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 60

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 60

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In connection with governmental affairs in Oklahoma Mr. Beard served as chief enrolling clerk of the first Territorial Legislature, and later he served withi charac- teristic efficiency as a member of the board of regents of the Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical College, at Stillwater, during the administration of Governor Fergu- son. His political allegiance is given unreservedly to the republican party and he has been influential in its councils in Oklahoma.

In 1910 Mr. Beard removed from Shawnce to Sapulpa, the judicial center of Creek County, where he engaged in the real-estate and abstract business, with which lines of enterprise he is still actively aud prominently identified. In 1910 he erected, on South Main Street, the Beard Building, aud he has been otherwise prominent in the physical development and upbuilding of the city. He was one of the promoters of the St. Louis, Oklahoma & Southern Railroad, and in this important enterprise he was associated with George Brown and Pleasant P. Porter, of the Creek Indian Nation; John C. William- son, of St. Louis, Missouri; and William H. P. Trudgen, of Oklahoma City. A charter for the road was obtained from the United States Congress, but this charter ex- pired before construction work on the new line had been initiated. Under these conditions Mr. Beard went to the national capital and obtained a renewal of the charter, after which he and his associates interested the Mississippi Valley Trust Company, of St. Louis, in the furtherance of the project, with the result that con- struction work was instituted and the road pushed for- ward from Sapulpa to Denison, Texas, the line being now a part of the Frisco Railroad system. Mr. Beard was a director of the company until the line was completed between Sapulpa and Denison, Texas. The earnest and untiring efforts that Mr. Beard put forth in connection with railroad promotion and construction have proved of vast and enduring value to Oklahoma, and his suc- cess in bringing the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Gulf, now a part of the Rock Island system, through Shawnee vir- tually made that city eventually assume its present posi- tion of importance, as one of the leading municipalities and commercial centers of the state. Mr. Beard devoted five years of his time and energy to bringing about these railroad improvements, and the state will owe to him perpetual honor and gratitude for his effective services in this and other important capacities that have marked him as a man of great initiative and uubounded civic loyalty.

At the present time Mr. Beard is prominently in- terested in three important oil developing and producing companies in Oklahoma fields, besides which he is a

WWW. allison

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

stockholder in a company engaged in the drilling of oil wells and is president of the National Abstract Com- pany, at Sapulpa. He is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Ancient Order of United Workmen and Knights of Pythias.

On the 9th of November, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Beard to Miss Etta B. Ray, a daughter of Philip H. Ray, at that time a resident of Oklahoma City. No children have been born of this union. Mr. and Mrs. Beard donated to the City of Shawnee the beautiful park now known as Woodland Park, and the valuation of the property is now placed at about $100,000, the name having been given to the park by Mr. Beard. He erected the first house in Shawnee, and this was a true pioneer structure of hewed logs. Mr. Beard pro- moted and instituted the development of many towns along the Red River division of the Frisco Railroad, in- cluding the now flourishing little City of Henryetta, Okmulgee County, the name of the town being a com- bination of the Christian or personal names of himself and his wife. To secure the land on which the Town of Ada, Pontotoc County, is situated, Mr. Beard agreed to name the new town in honor of a daughter of one of the old and honored citizens of that locality. In the same county he purchased and platted the Town of Roff, which he named in honor of Joseph Roff, a sterling pioneer citizen. He assisted also in the establishing of other towns along the railroad line mentioned, and in Shawnee he erected a number of business blocks and dwelling houses of the better grade.

Mrs. Beard is an artist of much talent and has re- ceived a number of first prizes for her work displayed at various art exhibits. She has her beautiful home adorned with many fine oil paintings that attest her skill, and one of these is a depicture of the first house built at Shawnee, by her husband, as previously noted. She has been a gracious and popular factor in the social life of the communities in which she has lived, and has been zealous in the promotion of those things that repre- sent the higher and finer civic ideals.

