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 65

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 65

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John Dodson, father of J. Harvey, was born in Franklin County, Alabama, December 22, 1842, was reared and educated in Stone County, Arkansas, and as a young man in May, 1861, enlisted at Yellville, Arkan- sas, in Captain Campbell's Company of the Fourteenth Arkansas Infantry. That regiment was first commanded by Colonel Mitchell and afterwards by Col. Eli Dodson, who became prominent as a legislator in later years in Arkansas. After the battle of Pea Ridge he was trans- ferred to the army east of the Mississippi, was under Van Dorn in the operations around Corinth, and was with Gen. Joe Shelby at the end of the war. In 1870 he settled in Cooke County, Texas, and it was during his residence there that Superintendent Dodson was born. He returned in 1885 to Arkansas and lived near Mountainburg. While in Texas he served as a county official. By his first wife, Miss Martha Measles his children were: John E., of Frisco, Arkansas; and Robert Sidney of Hanson, Oklahoma. John Dodson married for his second wife Martha M. Oliver. Her father, Capt. Alfred Oliver, was a veteran of the Semi- nole Indian wars in Florida, and afterwards commanded a Texas company in the war with Mexico. The names of the children by the second marriage of John Dodson are: J. Harvey; Cora, wife of Rev. Noah Johnson; Arthur W .; Ernest F .; Alice, wife of Harmon Johnson; Grover; Rosa; and Roland.

From the age of seven J. Harvey Dodson was reared to manhood in Arkansas. As a boy he conceived an ambition to amount to something in the world, and though his advantages were only those of the country schools and the influences of a good home, he found opportunity to advance himself toward his desired goal. After finishing his course in the high school at Porter, Arkansas, he began teaching before he was twenty-one. For six years he taught in Crawford County, Arkansas, one term in the Uniontown High School, and on moving to the Cherokee Nation in 1906 became a teacher in what is now Sequoyah County. Two years later, after statehood, he was made deputy county clerk under H. B.

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Clark. He was also the first justice of the peace elected for Hanson Township, and served as a member of the first .county board of education. After leaving the office' of deputy clerk he became principal of the Hanson schools for two years, and his qualifications as an educa- tor led to his becoming a candidate for the nomination of county superintendent. He won the nomination at the democratic primaries, and in the fall of 1912 was regularly elected to that office. In 1914 he was renomi- nated and re-elected without opposition, and is now serving his second consecutive term. Mr. Dodson is an educator of long and thorough experience, has an inti- mate knowledge of the needs of the younger generation growing up in his section of the state, and has done much to adapt the work of the local schools to the standards of efficiency which are required by local con- ditions and which are generally recognized over the state at large.

Outside of his public work and his home Mr. Dodson takes much interest in fraternal affairs. He is a Master Mason and a member of the Eastern Star, and is also affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World, and the Modern Wood- men of America, while his wife is a member of the Rebekah degree and the Degree of Honor. Both have. filled chairs in their local lodges. Mr. Dodson is also an active church worker, and is a deacon in the Baptist Church at Sallisaw. October 12, 1902, at Winslow, Arkansas, he married Miss Elnora Kennedy. Mrs. Dodson was born April 2, 1885, a daughter of C. C. and Rowena (Marbut) Kennedy. Her brother and two sis- ters were named Walter, Lavada and Ethel. Mr. Dod- son has the following children: Aubrey Kenneth, born March 3, 1905; John Haskell who died March 23, 1910, at the age of three years; Lawton Powers, born Decem- ber 23, 1909; Lois Dana; and Joseph Curtis Dodson.

HON. THOMAS W. HUNTER. A native son of Okla- homa, for many years prominently identified with that section of the state comprised in the old Choctaw Nation, Thomas W. Hunter has as his chief business the voca- tion of real estate man, is a member of the State Bar Association, prominent as a democrat, and has sat in the Fourth and Fifth Legislatures from Choctaw County. His home is at Hugo.

