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 98

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 98

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Mr. Boyd was married December 29, 1901, to Miss Juanita Allen, a native of Texas and a daughter of James H. and Martha (Hammock) Allen. Four children have been born to this union: William Powell; Jack Allen, who died in November, 1911, aged seven years; James Stuart, and Virginia Juanita.

HENRY CLAY LLOYD, M. D. One of the earliest mem- bers of the medical profession to locate at Hobart was

Dr. Henry Clay Lloyd, whose high standing in the pro- fessional circles of that part of Oklahoma is based upon fifteen years of continuous and excellent service. He has been an interested and active witness in the development of Southwestern Oklahoma and wherever possible has cast his influence with movements for further progress.

An Ohio man by birth, he was born at Milford Feb- ruary 5, 1877. The Lloyds originally came from Wales, were pioneers in the Middle West, and Doctor Lloyd 's grandfather, Allen Lloyd, died at Indianapolis in 1910 at advanced years. For a number of years he had fol- lowed the business of florist. Thomas A. Lloyd, father of the doctor, was born in Ohio in 1834 and died at Indianapolis in 1888. On first leaving Ohio he moved to Tennessee, then returned to his native state, and be- came a merchant at Milford, where his son Doctor Lloyd was born, and in 1882 moved to Indianapolis, where he became connected with the Eagle Machine Works. He was a republican and was very active in the Baptist Church, serving as one of its officials for many years. Thomas A. Lloyd married Anna West, who was born in Ohio in 1849 and now lives at Terrace Park, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. The five children were: Huber A., a resident of Terrace Park, Ohio; Samuel W., also of Terrace Park, Ohio; William T., of Terrace Park, Ohio; and John W., who resides at Milford, Ohio.

The youngest of the family, Dr. Henry Clay Lloyd received his early education in the public schools of Milford and was graduated from the high school there in 1895. He soon afterwards entered the University of Cincinnati in the medical department and continued until graduating M. D. in 1901. In that year, which also coin- cided with the opening of the Kiowa and Comanche Reservation in Southwestern Oklahoma, he opened his office in Hobart and from that time to the present has looked after his increasing business in general medical and surgical practice. His offices are in the Flaxman Building on Fourth Street. His many friends in the medical profession in Kiowa County have honored him by election to the office of president and also secretary of the County Medical Society, and he is a member of the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association.

Politically his voting has always been with the repub- lican party. Fraternally he is affiliated with Hobart Lodge No. 198, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Hobart Chapter No. 37, Royal Arch Masons; Hobart Council, Royal and Select Masons; with Hobart Lodge 2775, Brotherhood of American Yeomen; Hobart Lodge No. 881, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and he was formerly a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World. His name is also found on the rolls of membership in the Hobart Commercial Club.

In 1910, at Oklahoma City, Doctor Lloyd married Miss Louise Brady, daughter of W. C. Brady, a well known business man living at Oklahoma City. To their mar- riage has been born one daughter, Marie Louise.

L. SHERMAN SKELTON, M. D. The development and upbuilding of an urban community of important order can never be looked upon as a matter of spontaneity, however great the natural resources and advantages of the locality may be. To achieve the result there must be brought to bear the dynamie energy of men of broad mental ken, mature judgment, progressive pol- icies and indomitable perseverance. That the City of Okmulgee has thus riseu to a status of special preee- dence as an industrial and commercial eenter and as a desirable place of residence has been due to the con- certed efforts of men of fine initiative and constructive ability, and among those who have been foremost in

T& Skreton

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

directing and pressing forward the splendid work there is none whose influence and executive efficiency has ex- ceeded, not to say equaled, that of Doctor Skelton, who has proved himself well constituted for leadership and who has played a large and beneficent part in the fur- therance of the development of Okmulgee into one of the vigorous and important cities of the State of Okla- homa, the while his activities have been such as to pro- mote not only this result but also to enable him to advance from financial obscurity to an established and secure position as one of the substantial capitalists and influential citizens of the state of his adoption. He has worked along normal and legitimate lines, has directed his course with full appreciation of his per- sonal stewardship and with unswerving integrity of purpose, so that there are none to begrudge him the success which he has won through his own ability and well ordered endeavors, the while he had early found and improved the opportunity for winning distinct pres- tige in the profession for which he had carefully pre- pared himself.

