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 54
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On the 18th of June, 1901, was solemnized the mar- riage of Doctor Brown to Miss Irma E. Taber, who was born and reared in the State of New York, and who is a popular figure in the social life of Tulsa. They have no children.
LYNN G. WHITE. As editor and publisher of the Alva Daily and Weekly Review, in the fine little city that is the judicial center of Woods County, Mr. White has shown the technical and executive ability, the progressive policies and the civic loyalty that have not only made him distinctively successful in his chosen field of enter- prise but have also given him secure vantage-ground as one of the representative newspaper meu of Oklahoma- a prestige which, with his incidental influence, makes him specially eligible for recognition in this history of
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the state of his adoption, the consistency being further conserved by reason of his prominence as an exponent of the principles and policies of the republican party and his influence as one of its loyal representatives in Oklahoma.
Mr. White was born on a farm in Oneida County, New York, on the 11th of August, 1873, and is a son of Duane D. and Jennie M. (Mattison) White, both like- wise natives of the old Empire State, where the former was born April 6, 1844, and the latter April 13, 1843, their respective parents likewise having been born in the State of New York, where the families were founded in an carly day. Duaue D. White devoted his entire active career to the great and fundamental industry of agriculture, and in 1879 he removed with his family to Harper County, Kansas, where he obtained a tract of Government land, in what is now Attica Township. He assisted in the organization of the county and both he and his wife endured the full tension of the streuuous pioneer life in the Sunflower State, with the incidental privations and hardships entailed by crop failures due to drouths and the ravages of grasshoppers. He event- ually reclaimed one of the fine farms of Harper County and became one of the substantial and influential citizens of that section of Kansas. In 1911 he released himself from the arduous labors and heavy responsibilities that had long attended him and since that year he has lived in gracious retirement at Alva, Oklahoma, in the enjoy- ment of the well earned rewards of former years of earnest and worthy endeavor. As a young man he wedded Miss Jennie M. Mattison, and she proved his devoted companion and helpmeet until she was called to the life eternal, her death having occurred on the 18th of September, 1902, at the old home in Harper County, Kansas. She was an earnest and active member of the Presbyterian Church and held the affectionate regard of all who came within the circle of her gentle and gracious influence. The subject of this review is her only child. In 1905 Duane D. White wedded Miss Lillian Douglas, who likewise is a native of the State of New York, and they have a pleasant home in the City of Alva, where they have resided since 1911, as previously intimated.
Lynn G. White was a lad of about six years at the time of the family removal to Kansas, and there he was reared to adult age under the conditions and influences of the pioneer farm, the while he made good use of the advantages afforded in the public schools of Harper County and those of the high school at Wellington, Sumner County, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1891. For seven years thereafter he con- tinued his effective services as a popular teacher in the public schools of Harper and Barber counties, and he retained his residence in the Sunflower State until 1904, when he established his home at Alva, Woods County, Oklahoma Territory. Here he purchased the plant and business of the weekly republican paper known as the Alva Review, and in 1908 he absorbed the Alva Courier and coutinued the publication of the combined papers under the title of the Alva Review-Courier. In 1911 he gave further evidence of his success and progressiveness by assuming control also of the Alva Daily News, and the year 1914 found him similarly taking over the Morn- ing Times. The publication of the Daily Review has been continued by him since 1914 and his success has indicated not only the working out of the rule of the "survival of the fittest" but has also proved him a man of much initiative and resourcefulness in business and a strong force in the domain of practical journalism. It is needless to say that both the daily and weekly editions of the Review have excellent circulation and receive a sub- stantial advertising support, the while it should not be
forgotten that both are made effective exponents of the cause of the republican party, to which Mr. White him- self pays unequivocal allegiance, his paper being the official organ of Woods County and of the City of Alva. In a reminiscent way it may be noted that in the years 1880-81, when he was a mere boy, Mr. White came over from Kansas into the Indian Territory and employed himself in the collecting of buffalo bones, which found ready demand for commercial purposes, and that inciden- tally he traversed in this enterprise the ground on which is now situated the enterprising and vital little city in which he maintains his home.
Mr. White has been actively identified with the affairs of the republican party in Oklahoma, has been a frequent delegate to its territorial and state conventions, and has served as chairman of the county committee of his party in Woods County as well as chairman of the republican committee for his congressional district. In a fraternal way he is identified with Alva Lodge, No. 84, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and as a loyal and public spirited citizen his co-operation and that of his paper are ever to be counted upon in the furtherance of movements for the general good of the community and of the state in whose great future he is a firm believer.