Thomas W. Hunter was born in 1869 near the town of Boswell in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. His father, Ben Hunter, was a full-blood Choctaw Indian who came to Indian Territory during the first exodus of Indians from Mississippi in 1832. His mother was a daughter of George Risner, a pioneer citizen of Ten- nessee. Mr. Hunter was reared in the Choctaw Nation, attended the tribal schools, and was student to the junior year in Roanoke College at Roanoke, Virginia. An affec- tion of the eyes caused him to leave college before com- pleting his course. His active career as a useful worker and citizen in Oklahoma covers more than twenty years. From 1894 to 1900 Mr. Hunter was superintendent of the Armstrong Academy near Bokchito, at that time one of the important seats of learning for the Choctaw people. His appointment as superintendent was made by the Choctaw tribal board of education. Later he served two terms in the Choctaw Indian Legislature, being speaker of the House of Representatives during one term. He was a member of the legislature from what was then Blue County, which since statehood has been Bryan County. Some interesting history is recalled in the fact that Mr. Hunter in 1902 was elected principal chief of the Choctaw Nation. It was a contested election, as a result of which the war department dispatched a detach-

ment of negro soldiers to take possession of the Choc. taw capital, and Mr. Hunter was not permitted to qualify as principal chief, the secretary of the Interior having advised him that he could not be recognized in that capacity. Mr. Hunter in the days before statehood was an advocate of the single statehood movement, and in 1905 was a member of the single statehood delegation that visited Washington, representing the people in demanding that Oklahoma and Indian Territory should be admitted as one commonwealth. After statehood had been realized in 1907 Mr. Hunter was twice elected dis- triet clerk of Choctaw County, and since 1912 has been a member of the Legislature, both in the fourth and fifth sessions. In the Fifth Legislature he was a candi- date, on the democratic side, for speaker of the house. He withdrew before the end of the contest, and when he threw his support to A. McCrory that action assured the election of the latter. As a partial reward for this he was elected as chairman of the democratic caucus of the House.

Mr. Hunter in his legislative career while devoted to the interests of his particular section of the state, has exhibited a broad understanding of the needs of Okla- homa as a whole and has always been on the side of pro- gressive and beneficial legislation. In the fourth Legis- lature he was chairman of the committee ou congres- sional redistricting, and a member of the committees on insurance, criminal jurisprudence, fish and game. He was author of a fish and game law that passed the Legis- lature but met the veto of the governor. In the Fifth Legislature Mr. Hunter was again made chairman of the committee on congressional redistricting, and had membership in the committees on privileges and elections, fish and game, agriculture, and relations of the Five Civi- lized Tribes to the Federal Government. As part of his legislative record it should be noted that he advocated bills establishing landlords' liens, forbidding fraudulent records in the filing of instruments of conveyance, pro- viding for the standardization of the real estate business, relating to perjury, consolidating all probate matters into a compact statute, and providing for the payment of a poll tax.

Mr. Hunter has built up a large real estate business at Hugo and in Choctaw County, and enjoys a reputa- tion as a safe and reliable adviser in real estate matters, particularly in his part of the state. His membership in the State Bar Association is the result of that provision of the state constitution which admitted all lawyers practicing in the old Indian Territory to membership in the state bar. He handled a number of cases in the old tribal courts and that experience has been exceedingly valuable to him both in his business and as a legislator.

For a number of years Mr. Hunter has been recog- mized as one of the ablest men in democratic politics in this part of the state. He takes to politics almost naturally, and has found in it not only somewhat of a diversion but also a means by which his thorough public spirit may express itself in practical work for the community. Mr. Hunter was a delegate to the demo- cratic National Convention in Baltimore in 1912, going there instructed for Woodrow Wilson and as chairman of the Wilson Club of Choctaw County.

Mr. Hunter is a member of the Presbyterian Church at Hugo, and is affiliated with the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite Masonry and with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In 1897 he married Junia Fulsom, daughter of Judge Julius C. Fulsom. Judge Fulsom, who died in December, 1914, at the age of eighty-three years, had filled every important office in the Choctaw Tribal Government except principal chief and justice of the Supreme Court.

Starry. Offreare.

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HON. GEORGE L. BURKE. In the field of general law, Hon. George L. Burke, senior member of the firm of Burke & Harrison, of Sapulpa, is acknowledged as one of the leaders of the Creek County bar. He has fairly earned his position in the profession, since he has not only been for many years an earnest student of its gen- eral principles, but also has served with honor and dis- tinction in a judicial capacity. When he came to Sapulpa, in 1910, the bar of this locality secured a valued and valuable addition.

