W. D. Chase died in 1902 and his wife in 1913. W. D. Chase, not long after the birth of his son, Wilson, had brought the family to Arkansas, locating at Elizabeth in 1874, and working as a pioneer millwright.

Senator Chase was educated in the common schools of Arkansas, attended the high school at Salem, and later studied law in the office of Capt. M. N. Dyer, at Mountain Home, Arkansas. He was admitted to the bar March 15, 1893, and opening an office in Mountain Home had an unusually trying experience in "watchful waiting."' During the first six months of his legal career only one man called at his office on business. In December, 1893, he moved to Hardy, Arkansas, and remained there in practice five years. During that time he served as special assistant prosecuting attorney, and later at Evening Shade was special judge of the District Court of the Sixteenth Judicial District of Arkansas. In 1898 Senator Chase removed to Nowata in Indian Territory. There he soon built up a successful practice as a lawyer, has been in several legal partnerships, and became a factor in the development of the oil resources in Northeastern Okla- homa, and was formerly president of the Legal Oil & Gas Company, and vice president of the Chatahoochee Oil Company. Soon after locating at Nowata Senator Chase was appointed city attorney and later for one year was mayor.

In 1912 he was elected a member of the Legislature from Nowata County, serving one term, and in 1914 the district embracing Rogers and Nowata counties sent him to the Senate. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on rules and procedure and a member of the committees on judiciary No. 1, ways and means, private corporations, oil and gas, Federal relations, drugs and pure food and private corporations. In the Fifth Legis- lature he was particularly interested in the adoption of a measure providing free text books for the public schools and was author of that measure. His interest and activity also extended to administration measures pro- viding for the abolition of state boards and the concen- tration of state duties. He favored good roads legislation and the working of convicts on the public roads.

Senator Chase has six brothers and three sisters. The oldest, Mrs. Minnie Hammond, lives at Elizabeth, Arkansas; L. A. and Sanford are millwrights at Eliza- beth; Mrs. Doxie Stockard lives at Wild Cherry, Ark- ansas; Dr. J. B. is a practicing physician at Cerro Gordo, Arkansas; W. L. is a lawyer at Stillwell, Oklahoma; Elmer is postmaster at Westville, Oklahoma; Mrs. W. M. Davis is wife of a wholesale grocer at Burley, Idaho;

S. a. Maxwell.

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R. H. lives at Wewoka and is a member of the State Senate and seat mate with Wilson Chase.

Senator Wilson Chase was married in 1897 at Evening Shade, Arkansas, to Iola Price, daughter of William Hampton Price. They are the parents of seven children: Mary Dyer, aged seventeen; Pauline, aged fifteen; Price, aged thirteen; Ruth, aged ten; Wilson A., Jr., aged eight; Dean Atwood, aged five; and Katherine, aged three. Senator Chase is a past grand in the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, also a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Oklahoma State Bar Association.

THOMAS E. GRAHAM. Self-acquired independence, liberal ideas, ambitions expressed in promoting farming aud stockraising and simplicity in living, as well as unquestioned public and private integrity constitute the fundamentals upon which rest the enviable reputation of Thomas E. Graham, one of the prosperous and high- ly esteemed agriculturists of Wood County. Although now in his seventieth year, Mr. Graham continues to be engaged actively in the operation of his well-cultivated farm, located eight miles from Alva, on which he has resided since 1900.

Mr. Graham was born September 21, 1845, on a farm in Cass County, Missouri, and is a son of Aquilla and Mary (Wheeler) Graham. His father, born in 1820 in Cass County, passed his entire life in that part of Missouri, where he was known as an industrious and intelligent farmer, acquiring a modest competence and rearing his children to lives of honesty and integrity. He died in 1858, when still in the prime of life. In 1841 he married Mary Wheeler, who was born in 1823, a daughter of John Wheeler, a native of Knox County, Tennessee, and she died in 1907. They were the parents of two daughters and seven sons, as follows: Jane, John, Thomas E., Jacob, Hiram, Mary, Columbus, James and Andrew.

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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