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 8

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 8

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The grandfather of Mr. Kirk, Henderson Kirk, was born near Louisville, Kentucky, and was a descendant of a family of that name that fled from England to the Carolinas before the Revolutionary war on account of religious persecution. His father, who was a native of Mississippi, emigrated to Texas in 1855 and, entering : the livestock business, continued to be engaged therein until the outbreak of the war between the states. This . he resumed after the war was over. Capt. Thomas Snyder, of Roswell, New Mexico, who during the Civil war was a comrade of H. N. Kirk, of Williamson County, Texas, is the only living survivor of a massacre by Mexican troops of a detachment of about fifty members of Gen. Tom Green's Brigade of the Seventh Texas Cavalry, on the Rio Grande River, near Eagle Pass. Messrs. Snyder and Kirk with one other man escaped from the Mexicans by fleeing on horseback, and Mr. Kirk survived until 1907, when he died in Oklahoma. A his- tory of this incident and of Mr. Kirk's part therein may prove of interest to the readers of this work:

The Seventh Texas Cavalry, as a division of the Con- federate army, was assigned principally to frontier duty in Texas. It was patrolling the Mexican frontier when a detachment of which Snyder and Kirk were members went across the Rio Grande River into Mexican territory to get rations. The United States and Mexico were at peace, but apparently the civil strife here kept the Mexicans constantly on guard along the border. While the detachment was in search of rations members of it suddenly discovered that they were practically surrounded by Mexicans. They told the captain so and when he made a hurried survey of the situation his order was that the men should escape if possible in any way. They were near the river and into it they fled, but nearly all were killed while in the stream by the Mexicans' fire. Others were drowned and only Snyder, Kirk and another man escaped. These three men, mounted, headed down the river, under Mexican fire, finally getting out of the range of the Mexican guns. After traveling about one mile they plunged their horses into the high waters of the stream, but the horses refused to swim and they had to retreat to the Mexican bank. There they stripped the horses of saddles and blankets and removed all their own clothes, regarmenting themselves only with their top shirts. Before they were ready to cross the river, how- ever, they saw Mexicans approaching and retreated into heavy timber nearby where they were in hiding until the Mexicans abandoned the search in that neighborhood. Then they emerged and found a single Mexican soldier awaiting them at the bank. Snyder carried his revolver but had shot the last shell in the flight. He took it out of its holster, however, and covered the Mexican be- fore the latter was aware of the approach of the Amer- icans. It was a last and desperate chance. Luckily there were no other Mexicans in sight; and luckily, also, they were within a few rods of a ferry-boat. Mr. Snyder commanded the Mexican to row them over the river and

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

he obeyed, but their clothes and saddles and bridles were left behind in the sand and the horses were forced to swim beside the boat. After reaching the other side, the three men mounted their bareback horses and rode an entire day through the blistering sun before reaching a town where they could get more clothes. Their bodies were blistered and their legs sore from the contact with the sweaty bodies of the horses and they were confined to their beds for three weeks before they were able to ride back to their regiment and make a report of the massacre on the river. Later Mr. Kirk was a hero in a battle at Galveston, when he and a few companions overpowered the men in charge of a flatboat loaded with cotton that was under supervision of the United States Army and captured the vessel. He also was in the last battle of the war, at Mansfield, Louisiana, which was fought after the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox.

The mother of Edwin S. Kirk was born and partially reared at Warrensburg, Missouri, but her parents went to Texas during the Civil war, after which they returned to Missouri, only to again go to Texas in later years. H. N. and Annie E. Kirk were the parents of the follow- ing children: Edwin S., of this notice; Joseph A., who is a ranch foreman in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma; and Miss Emma, who is unmarried and makes her home with her mother at Madill.

Edwin S. Kirk was educated in the public schools of Texas, and began a career for himself in 1902 .as book- keeper for a hardware firm in Madill, Oklahoma. Two years prior to this time, however, his father and family had removed to Indian Territory and located at Oakland, near Madill, which formerly was the site of the John Woody Ranch. After three years at Madill; Mr. Kirk went to Fort Worth, Texas, and for fifteen months there was bookkeeper in the Stockyards National Bank. Later, for a year and one-half, he was bookkeeper for the Fort Worth Horse and Mule Company, and then returned to Oklahoma and in 1912 was elected county clerk of Mar- shall County, an office in which he discharged his duties so efficiently and faithfully that he had little trouble in securing the re-election, and duly succeeded himself in 1914.

