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. V, Part 109

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644

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. V > Part 109

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In the line of his duty, Chief Fenton has been com- pelled to shoot a number of men, but only in self defense, for it has always been his aim to capture his man alive. On three occasions he has been shot from ambush by criminals who have feared and hated him, but his worst wound was received while in a battle with a desperado whom he was compelled to kill. Ou December 26, 1914, Al Crain, criminal and bad man, was holding up twenty-five men in a pool room and relieving them of their money and valuables. Word

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

was taken to Chief Fenton, who decided to try to take him without killing him, but Crain grazed him with three shots and then sent a bullet through his leg. The chief's shot went true, as his shots have a habit of doing, and Oklahoma was rid of another criminal.

While Chief Fenton is best known for his work as a police and government official, he has also engaged at various times in business ventures, having been the founder of the Cleveland Leader, a weekly newspaper, his interest in which, however, he has since sold. He also had holdings in farm land and is engaged in agri- cultural ventures, but it may be said that his official work has his sympathy and affection. A democrat in politics, he was a delegate to the El Reno convention, in 1900, from the Osage Reservation, his associates being William Murdoch, John Palmer and Sylvester Saldina. He has been a Woodman at Pawhuska for fifteen years, and is prominent in Masonry, belonging to the Blue Lodge and Chapter at Cleveland, the Consistory at Guthrie and the Commandery at Pawnee.

On February 1, 1905, Chief Fenton was married to Miss Nellie Rice, a native of Missouri, and daughter of Q. A. Rice. They have an adopted daughter: Edith.

MORRIS L. WARDELL, now principal of the Guymon High School, has lived iu Oklahoma fifteen years, com- pleted his education in the state schools, and is one of the young and enthusiastic men who carry into their work in the schoolroom a wide range of practical knowl- edge and a capable experience in the agricultural indus- try which is at the basis of permanent prosperity in his section of the state.

Mr. Wardell was born on a farm in Lawrence County, Illinois, June 19, 1889, a son of William and Melissa (Shinn) Wardell. His father was born in the same county and state December 12, 1849, a son of Anthony and Susan (Pinkstaff) Wardell, who were of Scotch parentage. William Wardell has spent his active career as a farmer and in 1903 sold out his holdings in Illinois, and moving to Oklahoma bought land ten miles east of Alva in what was then Woods County but is now Alfalfa County. In that locality he has lived for the past thirteen years and has gone in for the raising of alfalfa and blooded horses on a large scale. When he was about forty years of age he became a member of the United Brethren Church, and has since been very active in its cause. On September 7, 1871, William Wardell married Miss Melissa Shinn, who was born iu Ohio, November 23, 1851, a daughter of Aaron and Emily (Hughes) Shinn, the father a native of Virginia and the mother of Ohio. William Wardell and wife had eight children : Charles, born August 9, 1874, is now a minister of the United Brethren Church. In 1903 he married Eva Cun- ningham, and their one child, Gertrude, was born Sep- tember 22, 1905. Elmer, the second child, born January 20, 1876, died September 15, 1876. An infant girl, born June 5, 1877, died the same day. Mary, a twin sister of Mattie, born August 17, 1878, died March 1, 1879. Mattie, born August 17, 1878, is unmarried and living with her parents. Jessie, born February 2, 1881, died February 8, 1881. Chester, born May 23, 1882, was married in 1904 to Myrtle Mills, and they live in Colo- rado Springs, Colorado.

The eighth and youngest of the family, Morris L. Wardell, spent the first fourteen years of his life on his father's farm in Lawrence County, Illinois. While there he attended the public schools. Coming with the family to Oklahoma, he continued his education during 1905-06 in the Stella Friends Academy at Ingersoll. In 1906 he entered the Oklahoma Northwestern State Nor- mal at Alva, where he was graduated with the class of

1912. Iu the meantime he had taught several terms of school, actually paying a large part of his expenses in college. Mr. Wardell gained a reputation in several diverse lines of college activities. For two years he was a member of the state debating team. He was also for two years associate and editor of the college paper, The Northwestern. He did much in the Students ' League work and was also oue of the athletes of the college.

