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 66

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 66

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Mr. Breene has been a democrat all his life. At the solicitation of oil men who appreciated his expert knowl -. edge of all phases of the oil industry, Mr. Breene was appointed chief deputy oil and gas inspector soon after statehood and has been the only man to fill that position in the State of Oklahoma. He was appointed by Ed Boyle, who is chief mine inspector, and has general jurisdiction over the department including the oil and gas division. This service is directly in line with his lifelong business, and it should be stated that Mr. Breene is in no sense a politiciau. Mr. Breene owns a model farm in Montgomery County, Kansas, near Independence, and conducts it for farming and stock raising with the most improved facilities and equipment. Mr. Breene is a thirty-second degree Mason, a member of the Mystic Shrine and also of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In 1891 he married Blanche M. Gray, who was born in Pennsylvania. Their four children are named Harold, Murdean, Frank and Grace.

MARION R. TITTLE. In following the long and suc- cessful career of Marion R. Tittle, the impartial ob- server will gain a renewed appreciation of those homely, sterling qualities which, when allied with practical busi- ness sense, advance men from obscurity to prominence and from poverty to wealth. Of sturdy Scotch-Irish ancestry, Mr. Tittle was reared as the son of poor but honorable and honest parents. Even in his boyhood he displayed a strong and worthy ambition to succeed in life, and as the years passed his determination devel- oped and strengthened, enabling him to overcome ob- stacles which to one of a less energetic and courageous nature would have seemed insurmountable. Today he is accounted one of the most substantial business men of Westville-the possessor of a business and a property which are all the more satisfying, in that they have been entirely self-gained.

Mr. Tittle was born in Denton County, Texas, Novem- ber 3, 1864, the eldest of the twelve children of Richard and Elizabeth (Farris) Tittle, his father being a native of Tennessee and his mother of Alabama. They were married in Texas, where Richard Tittle enlisted in a company raised in Denton County, Texas, for service in the Confederate army. He served with gallantry throughout the period of the Civil war and at its close resumed his farming operations in Texas, but in 1868 removed to Arkansas, and about two years later came to Indian Territory. Nine years later he returned to Texas for a short time but did not find conditions to his liking and soon again went to Arkansas, where he took up his residence on a farm in the vicinity of Charleston, con- tinuing to be engaged in agricultural operations there

for seven years. Again coming to Indian Territory, he passed the remaining years of his life here and died at Webbers Falls, at the age of sixty-seven years. The mother survived him for some time and passed away at the home of one of her sons, at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, being fifty-nine years old.

Marion R. Tittle received his education in the com- mon schools, but being the eldest of his parents' chil- dren he was expected to assist iu the support of the family and a large part of the time that he would otherwise pass in the schoolroom was devoted to the work of the home farm. He was reared in the atmos- phere of the farm, and when he was twenty years of age was granted his "time" by his father, who also presented him with a horse, saddle and bridle, his sole capital when he entered upon his career as typified by material things. He was able to secure a plow on credit and fashioned a make-shift harness, the lines of which were largely made of the tops of old boots, cut into strips, and with this modest equipment started his career as a farmer. He was industrious and enterpris- ing, worked early and late, and succeeded in raising good crops, so that he was soon able to put something by, and as the years passed finally secured the capital necessary to enter business life. His first experience in business life was not on his own account, however, but as a clerk in a general store at Webbers Falls. He was married in 1892 to Miss Jennie Belieu, and for the first two years thereafter was engaged in farming in the vicinity of Webbers Falls, and at the end of this time took his capital of $1,000 and invested it in a general store at Prairie Grove, Arkansas. He con- tinued in business there with a good measure of suc- cess for seven years, and in 1900 came to Westville, Okla- homa, where he established the well known and suc- cessful firm of the Cherokee Lumber Company, with which he has continued to be connected. Shortly there- after he opened a general store at Westville, which also prospered and has since grown to large proportions, being known as the M. R. Tittle Mercantile Company. Various other interests have received the benefit of his abilities and energy, and at present he is president of the People's Bank of Westville and a member of the firm of Hall-Tittle Drug Company, of this city, in addi- tion to which he owns considerable real estate here. Mr. Tittle's entire career has been an expression of well- directed industry, always characterized by the strictest integrity. He has been alive to his opportunities and has made the most of them, but in doing so has never transgressed business principles and as a result his repu- tation is one which not only includes the respect of his fellow-citizens, but their confidence, esteem and friend- ship as well. He is a democrat in politics, but has not been desirous of favors at the hands of his party and his only public service has been in the capacity of school director. He is a Master Mason and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Mr. and Mrs. Tittle are the parents of the follow- ing children: Lola V., who is the wife of E. H. Graves, who is associated with Mr. Tittle in business; Nellie G., who is the wife of H. F. Hall, of the Hall-Tittle Drug Company; Marion Richard, Jr., who is attending a commercial college at Springfield, Missouri; and Lena, who resides at home with her parents.