At Attica, Kansas, on the 10th of February, 1894, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. White to Miss Josephine Warren, who was born in Greene County, Missouri, on the 10th of May, 1875, a daughter of James H. Warren, who likewise was born in Missouri and who became a pioneer settler in Harper County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. White have one child, Duane Kidder, who was born at Attica, Kansas, on the 25th of December, 1894.
WILLIAM HENRY WALKER. A veteran newspaper man, with forty years of active experience comprising all the details of the newspaper profession, ranging from office boy and typesetter to editor and manager, William Henry Walker spent the first fourteen years of his pro- fessional career in Missouri, but for the past quarter of a century has been located at Purcell, where he is now secretary of the Register Company and editor of the Purcell Register.
Of old Southern stock, the Walkers having beeu a mingling of Scotch, Welsh and Irish lines, and emigrating from Wales to North Carolina in colonial days, William Henry Walker was born at Yanceyville, North Carolina, March 25, 1854. His father, Wyatt Walker, who was born in North Carolina in 1811 was reared in that state and married there Miss Permelia Gilchrist. She was born in North Carolina, in 1818 and died at Windsor, Missouri, in 1881. Wyatt Walker was a wagon maker by trade, but for many years effectively preached the Gospel under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1859 he moved his family to Whitmell, Vir- ginia, and in 1869 moved to Windsor, Missouri, where he died in 1885. He was a democrat and an active mem- ber of the Masonic Fraternity. He and his wife had the following children: Mary, deceased; Newton, deceased; Fannie, who lived at Slater, Missouri, the widow of Sylvester Calvert, who was a farmer; Theodore, deceased; Ellen, a dressmaker at Windsor; Reginald, deceased; Nannie, who is with her sister Ellen at Windsor; Alice, who died in 1911 near Windsor, as the wife of W. A. Garrett, a farmer near Windsor; and William H.
The youngest in this large family of children, William H. Walker had a fairly comfortable home in his youth, but early assumed the responsibilities of his own self- support and advancement. The first schools he attended were in Whitmell, Virginia, and he continued his educa- tion at Windsor, Missouri, until the age of sixteen. His
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first regular employment was in a tinshop at Windsor, where he remained several years. In 1876 he started the Windsor Review, and was associated with the destinies of that Missouri paper until 1890.
In 1890, just a year after the original opening of Oklahoma Territory, Mr. Walker identified himself with the town of Purcell, Indian Territory. After nine months as an employe with the Purcell Topic, he bought an interest in the Purcell Register and for fully a quarter of a century has been its editor. The Register was established in 1887, and it is now owned by a stock company of which R. H. Parham is president, with Mr. Walker as secretary. What the Register has accom- plished in the way of influence and general business suc- cess is largely due to Mr. Walker's experience and energetic management. He is personally familiar with all phases of Southern Oklahoma's life and development, knows all the big men of the state, in politics or business, and has made the Register a forceful factor in com- munity life. It is a democratic paper and has a large circulation in Cleveland, McClain and surrounding counties. The offices of the plant are situated on Canadian street at the corner of Main street in the Crawford Building.
Mr. Walker is himself a democrat and served several years as a member of the city council at Purcell. He is a vestryman in the Episcopal Church. He is past chancellor commander of Purcell Lodge No. 108, Knights of Pythias, and also past grand chancellor of the state, and is a member of Purcell Lodge No. 1260, Benevolent . and Protective Order of Elks. He formerly belonged to the Oklahoma Press Association.
In 1883 at Windsor, Missouri, Mr. Walker married Miss Lelia D. Smith, whose father, the late Dr. B. F. Smith, was for many years a physician aud surgeon at Windsor. To their marriage were born three children: Frank, who is now a pressman at the Agricultural and Mechanical College in Stillwater; Bonnie, who is un- married and is employed in an abstract office, making her home with her parents; Oscar, who died in 1910 at Pur- cell at the age of twenty-two.
WILLIAM RIBBLE. One of the strongest and most force- ful figures in the business life of Oklahoma City, William Ribble is now engaged in a project which, if successful, as it shows every indication of being, will contribute more to the advancement of the city's interests than any single accomplishment in the municipality's history. As an ex-president of the Oklahoma Mutual Oil and Gas Company, Mr. Ribble is at the head of a venture the very difficulties of which would defeat a man of less cour- ageous character, but during a long life of determined struggles and well-earned successes he has gained an irre- sistible reliance in his own judgment, and his dominant, confidence-inspiring personality has led other men to be- lieve as he does.