In December, 1912, at Comanche, Texas, Mr. Kirk was married to Miss Nora Rasmussen, daughter of a native of Norway, and they have two children: Edwin, aged three years; and Neece, who is one year old. Mr. Kirk is a member of the Masons, of the Madill Commercial Club and of the Reno Athletic Club of Madill.

WILLIAM A. DURANT. The name Durant has been one of prominence and broad significance . in Oklahoma since the old tribal days in the Choctaw Nation, and it is reasonable to suppose that as long as a record of human activities remains of this region there will be special associations around the name. One of the thriv- ing cities of Eastern Oklahoma is Durant, and while the selection of the name is said to honor several differ- ent members of the family, a large share of the credit for the achievements which have developed the place must be given to William A. Durant, who has been actively identified with that section of old Indian Terri- tory more than thirty years, and whose name over the state at large is at once associated with the prominent legislator, who has served in the House of Representatives from the first to the present Legislature.

William A. Durant was born at Bennington in Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory, March 18, 1866. His paternal grandfather, Pierre Durant, was a Frenchman, and after coming to America located in Mississippi, where he mar- ried a full-blood Choctaw woman. Later they came to Indian Territory in 1832 when the Indian tribes were

transferred west of the Mississippi. Several of their sons took a prominent part in the affairs of the Choctaw Nation. Sylvester Durant, father of William A., came into the Indian Territory in 1832 when a young man. After leaving the vicinity of Durant Bluff in Mississippi, he is said to have made the entire journey to Indian Territory on foot. His first location was near Boggy, but he subsequently took up his residence near Benning- ton and died there in 1876. During the war he was major in Folsom's Confederate troops. He learned to read and write after coming to Indian Territory, and did an important service as an interpreter for the Choc- taw Nation. He was also a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, combining that vocation with farm- ing. He became a member of the Choctaw House of Representatives, was noted as one of its most accom- plished public speakers, and died while a member of the Indian Legislature. He married Martha Robinson, a full-blooded white, who died in 1881. However, both had children by previous marriages.

William A. Durant, a son of Sylvester and Martha Durant, was educated in the public schools of the Choc- taw Nation, and though he had to secure his own re- sources he finally completed a course of study in Arkansas College at Batesville, Arkansas, graduating with the degree Master of Arts in 1886. The following year was spent in teaching school in the Choctaw coun- try, and in the meantime he had studied law and was admitted to the bar at Paris, Texas, before the Federal Court. He was also admitted to practice before the County, Probate, District and Supreme courts of the Choctaw Nation and of minor courts by Judge Vinson, at the old court grounds of the Third District, where he tried his first law suit.

Being of Indian extraction . Mr. Durant inherited his pro rata of land from the reservation of the Choctaw tribes, and his principal business has been that of farm- ing and stock raising on his allotment. He had about 1,000 acres in one body near the City of Durant and the estate is one that constitutes a liberal fortune.

Having acquired an education and a knowledge of affairs outside the Indian country far above that of the average native, he has always been urged by an ambi- tion to better the conditions of his race, and one of his enterprises along that line was the establishment of the Town of Durant, which now has a population between 7,000 and 10,000 people and is one of the leading com- mercial centers of the state. Perhaps of greater value have been his efforts in behalf of the education of his people, and for fifteen years or more he has diligently sought to improve every resource of the state that fa- vored educational advantages. In his early career, soon after leaving school, he held a position as inspector of academies and was subsequently superintendent of the Jones Academy at Hartshorne, and also filled the position of royalty collector for his district. Under the Indian government he served as special district judge. He be- came active in Indian politics in 1890, when elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Choctaw Legislature. He was re-elected in the following year and was chosen speaker of the House. Admission of Indian Territory to the statehood practically abolished the Choctaw Legislature, and regular sessions have not since been held, though the Legislature is still an entity and Mr. Durant has membership in it and also the posi- tion of speaker. In behalf of the Choctaw people Mr. Durant and Thomas W. Hunter of Hugo campaigned the Indian Nation in favor of what is known as the Atoka Agreement, providing for a final settlement of Indian affairs. At the same time they opposed what was known as the supplementary agreement, which would

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

have caused a long drawn out and piecemeal adjustment of Indian affairs. However, both agreements were sub- sequently adopted, and have been operative.

