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 70
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Giles Thompson had three wives. His first was a Miss Wall, a half-blood Choctaw, who died in 1835. The ten children of her marriage are all now deceased. For his second wife he married a sister of his first, and she died in 1850, and her eight children are all deceased. In 1863 Giles Thompson married Ellen Jackson, who was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1844, and died in Garvin County, Oklahoma, in 1908. The children of that union were: Myrtle, wife of Richard Randolph, a farmer at Purcell. Oklahoma; Minnie, now deceased, who married W. M. Wheat, a merchant and stockman living at Idaho; Decosa, who was a stockman and died in Garvin County; W. E., a farmer in Garvin County; and William J. The mother of these children after the death of Giles Thomp- son married S. C. Wall, a Choctaw Indian, and a son of Noah Wall, who also helped to make the famous treaty of 1830, previously mentioned. S. C. Wall is still living in Garvin County on his farm. He and his wife had three children: Daisy, wife of James Harper, a Garvin County farmer; Eunice, wife of Tom Hogg, a merchant in Western Oklahoma; and S. F., a farmer in Garvin County. There is a singular instance of discrimination in the matter of allotments to the children of the late Giles Thompson. All the children of his first two wives received allotments and the 300 descendants of his freed- men were likewise favored. However, the third set of
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children were cut out from the roll, and a homestead that was in the family for a period of sixty-four years was also taken away. It seems clear that some injustice 1 . has been done in this case. It might be explained that the allotments are in the nature of deeds which patent to members of the Choctaw tribe lands in fee simple for- ever.
Coming now to the career of William J. Thompson, he was born in Garvin County, Indian Territory, July 14, 1876, and was still an infant when his father died. As a boy he showed unusual talent as a student and made rapid progress in his school work. He attended public schools in Garvin County, the academy at Atoka, was sent to the normal school at Fort Scott, Kansas, and in 1890 entered the Oklahoma State University at Norman for one year. In 1893 he graduated from the Normal University at Valparaiso, Indiana. While at Valparaiso he was president of the literary society and at Norman he helped to organize the first baseball club and also built the first tennis court. He took an active part in athletics and various other branches of college life.
After school he returned to Garvin County in 1893, and for a short time was a bookkeeper. He then started out for himself and engaged in the real estate business, in which he has been eminently successful. In fact, Mr. Thompson is regarded as the pioneer real estate operator in all this section of Oklahoma and covers the field of Garvin, McClain, Grady and neighboring counties. He himself owns 2,000 acres of land in those counties besides a large amount of city property in Pauls Valley, includ- ing 125 lots. His offices are in the old First National Bank Building on Main Street. He was formerly vice president of the County Abstract Company.
In politics a democrat, he is now serving his home community as alderman. In Masonry Mr. Thompson is affiliated with Valley Lodge No. 6, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, has attained the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite in the Valley of Guthrie Consistory No. 1, and is a member of India Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City. His church is the Presbyterian.
In 1900 at Pauls Valley he married Miss Savannah Kinnebrew, whose father, J. C. Kinnebrew, is a farmer in Western Oklahoma. Four children have been born to their marriage: Winona Sue, a freshman in the Pauls Valley High School; Lorene and Gladys, both in the grade schools; and Ramona, now in the kindergarten class.
JAMES B. ROCKWOOD. A citizen of Bristow, Creek County, James B. Rockwood has had a life of long and varied experience, and is now practically retired from active pursuits, having reached that age when men may surrender some of the earlier cares and responsibilities.
He was born in a double log house in St. Lawrence County, New York, August 29, 1845, a son of Sidney S. and Etta J. (Waite) Rockwood. Both were natives of New York State, the father of English descent and the mother of French ancestry. Sidney S. Rockwood and family were numbered among the pioneer settlers in the State of Iowa, where he removed in 1854 and located in Bremer County. He lived there until his death at the age of sixty-seven, having been a farmer during all his active life. The widowed mother survived until her eighty-sixth year. The father though quite old at the time volunteered his service during the Civil war, but was rejected. There were four children, James B. being the oldest; William C. lives in Minneapolis; Emma is the wife of Andrew Waterman, who served through the War of the Rebellion with the Sixth Iowa Cavalry; and George W., who still lives in Bremer County, Iowa.