WILLIAM M. ALLISON. The mere mention of this name is all that is necessary for an introduction of its owner to the majority of the original Oklahomans, those who came into the territory in 1889. William M. Allison is a real Oklahoma eighty-niner, and left his impress upon many of the early activities of a public nature in the old territory, particularly as one of the republican leaders of those days, and he has been up to 1914 hardly less well known in the republican circles of the state. Mr. Alli- son is a printer and newspaper man by profession, and is now editor and proprietor of the Signal-Star at Snyder. He is a veteran at the trade, having served his appren- ticeship back in Indiana upwards of fifty years ago, when most of the modern facilities of this trade were un- dreamed of possibilities. He has done yeoman service at the case, and even in handling the old style of hand power press. During his active career he has seen all sorts and conditions of men and has mingled with their varied activities, and is altogether one of the most inter- esting personalities in his section of the state.

His birth occurred on a farm in Hancock County, Indiana, February 12, 1849, and he comes of old Ameri- can stock, the Allisons having been transplanted from the north of Ireland to Pennsylvania during the Colonial days. One of his ancestors was Stephen Crane, who served with the rank of lieutenant in the Revolutionary army. His father, Robert Allison, was born at Ripley, Ohio, in 1821, and was killed at a railroad crossing in Snyder, Oklahoma, in April, 1905, at the venerable age of eighty-four. From his birthplace in Ohio he removed

when a young man to Rush County, Indiana, later to Hancock County, and in 1853 established his home at Knightstown, Indiana; in 1876 came west to Winfield, Kansas, and in 1892 ventured into the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma as a settler at Chandler, and in 1903 came to Snyder. In his younger years he was a cabinet maker by trade, but spent mature life as a trader and speculator. He made a record as a soldier of the Union during the dark days of the Civil war, having enlisted in Company B of the Sixth Regiment of Indiana Infantry, of which company he served as first lieutenant. Afterward he entered the three years' service with the rank of captain of Company A in the Fifty- seventh Indiana Regiment." He was an active republican, was a Knights Templar Mason, and a member of the Presbyterian Church. Captain Allison was married at Dartown, Ohio, to Miss Elizabeth Howard, who was born in Kentucky in 1825 and died at Kokomo, Indiana, in 1850.

The only one of their children who reached maturity William M. Allison finished his education with a high school training at Knightstown, Indiana. His appren- ticeship in the printing trade began when he was nine- teen years of age, also at Knightstown, and after getting considerable knowledge of the business worked for one year on the Richmond Radical at Richmond, Indiana. The fall of 1871 found him in Kansas, and he was en- gaged in his profession at various locations until the opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement in 1889. On the historic opening day in April of that year he arrived at Guthrie on the first train from the North, and was soon afterwards appointed United States com- missioner and held that office until the organization of the territory was completed. In 1891 he was sent to Lincoln County as the first county judge of that newly organized subdivision of the territory and lived at Chandler until his removal to Snyder in May, 1903. On coming to Snyder Judge Allison bought the Signal and soon afterwards bought the Star, and the two were con- solidated in September, 1903. The Star had been estab- lished in December, 1902, and the Signal in March, 1903. The consolidated paper is now one of the leading journals in Kiowa County, has a large circulation throughout that and surrounding counties, and has always steadily advocated the success of the republican policies and party. Mr. Allison owns the office and the building in which it is situated on Broadway just off Main Street, and he is now giving practically all his time to its suc- cessful management.

Of his public service it should be mentioned that he served four years as postmaster at Snyder having been appointed to that office by President Taft. Mr. Allison was one of the original republicans of the original Okla- homa Territory. He presided over the first republican meeting held in Oklahoma and was president of the first republican club ever organized in the territory, known as the Old Pioneer Republican Club of Guthrie. This club was organized in Mr. Allison's office, and he was elected president pro tem and then president. Its in- fluence was a prominent factor in welding the inco- herent republican forces in early territorial time, and was often the deciding factor in local politics. Mr. Alli- son was steadily known as a prominent republican figure in both county and state conventions up to 1914. He presided over the first republican convention held in Lincoln County, and has known practically all the promi- nent republicans of Oklahoma during the past twenty- five years.