At Princeton, the judicial center of Gibson County, Indiana, Doctor Skelton was born on the 10th of July, 1865, a son of James M. and Permelia (Long) Skelton, who passed their entire lives in Gibson County and who were representatives of sterling pioneer families of that now favored section of the Hoosier State. James M. Skelton acquired a good education in his youth, largely through his own efforts, and had become a suc- cessful and popular teacher in the public schools of his home county prior to the Civil war. When the integrity of the nation was thus jeopardized by armed rebellion he promptly laid aside the work of the pedagogic pro- fession to tender his aid in defense of the Union, and he virtually sacrificed his life in the cause. In 1861, in response to President Lincoln's first call, he enlisted as a member of Company B, Sixty-fifth Indiana Volun- teer Infantry, in which he was made captain of his company. Proceeding with his gallant command to the front, he participated in innumerable engagements, including many important battles, and he continued in active service until the close of the war, when he received his honorable discharge. The hardships which he endured during his long and valiant service as a soldier so shattered his health that he survived only a few months after his return to his home, where his death occurred in the autumn of 1865, when he was but thirty-three years of age. He was with Sherman in the Atlanta campaign and in the subsequent and ever memor- able march from Atlanta to the sea, and after the final surrender he took part in the Grand Review of the jaded but victorious troops, in the City of Washing- ton. He went out as sergeant of his company and . through his ability and gallantry won promotion to the office of captain. It is worthy of special note at this juncture that Doctor Skelton of this review had seven uncles who likewise were soldiers of the Union in the great conflict between the North and the South and that all of them lost their lives while at the front. The mother of Doctor Skelton still resides in the old home at Princeton, Indiana, secure in the affectionate regard of all who know her and now venerable in years, as she celebrated in 1915 her eighty-fifth birthday an- niversary. Of the three children the cldest is Charles W., who is a prosperous agriculturist near the City of Hutchinson, Reno County, Kansas; James M., Jr., who was a farmer and baker, died in 1912, at Long Beach, California; and Doctor Skelton, who is the youngest of the number, was but a few months old at the time of his father's death.

In his native town Doctor Skelton was reared to

the age of sixteen years and there he profited duly by the advantages of the public schools. At the age noted he accompanied his eldest brother to Kansas, and at Hutchinson, that state, he continued his studies in the public schools until he had completed the curriculum of the high school. He early formulated plans for his future career and in consonance with his ambitious pur- pose he finally entered the Eclectic Medical College in the City of Cincinnati, Ohio, in which representative institution of the Eclectic School of Practice he was graduated as a member of the class of 1889 and with the well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. After his graduation the doctor was engaged in the practice of his profession in the historic old City of Vincennes, Indiana, until 1893, when he came to Oklahoma Terri- tory and established his residence on a pioneer farm near Blackwell, in the present Kay County. He became one of the founders of the Bank of Blackwell, which later was reorganized as the Blackwell State Bank and which, under the latter title, now figures as the oldest banking institution in the fine little city in which its business is established. Doctor Skelton became pres- ident of the bank and continued the efficient incumbent of this office until 1898, when he removed to Cherryvale, Kansas, where he became actively identified with the manufacturing of cement and brick, though still retain- ing his interests in the Bank at Blackwell. The doctor drilled the first oil well in the Cherryvale District of the Mid-continent oil field of Kansas, and sold the first oil produced in that eventually famous producing field. He initiated his activities in oil and gas development in 1898, and from small beginnings he advanced to operations of broad scope and importance, the while he gained a substantial fortune through this medium, as have many other progressive men of the West. The doctor established natural-gas plants at Altoona, Fred- cric and Fall River, Kansas, and at Sapulpa, Okmulgee and Morris, Oklahoma. At Fredonia, Wilson County, Kansas, he built and equipped plants for the manufac- turing of glass, brick and cement, and eventually he was drawn entirely away from the work of his profession to become a prominent and influential figure in the field of industrial and commercial enterprise.