Judge Burke is a Tennesseean by nativity, born at Athens, McMinn County, December 8, 1858, a son of H. H. and Sarah C. (Rucker) Burke, natives of the same county. H. H. Burke was born in 1832, and passed his life as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church until superannuated, when he was elected county assessor of Loudon County, whence he had moved in 1876, and acted in that capacity for four years. He died November 5, 1908. During the Civil war he was connected with the Federal service in the civil department, being a superintendent of pontoon construction. Mrs. Burke, who was the mother of seven children, of whom the eldest and only one living is Judge Burke, died December 26, 1887, when about thirty-eight years of age. The father was later married again.

George L. Burke received good educational advantages in his youth, attending the public schools of Eastern Tennessee, and the East Tennessee Wesleyan University, which is now a part of the University of Chattanooga. There he was graduated after a scientific course, June 4, 1879, following which for five years he taught school. During this time he applied himself to the study of law, and in 1885 was admitted to the bar and at once engaged in practice at Kingston, Tennessee, where he soon at- tracted to himself a representative practice of the most desirable kind. In 1887 and 1888 he represented his district in the Tennessee Legislature, subsequently be- came mayor of Kingston, and in 1902 was elected judge of the Circuit Court, a capacity in which he served for eight years. With this broad and comprehensive train- ing, in 1910 he came to Sapulpa, where he at once took his place among the leading legists of the Creek County bar. He is associated in practice with W. Morris Harrison, and the firm of Burke & Harrison is accounted one of the strong legal combinations of this locality. Judge Burke is a member of the Creek County Bar Association and holds a high place in the esteem and regard of his fellow-practitioners. Politically he is a republican, but since coming to Oklahoma his profes- sional duties have been so heavy as to demand his entire attention, and he has taken but a good citizen's part in public affairs. He was reared in the faith of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church. Fraternally, the judge is affili- ated with the Masons.

In 1888 Judge Burke was married to Miss Varina Davis Wardlaw, who was born at Clarksville, Tennessee, daughter of the Rev. De Lacey Wardlaw, a minister of the Presbyterian Church and a member of an old and distinguished southern family.

A. M. RUHL, M. D. Settling in Oklahoma during its early formative period, in February, 1890, Doctor Ruhl has grown up with the state. While it was poor, he was poor; and when Oklahoma had reached a stage of commendable commercial and industrial standing, he himself, after struggling with persistent energy, had built up a successful and profitable practice and had taken a high stand among the young physicians of the state. Dr. Ruhl has practiced at Edmond for the past fifteen years.

He was born at Pekin, Illinois, February 15, 1876, a Vol. IV-15

son of Dr. Noah B. and Elizabeth (Dickey) Ruhl. His father, now a resident of Ardmore, Oklahoma, was for a number of years a pharmacist in Pekin and Peoria, Illinois. Later he attended the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, and in 1895 graduated from the Kansas City Homeopathic Medical College. He soon afterward located in Edmond, Oklahoma, and enjoyed a good practice in that community, beginning twenty years ago. His wife, Elizabeth Dickey, was a native of Scotland, and her parents first settled in the United States at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where members of the family assisted in establishing the Fort Wayne Iron Works. Doctor Ruhl has a brother and two sisters, Wil- liam D., a bookkeeper in Avon, Illinois; Mrs. Agnes Hodley, formerly a teacher in Oklahoma, and now the wife of a grain merchant at Lafayette, Illinois; and another sister is the wife of a master mechanic at Paducah, Kentucky.

Doctor Ruhl attended the public schools of Illinois, later spending two years in the Central State Normal School at Edmond, and left that institution with high grades to pursue the study of medicine. He was gradu- ated in 1900 from the Kansas City Homeopathic Medi- cal College, and in the same year began practice in Edmond. He is a consistent student of medical litera- ture and keeps abreast of the progressive times in medi- cal science, and has one of the best equipped offices in the state. He is a member of the State Homeopathic Medical Society and of the American Institute of Home- opathy. He is also affiliated with Edmond Lodge No. 37, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 12.

Doctor Ruhl was married in 1901 at Edmond to Miss Edith Snyder, whose father was a pioneer miller of Edmond. They have one child, Floranna Margaret.

