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 11

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 11

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William T. Leahy lived with his father until twenty- five, and gained a thorough training not only in the merchandise business, but also as a farmer and stock man. For several years the firm of Leahy & Son was conducted both in the general merchandise business and in stock raising. As a young man Mr. Leahy attended the primary schools at Osage Mission and completed his education in the Southeast Kansas Normal College at Fort Scott. He was sent back to Kansas to get his edu- cation while the family were living in Indian Territory. At the age of twenty-five Mr. Leahy started at Pawhuska its first bakery and confectionery store, and was pro- prietor of that establishment for six or seven years. He then became identified with cattle and horse raising, and still later, banking. He is now interested in four different banks, being vice president of the First National Bank of Pawhuska, vice president of the First National Bank of Foraker, president of the Bank of Bigheart, a state bank, and a director in the Bank of Prue, also a state bank. These institutions are all located in Osage

County. Some of the richest oil and gas fields in the Osage Nation have been developed by the Pawhuska Oil & Gas Company, of which Mr. Leahy is vice president, and he holds a similar office in the Pawhuska-Cleveland Gas & Oil Company. At a fine stock ranch and farm two miles north of Pawhuska, he has a thousand acres com- prising one of the model estates of Northeastern Okla- homa. In addition he has twenty-one quarter sections of land elsewhere in Osage County. As a stock man he keeps about a thousand head of cattle and has some sixty registered Hereford cows. He gives his personal super- intendence to the management of his large farm. In Paw- huska he is half owner in a large store building on Main Street, built at a cost of $14,000, owns a garage build- ing that cost $4,500, and has a number of residences in that city. Mr. Leahy recently completed a home on Main Street that cost $12,000 and represents all the modern ideals of comfort and attractiveness of archi- tectural arrangement and appearance.

A democrat throughout his active political career, Mr. Leahy is one of the 'energetic and public spirited leaders of his home county and in more recent years of the state. He served for about ten years on the Osage council, and for four year was treasurer of the Osage Nation. He was a member of the committee that drafted the Osage allotment bill and in the interests of his people spent the greater part of three winters in Washington, D. C., advocating the passage of this allot- ment bill through Congress. The people of Oklahoma will recall how, a few years ago, Mr. Leahy was arrested by the Interior Department on the charge of having attempted to intimidate the Osage council in behalf of some measures which were before it for con- sideration. Several other well known men were involved in the same charge, but after a trial which went on for six weeks in Oklahoma City before Federal Judge Cot- trell and a jury, Mr. Leahy was not only acquitted, but completely exonerated from every particular of the indict- ment. During the administration of Governor Cruce Mr. Leahy served on the State Board of Agriculture until that body was reduced by the Legislature from ten to five members, and though offered reappointment under Governor Williams, he declined the honor on account of the demands upon his time made by his large private business affairs.

Mr. Leahy is a member of both the State and National Bankers' associations, is a Catholic, in which faith he was reared, a member of the Knights of Columbus, and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Having spent most of his life among the Osage people, he has a fluent command of the Osage language. He is a fine type of the successful business man, positive, ener- getic, a hard worker in everything he undertakes, public spirited and always ready to engage his energies and resources in behalf of some movement that will affect the welfare of the community and the people among whom he lives.

On January 28, 1897, Mr. Leahy married Miss Martha E. Rogers, a daughter of the late Thomas L. Rogers, one of the most prominent characters in the Osage Nation, a sketch of whose career is found on other pages of this publication. Mr. and Mrs. Leahy have two sons: William Timothy, Jr., and Thomas B.

BRUCE LAZZELL KEENAN. For over twenty years Mr. Keenan has been identified with the old Cherokee capital of Tahlequah, and has attained prominence in profes- sional circles as an able and thorough lawyer, has taken a leading part in civic movements, and in numerous ways has contributed to the material welfare of that section of Oklahoma. Mr. Keenan came into the Cherokee Nation from Kansas to take the position of Commissioner

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of the United States Court at Tahlequah, and when his duties in that position were terminated with statehood he resumed the active private practice of law, in which he has been eminently successful.

Though most of his professional life has been spent in the West Mr. Keenan is a native of West Virginia, having been born on a farm near Morgantown, October 16, 1856. His father, John P. Keenan, was born in Pennsylvania, a son of Hugh Keenan, a native of Ireland. Mr. Keenan's mother was Nancy Lazzell, also a native of West Virginia and of English lineage.