It was in Bremer County, Iowa, that James B. Rock-
wood grew toward manhood. He attended the local schools, and when only sixteen years of age in October, 1861, he volunteered his services and enlisted in Company B of the Fourteenth Towa Volunteer Infantry. He was at the front three years four months, and was finally mustered out at Davenport when the war was practically ended. During much of his army career he was assigned to special service. He was in the great Battle of Shiloh, where his regiment was captured with the exception of two companies which were engaged in supporting a bat- tery and which did not share the fate of their com- rades. Mr. Rockwood was a member of these two com- panies and consequently escaped confinement in Con- federate prisons. He also participated in the Siege of Pittsburg with Sherman and saw much other active cam- paigning in the theater of war.
After the war Mr. Rockwood returned to Iowa and in that state in 1870 married Miss Catherine Bunny. She was born in Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1845. Mr. Rockwood and wife spent most of their years in Waucoma in Fayette County, Iowa, and all their children were born, reared and married there. Mr. Rockwood is an auctioneer by profession, but has spent much of his time in farming and has also been a dealer in real estate, insurance, and live stock.
In 1904 he came to Oklahoma and located at Bristow, with which community he has since been identified. He has served as justice of the peace, as police judge, and for a great many years has filled some local office or other in the communities where he has made his home. He still keeps an office and handles considerable business in real estate, insurance and loans. He has some prop- erty of his own which brings him in rentals.
It was Mr. Rockwood's distinction to cast his first presidential ballot for Abraham Lincoln while he was serving in the army in 1864, though only eighteen years of age at the time. He is an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Since Oklahoma statehood Mr. Rockwood has served as a justice of the peace.
He is the father of four children: Etta lives at home with her father and is a very active worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a well educated young woman; Effie is the wife of Dr. H. H. Belding, living at Waucoma, Towa; Emma is the wife of A. H. House of South Greenfield, Missouri; Charles B. Rockwood is an attorney at law at Sapulpa.
C. B. ROCKWOOD has been an active member of the bar of Creek County since 1904. He is now a mem- ber of the firm of Pryor & Rockwood at Sapulpa. When he came to the county there were only seven attorneys comprising the Sapulpa bar, while the num- ber now is sixty-five. Mr. Rockwood is a man of the people, a natural leader, and has many qualifications both as a lawyer and for political service. He has taken part as a speaker in Creek County in nearly every polit- ical campaign and it is said that he knows and can call by name almost every permanent resident here.
An Towa man, he was born at Waucoma, August 3, 1877, a son of J. B. and Catherine (Bunny) Rockwood of whom mention will be found on other pages of this volume.
Mr. Rockwood was reared and educated in Fayette County, Jowa. From the common schools he entered the Upper Iowa University at Fayette, where he was grad- uated A. B. in 1900. He then studied law in the law department of Drake University at Des Moines, and gained admission to the Towa bar in June, 1904. A little later he came to Oklahoma, or Indian Territory as it was then, and located at Bristow in Creek County. That was his home and the center for his extending law prac-
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tice until November, 1910, since which date he has been a member of the firm of Pryor and Rockwood at Sapulpa.
In politics Mr. Rockwood is a democrat, and in Masonry has attained the thirty-second degree of Scot- tish Rite and belongs to the Guthrie Consistory. He is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows.
In 1904 he married Miss Jessie Shaw, who was born in Western Iowa, a daughter of George and Caroline Shaw. To their marriage were born three children: Doris, Joseph and Ralph.
ARTHUR I. MORGAN. There are few citizens of Bar- tlesville, the metropolis and judicial center of Washing- ton County, who have been more closely associated with the development and progress of this thriving city than Mr. Morgan, who has not only been an active and repre- sentative business man and loyal and public-spirited citizen, but who has also served with marked ability in various offiees of public trust, including that of post- master of Bartlesville, a position which he retained ten years. He is now giving his attention principally to the management of his substantial business of raising vege- tables, and his special province is the propagation of the same under glass, his greenhouses for this purpose being extensive and well equipped, so that he is a recognized leader in this interesting and important field of enter- prise.