Outside of Indian polities Mr. Durant has affiliated with the democratic party and was a delegate from Indian Territory to the Democratic National conventions held in Kansas City and St. Louis. He was a member of the first joint executive committee organized in the territories to promote the idea of single statehood. He gave his active. support to Judge R. L. Williams, the democratic candidate for the constitutional convention, and during the session of the convention he himself served as sergeant at arms. In the first campaign for the election of state officers he was prevailed upon to become a candidate for state representative, and though he made little effort to be elected he defeated his oppo- nent by nearly 2,000 votes. In the First Legislature Mr. Durant was chairman of the Public Building Committee and a member of several other important committees. In the Second Legislature he was a member of the com- mittee on public buildings that located nearly all the higher institutions of learning in Eastern Oklahoma, in- cluding the Southeastern State Normal at Durant, the Northeastern State Normal at Tahlequah, the East Cen- tral State Normal at Claremore, the State Institute for Young Women at Chickasha, the School for the Deaf at Sulphur and the Orphans' Home at Pryor. During the Third Legislature he was speaker of the House, and was an important factor in the delegate legal entanglement ensuing over the efforts to move the state capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City, an accomplishment brought about by the passage of a law during that session. Dur- ing his first service in the Legislature Mr. Durant had favored the plan for the establishment of a state capitol on an entirely new site to be bought by the state gov- ernment, thus making the capital city an exclusive insti- tution of Oklahoma.

On April 19, 1892, Mr. Durant married Miss Ida May Corber, who was born in Jefferson County, Kansas, April 1, 1873, a daughter of George Corber, who was a German and first settled in Illinois and afterwards in Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Durant are the parents of two children: William E. L., aged twenty-one, served as a page in the House of Representatives during the First Legislature and was a clerk in the Senate during the Fifth; James Gordon, aged sixteen, was with his brother as a page in the constitutional convention. Mr. Durant is affiliated with the Masonic Order, the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a mem- ber of the Presbyterian Church.

Few men have accomplished more in Oklahoma. As a poor boy he worked his way through school, doing chores for his board and clothes. while finishing his education at Batesville. Energetic, determined, always optimistic, he ascended from adversity to a position among the most prominent of state builders in Oklahoma. He began life in the wilds of an unimproved Indian country, passed through a period of unprecedented outlaw days, and reached an era in which he is a leader in matters of public moment and one of the most polished and highly accomplished thinkers and speakers of the state.

CHARLES EDWIN MOYER. In the death of the late Charles Edwin Moyer, which occurred January 20, 1911, at his home at Alva, Woods County lost one of its sub- stantial citizens, a man who had contributed to its wel- fare and upbuilding and who had lent material encour- agement to its agricultural interests. Mr. Moyer was pre- eminently a self-made man, and from the outset of his career was compelled to overcome obstacles and survive disappointments in his struggle for success and position.

That he accomplished his aims is evidenced by the sub- stantial property which he acquired, by the reverence and regard in which his memory is still held, and by the family which he reared to fill positions of honor and responsibility in the community.

Mr. Moyer was born May 5, 1848, in the State of New York, where his parents had been pioneers. He was reared in the atmosphere of the farm and attended the public schools of Illinois, whence his parents removed when he was a lad of six years, although he was largely self-educated. During his youth he divided his time about equally between working on the farm and railroad- ing, but in 1878 removed to Kansas and entered upon a venture of his own, taking up his residence and cstab- lishing a farm on Government land located in Harper County. There he was forced to endure all the hardships and inconveniences incident to life in a pioneer com- munity, but he persevered in his efforts, and during his seventeen years of residence there was successful in his operations as a farmer and raiser of stock.