. HARRY H. BREENE. The real oil man is a cosmopolite. He feels a special loyalty for his current home city and locality, but also feels the ties of home and interests in every district where oil is produced. He is a man practical, resourceful, self-reliant, bold; adapting him- self easily to diverse circumstances and conditions; meet- ing with equal cheerfulness of confidence and complete- ness of capability all the risks and hazards of fortune; experienced in trouble and adversity, he is sympathetic and generous, and is always ready to share his good fortune with those who were once his comrades in hard- ship. He is a big man in his adequacy to meet all the issues of life as they come, and for that reason whether he commands large capital or only his individual re- sources is a most valuable man for any community or state. It is also likely, from his long association with the mysterious forces of the universe, that he should feel and express some of the poetry and mysticism of ex- istence, and out of his experience usually develops a wholesome philosophy which serves him well in his con- tact either with men or affairs.

It is a matter of good fortune that this publication has been furnished with an autobiographical article on the individual experiences of one of the best known oil men of Oklahoma. Harry Breene has been prominent in Bartlesville oil fields for the past thirteen years, and is now chief deputy oil and gas inspector under the state department of the chief mine inspector. By special request Mr. Breene has written for publication an account of his own early experiences and associations with oil industry and his estimate of the old and modern condi- tions. What he says will have a generous appreciation not only from old time oil men but also from the general reader.

He writes: "I came into the oil country the day that

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I was born, which event happened in Franklin, Pennsyl- vania. I feel certain that one of the first things that my eyes rested upon must have been an oil derrick. My youth I presume was spent in the usual way. I remember the copper toed boot period, which began late in the fall, usually after all the frosts and might even be delayed until after the first snow fall. The barefoot epoch began with the trailing arbutus. This was followed by the stonebruise and chapped feet time, this soon to be for- gotten in the Ne Plus Ultra of all boyhood joys-the dear old swimming pool in French Creck, just opposite the old Galena oil works. In the autumn that I was nineteen years old I chartered a thirty four-foot car that had been delayed in transit on the switch of the above oil works. It was my original intention to be very exclusive, but I did invite one friend to accompany me, so we, like the 'march of empire' set our good wide backs to the East and 'westward took our sway,' and after devious windings and no few indignities at the hands of several uncouth train crews, we arrived in Cygnet, Ohio, then the new Ohio oil fields. My friend and I had one very unpleasant experience on this trip at Leavittsburg, Ohio, on account of discourteous treat- ment at the hands of a train crew, as a result of which we decided to take another train. This change of cars, if I remember correctly, took place about 4 A. M., and as the train we were aboard made no stops at the Harvey houses we were compelled to ride until about 8 P. M. that evening to Ashland, Ohio, without breakfast or luncheon. We had some money between us, I believe in all about fifteen dollars. We straightway hunted up a restaurant, determined to eat the fifteen dollars worth if they would cook it for us. We found a restaurant and had our feet under the table at once, and before the waiter took our order we ate up all the crackers, celery and pickles which formed a part of the table decorations. I am quite sure that had there been a vase of American Beauties on that table we would have eaten them too. Before our order was served the girl filled up the cracker, pickle, cheese, etc., plates and my friend promptly ate them up again. This friend is now quite prominent in the oil country and if his eyes chance to fall upon this he will certainly agree with me that that was some meal, or at any rate some appetite.

"After arriving in Cygnet an inventory of our worldly possessions spelled immediate financial panic, to avert which we at once set out in earnest quest of labor of any kind. We were informed that we might obtain work on the iron tanks under construction four miles down the Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad at a place called Oil Center. We decided to walk down there and see, and anybody that remembers the T. & O. C. Railroad at that time will agree with me that if you were in a hurry this was the wise thing to do, besides much easier. We secured work, not a job, on the iron tanks. We got board at Haley's. 'Oh for some new malediction to wish upon Haley.' I can't see how there are many alive who boarded with him. To get into society among the tankies we had to fight 'Fatty, ' 'Slim,' 'Slivers,' 'Toad' and 'Big Mike.' I don't know how many more were on the list, but I decided to quit while I was able to draw my money instead of an accident policy, so we soon found our way back to Cygnet, where my friend and I found more congenial employment working on oil wells with, and among, the biggest hearted fellows that ever lived. After a quarter of a century of association with these workmen the above conviction has become a fixture get- ting reminiscent. I can think of a number of these good fellows that have made a fortune in the oil business, but the same simple eulogy still applies to them. Enough for these men. 'Some men stick to the bush-I have fol-

lowed the band wagon.' I don't know which is the best. I never tried staying where I started.