Outside of the newspaper business and politics he has probably given most attention to his work in the Masonic Order. He is a past master by service of Snyder Lodge

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No. 216, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of Consistory No. 1, Valley of Guthrie, of the thirty-second degree Scottishi Rite, and also belongs to the K. C. C. H., which is half way on the progress to the supreme honor of being a thirty-third degree Mason. He is also a member of India Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City and was formerly affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the Episcopal Church and has long been an active figure in the Oklahoma State Press Association.

In 1875 at Winfield, Kansas, Judge Allison married for his first wife Miss Annie Braidwood, who died in 1892. The two living children of this marriage are: W. O. Allison, who is a graduate of Carver's Chiropractic College at Oklahoma City and is now practicing his pro- fession at Waggoner, Oklahoma; Annie is the wife of Alex G. Willingham, manager of the Massie-Williams Grocery Company at Snyder. In 1906 at Vandalia, Illi- nois, Mr. Allison married Mrs. Harriet (Kidd) Beach, widow of the late Dr. R. E. Beach of Vandalia and a daughter of a Presbyterian minister of Illinois.

...

JOHN H. PITCHFORD. With the organization of the state courts following the introduction of Oklahoma into the union of states in 1907, the First Judicial Dis- trict was formed to include that portion of the old Cherokee Nation in which the former national capital, Tahlequah, is situated. The first man to be honored with election to judge of that district is still holding court, and there is no district judge in the state who has better stood the test of service, has more signally upheld the dignity of the judicial office, and is more gen- erally respected and admired than Judge John H. Pitchford.

He comes of fine old Southern stock, and as a lawyer has been identified with the bar at Tahlequah nearly twenty years. Judge Pitchford was born at Walhalla in South Carolina March 8, 1857, a son of Wesley and Margaret (Nevill) Pitchford. His father was a native of Georgia, a son Ely Pitchford, a Virginian of Irish lineage. Judge Pitchford's mother was also of Irish origin, and was born in South Carolina.

He was reared in his native town in South Carolina, where his father was a merchant, and after completing his literary education in the Newberry College he took up the study of law in a private law office. He was admitted to the bar the day he was twenty-one years of age, and began practice at Clayton, Georgia, and was subsequently in practice at Gainesville in the same state. He was soon marked as a rising attorney and enjoyed a promising practice in Georgia, but in 1890 removed west to a larger field, and at Fort Smith, Arkansas, formed a partnership with Col. Ben T. Du Val.

Judge Pitchford's home has been at Tahlequah, the old capital of the Cherokee Nation, since 1896. In a short time he had gained a remunerative practice as a lawyer and almost as quickly became a leader in public affairs. His popularity as a citizen led to his election in 1900 as mayor of Tahlequah. That was a special distinction, since he was the first white man to hold that office in the Indian city. One of the factors in securing his election was a desire on the part of local citizens to show the outside world that Tahle- quah, as the Cherokee capital, was not prejudiced against its white inhabitants. Apart from that consideration, it is noteworthy that Judge Pitchford set such high marks during his one year of administration as mayor that his term inaugurated a new era in the annals of Tahlequah as a municipality.

His able work as a lawyer and public leader led to

his election as the first judge of the First Judicial District in 1907, and he was re-elected to the office in 1910, again in 1914, so that his present term does not expire until January, 1919. The First Judicial Dis- trict comprises the counties of Cherokee, Adair, Dela- ware and Sequoyah. His administration of the judicial office has been just and fearless, marked by an eminent impartiality, and his oral and written decisions indi- cate a profound knowledge of the law. In dealing with criminals before his court Judge Pitchford has combined with a strictness of legal justice a disposition to temper the severity of punishment, and has never failed to take into full consideration all extenuating cir- cumstances and his principle seems to liave been "hu- manity first" so far as that is possible without con- troverting real justice and the statutory law.

In 1910 Judge Pitchford was appointed to preside over the District Court in Wagoner County. There he found the custom prevailing of negroes serving as jurors. Judge Pitchford has no special animosity against the colored race, but believes that the best results of court procedure in an American community cannot be obtained where members of this race are a conspicuous feature of the court machinery, and looking to a realization of the utmost efficiency, and without regard for the poli- tics in the case, Judge Pitchford under statutory right dismissed all the negro jurors in the District Court of Wagoner County while he presided over it.