ROBERT CAMPBELL. As proprietor and manager of the Anadarko Commercial College, one of the foremost insti- tutions of its kind in this section of the state, Robert Campbell has been unusually successful in preparing members of the younger generation for business life. Mr. Campbell has been a resident of Anadarko since 1910

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

and he manifests a very keen interest in all matters tend- ing to advance the general welfare, devoting much of his spare time to road improvements and to bettering public school couditions.

August 26, 1879, in the City of Atlanta, Georgia, occurred the birth of Robert Campbell, who is a son of J. A. and Elvina M. (Jones) Campbell, the former of whom is now living in Atlauta and the latter of whom died in 1885. The father was born in Virginia, in 1850, and he is of Scotch origin, tracing his aucestry to a

annals and is perpetuated iu the name of a thriving town in West Virginia. It is to be regretted that many of the vigorous old families of the United States have not preserved carefully the records which would be so prized by their descendants and by earnest students of history, and thus comparatively little is known of the Lively ancestry, this little however proving that enter- prise, courage and patriotism belonged to it. The founders of the family, three brothers, came from Eng- land in 1750 and were colonists at Williamsburg, Vir- Campbell who came from Scotland prior to the war for . ginia, and from there many of the name of Lively went independence and located in the Old Dominion counnon- wealth. He was engaged in business as a merchant dur- ing the greater part of his active career, following that line of enterprise for a time at Atlanta and later at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Since 1911 he has lived in retirement at Atlanta. He is a democrat in politics and his religious faith coincides with the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Mrs. Campbell was born in Atlanta, in 1852, and she bore her husband three children: Pierce C., is a grocery salesman in Atlanta; Robert is the subject of this sketch; and Stevie is the wife of Oliver B. Andrews of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

After a thorough preliminary training in the common schools of Dekalb County, Georgia, Robert Campbell was matriculated as a student in Emory College, at Oxford, Georgia, in which iustitution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1899, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then taught modern languages in the Centenary College, at Jackson, Louisiana, for one year and the following year was similarly engaged in the University School for Boys of Georgia. In 1901 he be- came manager for the Drennen Department Store at Birmingham, Alabama, remaining with that concern for the following five years. In 1906 he became advertising manager for the Goldsmith Store at Memphis, Ten- nessee, and in 1907 he was made president of the Ameri- can Business Company of Alabama, which concern operated schools in five different places. In 1909 Mr. Campbell came to Oklahoma and purchased the El Reno Commercial College, which he conducted until 1910, which year marks his advent in Anadarko. Here he estab- lished the Anadarko Commercial College, of which he is sole owner and manager. This school has met with phenomenal success and is filled with pupils from Caddo and the surrounding counties. Mr. Campbell is secre- tary of the Anadarko Commercial Club, is secretary of the Caddo County Fair Association, of the democratic County Central Committee, of the General Meridian Road Association, and is vice president of the State Road Association, He is a member of the State Board of Education and in politics is a staunch democrat. He affiliates with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and for years has been superintendent of its Sunday School. He is vice president of the County Sunday Schools Association. In a fraternal way Mr. Campbell is connected with Anadarko Lodge, No. 10025, Modern Woodmen of America; and with the Knights of Pythias, at Birmingham, Alabama,

In 1902, at Jackson, Louisiana, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Campbell to Miss Willie McKowen Schwing, a daughter of the late Sam Schwing, formerly a druggist at Jackson, Louisiana. Mr. and Mrs. Camp- bell have one child: Robert, Jr., born December 25, 1905, and now a pupil in the Anadarko Public School.