The environment of a West Virginia farm encompassed the youth of Mr. Keenan, and he took from that a hardy constitution and the advantages of home and district school training to the University of West Virginia, from which he was graduated in 1880. Then came a period of school teaching, by which means he earned the money necessary to defray his expenses through law school. In 1885 he was graduated from the law department of his home state university, and soon after completing his law course he came West and located at Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Keenan was engaged in the active practice of law at Wichita until April, 1894, when his appointment to the duties of United States Commissioner caused his removal to Tahlequah. This important office he most creditably filled until statehood, in 1907, and in the past eight years has built up a large and remunerative practice as a lawyer.

In 1890 Judge Keenan married Miss Alice M. Over- street, who comes of the Indiana family of Overstreets, many of whom have become prominent in business, in pro- fessional circles and in politics. Five children have been born to their union, Robert Bruce Keenan, a lawyer at Sapulpa, Oklahoma; Margaret, wife of Chester O. Holly, of Stigler, Oklahoma; Hypatia, wife of Thurman Wyly, of Tahlequah; and Claude and John Kenneth, both at home. In politics Judge Keenan has always upheld the principles and policies of the republican party. He is a Master Mason, and in his personal relations is noted for his unostentatious bearing, has a great many friends gained through more than twenty years of residence in Eastern Oklahoma, and among them is marked with every esteem.

WILLIAM M. EDDY. A resident of Cimarron County since 1897, William M. Eddy has taken an important and helpful part in the development of this section, and par- ticularly of the Town of Kenton. He was the first county treasurer under statehood, from 1900 to 1907 practically had charge of the Kenton Postoffice, and in 1914 was appointed postmaster, which position he holds at this time. Mr. Eddy has also been identified prom- inently with business affairs, and both in commercial and public life has substantially entrenched himself in the confidence and esteem of the people.

William M. Eddy was born in a log house on a farm in Guadalupe County, Texas, December 4, 1861, and is a son of Lynch T. and Fannie R. (Giles) Eddy. Lynch T. Eddy was born in 1832, on a plantation in Shelby County, Kentucky, a son of William and Sallie Eddy, natives of Kentucky, and members of old and honored families of that state. He removed to Texas in 1858 and settled on a farm in Guadalupe County, where he was residing at the outbreak of the war between the states, and enlisted as a private in a Texas infantry regiment, under the flag of the Confederacy. In 1866 he returned to Kentucky, took up the study of medicine and became a prominent practitioner of Louisville, with a large and representative practice. In 1888 he was chosen a member of a medical board sent to Jackson- ville, Florida, to stamp out a serious yellow fever epi- demic, and became one of the martyrs to the cause, him-

self contracting the discase, from which he did not recover. His death occurred in the same year. In 1860, while a resident of Texas, Doctor Eddy was married to Miss Fannie R. Giles, who was born in 1843, in Tennessee, daughter of William T. Giles, a native of that state. Mr. and Mrs. Eddy became the parents of four sons and one daughter: William M .; Cordelia P., born in 1863; Alexander Campbell, born in 1866; Stuart T., born in 1868; and Roy, born in 1870. All the children sur- vive.

William M. Eddy was educated in the public schools of Louisville, Kentucky, and at the age of twenty years began teaching as a profession. Not long thereafter he went to Guadalupe County, Texas, where for four years he divided his time between teaching school and farm- ing, and then turned his attention to mercantile pursuits as salesman in a general store at Waring, Texas. Next, Mr. Eddy had two years of experience in the hotel busi- ness, conducting a hostelry at Lockhart, Texas, but in 1897 disposed of his interests in that venture and came to Oklahoma, where he resumed his activities as an edu- cator. After three years of teaching in the public schools of Cimarron County, he once more became a salesman in a store at Kenton, and from 1900 until 1907 served also as assistant postmaster here, a capacity in which he was practically at the head of the office. In 1907 Mr. Eddy was elected county treasurer of Cimarron County, being the first incumbent of that office under statehood, and discharged his duties in an energetic, capable and conscientious manner. At the expiration of his term of office he embarked in the general merchandise business at Kenton, successfully conducting a store until 1914, when he was appointed by President Wilson to his, present posi- tion as postmaster. He has worked faithfully and ener- getically to improve the mail service, and his labors have won him the gratitude and regard of his fellow-towns- men. Mr. Eddy is a democrat and one of the influential men in the councils of his party in Cimarron County. He can be depended upon to give his support to all move- ments which are launched in behalf of the public good, and to give liberally of his time and abilities in advancing education and good citizenship.

