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 61

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 61

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Born in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, March 23, 1871, Mr. Smith is a son of Thomas and Rebecca (Campbell) Smith. His father was born in New York City, Novem- ber 25, 1840, and is still living in Indiana County, Penn- sylvania, as a retired farmer. The mother was born Angust 15, 1850. Mayor Smith was the second in a family of seven children, three sons and four daughters. His youth up to the age of sixteen was spent on the home farm with his parents, where he attended the country schools, and also took a two year course in the County Academy. His entrance upon a business career was preceded by six years of successful work as a teacher in Indiana County. For a time he conducted a general merchandise business at Glen Campbell in his native county and later was in the lumber and coal business at the same place. Almost from the time he cast his first vote he took an active interest in politics. He served on the school board and as president of the village council, and was a member of various political committees and a delegate to state conventions. He was an uninstructed delegate to the most exciting state convention ever held in Pennsylvania when the control of the republican party in that state was an object of contest between the late Matthew Stanley Quay and Dan Hastings, who was at that time governor. Quay won out by five votes, but Mr. Smith was a Hastings man. He also served two regular terms and an extra session in the Pennsylvania Legislature, from 1900 to 1906.

On November 7, 1907, a few days before Oklahoma became a state, Mr. Smith located in Sapulpa. · He estab- lished there a bakery and confectionery business and has also acquired some extensive interests in oil and gas, both as an individual and in connection with several operating companies.

Mr. Smith was a member of the second Oklahoma State Legislature, and is now serving his second term as mayor under the commission charter, having been elected on a nonpartisan ticket. By virtue of his position as mayor he is also police judge of the city. His work has been more than satisfactory to the local citizens, and it is largely on the element of personal efficiency that the success of the commission form of government is assured in any community.

Fraternally Mayor Smith is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. On November 10, 1900, he married Miss Della Richards, who was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of R. W. Richards. Mrs. Smith had a business and normal school course in Pennsylvania, is active in the Presbyterian Church, and since her marriage has been devoted to the interests of her home and her children. There are two children: John and Lillian.

GEORGE VICTOR BUCHANAN, whom that veteran Amer- ican educator, Professor Greenwood, for forty years su- perintendent of the Kansas City public schools, pro- nounced as one of the best superintendents in the school work of the United States, came to Oklahoma City in 1913 to take charge of the public schools as superintend- ent. Both the city and state are fortunate in securing a man of such reputation and ability, since in matters of education as in other things Oklahoma is still new and plastic, and the services of such a man as Mr. Buchanan will prove invaluable in laying the proper foundations and will be reflected in benefits for many years to come.

George V. Buchanan was born on a farm near Bell- mont in Wabash County, Illinois, in 1859, a son of Hiram Bell and Helen (Blood) Buchanan. His father was a

native of Illinois and a civil engineer by profession. He was connected with the construction work of the Illinois Central Railway on the Chicago branch, and on finally retiring from that service located on a farm in Wabash County, where he was engaged in agriculture until his death in 1863. The mother, left with the heroic task of rearing the five small children on the little farm, met the obligation nobly and lived to see all of them educated and independent and then passed away in May, 1913. The Buchanan family is of Scotch descent. The first American ancestor arrived in Pennsylvania early in the eighteenth century, and the family afterward moved to Virginia and from there to Kentucky. The great-grand- father of George V. Buchanan was a pioneer of Lawrence County, Illinois, while the grandfather, Walter Buchanan, was born and reared in Lawrence County, spent his life as a farmer, and died at the age of seventy years. Though he had but six weeks schooling, Walter Buchanan was a natural mathematician and never found a problem which he could not solve. Walter Buchanan married Jane Gil- lespie, a native of Ireland, and thus the family stock of Superintendent Buchanan is largely Scotch and Irish.

George V. Buchanan attended the country schools of his native county, the high school at Olney, Illinois, and in 1880 graduated from the Teachers College in Dan- ville, Indiana. At the age of eighteen, he began teaching in the country, and had three terms to his credit when he finished the course of the Teachers College. In 1880 he became principal of the Mount Carmel Grammar School in Illinois, served one year there, and then en- tered the State Normal University at Carbondale, where he was graduated in the classical course in 1884.