During 1912-13 Mr. Wardell was principal of the high school at Geary, Oklahoma. In 1914-15 he was a teacher iu the Panhandle Agricultural Institute at Goodwell, Oklahoma. Iu the meantime he had filed on Government land in Texas County, aud still owns 480 acres which he is rapidly developing as a farm and ranch. In 1914 he was republican nominee for county superintendent of public instruction of Texas County, and lost the election by only thirty-eight votes. Since September 1, 1915, he has been principal of the Guymon High School. Mr. Wardell is a member of the United Brethren Church.

WILLIAM LEWIS . DETWILER is a veteran westerner, having lived in several of the states beyond the Missis- sippi for forty years. His early career was that of a railroad man, and he was in the rairoad service during the Civil war. He was one of the early settlers and homesteaders in the Oklahoma Panhandle country and is now engaged in the real estate and loan business at Knowles in Beaver County.

His birth occurred at Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Octo- ber 1, 1844. His parents, William H. and Mary (Longa- baugh) Detwiler, were born in Pennsylvania of German stock. William L. was the first of their five children. John Barton is now deceased; Mary Jane is the wife of Joseph Perkins; Laura is the wife of Rev. John Gallagher; Josephine is the wife of Fred Clinton.

The early life of W. L. Detwiler was spent in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he attended the local schools. That was before West Virginia was a state. At the age of seventeen he took up railroading, entering the service of that pioncer railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, and during the Civil war was advanced to the position of a conductor. He followed railroading actively both in the East and West for twenty years. His home has been in the West since 1876, and in that year hel conducted the first passenger train running west of Lincoln, Nebraska, over the Burlington Railroad. For a number of years he also followed prospecting for gold in the Rocky Mountains.

Mr. Detwiler came to Oklahoma in 1900, locating on a tract of Government land in Beaver County. That lande is still in his possession and has been greatly improved from the condition in which he first found it. He has employed his energies and capital in cattle raising, farm ing and also in selling real estate, and his operations as a real estate man included participation in the founding of the Town of Knowles, where he now has his office A democrat in politics, he has never been a candidato for office, though he has done much in the way of loca betterment in his home town. Mr. Detwiler is a thirty second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Mystic Shriner and also belongs to the Knights of Pythias.

In 1886, at Linneus, Missouri, he married Miss Marti A. Dail, a native of Linn County, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Detwiler have no children of their own, bu adopted a son, Chester, who was born in 1898.

CHARLES F. TALIAFERRO, M. D. In states older than chief sur Oklahoma it has been many years since men travele. toward a destination in a bee-line direction withou having to turn right-angled corners caused by section-lin roads. It has been but ten years in that section o

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma that formerly was Indiau Territory since an individual might travel indefinitely in any diagonal direction with hindrances only of rough banked streams or wire pasture fences. That he might drive ten miles northwest without square turns and mile-long stretches was an interesting thought to a doctor on a dark night in winter. It was not always interesting, however, to contemplate swolleu streams or dangerous gullies on an unsurveyed road made public only by common usage.

These general statements give an idea of conditions in the vicinity of Bennington ten years ago, as well as of the experiences of Dr. Charles F. Taliaferro as a pioneer physician of that section. The "northwest" direction mentioned illustratively is significant, for it is in that direction that the doctor has traveled for several years to reach the ranch of John Kirk and the kennels of the doctor's blooded hounds kept there by Mr. Kirk for fox and wolf hunting purposes. The sporting blood of more than one generation is in Doctor Taliaferro's veins, and it calls him out into the forests and mountains every fall and winter. The hounds are of as good blood as Tennessee produces, and he imported them here for the revival of a sport that nearly became extinct with the passing of the big Indian reservations. Doctor Taliaferro is a broad aud liberal minded man, enthusiastic for his community's uplift and progress; but he has taken a position in the ranks of the social and municipal activities in order that he may remain a general in the woods.