Mr. Ribble was born in the City of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, in 1868, and is a son of John R. and Mary J. (McDonough) Ribble. His father, who spent the greater part of his life in Philadelphia, enlisted in Company D, Twenty-eighth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infan- try, at the outbreak of the Civil war, and fought through- out that struggle, a service of four years. The public schools of Philadelphia furnished William Ribble with his education, following which he served an apprentice- ship to the bookbinding trade, which, however, he did not follow. He was twenty-one years of age when he em- barked upon a career of his own, going to the City of New York, where he engaged in selling stove polish. In this line he met with some measure of success, and soon returned to Philadelphia with a small capital, which he proceeded to invest in the coal business. His marked
business talents found a field for expansion in this line and for twenty-one years he continued to deal in coal, accumulating a comfortable fortune. In the meantime he had become interested in the real estate business, first in a modest manner, and later as one of the large dealers of Philadelphia, where he erected forty-four brick homes, in addition to other structures.
Mr. Ribble left Philadelphia in 1910 and came to Oklahoma City, where he at once became a recognized figure in the realty field. His operations have since expanded in scope and importance, and he still continues to transact a large volume of business annually. He developed and sold the Ribble Addition to Oklahoma City, is the owner of the Oklahoma News Building, a beautiful residence at Twelfth and Dewey streets, and various other valuable properties in the city and county. In 1912, during the development of the Cushing oil fields in Oklahoma, Mr. Ribble visited the property and not. only became thoroughly familiar with the oil and gas industry, but decided it was possible to bring in oil wells in Oklahoma City, and accordingly, in January, 1913, or- ganized the Oklahoma Mutual Oil and Gas Company, of which he has since been president. He at once began development work eight miles northeast of Oklahoma City, where he leased 2,500 acres of land, and proceeded in his drilling operations. In spite of handicaps and · discouragements of the most disheartening kind, the com- pany has kept steadily onward in its work, and at this time has a well 2,600 feet deep. Since the beginning of operations, it has been Mr. Ribble's wise management, foresight and acumen which have carried the work evenly along, and which have encouraged his associates to look to him for leadership and advice. He is now president of the Universal Oil and Gas Development Company, and many other oil interests in Oklahoma and Texas. Mr. Ribble maintains offices at 5081/2 Ribble Building, which building he erected in 1910 and which he owns. He is a member of the Junior Order United American Mechanics, the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Sons of Veterans.
In 1902 Mr. Ribble was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Ozella Bly, daughter of Mason Bly, of Shenan- doah Valley, Virginia, and she died in 1907, leaving one son, Jack Mason. Mr. Ribble was married a second time, in 1912, when Miss Belle Jackson, daughter of Mrs. Anna Belle Jackson, of Pennsylvania, became his wife. They have had one son, Billy Jackson. They are well known in social circles of Oklahoma City, and have hosts of friends.
WILLIAM WATIE WHEELER. Each successive year now is witnessing the removal of some of the historic charac- ters who were most prominently identified with the older Indian Territory and with those movements and activities which crystallized in the new State of Oklahoma. A recent death which attracted wide attention over the state was that of William Watie Wheeler, who died at his home in Sallisaw, February 15, 1915. His own ex- periences and work gave him a notable place in the old Cherokee Nation, and through his family he was related with some of the most prominent men of the early days.