"The oil country, too, has its history and its romance. I was back in the old Pennsylvania oil fields last year. I stood upon ground now deserted that in the early '60s and '70s were towns, some with a city's population, seething with life, mud and oil, just as now is our Cushing, Oklahoma. Scenes have shifted, but human hearts remain the same. It is the same old struggle, a few for fame, fewer for love and the balance for oil- always oil. Looking over these old spots that once in an oil excitement encompassed thousands you see nothing to indicate that once this place represented the best of man- hood and the limit in vice and debauchery. The oil · excitement has long since passed away on old Oil Creek, but it's the same old stream, murmuring along in the same old way, and if we could but understand its babble what tales it could tell of fifty years ago, of hope and tragedy, love and romance, of struggle and disappoint- ment, now almost forgotten by another generation of oil men. The assassin of President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was in the oil business in Franklin, Pennsylvania, just prior to the commission of that national crime. The writer when a boy has often played about the old wells on French Creek in which he was interested. Washington passed through what is now Franklin during the period of the French and Indian war. Old Fort Venango on the banks of French Creek marked the advance guard of civilization, at the confluence of this stream and the Allegheny River, where Franklin 'the nursery of great men' now stands. An old military road built in those days went around the narrows over the hills in the third ward. The writer remembers many old abandoned wells built on this route, as the grade made a favorable loca- tion for a rig on the steep hillside. The oil industry has kept apace with everything else. The crude method of drilling and operating wells in the early days has grad- ually worked up to what I consider the last word in oil operations in the Cushing, Oklahoma, field. I have always been thankful for two things: For being Irish, and for a raise in the price of oil, but like a Dutcliman I am going to preface this at the wrong end. If the publishers

print this, I feel assured that those of my present and old friends that may chance to read it will believe in the heart that is in this little effort, claiming no ability and making no attempt at well maneuvered language, as I am just writing as I would talk with you of old times, if you came into my office for an hour's chat. A few leave the latchstring on the outside, I haven't any. When you hit Bartlesville, Oklahoma, you have found a place fit to stop in-come in."

In the way of a formal sketch it may be said that Harry H. Breene was born in Franklin, Pennsylvania, June 3, 1870, a son of Morris and Catherine (Baker) Breene, his father a native of Ireland and his mother of Eastern Pennsylvania. His father died in Pennsylvania October 3, 1892, at the age of fifty-six, and his mother on March 6, 1896. Morris Breene was a shoemaker, and in the early oil days of Western Pennsylvania made a spe- cialty of manufacturing boots for drillers. Some of these boots had soles two inches thick and with broad extensions half to three-quarters of an inch around the foot proper. Harry Breene was one of a family of five sons and three daughters: William J., who is an attorney in Oil City, Pennsylvania; John L., who built up and for many years conducted an exclusive ice business at Oil City, and died there in 1914; Anna, wife of M. A. Moak of Mercer County, Pennsylvania; Maggie, who died at the age of eighteen; Harry H .; Frank M., who is one of the oil men of Bartlesville; Theresa, who is a physician by profession and is the wife of Harold Baum, principal of the public schools in Oil City; and Edward, who is

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

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an attorney associated with his brother William J., and recently a candidate for judge in the district where he was born and reared.

Before Harry Breene entered upon the excursion to Ohio oil fields above described he had attended the public schools and finished the high school course in Franklin. After several years he returned and spent one year reading law, but soon found the fascination of oil fields too strong and spent practically all his active life iu that industry. For a number of years he and his brother Frank M. have operated in the same field, though not always as partners. Mr. Breene in addition to his expe- rience in the Ohio fields has been in those of West Virginia, and spent three years in Canada, where he had to build his own rigs. He was again in Ohio and West Virginia, and in July, 1902, arrived in Kansas, spent a short time at Independence, and since the fall of 1902 has been at Bartlesville. He has worked as an extensive contractor and also as an independent oil producer.

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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