In politics Judge Pitchford has always been a stanch member of the democratic party, and was one of the organizers of the party in Indian Territory, and for fully twenty years has been active in its councils and has frequently served effectually as a campaign orator. He worked untiringly during the struggle for statehood and has for many years been one of the dominant political figures in his part of the state. One of the articles of his political creed is that in all the states and localities the white man should be the responsible and dominating factor in government, and in that stand he has the support of the best citizens of his district.

Judge Pitchford is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with the lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of Masonry, and is a Methodist. He was first married to Lola Bauknight. The two children of that union are Joseph Irvin Pitchford, a lawyer at Sallisaw, Oklahoma, and Henry DuVal Pitchford, now engaged in practice as a lawyer at Stilwell, Oklahoma. Judge Pitchford's present wife before her marriage was Miss Viola Boggess.

HENRY A. LILE, M. D. The medical profession is one which offers a wide field for the ambitious men of today, affording unusual opportunities for individual ability and intellectual gifts, and an Oklahoman who has already gained more than a local reputation especially as a surgeon is Dr. Henry A. Lile, for many years in practice at Aline, where he founded and is proprietor of the Lile's Hospital at Aline. Through his zeal, compre- hensive knowledge and inherent talent, Doctor Lile has won the confidence of the residents of his section and has a large and representative practice.

It is his distinction to have come into the world in one of the typical Kansas residences of forty years ago, a dugout in Barton County, where he was born May 6, 1874, the first white male child born in that county. His parents were George and Mary Jane (Ferryman) Lile. His father was born in 1844 at Richmond, Illinois, his parents being natives of the same locality, became a farmer, and in 1871 removed to Kansas, locating as one of the first permanent settlers on a Government home- stead in Barton County. For several years he and his

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family lived in a dugout, and while carrying on his operations as a pioneer farmer, he also hunted and killed the Buffalo which were still to be found in great num- bers on the plains of Kansas. He was struck by light- ning and killed on his farm near Great Bend in the same year that his son Doctor Lile was born. The mother of Doctor Lile, who married George Lile in 1869, was born at Richmond, Illinois, in 1849, and by her first marriage had two children, the daughter being Lena. 'She was born May 20, 1872, was educated at the Univer- sity of Kansas in Lawrence, where she graduated in music, and for a number of years was a teacher in her native state until her marriage in 1897 to George Steele of Spearville, Kansas, where they now reside, and have two children, Opal and Lile. Doctor Lile's mother was married in 1877 to N. P. Smith, who was also a pio- neer of Barton County, settling there in 1869, and is now a resident at Pawnee Rock. By this marriage there are four children : Edwin G., Garfield, Blaine and Earl Smith.

Barton County was still a new section of Kansas while Doctor Lile was growing to manhood. His early associa- tions were those of a farm, and in 1893, at the age of nineteen, he graduated from the high school at Pawnee Rock. He then attended the Central Normal at Great Bend, and in 1896 entered the Barnes Medical College at St. Louis, where he was graduated M. D. in 1899. Returning to his home town at Pawnee Rock, he prac- ticed there a short time, but during the same year removed to Oklahoma, locating for a time at the now extinct Village of Carwille, and in 1901 removed to Aline, which has been his home for the past fifteen years. He possessed not only ability, but energy and a high degree of faithfulness in looking after his duties as a physician and surgeon, and soon had more than he could individually attend to. To gain facilities commensurate with the requirements of his large private practice he erected in 1907 a modern hospital at Aline, and in 1915 remodeled it on a larger plan and has now a large brick building, well arranged and furnished and with all the necessary equipment and system for modern hospital work. He now confines his practice to surgery, diagnosis and hospital work, and has performed a number of deli- cate and major operations. One that attracted especial attention was performed in 1915 at the Aline Hospital · when he removed from one of his patients a tumor weigh- ing 109 pounds.