He was not yet seventy years of age when death called him. He was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, December 14, 1847, a son of John F. and Nancy ( Watie) Wheeler. John F. Wheeler, who was a son of white parents, spent his early life in Georgia and was there before the Chero- kee Indians were removed to the west of the Mississippi. He married a Cherokee woman, Nancy Watie, daughter of David Watie, a full blood Cherokee. The brother of Mrs. John F. Wheeler was the celebrated General Stand (or Isaac) Watie, whose name will always be given prominence in the annals of Indian Territory during
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the Civil war. From New Echota, Georgia, John F. Wheeler and wite moved with other Cherokees to the Indian Territory in 1831. John F. Wheeler is credited with having been partly instrumental in providing the Cherokees with a written language. While the chief honor is given to Sequoyah, it was John F. Wheeler who supervised the casting of the type in Cincinnati in 1827, and he printed the first Cherokee document ever run off a press. He did printing for the Presbyterian ministry both in Georgia and in Indian Territory. After his re- moval to Indian Territory his home was at Park Hill, near the site of the old Indian Mission, and one of the early landmarks of Cherokee history. In consequence of the factional warfare among the Cherokees which con- tinued for a number of years after their settlement in Indian Territory, he left the nation and made his home in Fort Smith. He took his printing outfit to Fort Smith, and used it both for printing in the Cherokee language for the benefit of the missionaries and also for a secular English newspaper. He established at Fort Smith the first newspaper west of Little Rock, known as the Herald. He was proprietor of this paper until the close of the Civil war, and in 1868 he established the Wheeler's Independent. He was likewise prominent in public affairs at Fort Smith. He was elected county judge of Sebastian County, served as a member of both the lower and upper houses of the Arkansas Legislature, . and during and after the war he was one of the leading democrats of this part of the state, though previously he had been a whig. Though self-educated, he possessed many excellent attainments of mind and character and was one of the leaders of his time. He was active in church affairs, and was both a Mason and Odd Fellow. John F. Wheeler, who was born near Frankfort, Ken- tucky, died at Fort Smith in 1880 at the age of seventy- two. His children, who were half-blood Cherokees, were: Theodore, who was killed near Pike's Peak in 1854 while going to California; Susan, who was brought from Geor- gia to Indian Territory as an infant, spent her life in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and married W. W. Perry; Mary A. died in 1863 as Mrs. E. B. Bright; Harriet married Argyle Quesenbury a native of Fort Smith, Arkansas and now lives in Sallisaw; Sarah P. married Clarence Ash- brook of Memphis, Tennessee, who is deceased, and later she married Captain Nelms, and lived at Vinita; John died in 1880 after his marriage to Lulu G. Sanders; Wil- liam Watie was next in order of birth; and Nancy died unmarried in 1863.
· While the life of William Watie Wheeler was not of unusual length, it was one of unusual experience and variety of activity. As a boy he lived in Fort Smith, attended the public schools of that city, and gained a practical education in his father's printing house. He was less than fourteen years of age when the war broke out, and not long afterward his ardent patriot- ism led him to enlist with the Arkansas troops, and with Price's army he took part in the campaigns around Little Rock and in Louisiana. Subsequently his for- tunes attached him to his uncle's, Gen. Stand Watie, and he was with that noted chieftain through the latter part of the war. He fought at Jenkins Perry, Pleasant Hill and Mansfield, and came out of the war unscatched.
With all this experience he was still a boy when the war closed, and he soon afterward became connected with a drug house in Fort Smith, and from there moved to Indian Territory, not far distant from Fort Smith, and followed farming and trading among the Cherokees until 1880. In that year he became one of the pioneers of Sallisaw. He was there when the first railroad came, and thenceforward for thirty-five years was one of the progressive leaders in the development and upbuilding of the town. During the greater part of that time, for
fully thirty years, he operated on a successful and ex- tensive scale farming and stock raising. He was one of the pioneer fruit growers and developed one of the best orchards in Sequoyah County. When the Cherokee lands were allotted, his share was a handsome portion on the east side of Sallisaw, and altogether he owned about twelve hundred acres in one body, and had vari- ous other business relations with Sallisaw. He was a director in the Merchants National Bank of Sallisaw, was interested in the Wheeler Lumber Company, was head of the firm Wheeler & Sons, cotton buyers and ginners, and held stock in the Sallisaw Cotton Oil Mill. His public spirit was equal to his business capacity, and for nine years he was president of the Sallisaw Board of Education and served several terms on the Sallisaw town council. In his younger years he had at one time served as chief of police in Fort Smith. He was an active democrat, and altogether one of the best known and influential citizens of Eastern Oklahoma at the time of his death.
On November 5, 1868, he married Miss Emma C. Carnall who was born at Fort Smith in March, 1848, daughter of John Carnall, who came from Virginia. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler were: John Perry, who married Nancy Benge; Fannie M., who married T. F. Shackelford; Daisey E., who married Edgar T. Stevenson; Corrie F., who married Raleigh Kobel; William Watie, Jr., who married Jessie Meechem; Jessie V., who married W. D. Mayo; Car- nall, who in 1909 graduated from the Virginia Military Institute; and Theodore F., who completed his higher education in the University of Missouri.
WILLIAM H. MCKINNEY, A. B., A. M., B. D. This highly educated minister and farmer of Smithville is a fullblood Choctaw Indian, and has for thirty years been one of the strongest influences for the enlightenment, moral, social and industrial progress among the old Indian tribes of Oklahoma.