Mr. Moyer first came to Oklahoma in the original open- ing of 1889, making the run with the other aspirants for land. He was not successful, however, and returned to Kansas, where he remained until 1893, in that year again seeking a farm in the opening of the Cherokee Strip. Once more he was disappointed, not securing a claim, but the country seemed to hold out attractive opportuni- ties to him, and he elected to remain. For a time he grazed a herd of cattle in old Woods County, and with the proceeds from this business gradually leased school land, and at the same time continued to feed his cattle on the open range. In 1894 he removed his family to Alva, having built a comfortable residence there, and from that time he began to realize his ambitions. With care- ful management, energetic industry and strict integrity, he built up a large and profitable cattle ranch, located twelve miles west of Alva, and in the management and operation of this property passed the remaining years of his life. Mr. Moyer is still remembered as a business man who displayed the utmost fidelity in the keeping of engagements and with whose name no dishonorable trans- action was ever connected. He was an active and stanch democrat, but preferred to devote himself entirely to his business interests and could never be induced to enter public life or to hold position. His religious member- ship was with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, to the faith of which he was true up to the time of his death.

On June 14, 1874, in Iroquois County, Illinois, Mr. Moyer was united in marriage with Miss Ella Burr, who was born June 12, 1856, at Ottawa, Illinois, daughter of Hiram F. and Mary A. (Hower) Burr, the former a native of New York, who is now living at Pomona, Mis- souri, and the latter a native of Ohio who died in 1878. Four sons and three daughters were born to Mr. and Mrs. Moyer, as follows: Bert Homer, born May 8, 1875, a thirty-second degree Mason, who died December 11, 1911, at Oklahoma City, married in 1900, Leta Spald- ing, and had three children-Marguerite, Kenneth and Charles; Pearl, born October 7, 1877, graduated from the high school at the age of sixteen years, subsequently attended the Northwestern Normal School, of Alva, taught school for two years in Woods County, became an expert stenographer and was deputy register of deeds and an abstractor, and in 1901 was married to Howard Searcy, an abstractor, and resides at Wagoner, Okla- homa; Roy Benjamin, born June 19, 1879, who owns and operates his father's cattle ranch twelve miles from Alva, to which he has added additional land by pur- chase, was married in 1907 to Miss Nellie Brown, and has one child-Helen, who was born May 6, 1912; Grace

loving-

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C., born December 8, 1880, married in 1909 Edwin Car- lin of Anadarko, Oklahoma, and has two children- Geraldine, born November 20, 1910, and Moyer, born May 20, 1912; Olive S., born May 16, 1882, married A. C. Miller in 1906, and resides at Wagoner, Oklahoma, having two children- Louise, born June 21, 1907, and A. C., born November 30, 1909; Bruce E., born May 22, 1884, married in 1913, Ollie MeAlpin, and lives at Mills, New Mexico; and Harry, born August 28, 1886, married November 10, 1914, Alma Boone, and lives at Altus, Oklahoma.

Mrs. Moyer, who survives her husband and is living at her comfortable home at Alva, is active in the orders of the Eastern Star and the Rebekahs. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and has numerous friends in the community in which she has lived for so many years.

J. GEORGE LOVING is a young man of unusual enter- prise and initiative and he has met with such good for- tune in his various business projects that it would verily seem as though he possessed an open sesame to unlock the doors to success. Self-made and self-educated in the most significant sense of the words, he has progressed steadily toward the goal of success until he is recognized as one of the foremost business men aud citizens of Coalgate, where he has resided since 1906. He is cashier of the Coalgato State Bank and president of the Peo- ples State Bank of Centrahoma and of the Bank of Commerce of Tupelo.

A native of Texas, Mr. Loving was born at Sherman, that state, July 17, 1889, and he is a son of Jesse P., Jr., and Fannie (Stegall) Loving, the latter of whom died when the subject of this sketch was a mere child, and the former of whom is still living. Mr. Loving was reared in the home of his paternal grandfather, the Hon. Jesse P. Loving, Sr., a pioneer settler of Sherman and a former treasurer of Grayson County, Texas. The Hon. Mr. Loving was at one time a member of the Texas State Legislature and now, at the age of eighty years, he is handling the business in Grayson County of the Farmers Co-Operative Insurance Company. He is a hale and hearty octogenarian and his intellect is as keen as if he were in the prime of life. R. Q. Loving, brother of him to whom this sketch is dedicated, is deputy county clerk of Grayson County, Texas, his home being at Sherman.