From 1884 to 1886 he was principal of the public schools of Salem, Illinois, and in 1886 was made pro- fessor of mathematics at the Southern Illinois State Normal University, a position he held for seven years until 1893. Within that time, in 1888, McKendree Col- lege at Lebanon, Illinois, gave him the degree of Master of Arts. From 1893 to 1908, a period of fifteen years, Mr. Buchanan was superintendent of the public schools of Sedalia, Missouri, and while there took post-graduate studies in the University of Chicago. It was his work as superintendent of the Sedalia public schools which brought him prominently to the attention of educators all over the country. While at Sedalia Mr. Buchanan was chosen by the Missouri World's Fair Commission to superintend the educational exhibit of the state in the St. Louis World's Fair. The commission placed $75,000 at his command and the exhibit abundantly justified their generosity. The liberal space allotted was filled with specimens of school work representing all classes of schools in the state. The arrangement of the exhibit was unique; an attendant could locate the work of any pupil in the state within a moment's time. Light and motion were attractive features of the exhibit. This was clearly the largest and most popular state edu- cational exhibit ever set up. Careful estimates made by those in charge indicate that more than ten million people visited this Missouri educational exhibit within the life of the exposition. In 1908 the City of Joplin, Missouri, secured Mr. Buchanan's services as superin- tendent of its city schools, and he remained there until 1913, when he took his present position as superintendent of the public schools of Oklahoma City.

During his twenty-two years of work as superintendent of city schools Mr. Buchanan has the unusual and perhaps unique record of never having a vote cast against him at any election or reelection by a member of the boards which employed him. In every case his election to a city superintendency has been unanimous. Since 1891 Mr. Buchanan has been a prominent member of the

Muchas

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National Education Association, is a member of its edu- cational council, had charge of one of the departments of the National Superintendents Association that met at Chattanooga, has served on various committees of the national bodies, and is now a member of the Committee of Superintendents of the National Council of Education, besides being active as a lecturer on educational matters before teachers' associations. He is also a charter mem- ber of the National Society for the Scientific Study of Education, and has always been active in the State Teach- ers Association while engaged in the work of his pro- fession in Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma. During his residence at Sedalia Mr. Buchanan organized the "Nehemgar Literary Club," an organization for strictly literary purposes. Hon. Walter Williams, dean of the Missouri School of Journalism, in an article in the St. Louis Globe Democrat has said that the "Nehemgar" is probably the most important literary club ever organized in the West. Mr. Buchanan became president of the club at its beginning, held that office all the time he was a resident of Sedalia and since leaving that city has been made honorary president.

Mr. Buchanan takes an active interest in the Masonic fraternity, is affiliated with Oklahoma City Lodge No. 36, A. F. & A. M., King Cyrus Chapter, No. 7, R. A. M., Oklahoma Commandery No. 3, K. T., the Lodge of Per- fection, fourteenth degree, of the Scottish Rite and a member of the Shrine. He is also affiliated with the lodge of Elks at Sedalia. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and belongs to the Okla- homa City Chamber of Commerce and the Oklahoma City Men's Dinner Club.

In December, 1887, Mr. Buchanan married Miss Hat- tie Starr, daughter of Judge Charles R. Starr of Kan- kakee, Illinois, who for twenty-five years was circuit judge of the Kankakee District and one of the ablest lawyers and jurists of Illinois. To this union have been born seven children : Helen, wife of Leon McGilton of Sedalia, Missouri; Agnes, wife of H. L. Smith, formerly of Kan- sas City but now a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina; Raychael, a kindergarten teacher in the St. Louis pub- lic schools; Richard Bell Buchanan, a member of the class of 1916 in the University of Illinois; George V., Jr., a student of journalism in the University of Missouri; Marjorie; and Katheryn. The family reside at 515 West 11th Street, while Mr. Buchanan has his offices in the Oklahoma City High School Building. For a man of his numerous distinctions in the educational world, it is all the more creditable that he has carved his own destiny and largely educated himself. It was through his own efforts and the savings of hard work that he acquired a higher education, and not only accomplished much for himself but helped two of his sisters attend the State Normal University at Carbondale, Illinois, and all three of them graduated in the same year, 1884.