There is no name more familiar to the various genera- tions of national and particularly Southern history than that of Taliaferro, which has produced soldiers, states- men, and people famous in all the professious and voca- tions. Charles F. Taliaferro was born in 1870 in Ten- nessee, a son of William H. and Martha (Franklin) Taliaferro. His father, a native of Tennessee, fought as a member of Company B, First Tennessee Cavalry, in the Confederate army during the war between the states. The grandfather also fought for the Confederacy, aud after the war declined to vote because of the enfran- chisement of the negro. Doctor Taliaferro's grand- uncle, Harden Taliaferro, a native of Virginia, became the founder of the famous female institute at Muskogee, Alabama, and as a minister of the Baptist faith edited for several years one of the leading religious papers of the South, known as the Southwestern Baptist. Doctor Taliaferro's mother was descended from a prominent family of North Carolina which produced Colonel Frank- lin, a hero of the American Revolution, and Governor Jesse Franklin of North Carolina. Both Colonel Frank- lin and Col. Richard Taliaferro, the latter a prominent member in the early generations of the Taliaferros, fought with those gallant North Carolina troops and rangers in the war of the revolution. In the bloody hand to hand fight with the British of Tarleton's Cavalry at Guilford Court House, Col. Richard Taliaferro was slain, was buried at the battlefield, and a monument has since been erected to his memory.

Doctor Taliaferro's early education was acquired in the public schools of Tennessee, and later he took an cademic course at Mount Airy, North Carolina, where he was a schoolmate of the girl who subsequently became his wife. He was graduated in medicine from the Ten- lessee Medical College at Knoxville in 1895, and in that ame year became associated with Dr. C. M. Drake, hief surgeon for the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway Company. Later for twelve years Doc- or Taliaferro practiced in James County, Tennessee, luring which time he supplemented his carly medical ducation with post-graduate courses.

On January 3, 1907, he located at Bennington, Okla-

homa, a town which was a typical non-progressive village of the Indiau country, but destined to grow to a popula- tion of 1,500 in less than ten years. There were but two miles of improved highway in the community, and the country was largely of virgin soil and almost totally unsettled. The doctor's practice for a few years was scattered over a wide area, and he traveled both in a buggy and on horseback as the occasion demanded.

In January, 1896, Doctor Taliaferro married Miss Ida Virginia Boleyjack, a daughter of Nat and Victoria (Bunker) Boleyjack. Her maternal grandfather was Chang Bunker, who was one of the noted "Siamese Twins" of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Doctor Talia- ferro is a member of the Odd Fellows and Masonic lodges and of the Bryan County Medical Society, the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medi- cal Associatiou. He has acquired some of the best farm- ing lands of that notably fertile region of the east side of Bryan County and is developing it along modern lines. Excursions to his farm are nearly always likely to lead him on to the haunts of the red fox hounds, which, reminding him of the fox hunting days of his earlier years in Tennessee, make him one of the stanchest advo- cates in Oklahoma of the segregation of forest aud mountain regions and the propagation and protection of wild life.

MARCUS L. LOCKWOOD, who for a number of years had lived at Tulsa, was a conspicuous figure not alone in Oklahoma but all over the nation as a pioneer oil operator and for many years as president and one of the most vigorous fighters in the American Anti-Trust League. In Oklahoma Mr. Lockwood was perhaps best known as president of the Sabine Oil and Marketing Company of Oklahoma, the headquarters of which organi- zation were in Tulsa.

In every way he proved himself one of the world 's pro- ductive workers, and though at the time of his death, he had passed the psalmist's span of three score and ten, he had not abated his vital interest in and association with practical affairs of life. If his biography were written in complete detail it would present almost a history of the great American petroleum industry from its pioneer be- ginnings in Western Pennsylvania until the second decade of the twentieth century. He began operations in the oil fields of Pennsylvania and then extended them into many other states, and was especially concerned in development work. He was long recognized as an authority on sub- jects of petroleum production, but he perhaps received his widest reputation as president of the American Anti- Trust League, of which he was one of the organizers. From first to last he was implacable in his opposition to monopolistic and predatory trust organizations.

A year or so before his death Mr. Lockwood addressed an appeal to President Woodrow Wilson for a Govern- ment owned and operated pipe line from the mid-con- tinent oil fields to the Gulf of Mexico. This letter was widely published and circulated in countless form, and one of the newspapers that published it serially said of the writer: "There lives in Tulsa a man known to as many of the men prominent in the management of the affairs of this government as anyone in Oklahoma; a man who has done as much as almost any man in the United States to bring about the great reformi now being accomplished at Washington. That man is M. L. Lockwood, who for many years was president of the American Anti-Trust League-a man who has made and spent more than one fortune, and much of this having been expended in this fight for better government for the people."