After completing the curriculum of the public schools of Sherman, J. George Loving finished a stenographic and business course in the Sherman Business College. He came to Oklahoma in 1906 and obtained a position as stenographer and assistant bookkeeper in the Coal- gate State Bank. So swift was his assimilation of banking principles that two years later, on attaining his majority, he was elected cashier of that thriving finan- cial institution, of which S. W. Lane is president and Morris Milstein, vice-president. The bank was incor- porated as a national bank in 1904 with a capital stock of $50,000, and was converted to a state bank in 1908, with a capital of $25,000, and its deposits amounted to $200,000. An illustration of the bank's progressive policy and the vital interest its cashier has in the public welfare of the county is found in the act of Mr. Loving, who, in co-operation with Mr. Maxwell, of the Citizens State Bank, guaranteed for a year half the salary of a county farm demonstration agent. This happened at a critical time when mine payroll money was out of cir- culation and mine operations were suspended-a lean and hungry year when of extreme uecessity agriculture had to revive business conditions and balance a there- tofore one-sided source of income.

In connection with his business interests, Mr. Loving is secretary of the Coal County Bankers' Association, vice president of Group 5 of the Oklahoma Bankers' Association, and a member of the executive council of the State Bankers' Association. As previously noted, he is president of the Peoples State Bank of Centra- homa and of the Bank of Commerce of Tupelo. He is one of Coalgate's livest and most progressive .citizens and he takes a leading part in all important movements looking to the developmnt of the county's great variety of resources. He is a member of the Christian Church and affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of which he is exalted ruler in 1915, and with the A. F. & A. M. (Blue Lodge). He is a man of fasci- nating personality and he commands the respect of all with whom he comes in contact. He is unmarried.

JESSE P. LOVING, SR. The men who succeed in any enterprise in life, the generals who win their spurs on the field of battle, the financiers who amass wealth-are the men who have confidence in themselves and the cour- age of their convictions. There is a time in every man's life when he reaches the conclusion that envy is igno- rance; that imitation is suicide and that though the world is full of good, no good thing comes to him with- out self-reliance and the power to gain results. The man who trusts himself and who plans well his part on the stage of life is a success. A strong and sterling character is like an acrostic-read it forward or back- ward or across, it still spells the same thing. Such a man is Jesse P. Loving, Sr., who has figured promi- nently in the business and political life of Grayson County, Texas, and who is so well known and popular throughout Southern Oklahoma that he merits honorable mention in this biographical work.

Abraham R. Loving, father of Jesse P. Loving, was born in Hopkins County. Kentucky. in 1805. He was reared to maturity in his native place and there married Susan E. Pipkin. They removed to Gasconade County, Missouri, in 1835, and in 1847 located on the frontier in Denton County, Texas. In the latter place they were seven miles from the Hickory Station, where a part of Captain Bill FitzHugh's ranging company had its head- quarters, and it is interesting to note that there was not a single house between them and the Rio Grande. Mr. Loving opened up a fine farm in the vicinity of Post Oaks and there was engaged in diversified agriculture and stock-raising for the ensuing five years, at the end of which the place was left to tenants and the family settled in Sherman in order to school the children; this was in 1852. Mr. Loving died in 1879, aged seventy-five years, and his devoted wife passed away in 1885, at the same age; they are both interred in the Odd Fellows' cemetery at Denton, Texas. The family consisted of five children, concerning whom the following brief data are here inserted: Elizabeth died in infancy; Mary mar- ried Robert Owen, of Denton County, Texas, and they were stricken with cholera after a visit to his people in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and both died, leaving a baby daughter who was raised by Mr. and Mrs. Loving; she is the widow of J. C. Williams and lives in Sherman, Texas ; Louise married, first, Greene Garner, of Sherman, and they moved to Missouri where he died, leaving a little child: mother and child lived with the Lovings until her marriage to William J. Gray-she is deceased and is buried in Gainesville; Abigail, twin of the subject of this sketch, died in her seventy-fourth year and is buried with her parents at Dentou, Texas; and Jesse P. is he whose name forms the caption for this article.

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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