Mr. Eddy was married at Waring, Texas, August 8, 1888, to Miss Fannie V. Palmer, who was born January 25, 1864, at Westpoint, Mississippi, daughter of B. T. and Fannie (Cliett) Palmer, natives of Mississippi. For a number of years prior to her marriage Mrs. Eddy was a teacher in the public schools. They are the parents of seven children, as follows: Palmer, born June 20, 1890; Marcellus R., born October 8, 1891; Richard Bax- ter, born December 2, 1893; Douglass A., born September 20, 1895; Oran, born December 20, 1897; Cordelia P., born January 20, 1900; and Arthur C., born December 4, 1904.

OSCAR A. LAMBERT, M. D. For a number of years Doctor Lambert was the leading physician and had the biggest practice of any doctor in Marietta, Ohio. He has been known less as a physician and more as a leader of enter- prise and of big affairs since coming to Oklahoma. In fact, it may be said without disparagement of his other fellow citizens, that Doctor Lambert has been more vitally identified with the growth and upbuilding of Okmulgee as a city than any other person. He has helped accom- plish big things for the town, and is a big man for the work, big in heart as well as resources. While successful in business affairs, he is none the less liberal and gen- erous in everything he does. In fact, as has been said, he is the man who meets the stranger within the gates of Okmulgee and makes him like the town before he leaves it.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

His has been a many sided career. Like many sub- stantial men, he tried in his earlier years several lines with indifferent success. He found his real vocation when he entered medicine, and from that has passed into the ranks of men of affairs. He was born near Plantsville in Morgan County, Ohio, October 16, 1865, a son of Reece B. and Lydia (Hanson) Lambert. His parents were both of Quaker stock; they held strongly to that religion themselves and they reared Doctor Lambert to the simple belief of the faith. Notwithstanding the aversion of Quakers to warfare, Doctor Lambert has a rel- ative, General Lambert, who distinguished himself in the battle of New Orleans under General Jackson at the close of the War of 1812. The parents were both born in Belmont County, Ohio, were married there, and after- wards went to Morgan County, where they still reside. The father is a retired farmer and lives at Chesterhill, Ohio. During his active career he was noted for his pro- gressiveness, and was always ready and among the first to use the improvements and innovations which came into his rural district.

Doctor Lambert himself was reared as a farmer boy, and among other accomplishments he has a very practical knowledge of agriculture in all its phases. His early education came from public and private schools, he attended Bartlett Academy in his native state, and dur- ing three winters he taught school, while the summers were spent in farming. Having pursued a course of law study, he did some "pettifogging,"' as he calls it, for a time, but never became enrolled among the members of the Ohio bar. For three years he was in the general merchandising business, until stricken with typhoid fever. During his long recuperation from that sickness he determined to take up the study of medicine. In consequence three years were spent in Starling Medical College at Columbus, Ohio, from which he had his degree M. D. in 1894. He was a member of a class of thirty- three, and went out from college with the first honors of his class and with two prizes in addition. After two years of preliminary practice at Chesterhill in his native county he settled at Marietta, the old and historic city on the Ohio River, and for fifteen years lived there, and in that time he enjoyed the largest practice in the town.

At the same time he was active in public affairs. Though reared a republican he became a Bryant demo- crat and has been affiliated with the democratic party since 1896. While in Ohio he was a candidate for the Legislature and at one time refused the nomination for congress. He was elected mayor of Marietta. Besides handling his large medical practice he organized three industrial companies at Marietta, and became interested in oil fields while there. He also organized the Marietta Journal, and was active in the management of that pub- lication for a time.

It was journalism to which he first turned his attention after coming to Oklahoma. A year before statehood Doctor Lambert located at Okmulgee, and in company with J. J. Maroney bought the Okmulgee Democrat. He retained his interest in that paper until 1915.