JAMES ISAAC COURSEY. For fifteen years, his entire professional life, Mr. Coursey has practiced law in Eastern Oklahoma, and is now one of the prominent members of the bar at Tahlequah. While he has made politics and public position a very small feature of his career, he is well known throughout Cherokee County and is a lawyer who stands in the front rank of the attorneys in the First Judicial District.

A native of Texas, James Isaac Coursey was born on a farm near Bonham in Fannin County September 20, 1875. His father, Allen J. Coursey, was born near Lexington, Missouri, a son of Henry Coursey, who in turn was a native of the State of Delaware and of French descent, the name having originally been spelled DeCoursey. Henry Coursey, the grandfather, came West

in early manhood, was married in Missouri, but after several years, in 1853, took his little family, including Allen J., who was then four years of age, to Northern Texas, where he was a pioneer. His first settlement was in Collin County, but he located permanently in Fannin County. In the latter county Allen J. Coursey grew to manhood, received his education, and was married there to Mary E. Stark. She was born in Grayson County, Texas, a daughter of Isaac V. Stark, a native of Missouri and of German origin. Isaac Stark went to Texas as a single man in 1848, and was one of the very earliest settlers in the northern part of the Lone Star State. He spent his- life as a farmer and died on his old homestead near Howe, Texas. Allen J. Coursey by his first marriage had three sons and one daughter, including James I., who was four years of age when his mother died. His father married a second time, and by that union had eleven children.

Mr. Coursey grew up on his father's farm in North- ern Texas, and lived at home until he was twenty-four years of age. In that time he shared a generous por- tion of the arduous toil of farm existence, and in the meantime attended the country schools, which gave him the foundation of his education. At the age of twenty- two he also took a short course in a private school at Gainesville, Texas. Mr. Coursey studied law under the preceptorship of Judge H. S. Holman of Gaines- ville, and was admitted to the Texas Bar April 30, 1901. From Texas he came across Red River and at once located in Wagoner, Indian Territory, where he began practice in partnership with J. D. Cox, who is now the county judge of Cherokee County. He and his partner established a branch law office at Claremore, with Mr. Coursey in charge. He remained there from August, 1902, until February, 1903, and then returning to Wag- oner dissolved the partnership with Judge Cox, and be- came one of the owners and editors of the Wagoner Sayings, a daily and weekly newspaper. Mr. Coursey had two years of active experience as a newspaper mall and at the same time looked after the interests of his clients in the law. After selling the newspaper, he opened a law office at Tahlequah in the fall of 1904 and has since built up a large and important practice in that city.

Though it has been mentioned that Mr. Coursey has been inclined to leave politics alone, in the line of his profession a distinction came to him at the time of state- hood in. his election as the first county attorney of Cherokee County. He held that office with credit to himself and to the county for three years. In politics he is a democrat, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and is a member of the Christian Church. In 1902 he married Miss Maude M. Cox, daughter of J. D. Cox, his former partner in the practice of law. They have one child, Eglah M., now twelve years of age.

LEWIS A. SALTER. lawyer and one of the owners of the Headlight, in Carmen. Oklahoma, has been identified with this region since 1893, when he played an active part in the opening of the Cherokee Strip. He was one who made the race for land, and he located on a tract half a mile south of the Town of Alva, where he lived for seven years. and then removed to Augusta and estab- lished the Headlight. A year later he moved the plant to Carmen, and here he has since continued. Mr. Salter was born January 7, 1858, on a farm in Calhoun County, Michigan. and he is the son of Melville J. and Sarah E. (Hinkle) Salter.

Melville J. Salter was born in 1838 in old New York State, and he came to Michigan with his parents in early life. His father was David N. Salter, all his life a

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farmer, and Melville Salter was reared to the same indus- try. He attended the public schools, though they offered little in the way of educational training beyond the lim- ited knowledge of the "Three R's," and when he was still in his teens he left home and in 1852 made a trip with a party by wagon to the gold fields of California. He remained there a few years, experiencing only indif- ferent success as a prospector, and then returned to Michigan, making the long trip via the Isthmus of Panama. Until 1871 Melville Salter remained in Michi- gan. His years in the West had wrought in him a kind of discontent of his early home, and he went to Kansas, then uudeveloped to any extent, and bought land in Neosho County. He was active in the development of Southeastern Kansas, and was for a number of years president of the Settlers' Protective Association. Mr. Salter was a republican, and in 1874 he was elected to the office of lieutenant-governor of Kansas, his reelection following in 1876. The year 1877 brought his resigna- tion, for he had been appointed registrar of the United States Land Office at Independence, Kansas, which post he accepted and filled most creditably until 1884, when he resigned following a change iu national politics at Washington. Returning to his Kansas home he went into the merchandise business and for some years was successfully occupied. He died at Pawnee, Kansas, in 1896, when he was only fifty-eight years old. He had been a valuable citizen of his adopted commonwealth from the first, and was a lifelong member of the Baptist Church.