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

For many years before his death Mr. Lockwood's name was familiarly mentioned in the American press in connection with his efforts to regulate and curb the trusts, and naturally enough Oklahoma was proud to claim him as a citizen.

Marcus L. Lockwood was born in East Hamburg, Erie County, New York, December 5, 1844, a son of Philo B. and Polly (Utley) Lockwood, the former a native of Dutchess County, New York, and the latter of Vermont. Philo B. Lockwood died at the age of sixty-two and his widow survived a number of years, passing away at the age of sixty-three. Of their eight children the only oue now living is George Lockwood of Buffalo, New York. Philo B. Lockwood was a suc- cessful farmer in New York, and both he and his wife were birthright members of the Society of Friends, in which organization he served as a preacher. The lineage of the Lockwood family in America goes back to Robert Lockwood, who came from England in 1630 and settled at Winthrop, Massachusetts. The paternal grandfather of Marcus L. Lockwood was a patriot soldier in the War of the Revolution, and subsequently became a pioneer in Westeru New York State.

It was with a common school education that Marcus L. Lockwood began his early career. He was fourteen when his father died and that necessarily threw upon his young shoulders responsibilities beyond his age. He helped manfully iu the cultivation and operation of the old homestead farm in Erie County, New York, until 1865. At the age of twenty, having gained the consent of his devoted mother, he went into the oil fields of Pennsylvania. The petroleum industry was then in its infancy. His first experience was in dressing the tools used in the operation of the oil wells in the Cherry Creek district and uear the old Humboldt Oil Refinery. Later he started out as an independent oil producer, a member of the firm of Patterson & Lockwood. In 1888 Mr. Lockwood was one of the organizers of the Pure Oil Company, a Pennsylvania corporation of which he later became a trustee. He was also one of the organizers of the Sabine Oil and Marketing Company of Pennsylvania, and subsequently of the Sabine Oil and Marketing Com- pany of Oklahoma in 1891. The date of the organization of the latter company in Oklahoma shows that it was one of the pioneer concerns for the development of the oil fields of Oklahoma. In fact, during the next decade very little oil was produced in the Oklahoma fields.

However, though some of his early ventures were failures, Mr. Lockwood truly led the way iu the develop- ment of the petroleum interests of the Middle West and Southwest. In 1887 he put down a well near Ottumwa in Wapello County, Iowa, and in the following year drove another well at Ackley, in Hardin County of the same state. He first came into Indian Territory in 1888, and on the opening of Oklahoma to settlement in the following year he took a claim to the northwest quarter of the section of land ou which Oklahoma City now stands.

He was naturally attracted to Beaumont, Texas, when the Spindletop gusher brought fame to that hitherto obscure city. He obtained oil and gas leases on 2,800 acres of land, though development results proved unsatis- factory. He next bought a producing well in the Spindle- top field, and provided tanking facilities for the accom- modation of 750,000 barrels. To fill these tanks required 253,000 feet of lumber. Mr. Lockwood then purchased forty acres of land six miles distant from Spindletop, paying $100 an acre. A pipe line was constructed from his well to the storage tank, and as a contract operator he arranged for the taking over of 11,700,000 barrels of crude oil, though his actual receipts did not exceed 400,000 barrels. He contracted for the product at the

rate of 30 cents a barrel, and sold the oil to the Standard Oil and independent companies for from 50 to 82 cents a barrel.

After leaving Texas Mr. Lockwood was identified with development operations and oil production at Independ- ence and other points in the State of Kansas. In 1905 he established his home at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was a resident of that great oil center until his death. He acquired the ownership of 20,000 acres of land in South- eastern Oklahoma and was one of the most important factors in the independent oil production of the state.