Mr. Morgan was born in Leavenworth County, Kansas, on the 12th of January, 1861, and this date clearly indi- cates that his parents were numbered among the early pioneers of the Sunflower State. He is a son of Jonathan and Jane (Culver) Morgan, who were born and reared in Tennessee, as representatives of sterling old southern families. About the year 1860 they removed to Kansas and became early settlers of Leavenworth County, the remainder of their lives having been passed in that state, where the father died at the age of sixty-seven and the mother at the age of sixty-eight years. They endured their full share of the hardships ineidental to pioneer life on the frontier but were not denied an ultimate reward of prosperity and independence in compensation for their earnest labors. Jonathan Morgan reelaimed and improved a traet of government land and was for many years engaged in mercantile pursuits in Leavenworth Connty, the most of the time at Leavenworth, in which city he was a pioneer merchant and honored and influential citi- zen. Of the family of four sons and five daughters the subject of this review is the youngest.
Arthur I. Morgan remained at the parental home until he was about eighteen years of age, and in the meanwhile he made good use of the advantages afforded him in the publie schools of the locality and period. In 1877 Mr. Morgan left his home county and made his way to Sonthern Kansas, and he was employed for varying inter- vals at Coffeyville and other places. He finally made his way over the border into Indian Territory, and in the pioneer days he visited the now thriving cities of Bartlesville, Pawhuska and Claremore, also going to Fort Sill and thenee making his way into Texas. During this period of semi-perigrination he gave his attention principally to working as a cowboy. At Coleman, Texas, he remained for some time, and he gained wide experi- ence in connection with the cattle business. In eonnee- tion with this line of enterprise he became a permanent resident of the present State of Oklahoma in the year 1884 and he became associated with his brother Jesse K. in the ownership of a ranch on Coon Creek, about seven miles northeast of the present City of Bartlesville. They there continued their operations in the cattle business and general ranehing for two years. Mr. Morgan there-
after passed short periods of time at Coffeyville, Kansas and Pawhuska, Indian Territory, and then established his residence at Bartlesville, where he purchased an inter- est in a blacksmith and wagon shop, in which he learned the trade of blacksmith under the direction of his part- ners. For three years after becoming a skilled workman he ran a shop in an individual way, and for four or five years thereafter he was associated with Henry Clay in the same sturdy line of enterprise.
Under the administration of President Mckinley Mr. Morgan was appointed postmaster at Bartlesville, the office being then of the fourth class and Bartlesville little more than a village. Under his regime the Bartles- ville office was advanced to the second elass, and with the rapid growth of the city he was enabled also to super- vise the institution of the city delivery and the rural free-delivery systems from the Bartlesville postoffice. He retained the office of postmaster a full deeade, gave a most. careful and effective administration and retired in 1909, when he was succeeded by Postmaster Higgins. Mr. Morgan served two years as deputy sheriff of Wash- ington County, and since his retirement from this office he has devoted his time and attention to market garden- ing and to the cultivating of flowers, his greenhouse for floriculture being of modern order and his patronage being of substantial order in both departments of his business. His gardens, greenhouses and residence are located on a tract of ten acres of land, adjacent to the city on the north, and the improvements on this attractive place have all been made under his supervision, He is the owner of this and other property at Bartlesville and is a citizen of whom it may consistently be said that his cirele of friends is limited only by that of his aequaint- ances.
Mr. Morgan is at all times vital and loyal as a pro- gressive and liberal citizen, takes abiding interest in the civic and material progress and prosperity of Bartles- ville and Washington County, and is one of the honored pioneers of this part of the state. His political alle- gianee has always been given unreservedly to the repub- lican party, and he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which last mentioned organiza- tion he has served for the past ten years as secretary of his lodge.