Melville Salter was married in Marshall, Michigan, in 1857, to Sarah E. Hinkle, the daughter of Jeremiah and Rebecca (Allison) Hinkle. Mrs. Salter was born in Pennsylvania on January 8, 1834, and she died at Car- men, Oklahoma, at the home of her son, on May 5, 1909. Like her husband, she had long been a member of the Baptist Church. They were the parents of three chil- dren, all living at this writing. Lewis A., of this review, was the first born. Albert Lincoln, the second son, was born on November 7, 1860. He married Emina Davis in 1881, and they have seven children,-Ralph, Edna, Ger- trude, Albert, Raymond, Chester and Emma Louise. The second child, Edna, died young. William Salter, the third son, was born in 1865. He married Cora Snyder in 1885 and they have one child,-Florence.

Lewis A. Salter went from Michigan to Kansas with his parents in 1871. He was educated mainly in the Kansas schools and the Kansas State Agricultural Col- lege in Manhattan, finishing there in the class of 1879. In 1882 he opened a hardware and agricultural imple- ment store in Argonia, Kansas, where he remained until 1893, studying law in spare hours. In 1887 he was admitted to practice at Wellington, Kansas, and in 1893 he went to Oklahoma, in time for the opening of the Cherokee Strip in that autumn. In 1900 he established the Headlight in Augusta, but that town proved a fail- ure, and Mr. Salter moved the plant bodily to Carmen, which gave splendid promise for the future. He is still one of the owners of the paper, but he devotes himself mainly to the practice of law.

Mr. Salter has been a republican all his life, and the Headlight under his management is a strong and influ- ential voice of the party, as well as being the pioneer paper of Alfalfa County. He was a justice of the peace for two years in Carmen and at present is filling the office of city attorney in a creditable manner.

Mr. Salter is a veteran of the Spanish-American war. He enlisted on July 20, 1898, at Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and was mustered out on February 20, 1899, at Albany, Georgia. He went in as a private in Company M, First Territorial Regiment, recruited from Oklahoma Territory,

Indian Territory, Arizoua and New Mexico. He was appointed quartermaster's sergeant on the organization of the company and served in that post until the end of the war.

On September 1, 1880, Mr. Salter was married at Sil- ver Lake, Kansas, to Miss Susan M. Kinsey, daughter of Oliver aud Teresa Ann (White) Kinsey. Mrs. Salter was born March 4, 1860, in Ohio, aud was educated in the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan. It was there she met her husband. Mrs. Salter is a woman of culture and brains. She was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887, being the first woman ever elected to the office of mayor in the United States. She has always been active in social and club circles, and is a leader in Carmen.

To Mr. and Mrs. Salter have been boru seven sons and two daughters, of whom brief mention is made as fol- lows: Clarence E., the eldest, was born June 3, 1881.

Frauk Argonia, born February 13, 1883, was the first child born in Argonia, Kansas. He is editor and man- ager of the Headlight. He married Edythe Kelley in 1911 and they have one child, Winifred.

Winfred A. was born on November 20, 1885. He is a linotype operator in Oklahoma City.

Melva O., born March 20, 1887, was married in 1913 to William C. Harris, and now lives in Detroit, Michi- gan. They have one child-Madora Harris.

Bertha Elizabeth, born in March, 1889, was educated at the Oklahoma State University and the Kausas State Agricultural College.

Lewis S., born on March 20, 1891, is a teacher of music in the University of Oklahoma at Norman.

Leslie E. was born on May 10, 1895.

William E. is the youngest. He was born on May 10, 1897. The fourth born, a son, died in infancy.