In 1897 the late Mr. Lockwood was one of the organ- izers of the American Anti-Trust League, and later was elected its president. Thenceforward for fifteen years or more he labored in season and out for bringing about the substantial reforms and the ideals which were funda- mentally proclaimed by this league. The league has had its headquarters in Washington, and some idea of its purposes and results might be obtained from the follow- ing quotatiou which is found in an address issued by the executive committee of the league signed by Mr. Lockwood as president and others: "By virtue of the action of the Anti-Trust League there assembled in the city of Chicago, February 12, 1900, a national anti-trust conference, composed of many hundreds of representative citizens, from thirty-one states of the Uuion, one territory and the District of Columbia. This conference was non- partisan and was participated in by earnest men and women affiliated with the different political parties and by independent citizens who saw the danger to the people living and those yet to be born, in those rising industrial combinations commouly known as trusts. It lasted three days, and after full discussion and deliberation it adopted a platform and issued an address to the people, and instituted a systematic and organized warfare upon the criminal trusts. This warfare has been continuous, wide- spread and persistent ever since. The people became aroused, and as they learned more and more of the criminal character of these combinations and the out- rageous wrongs inflicted, their indignation was such that the political parties were compelled to take up the question, declare their hostility to the trusts and promise their destruction." Every well informed person knows what a vastly different attitude is now maintained toward criminal trust organizations by uot only the Government but by the general public, and in giving credit for this remarkable change which has occurred in the past fifteen years meution should be made at the very first of the Anti-Trust League, of which Mr. Lockwood was president.

Politically Mr. Lockwood was always a true democrat. From 1876 to 1880 he served as a member of the State Senate of Pennsylvania. In 1900 he was a democratic candidate for representative in Congress from one of the strong republican districts in that state, and by his strong hold upon the confidence and esteem of the people he reduced the normal republican majority by fully 2,000 votes, so that the campaign was a gratifying tribute to the man and his work for the people. Both he and his wife were active members of the Presbyterian Church.

On October 11, 1871, Mr. Lockwood married Miss Lydia H. Tompkins, only daughter of Robert Tompkins of East Hamburg, Erie County, New York. After a happy companionship of more than forty years Mrs. Lockwood passed away February 1, 1914. She and her husband were schoolmates as children, and their married life was ideal. Of their ten children, three died in infancy. The daughter, Clara; is the wife of Howard W. Alling of Jamestown, New York, and they have three children; Jennie T. is the wife of Harold Helm, also residents of New York State; Mabel is the wife of Roy

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Porter of Guthrie, Oklahoma, aud they have one child; Martha is the wife of Schuyler S. French of Tulsa, and they have one child; Robert Ralph, who graduated from Yale University and from the law department of Harvard University, is now practicing law at Tulsa; Kate is the wife of Elton Everett of Ottawa, Kansas, and they have two children; Philo D., who was associated with his father in business until his tragic death in an auto- mobile accident in October, 1914, is survived by his widow, Mrs. Delia (Tyner) Lockwood, aud their only daughter.

ANDREW J. LOVETT. By the high standard of its equipment and the efficiency of its school work the public school system of Blackwell can be compared on terms of favorable equality with any in the State of Oklahoma. The citizens of Blackwell are not loath to give credit for this achievement to Prof. Andrew J. Lovett, who has been superintendent of the public schools in that city for the past nine years, and has worked indefatigably as an organizer, director and teacher. He brought to his position a long aud thorough experience in the schoolroom both as an instructor and as a super- intendent, and the results obtained by him at Blackwell are most creditable.

The main feature of the Blackwell school system is the high school which was constructed in 1910-11 at a cost of $75,000. It is one of the very modern school buildings in Oklahoma. It contains twenty-one rooms, and there are twenty teachers in the building. The prin- cipal of the high school is Harry Huston. Four of the teachers are men. The rooms are all well arranged, equipped with modern furniture. There is a gymnasium, a fine laboratory for scientific work, one of the best libraries in the state and in many ways the school has became a central feature in the life of Blackwell. The high school building stands on grounds comprising an entire block. The high school contains 266 pupils. The total number in the building is 600. There were forty- four graduates from the high school in the class of 1916. In another part of the city is a ward school, containing eight rooms and a third building of four rooms, besides these buildings, it has been necessary to construct several single room buildings in order to take care of the large number of pupils. The total enrollment of the school at Blackwell numbers more than 1,200. The schools are kept up for nine months in the year, and one fact that indicates the interest in education in the city is that the enrollment is more than 100 per cent of the school enumeration.

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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: 644

Author: Thoburn, Joseph B. (Joseph Bradfield), 1866-1941
Publication date: 1916
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 644