CLARENCE W. LIVELY. While the Lively family, of which Clarence W. Lively, a leading member of the Sapulpa bar, is a member, has not had time to make much history in Oklahoma, its achievements in early colonial days were notable and the name appears in many

into the Patriot army and served valiantly during the Revolutionary war. Military prowess was shown again, many years later, during the Civil war, when on both sides members of this family served according to their convictions, on both sides, Union and Confederate, one survivor being Samuel Lively, a Union veteran now resid- ing at Ottumwa, Iowa.

Clarence W. Lively was born April 12, 1878, at Fayette- ville, West Virginia, and is a son of C. C. and Mary E. (Fisher) Lively. Both were natives of Greenbrier County, Virginia, the former born February 7, 1848, aud the latter in 1852. In 1828, Dr. Elias Lively, with his two brothers, Rufus and Levi Lively, removed from the old settlemeut to Greenbrier County. Dr. Elias Lively was the grandfather of Clarence W. Lively, and his father, Carteret Lively, had once been captured by the Indians.

In 1875 the parents of Mr. Lively came from West Virginia to Ottumwa, Iowa, but three years later re- turned to their former home at Lively, Fayette County, West Virginia. In early years the father of Mr. Lively was a teacher and later engaged in farming. There were eight children in the family.

In assisting his father and attending school, Clarence W. Lively passed his boyhood. He had academic ad- vantages at Fayetteville and also attended Marshall Col- lege, then entered the law department of the University of West Virginia and later, after one year's attendance as a student in the law department of the University of Virginia, was graduated therefrom with his degree in 1905. He entered into practice at Huntington, West Virginia, where he continued for five years and during that time became widely known and served as assistant prosecuting attorney. In October, 1910, Mr. Lively came to Sapulpa, where his legal talents, his general enterprise and his manifestations of civic interest have secured him public confidence and esteem. He has made substantial investments in Creek County and these include valuable real estate and oil properties.

In 1905 Mr. Lively was united in marriage with Miss Cora Shinn, who was born in Jackson County, West Vir- ginia, and is a daughter of R. P. Shinn, who is the present sheriff of Jackson County. Mr. and Mrs. Lively have one son, Lanier.

In politics Mr. Lively has always been a staunch demo- crat and public affairs have been a subject of vital interest to him, not in the way of office seeking but on the wider plane of true American citizenship.

ALBERT L. DAVENPORT, M. D. A physician of many years' experience in Eastern Oklahoma, Doctor Daven- port is now devoting all his time and energies to the administration of the postoffice of Holdenville. He was appointed postmaster under the Wilson administration and since taking charge he has made many improvements and has gratified the patrons of the office by the splendid service rendered.

During his residence in Oklahoma Doctor Davenport has always been closely identified with public affairs, and has been a strong factor in every community where he

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BEN F. ROGERS

1569

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

has lived. He was born at Gadsden, Alabama, May 2, 1872, a son of Robert and Lou (Bradley) Davenport. His father was born in North Carolina in 1841 and died at the age of forty-five in 1886 at Conway, Arkansas. The mother was born near Gadsden, Alabama, in July, 1842, and died at Conway, Arkansas, November 26, also in the year 1886. They were reared and married in Alabama and in 1878 moved to Arkansas, where the father followed farming until his death. He was a Confederate soldier, and was in the army during most of the war. He participated in the decisive battle of Shiloh and at Chickamauga a piece of shell wounded him in the calf of the right leg, and when Lee sur- rendered his army he was at home on a furlough. He was a democrat and a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. Doctor Davenport was the second of three children, and his sisters were: Mary, of Monroe, Louisi- ana; and Ann, who died in 1886 at the age of twelve.