In the year 1886 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Morgan to Miss Leona Brooks, who was born in Taylor County, Iowa, on the 27th of March, 1865, her parents having been sterling pioneers of that seetion of the Hawkeye State. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Morgan maintained their residence for some time in a primitive log house that stood in what is now the very center of the City of Bartlesville. Mrs. Morgan is a daughter of Joseph C. and Susan Josephine (Fox) Brooks, who not only had their full quota of pioneer experience in Iowa but who added materially to their knowledge of frontier life by establishing their home in what is now Washington County, Oklahoma, in 1884, when all of the present state was still Indian Territory. Mr. Brooks was born in Ohio, on the 18th of December, 1835, and was one of the honored pioneer citizens of Washington County, Oklahoma, at the time of his death, which occurred on the 6th of October, 1910. His wife, who was born in the City of Baltimore, Maryland, on the 3d of June, 1835, is still living, as are also four of their children. Mr. Brooks was a Union soldier in the Fourth Missouri Cavalry for about eighteen months dur- ing the Civil war, and at the expiration of that time he was honorably discharged, on account of physical disa- bility. He was one of the pioneer farmers and stoekmen of what is now Washington County, Oklahoma, and his
a I Morgan and Family
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early operations as a farmer were on land a portion of which is now in the very center of the business district of the thriving City of Bartlesville. His venerable widow, whose memory links the primitive pioneer era with that of latter-day progress and prosperity in Okla- homa, resides in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, who accorded to her the utmost filial care and solicitude. Her son John E. Brooks is engaged in the practice of law at Sedan, Chautauqua County, Kansas, and in 1915 is serving as grand master of the Kansas Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Another son, Oren P. Brooks, plumber by trade, resides in Hutchison, Kansas, and a daughter, Alice C. Wilson, resides in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Morgan became the parents of eight children: Ina holds the position of money-order clerk in the Bartlesville postoffice, with which she has been connected for thirteen years, and she was married to Charles C. Edinger January 19, 1916; Nellie is a popular teacher in Washington County schools; Della is attending the Bartlesville High School, and Kilie is also attending the public schools of Bartlesville, these data having application in 1915, at the time of this writing. Zelma, the second child, died at the age of eleven years; Olfie, the third in order of birth, died when five years old; Rilla, fifth of the children, died at the age of four years; and the seventh child was Arthur, who died at the age of five years.
EDWARD MOORING POINTER. On January 5, 1910, death removed one of the ablest lawyers and best known citizens of Sequoyah County in the person of the late Edward Mooring Pointer. Mr. Pointer was just in his prime at the time of his death, and for some years enjoyed a large practice as a lawyer, and was a leader in public affairs, having been the first District Court clerk of Sequoyah County after Oklahoma statehood.
While most of his life was spent in old Indian Ter- ritory and Oklahoma State, he was a native of Arkansas, born near Indian Bay June 17, 1868. His father, Sam- uel Pointer, married a Miss Mooring.
Reared in Arkansas, he took his higher education in the Cumberland University of Lebanon, Tennessee, from which he was graduated after intervals of several years from both the literary and law departments. After leaving college he was employed as a teacher in the Cherokee Male Seminary at Tahlequah, and was then principal of the public schools at Claremore, Okla- homa. By the aid of teaching he was able to continue his studies for the law and in 1897 graduated LL. B. from the Cumberland University. Locating in what is now Sequoyah County, he soon had an enviable reputa- tion as a lawyer and a promising and profitable prac- tice.
His work as a public spirited citizen and in the democratic party enabled him to impress his personal- ity and influence upon Oklahoma at a time vital in its political progress. He gave time and energy to the promotion of the statehood movement, and it was under statehood that he gained his first distinguished posi- tion in public affairs. He was endorsed by members of the bar and by a host of personal friends as nomi- nee for the office of clerk of the District Court for Sequoyah County, and was elected and gave his time and ability to the discharge of his duties until his death. He would have been renominated and re-elected to the same office had his death not occurred before that honor could be paid him.
The late Mr. Pointer was also interested in the firm of Mayo Brothers, general merchants, at Sallisaw. He is remembered for the commendable interest he took in public measures, his progressiveness, his fidelity as
friend and neighbor, husband and father, and to the end enjoyed the high esteem and respect of all who knew him. He was an active member of the Knights of Pythias, and in religious matters affiliated with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
In 1900 he married Miss Patsy (Martha) Mayes. Mrs. Pointer is a daughter of Jesse and Cherokee (Adair) Mayes, representing two of the most prominent families of the old Cherokee Nation. Mrs. Pointer is still living in Sallisaw, and her two children are named Samuel Jesse and James David Pointer.