Doctor Lambert is president of the Okmulgee Interur- ban Railroad, and it was due to his management that it became a paying proposition after a long struggle with adversity. His business interests also extend to the holding of some oil properties, and he is developing several leases in the Oklahoma field. Doctor Lambert does little practice now and in fact medicine is only an inci- dent of his busy life. He is a director of the Chamber of Commerce and has been identified with that body ever since it was organized. Anything that concerns Okmulgee and its welfare concerns Doctor Lambert. By common consent he is the vitalizing factor in many of the town 's

most important affairs. He is a member of the official board of the Methodist Episcopal Church and is superin- tendent of the largest Sunday school in Okmulgee. Fra- ternally he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America.

On December 2, 1889, Doctor Lambert married Carrie E. Lewis. She was born in Ohio but was living in Pennsyl- vania at the time of her marriage. They had two sons: Ernest C., who is now associated with his father in busi- ness affairs; and Harold, who died at the age of nine years.

JOSEPH BOWDEN TIMS. The community of Paden in Okfuskee County will long remember the enterprise and the fine character of the late Joseph Bowden Tims, who died there at his home July 18, 1911. He was the first man to make investments of any importance in that town and surrounding community, and was essentially a business man, thoroughgoing, upright, and with a record for integrity and fair dealing that followed him after death.

He was born at Keechi, Louisiana, September 25, 1866, the youngest of seven children born to Amos and Mary E. (Kinnard) Tims. Both parents were natives of Mississippi, and his father, who was a shoemaker, died at Timpson, Texas. The mother is still living in East Texas. Joseph B. Tims was still an infant when his parents moved into East Texas and located at Nacog- doches, where he grew to manhood. His education came from the common schools, and at the age of sixteen he started out in life on his own account, at that time manifesting the enterprise and self reliance which were always his most striking characteristics.

Going out to West Texas, he had a life of eventful experience, and finally became a lumber merchant at Fort Worth, Texas. He followed business there until the panic of 1908, and in 1909 he moved to the new community of Paden in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, which was his home for one year only, but in that time he impressed his ability and influence in many ways. He made extensive investments in lands, in stock, and was also the mainspring of mercantile activity. He had acquired extensive holdings in the oil fields, though he did not live to see the land developed in its mineral deposits.

He was a democrat, though always a business man - and not a politician. His church was the Christian denomination.

At Weatherford, Texas, June 17, 1896, Mr. Tims mar- ried Miss Nancy J. Taylor, who was born near Fayette- ville, Arkansas, April 25, 1869. When six months of age she moved to Texas with her parents, Ezekiel E. Taylor and wife, to whom reference is made on other pages, and she grew up in Parker County and lived in that section of the Lone Star State until 1909, when she came with her husband to Paden, Oklahoma. Mrs. Tims, since the death of Mr. Tims, has shown remarkable business judgment and ability in the management of the estate and is thoroughly capable of safeguarding her own interests and in managing and increasing the value of the property left her. She takes an active part in the Order of the Eastern Star and is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.

Mrs. Tims became the mother of four children: Rita May, who died at Weatherford, Texas, at the age of eight years; Oscar William, Vergil Elbert and Eugene Paul.

WILLARD NEWTON LEWIS. Along with general suc- cess has come at least one interesting distinction in the career of Mr. Lewis as an Oklahoma lawyer. In February, 1901, he was appointed city attorney of

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Davis, his present home town. He still holds the office, and has been continuously its incumbent for fifteen years. This makes him in point of continuous service the oldest city attorney in the state. He has filled this office so creditably and with so much valuable service to his home town that no other man has been considered for the place so long as Mr. Lewis will cousent to remain.

While a member of the legal profession more than twenty years, Mr. Lewis has always been active in the affairs of the Methodist Episcopal Church South and comes of a family that has furnished a number of ministers to that denomination. His people origi- nally came from Wales and settled in Maryland in colo- nial times, representatives subsequently moving to North Carolina, thence to Alabama, and finally to Mississippi. His grandfather, Rev. Wiley Lewis, was born in North Carolina in 1820 and died in Choctaw County, Missis- sippi, in 1885. He was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