Doctor Davenport was fourteen years of age when his parents died, and he then had to start out in life for himself. His youth was one of toil and combat against adversity, and after working hard' on farms during the summer he attended school only for a few months each winter. This was his regular experience until he was nineteen years of age, at which time he qualified as a teacher, and followed farming and teaching alternately until 1900. In that year he began the study of medicine in the Hospital Medical College at Louis- ville, Kentucky, took two courses, and in 1901 secured a license and began practice at Frances, Oklahoma. After four years there he entered the medical depart- ment of the University of Little Rock, Arkansas, and was graduated M. D., May 26, 1906. On returning to Oklahoma he located at Bilby in what is now Hughes County, and from there, on January 1, 1911, removed to Holdenville. He was called from a promising practice as a physician on March 4, 1914, to become postmaster. The Holdenville postoffice is a second class office, and the postmaster's salary is $2,300 a year.

Largely as a matter of recreation Doctor Davenport raises standard bred trotting horses and has ten fine animals. He has been a democrat ever since casting his first vote and prior to his appointment as postmaster held such offices as justice of the peace and member of the school board. He organized the school district at Frances, Oklahoma, under the Indian Territory laws, and was elected secretary of the school board, an office he filled until he removed from Frances. While at Bilby he was appointed justice of the peace, at the beginning of state- hood, and filled that office until his removal to Holden- ville. Doctor Davenport is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church, and is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Royal Neighbors.

On March 27, 1901, he married Miss Estella Salter, who was born in Arkansas, a daughter of John Salter. They have a fine family of seven children, whose names are Edna, Myrtle, Zora, John, Marie, Opal and Ruth.

BEN F. ROGERS. By establishing a municipal free employment bureau, which probably is the first and only one in Oklahoma, Ben F. Rogers, city attorney at Madill, has practically solved the problem of unemployment in his city and county. The result has been gratifying to the extent that during the first half of the year 1915 it was necessary for him to prosecute only three cases wherein vagrancy was charged.

Mr. Rogers conceived the idea shortly after he entered the office early in 1915. It was during a period of in- dustrial depression in the United States, brought on by the war in Europe, when practically every community of the Middle West faced the problem of relieving the

condition of the unemployed, or depleting their treasuries by feeding incarcerated vagrants for an indefinite time. Mr. Rogers divulged his idea to the mayor, the city coun- cil and the business men of Madill and the farmers round- about, and they promised to support any plan he pro- posed to promulgate. Thereafter practically every man without employment in the city, instead of becoming a prisoner in the county jail on a charge of vagrancy, was given honest work to do.

This plan has not only been successful of itself, but Mr. Rogers finds that it has lessened the number of other offences triable in city courts. The experiment has been one of the most interesting in the legal career of the city attorney, and he has had many incidents of in- terest in his work. For nearly two years he was an assistant to United States District Attorney D. H. Line- baugh of the Eastern District of Oklahoma. The moral phase of the plan appealed to Rogers, as well as the econ- omic side of the matter, for he is the son of a Methodist minister and a member of the Educational Commission of the East and West Oklahoma Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which commis- sion Bishop Murrah is chairman.

Mr. Rogers was born in Prentiss County, Mississippi, January 26, 1886, and is a son of Rev. John H. and Willia Alice (Gresham) Rogers. Rev. John Rogers, who is a native of Mississippi, has been in the ministry for a good many years and has been a member of the East Oklahoma Conference for eight years. The grandfather of Ben F. Rogers was G. W. Rogers, a native of Tennessee and a pioneer settler of Prentiss County in Mississippi in 1835. The latter, who is still living at the age of eighty-five, is a veteran of the Confederate army, and Mr. Rogers' maternal grandsire was killed in battle as a soldier of the Southland. The Gresham family is descended from Lord Gresham, an English nobleman.

The early education of Ben F. Rogers was acquired in the public schools of Mississippi. Later he was a student in the University of Mississippi and the Southern Normal University at Huntington, Tennessee. In the latter in- stitution he prepared himself for the teaching profession and spent four years as a public school teacher. He afterward studied law at Cumberland University, at Lebanon, Tennessee, graduating in June, 1909. As has been the lot of many a minister's son, it was necessary that he earn his way through the higher institutions of learning, but this experience doubtless better equipped him for a successful professional career than plenty of money and pampering might have done. He was valedic- torian of a class of eighty when his degree of LL. B. was conferred. He began the practice of law at Ardmore, Oklahoma, in 1909, as a partner of J. T. Coleman. After three years se moved to Hugo and took up practice. The year following his advent there Mr. Rogers was appointed assistant United States district attorney. He resigned that position in 1914 and again engaged in private prac- tice, one year later being elected to his present office of city attorney.