In 1905 Doctor Skelton established his residence at Okmulgee, judicial center of the county of the same name, and here he became the founder of the Okmulgee Window Glass Co., which he has developed into the largest establishment of its kind in the entire state and which he has made the most valuable of all specific contributions to the industrial prestige of Okmulgee, the while the extensive operations carried on in con- nection with this extensive manufacturing enterprise have brought to the city a large contingent of most desirable citizens. The glass factory thus founded by the doctor gives employment to a corps of 600 persons, including a large contingent of skilled artisans, and the result has been that through the influence of Doctor Skelton in the upbuilding of this admirable industrial enterprise fully 1,200 persons have been added to the population of Okmulgee, where many of the employes of the manufactory have established permanent homes for their families. The plant of the Okmulgee glass works is modern in its equipment and facilities, utilizes twenty acres of ground and its importance may be estimated when it is stated that it is the second largest establishment devoted to the manufacturing of window glass to be found in the entire area of the United States, and probably in the entire world. The enormous out -. put of the plant finds ready demand, and the products are shipped not only into all parts of the United States but also into Europe, the Oriental countries, South

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America, Canada and Mexico. The Okmulgee factory is virtually an independent institution, but with his asso- ciates Doctor Skelton owns and operates four other well established, glass factories. He is chairman of the board of directors of the First National Bank of Ok- mulgee and has other local capitalistic interests of im- portant order.

Appreciative of the civic duties and responsibilities which success and influence impose, Doctor Skelton is essentially liberal, progressive and public-spirited as a citizen, and in politics he is one of the leaders of the Republican party in Oklahoma, which state he repre- sented as a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention of 1912, in the City of Chicago. He is iden- tified with representative fraternal aud social organ- izations in his home city, and both he and his wife are zealous members of the . Presbyterian Church, in which he has served as an elder for a score of years. He is the owner of one of the most beautiful of the many fine modern homes of Okmulgee and with Mrs. Skelton as its gracious and popular chatelaine it is the center of much of the social life of the community.

In 1891 was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Skelton to Miss Ella Rice, who was at the time residing at Vin- cennes, Indiana, but who was born in Kentucky, her father, Rev. William Rice, being a prominent clergy- man of the Presbyterian Church. Doctor and Mrs. Skelton have three children: Laura Irenc is the wife of James T. Pancost, of Okmulgee; Leland R. is a mem- ber of the class of 1917 in Leland Stanford, Jr., Uni- versity, at Palo Alto, California; and Lester Marion is attending, in 1916, a preparatory school at Palo Alto, California.

NATHAN SHUMATE DEMOTTE. In the days of the Huguenot persecution in France, three brothers DeMotte were expelled from their native land, and found sanctu- ary with many another in America. These men located in North Carolina, and from the families they established then many branches have come into being. Nathan Shu- mate DeMotte is of the progeny of one of those men. He is a son of Rev. William DeMotte, born in Rising Sun, Cecil County, Maryland, and his wife, Minerva J. Jones, born in Marysville, Kentucky, in 1830. The father died in Kansas City in 1890 and the mother in Polk County, Missouri, in 1886.

Rev. William DeMotte was a Methodist minister and a member of the St. Louis Methodist Episcopal Con- ference from 1857 until he died. Prior to his entry into the ministry he was a sailor. His work in the ministry was carried on iu the State of Missouri, in the northern part up to 1866, and after that in the south- ern part of the state. He was in early days a Douglas democrat, and after that a republican. He served the Union during the Civil war as chaplain of his regiment, and he was a member of the Masonic fraternity during the best years of his life. To him and his wife were born three children. William T., the eldest, was a marble cutter and a printer. He died in 1888 in Windsor, Missouri, at the early age of Twenty-seven years. Nathan Shumate of this review was the second son, and Samuel M. lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has been the owner of several printing plants.

Nathan Shumate DeMotte was born in Cass County, Missouri, on February 21, 1867, and he had his ele- mentary education in the public schools of Southern Missouri. He was only fourteen years old when he left school and entered the office of the Windsor Review at Windsor, Missouri, under the management of W. H. Walker, who is now editor of the Purcell Register in Purcell. Oklahoma, and who is perhaps the oldest editor