James A. Lewis, father of the Oklahoma attorney, who was born in Alabama in 1835, has for sixty years been an active member of the Methodist Church and for fifty years has filled official positions, such as steward, trustee and superintendent of the Sunday school. He was reared in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, and for many years operated a fine farm of 600 acres eleven miles south of Houston, the county seat of Chickasaw County. He still owns that property but is now living retired in Houston. During the war between the states he was a Confederate soldier for three and a half years. He was in the great Georgia campaign under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in the sturdy opposition to the advance of Sherman's army. He has for the past half century been a member of the Masonic fraternity. As a demo- crat he represented his party four times in the State Legislature, was for six years' a supervisor of Chickasaw County and spent many years on the County Pension Board. He married Bettie Foster who was born in Alabama in 1837 and died at Houston, Mississippi, in 1913. Their children were: T. W. Lewis, who is now pastor of St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church at Memphis, Tennessee; Nannie, who died in July, 1915, at Jackson, Mississippi, was the wife of F. A. Whitson, a Methodist minister who died at New Albany, Mis- sissippi, in 1899; Willard Newton, who is the third in order of age; E. S. Lewis, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Oxford, Mississippi ;. John Silas who was born in 1875, was a general mechanic by trade and died at Houston, Mississippi, in 1908; William Finis, a twin brother of John S., who died in 1882; and Dixie, who is a bookkeeper at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Willard Newton Lewis was born near Atlanta in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, October 11, 1865, and acquired his early education in the common schools of that county. In 1886 he graduated A. B. from the Mississippi State Normal School at Buena Vista, and in 1894 took his degree in law from the University of Mississippi. Beginning practice at Magnolia, Arkan- sas, he remained there three years, and this was fol- lowed by three years of work in the educational field. In 1897 he taught at Atlanta, Arkansas, one year and taught at Bagwell, Texas, in 1898 and 1899.

Mr. Lewis has lived in Davis, Oklahoma, and been engaged in general civil and criminal practice as a lawyer there since May, 1900. He has served on the school board nine years and exercises considerable influence in the democratic party of Murray County. He is a steward and trustee in the local Methodist Epis- copal Church South, has been local lay leader and dis-

trict lay leader and for the past year and a half has been a lay preacher. He also takes much interest in fra- ternal matters. He is affiliated with Ivanhoe Lodge No. 116, Knights of Pythias, at Davis, of which he is past chancellor commander, and since 1906 has been a trus- tee of the Grand Lodge and was formerly grand vice chancellor of the state; is a member of Tyre Lodge No. 42, Ancieut Free and Accepted Masous, at Davis; and of Cedar Camp No. 42, Woodmen of the World. Pro- fessioually he is a member of the County and State Bar associations and of the Commercial Law League of America.

On December 25, 1893, at Kilmichael, Mississippi, he married Miss Lillie Williams, whose father, R. A. Wil- liams is a farmer at Kilmichael. Mrs. Lewis died in the sanitarium at Ardmore, Oklahoma, April 7, 1905. On December 27, 1909, at Oklahoma City he married Miss Hattie Ruth Collins. Her father was the late Dr. G. H. Collins, a physician and surgeon, and her mother, Mrs. Maud Collins, is still living at Oklahoma City. Mr. Lewis has no children by either marriage.

MONTFERD W. PUGH. One of the men who have assisted in making history in that district of Oklahoma formerly known as No Man's Land is Montferd W. Pugh, now serving in his fourth consecutive term as county judge of Cimarron County, and recognized as a lawyer of very high attainment and with a practice hardly second to any of his professional brethren in that sec- tion of the state.

Judge Pugh was boru August 28, 1878, on a farm in Perry County, Illinois, a son of Charles E. and Margaret Jane (Peery) Pugh. His father, who was also born in Perry County, Illinois, in 1848, was a son of William and Betsie Pugh, natives of Ohio, who moved to Illinois as pioneer settlers in 1842. Grandfather Pugh died there in 1854, followed a few years later by his wife. Charles E. Pugh spent his active career as a farmer in Perry County, Illinois, where he died March 4, 1890. He was married in 1872 to Miss Peery, who was born in 1852 in Perry County, Illinois, a daughter of James and Elizabeth (Lindsey) Peery, the former a native of Ten- nessee and the latter of Ohio. Charles E. Pugh and wife were the parents of four children, three sons and one daughter: Bertie, born in 1875 and died in 1880; Dollie, born in 1876 and died in the same year; Montferd W .; and Craig A., born in 1886, now a farmer and stock raiser in Cimarron County, and was married in 1914 to Edith Hanes.

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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