Mr. Rogers possesses a literary bent that has occasion- ally led him into the realms of literature. During his years of preparation for his professional career he de- veloped a talent for oratory, and has acquired more than local note as a platform speaker. One of his lec- tures, "Scraps of Sunshine, " which has been delivered a number of times in Oklahoma, has brought him many compliments from men of known forensic ability, and once was the inspiration of an invitation to enter lyceum platform work. Mr. Rogers, however, is faithful to his chosen career.

Mr. Rogers is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and of the county and state bar associa- tions. His fraternal connections are with the Knights of

1570

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Pythias and Woodmen of the World, and his college fra- ternity was the Kappa Sigma. He was secretary of the local commercial club for a short time, and a member of the Madill Civic League. As city attorney he drew the ordinance creating a board of library commissioners, and establishing a city library.

Mr. Rogers has three brothers and two sisters. Rev. J. W. Rogers is presidiug elder of the Vinita District, East Oklahoma Conference, M. E. Church, South. Charles L. Rogers is superintendent of schools at Ben- nington, Oklahoma. F. H. Rogers is a druggist at Tahle- quah, Oklahoma. Miss Gertrude Rogers is a graduate of the Northeastern State Normal at Tahlequah aud occupies the chair of history in the Tallequah High School. Miss Anna Lee Rogers is attending high school, and is at home with her parents at Roff, Oklahoma, where the parents reside.

HON. JOHN A. GOODALL. The present judge of the County Court of Adair County, Oklahoma, John A. Goodall, is a member of the younger generation of energetic and capable men many of whom have forged rapidly to the forefront in the professional, political, social and business avenues of life in Eastern Okla- homa during recent years. Judge Goodall located at Westville, Adair Couuty, in 1911, newly graduated from college halls. Almost immediately he made his abilities felt in the community as a thorough, forcible and ac- complished legist and in April, 1913, he received an appointment as county judge to complete an unexpired term. The manner in which he discharged his duties on the bench warranted his election and the citizens of Adair County have had no reason to regret their choice.

Judge Goodall was born at Lebanon, the county- seat of Wilson County, Tennessee, May 7, 1887, and is a son of William H. and Belle (Carson) Goodall, na- tives of the Big Bend State. His father, who was a teacher in the public schools during the winter terms and a farmer during the summer months, died in 1898, at the age of forty years, while his mother, now past fifty-five years of age, still survives and resides in Wil- son County, Tennessee. The judge is the eldest of a family of five children, of whom the others are: Hugh W., Earl C., William Thomas and Albert H.

John A. Goodall was brought up on the home farm but inherited his father's intellectual gifts and pre- dilection for professional labors, for which he was fitted by excellent educational advantages. After attending the public school, he went to a preparatory school at Castle Heights, Lebanon, and finally entered Cumber- land University, at his home place, where he first com- pleted two years of the literary course and next com- pleted a course in law. With the securing of his degree of Bachelor of Laws, in 1911, from that institution, he came to Oklahoma and embarked upou the practice of his profession at Westville. As noted, his appointment to complete an unexpired term came in April, 1913, and at the regular election of 1914 he was elected judge of the County Court of Adair County. Although one of the youngest members of the bench of Eastern Oklahoma, he is doing his full share in earning and maintaining its high reputation. The prompt and able discharge of his responsiilities has gained him an excellent standing, and few jurists are more popular with the bench and bar. He is a democrat in his political views and a mem- ber of the Christian Church. The judge's professional duties and his happly family life have prevented his participation to a great extent in club or fraternal affairs. His domestic life is based upon his marriage, in 1912, to Miss Pearl Craig, of Westville, Oklahoma. They are the parents of one child, Alberta Vincent.

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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