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN HUNT. A pioneer of Oklahoma County and for many years identified with business and public life in Oklahoma City, William Tecumseh Sherman Hunt was born on a farm iu Douglas County, Illinois, February 29, 1868, a son of Captain O. P. and Eliza J. (McDowell) Hunt. There were ances- tors on both sides who took part in the Revolutionary war, and in all the subsequent generations there have been men and women prominent in public affairs and in social circles. Captain Hunt made a record as captain of Company K 125th Illinois Regiment during the Civil war and was afterwards a lawyer of prominence at Tuscora, Illinois. William T. S. Hunt was the fourth in a family of eight children, six of whom are still living.

William Tecnmseh Sherman Hunt came to Oklahoma County in 1892 and located on a farm west of Britton. While for nearly a quarter of a century he has been active in the life of his community and state the associa- tion with affairs which will always give his name prominence in the history of Oklahoma was his service in the Constitutional Convention.

He was elected to the convention in 1906 from the Twenty-seventh District, comprising a part of Oklahoma City. He went as one of the democratic nominees to the convention. He was a member of several important committees, including the Committee on Municipal Cor- porations, the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and Committee on Primary Elections.

He should be especially remembered for the able assistance he rendered as a member of the Municipal Corporation Committee in drawing up those provisions which have made it possible for so many Oklahoma cities to acquire commission form of government. He was also individually responsible for making the only sena- torial district represented by two senators, consisting of

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the two counties of Oklahoma and Canadian. He also formed a Judicial District in the same territory with flotorial judges.

In the records of the Constitutional Convention is imbedded a record which contains a suggestion of romance strangely inserted in the proceedings of one of the most momentous conventions ever held in this country. This record is an official recognition of the marriage during the session of the Constitutional Con- vention on December 24, 1906, of W. T. S. Hunt and Miss Mamie Virginia Shelton. Mrs. Hunt is a native of Alabama and belongs to one of the aristocratic old southern families, formerly planters and slave holders in that state. As a result of this "constitutional"' marriage, there are two sons: William Shelton, born September 18, 1908; and Hallie Hudson, born October 3, 1909. Since 1907 Mr. Hunt and family have lived in Oklahoma City, and he has never abated any of the keen interest he has always felt in public affairs.

GEORGE W. RIPLEY. A resident of Sapulpa since 1896, George Washington Ripley is not only entitled to con- sideration as one of the sterling pioneers who have been prominent and influential in the upbuilding of this fine little capital city of Creek County, but also as a man who has achieved large and worthy success through his own ability and well ordered endeavors. He is now liv- ing virtually retired from active business, as one of the substantial capitalists of his home town, and his achieve- ment and personal influence and popularity in Creek County well entitle him to representation in this history.

Mr. Ripley was born at Huntsville, Madison County, Arkansas, on the 10th of May, 1850, and is a son of James Perry Ripley and Nancy (Phillips) Ripley, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of Kentucky. James P. Ripley was a lad of about seven years at the time of the family removal to Illinois, about the year 1820, and his parents became pioneer settlers near Mur- physboro, Jackson County, that state, where he was reared to adult age. About the year 1840 he left Illinois and made his way to Huntsville, Arkansas, where his mar- riage was solemnized, and where he became well known as a skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker, besides having owned and operated a farm, under the invigorating dis- cipline of which his sons were reared.

Though he was about fifty years of age at the incep- tion of the Civil war, he promptly manifested his loyalty to the Union by enlisting in Company E, First Arkansas Cavalry, his oldest two sons, Francis Seaman and Pleasant Hilary, having enlisted at the same time and in the same command. The father and sons served with their regiment at Springfield, Missouri, and after a period of six months the father received an honorable discharge, on account of physical disability. His eldest son, Francis Seaman, was killed in the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in March, 1862, and the younger of the two sons continued in active service for a period of three years and three months, or virtually during the entire course of the great conflict through which the national integrity was preserved. This gallant young soldier, Pleasant H. Ripley, returned home from the war three months prior to his twenty-first birthday anniversary, and in the meanwhile the family home had been estab- lished in Missouri. The legislature passed a law that all young men who had entered the Union service before attaining to their legal majority should be entitled to the advantages of the public schools of Missouri free of charge for a period equal to that in which they had served in the army. Thus young Ripley was enabled to attend the schools of Missouri three years and three months free of tuition. That he made good use of these

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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