He is a conspicuous exception and thereby demonstrates the fallacy of a belief long held that no fullblood Indian ever could attain a standard of educational progress equal to that of his white brother. As may be well un- derstood, this in itself constitutes a highly valuable serv- ice, and has been much appreciated by his own tribe of the Choctaws. Rev. Mr. Mckinney has all the personal characteristics of his tribe, yet he holds three college degrees and is master of seven languages besides his own vernacular. The high ideals of intellectual attain- ment implanted have been preserved, although it is thirty years since he stepped from the door of Yale. Here too he has broken a rule long believed to have no exceptions that an Indian eventually loses his veneer of culture and returns to the habits and customs of his forefathers. William McKinney in these respects is one of the most remarkable old men of the Southwestern tribes.
Before him there were modest governors and modest chiets in the Mckinney family. Probably not one of them ever had a political ambition that was not funda- inentally philanthropic. The parents of Mr. Mckinney never were known by any other than their Indian names, though these names translated into English mean Wil- liam and Mary. Both his father and his brother Gover- nor Thompson Mckinney were captains in the Confed- erate army. Metinnubbee, his father, who once was chief of the Apuckshonnubbee District, which embraced seven counties of the Choctaw Nation, was inspired to the belief that his principal duty was to make better citizens of his people. Once or twice each year he visited each county and addressed the people on the subjects of right living, obedience to the law, development of indus- tries, respect for their neighbors, and the tenets of Chris-
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tianity. Ohoyoema, the mother of William McKinney, shared in the ambitious designs and practices of her hus- band. Fullblood though she was, she foresaw the pos- sibilities for service in the career of her son after the tribal days had passed and the reign of white man should be over the land once promised to the Indians as long as waters run and grass grows.
Ohoyoema was on her last bed of illness. William had spent three years in Spencer Academy, near Doaks- ville, and had come home. His father was dead and his mother lived alone in their little cabin near Smithville in a lovely and historie spot of the Kiamichi mountains. William was sixteen years old, and the joy of his mother's declining years. "My son," she said to him, "you must get an education. Without it you cannot accomplish what you should among our people. It was your father's ambition that you should be a great and a good man." William recalled the oft repeated assertion that an Indian was incapable of acquiring a high educa- tion. He was at the point of resolving to combat such belief. The suffering his mother's face disclosed forced back the resolution. "Don't mind me my son, "' she con- tinued. "Go today. Go to college and the Lord will make you what your father desired. I shall not be here long. Perhaps when you kiss mne goodby it will be the last goodbye. But I shall not grieve for I know you are becoming great and good." William MeKinney's kiss was the last his mother felt. She had passed beyond be- fore he came back.
He went to Salem, Virginia, and entered Roanoke Col- lege. Five years later in 1883 he received his degree Bachelor of Arts and was fourth honor student in a class of twenty-two, being the first fullblood Indian ever to complete the course in that school and probably in any other American school down to that time. Five years later he returned to Salem and received his Master of Arts degree. At the time his particular friend, N. B. Ainsworth, entered the University of Virginia to study law, W. H. Mckinney began to read law books, in con- nection with his regular college work, expecting to enter the same university to take a regular course in law, but, when he finished his course at Roanoke College, he spent several days debating over the question as to which profession he must take to do the greatest good to his own people and finally decided to go to the theological school. With the assistance of Doctor Dreher, the president of Roanoke College, he went to New Haven, Connecticut, and entered Yale Divinity School finishing his course in 1886 with the degree Bachelor of Divinity. The following year he entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church as a missionary among his people. He was a master of seven languages and no student in his divinity class was his peer in Greek and Latin. While he was a student in Spencer Academy he was under the tuition of J. C. Colton and Dr. J. J. Read, both of whom were among the early missionaries and teachers of the Choctaw Nation. He was a classmate of Dr. E. N. Wright, who in recent years has been one of the chief advisors of the Choctaws, and of Dr. Frank Wright, who has in recent years been a traveling evan- gelist in the Presbyterian Church. Both these men are sons of the Rev. Dr. Allen Wright. In accordance with the Choctaw regulations governing education which re- quired that some members of the faculties of the acad- emies should teach Latin and Greek, Mr. Mckinney dur- ing the early years of his ministry served as a member of the board of examiners appointed by the governor, and in that position passed upon the Latin, Greek and history qualifications of applicants for teachers' certifi- cates.
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