Doctor Lile has interrupted his private practice a number of times for the purpose of pursuing post- graduate studies. At different times he has attended the National University of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis, the Illinois Post-Graduate School of Medicine in Chicago, the Barnes University at St. Louis, and the Tulane University at New Orleans. He is now serving as consulting surgeon for the Alfalfa County Hospital at Cherokee.

Doctor Lile was first married in 1899 to Alta French. In 1901 he married Etta M. Miller, who died in 1901. On March 22, 1902, he married Laura M. Huston, who was born in Illinois in 1885. Doctor Lile is a thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and is worshipful master of Orient Lodge No. 190, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Aline. He stands high in medical organizations, has served as president and secretary of the Alfalfa County Medical Society, is a member of the Oklahoma State Society and the American Medical Association, and during territorial days was coroner for Woods County eight years, beginning in 1900, and was the only man ever elected to any office in that county for a longer period than two successive terms. Vol. IV-14

ARTHUR E. BALDWIN. Fifteen years of residence at Anadarko constitute Arthur E. Baldwin, one of the pioneer white settlers, and for a number of years he has been profitably engaged in the real estate business and is also a banker. As a citizen he has likewise been an important factor in developing the local interests of this city.

The Baldwin family to which he belongs came orig- inally from England and was settled in New York dur- ing the colonial era. Arthur E. Baldwin was born at Wyoming, Iowa, December 31, 1871. His father, L. H. Baldwin, was born at Canton, Ohio, in 1834, and removed from Ohio to Wyoming, Iowa, where he was a farmer, and in 1872 when Arthur was one year of age, went to a farm at St. Edward, Nebraska, and became a pioneer in that region. In 1903 he went still further west to Salem, Oregon, was engaged in gardening there until his death in February, 1915. In politics he was a republican. L. H. Baldwin married Jemima L. Fisher, who was born in the State of Pennsylvania in 1836 and now lives at Anadarko, Oklahoma. His only daughter, Myrtie, died at Genoa, Nebraska, at the age of twenty-two, being then the wife of Andrew J. Tabor, who was in the Indian service for the government at Seneca, Kansas, and later at Genoa, Nebraska, and is now deceased.

The only living child of his parents, Arthur E. Bald- win, acquired his early education from the common schools at Fremont, Nebraska, and also attended a busi- ness college there. His life up to the age of twelve was spent on his father's farm and at that early date in his career he became self supporting. For many years he was in the railway service and was employed in that capacity with various promotions and responsibility in the State of Nebraska for twelve years. From 1895 to 1900 he was ticket agent at Sioux City, Iowa, and came to Anadarko, Oklahoma, in 1900 as a railroad man, being employed here as agent for one year. From 1901 for a year and a half he was collecting clerk for the First National Bank of Anadarko and then opened his office as a dealer in real estate and farm loans. His offices are in the First National Bank Building and he is one of the old and reliable men in the handling of farm lands and loans in Caddo County and also deals extensively in city property at Anadarko. He is also vice president of the Stecker State Bank at Stecker, Oklahoma.

In civic affairs he has the distinction of having been the first treasurer of the public school board of Anadarko, and for several years was a member of that board. He is active in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, is superintendent of its Sunday School, is a member of the Anadarko Commercial Club, was formerly affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and in politics is a republican.

At Blair, Nebraska, on June 7, 1897, Mr. Baldwin married Miss May Hancock, daughter of B. F. Han- cock, who is a farmer at Hooper, Nebraska. Into their home have been born seven children: Myrtie and Bernice, both of whom graduated from the Anadarko High School in 1915; Kenneth, a junior in the local high school; Bertram, in the seventh grade; Bettie, in the fifth grade; and Margaret, in the first grade of the public schools; while the youngest is Donald, who has not yet attended school.

HON. S. J. SMITH. The present mayor of Sapulpa under the commission charter came to Oklahoma about the time of statehood, and has been one of the real leaders in politics in Creek County ever since. Mr. Smith is a business man, having had a wide range of experience both in Oklahoma and in his native State of Pennsyl- vania, where he was also actively identified with politics and was known among the political leaders of the Key-

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stone State, both in respect to his individual qualifica- tions and as the leader of a strong independent faction.

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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