in point of service in the state. Up until 1888 Mr. DeMotte was employed in various printing offices in Missouri towns, and in that year he went to Kansas City, Missouri, and secured a place on the Star, later working for the Journal, and for certain job printing houses in that city. He was there until 1909, when he decided to go into the business on his own initiative, and he accordingly bought the Bethany Democrat, at Bethany, Missouri. After one year he sold the paper, and then bought the Nodaway Forum, which he later consolidated with the Maryville Republican and the Nodaway Democrat, calling the paper the Democrat- Forum. This was a daily and weekly publication, and Mr. DeMotte continued to edit it until January, 1914, when he went to New Mexico in search of health. In April, 1915, he came to Weatherford, Oklahoma, and soon after bought an interest in the Weatherford- Democrat, then owned by Harry J. Dray. Mr. DeMotte has since then been editor of the paper, Mr. Dray having other interests that do not permit him to give much attention to the management of the paper. The paper was established in 1899 and it had passed through the trials that ordinarily attend the history of the small town newspaper. The efforts of Mr. Dray, however, after he came into ownership, had established it ou a sound basis, and the combined efforts of Mr. Dray and the editor, Mr. DeMotte, leave nothing to be desired in the way of successful management.

Mr. DeMotte is a democrat, and he served for some years as a school director in Kansas City while a resi- dent there. He is a member of the Methodist Church, and is fraternally connected with the Woodmen of the World at Maryville, Missouri.

In 1890 Mr. DeMotte was married in Kansas City to Miss Luella Myers, daughter of. John Myers, now deceased. Four children have been born to them. Loren, the eldest, is his father's assistant in the business. He is married to Pearl Daniels, of Maryville, Missouri, and they have one child, Nathau Shumate DeMotte II, born March 1, 1913. Maude is a graduate of the Artesia (New Mexico) High School, and is now attend- ing the Southwestern State Normal at Weatherford, Oklahoma. Grace was graduated from the Maryville High School and from the Fifth District State Normal in Missouri. She is now employed in the public schools of Arapaho as a teacher. Dorothy is a graduate of the Artesia High School, and is now a student in the South- western State Normal School.

W. P. ROOT. The modern lawyer is likely to be also known as a very successful business man. It is doubt- ful if any lawyer in Creek County has more extensive business interests and connections than W. P. Root of Sapulpa. Mr. Root was an Oklahoma pioneer, having located in the Cherokee Strip at the time of the opening, and for more than fifteen years has had his home and his chief interests at Sapulpa.

A man now just in the prime of his years and achieve- ments, W. P. Root was born near Arcola in Douglas County, Illinois, January 1, 1864, a son of William T. and Kizzie (Raney) Root. His father was born in the State of Virginia, March 12, 1835, has followed farming all his life, and though past fourscore years is still in good health and has a fruit farm at the edge of the Town of Hermiston, Oregon. The mother was born near Marietta, Ohio, and died in 1891 at the age of forty-six in Kansas. There were four sons and four daughters, and two of the sons and two of the daughters are still living.

The second in order of birth, W. P. Root lived in that section of Illinois where he was born for the first twenty-

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two years of his life. He was reared on a farm, and had a common school education to start with. His parents then moved out to Ford County, Kansas, and going there later he took up and improved a claim. While living on his claim he "bached"' and varied the tedium of his somewhat lonely existence by borrowing a set of law books and studying law at every opportunity for some three or four years. He is a self educated lawyer, but his experience has shown that he has suffered no particular handicap on that account. He was admitted to the bar of Kansas about 1890, and in 1893 at the opening of the Cherokee Strip he moved to Pawnee. He remained in a successful practice there until April, 1898, and then went out to Wyoming, and was attorney for the Daly coal interests in that state until the property was sold to the Standard Oil Company, with which he remained until the fall of 1899. He then resigned his position, and in February, 1900, opened his law office in Sapulpa. Since then he has enjoyed a large general practice, and is now dean of the local profession at Sapulpa, having outlasted all other attorneys who were here when he came. Mr. Root's offices are in the Root Building at 71% South Main Street, and this building represents one of his con- tributions to the growth of the city. He owns several farms and owns producing oil wells on one farm and a half interest in two other wells. He also holds some valuable oil leases and has a large amount of oil lands in this district. Much of his practice has been as at- torney for various oil companies. He has never been led aside from the law and business affairs by politics. He is a republican, but locally votes for the best man. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias, and with the auxiliaries of these orders.