HON. WORD CROMWELL. Among the men of Oklahoma who are aiding the cause of education by their stand for an elevation of standards in the public schools, one who has contributed materially by his services is Hon. Word Cromwell, county superintendent of schools of Garvin County, with headquarters at Pauls Valley. Mr. Crom- well is a man of decided talent and abilities and pos- sesses also the necessary initiative and executive force so desirable in a position such as he occupies. He is a native of Mississippi, and was born in Lafayette County, February 24, 1885, a son of G. W. and Mattie (Ferrell) Cromwell.
The Cromwell family originated in England, from which country the great-grandfather of Mr. Cromwell emigrated to Virginia, where he became a wealthy and influential planter, but in later years moved to North Carolina. His son, John Cromwell, was born in Virginia, and became a pioneer farmer and stockman of Lafayette County, Mississippi.' When the war between the states came on he enlisted in the Confederate army, and met a soldier's death near Atlanta, Georgia, in 1865. G. W. Cromwell was born in Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 1850, and was still a youth when his father died. He remained in Mississippi until 1896, when he removed to the south central part of Pottawatomie County, Okla- homa Territory, and in 1898 secured the farm of 120 acres eight miles northeast of Wanette, in that county, on which he now resides. There he carries on diversified farming as well as stockraising, in both of which direc- tions his industry and good management have won him marked success. Mr. Cromwell is a democrat in his polit- ical views. He is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and at the present time a deacon. Mr. Cromwell married Miss Mattie Ferrell, who was born in Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 1853, and they have had seven children, namely: Sheldon, who is a rural mail carrier and resides at Wanette; Neva, who is employed in a dry goods store at that place; Lillie, who is engaged in teaching school in MeClain County, Okla- homa; Flavel, a traveling salesman with headquarters at Oklahoma City; Word; Mary, who married Marion Hibbard, manager of a bottling works at Tulsa, Okla- homa; and Lowrie, who is attending a public school at Asher, Oklahoma.
Word Cromwell was reared on his father's farm, where he remained until he was twenty-one years of age. In 1906 he entered the State Normal School, at Edmond, where he studied for two years, and the school years of 1908-9 and 1909-10 he taught in the district school at McCarty, while these two summer terms he was a student at the State Normal School at Edmond. In the fall of 1910 he again entered school at Edmond, remaining eleven months, and the school years of 1911-12 and 1912-13 acted as principal of the village school at Foster, Oklahoma. Mr. Cromwell spent the summer of 1912 at Edmond as a student and during the two years 1913-14 and 1914-15 held the principalship of the schools of Paoli, Oklahoma. In the summer of 1914 Mr. Cromwell entered politics and ran for the position of county super- intendent of schools of Garvin County, to which he was
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elected November 16, 1914, taking charge of the office July 1, 1915. His offices are in the City Hall Building, Pauls Valley, and his term of office is two years.
Mr. Cromwell has continued to be a close and careful student, and in the summer of 1915 nearly completed the senior year's work at the State Normal School. He is a democrat politically and belongs to a number of educa- tional and other societies, including the Arena Debating Club, Edmond, the Lyceum Literary Society, the Garvin County Teachers' Association and the Oklahoma State Teachers' Association. He was married in 1910, at Wynnewood, Oklahoma, to Miss Eliza Vaughan, daughter of W. A. Vaughan, a merchant of Wynnewood. Mr. and Mrs. Cromwell have no children.
VAN H. ALBERTSON. The time has come when every important business house deems it a part of wisdom to have in its employ a man trained in the law, in this way avoiding much litigation that ignorance on special points of law might entail. Thus is opened one more avenue of activity in a profession that has claimed as its members such a large majority of ambitious and edu- cated young men when they start upon a life career. Perhaps no other profession opens so many doors to opportunity, proof being found in the fact that the greater number of the men in high stations, in America, have risen from the arena of the law. The Oklahoma bar offers many examples of rising young lawyers, men of ambition, enthusiasm, talent and personality, and one of these is found in Van H. Albertson, assistant county attorney of Creek County and a prominent resident of Sapulpa.
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