At Dodge City, Kansas, March 20, 1889, Mr. Root married Miss Stella M. Hammond. She was born near Galesburg, Illinois, a daughter of Capt. R. F. Hammond, who served with a gallant record in the Civil war. There is probably no man in Sapulpa who takes a more thorough interest in outdoor life and sports. He is one of the men in the county who maintains a pack of hounds, and for the past six years the Thanksgiving day wolf hunt which starts from his summer home, 1012 miles west of Sapulpa, has been an event attracting wide interest and a great many sportsmen from all this section of Okla- homa. His ranch is located on Rock Creek. There is a standing invitation to all owners of hounds in the county to come to the Root home and take part in the wolf hunt. Besides his pack of hounds Mr. Root is the only one in this part of Oklahoma who keeps a flock of pea fowls and pheasants.

HON. JAMES R. TOLBERT. The career of the Hon. James R. Tolbert, ex-district judge of Kiowa County, a leading attorney of the Oklahoma bar and the author of legislation of a sound, practical and helpful character, illustrates most forcibly the possibilities that are open to the young man who possesses ambition and determina- tion. It proves that neither wealth nor the assistance of influential friends at the outset of his career are at all necessary to place the young man upon the road to success. It also proves that ambitious perseverance, steadfastness of purpose, and indefatigable industry will be rewarded, and that true success follows individual efforts only.

Judge Tolbert was born in Jackson County, Ten- nessee, May 14, 1862, and is a son of Maj. James R. and Ann Margaret (Richmond) Tolbert. The family were pioneers of North Carolina, from whence they removed to Tennessee, and Maj. James R. Tolbert was born there, at Gainesboro, Jackson County, in 1836. He was edu-

cated for the law and in 1858 removed to Marshfield, Missouri, where he was engaged in practice until the outbreak of the war between the states, at which time he returned to Tennessee and entered the Confederate serv- ice, being subsequently elected major of the Twenty- eighth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. He served gallantly as a soldier, and met his death on the bloody field of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. Major Tolbert was a democrat, and was fast becoming one of the influ- ential men of his party. He married Ann Margaret. Richmond, who was born in Jackson County, Tennessee, in 1840, and died while on a visit to the home of her son, Judge Tolbert, at Hobart, in December, 1906. .

After attending the common schools of Jackson County, Tennessee, James. R. Tolbert attended an old- fashioned academy of the South, in Smith County, Ten- nessee, where he received the equivalent of what is now a high school education. Following this he was engaged in teaching school for two terms in Tennessee, and in 1882 removed to Grayson County, Texas, where he clerked in a store for six months at Farmington. His next vocation was that of salesman, a capacity in which he traveled for six months, then returning to his labors as an educator, which he followed at Van Alstyne, Texas, as principal for six months, as principal of schools at Weston, Collin County, Texas, for two years, and as superintendent of schools at Vernon, Texas, two years. In the spring of 1888 he entered the real estate business, and in the spring of 1889 was elected the first mayor of Vernon, Texas. His real estate ventures proving emi- nently successful, for the first time in his life he found himself on a solid financial basis.

Judge Tolbert had inherited his father's predilection for the law and from early youth had been desirous of engaging therein as a profession. Accordingly, in the summer of 1890, he entered the University of Texas, at Austin, where he completed a two years' law course within one year, and established an excellent record, leading the junior class and having an average of 90 per cent for his senior year's work. He was admitted to the bar in May, 1891, and returned to Vernon, where he engaged in the practice of his calling in association with Judge R. W. Hall, who is now associate judge of the Court of Civil Appeals, at Amarillo, Texas. This partnership continued until Judge Tolbert was elected, in 1894, county judge of Willbarger County, an office in which he continued six years. In 1900 he formed a partnership with W. D. Berry, under the firm style of Tolbert & Berry, his partner, a resident of Vernon, being one of the foremost legists in the Lone Star State. In the summer of 1903, Judge Tolbert moved to Hobart, Oklahoma, and the combination was not dissolved until 1905 when he became associated with Mr. John T. Hays under the firm style of Tolbert & Hays, which associa- tion continued until January, 1908, from which time Judge Tolbert practiced alone, with constantly increas- ing general civil and criminal practice, until January, 1915, when his son became associated with him under the firm style of Tolbert & Tolbert, their offices being in the Abstract Building.

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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