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 112

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 112

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Fraternally, Mr. Ferris is affiliated with Lawton Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Lawton Chapter No. 44, Royal Arch Masons; Lodge No. 1056, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of Lawton, and the Modern Woodmen of America. He is a working member of the Lawton Chamber of Commerce and has done much to accelerate its undertakings. As a farmer, Mr. Ferris is the owner of two valuable properties, one of 126 acres adjoining Lawton and one of 160 acres located 11% miles from the city, in Comanche County. He has specialized in alfalfa and has met with excellent success in his agricultural ventures.

On June 23, 1906, at Neosho, Missouri, Mr. Ferris was united in marriage with Miss Grace Hubbert, daughter of George Hubbert, a prominent attorney of that city. They have no children.

J. C. BYERS. Long a cattle man in Oklahoma, in the days before it was opened, J. C. Byers has lived the life of the open through a good many years. In more recent years he has devoted himself to the operating of a general merchandise store in Cleveland. He is a pioneer in this section of the country, and is identified with numerous branches of industry, including farming, oil production, real estate and insurance. Mr. Byers was horn in Fairfield, Iowa, on August 14, 1861, and he is a son of H. H. and Mary E. (Laughlin) Byers.

H. H. Byers was born on April 13, 1838, and his wife on June 9th of the same year, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively. He was a son of John and Mary (Hunter) Byers, and they came from Virginia to Ohio in the early pioneer days of that state, and John Byers was killed by the Indians when in middle life. They had two sons, H. H., father of the subject, and John H. Mary Hunter, his wife, was a sister of General Hunter, a Union general in the Civil war, and one of their brothers was a member of Jeff Davis' cabinet.

When H. H. Byers was sixteen years of age the family came to Towa, and he and his brother were still in their early twenties when they enlisted in Company H, Second Iowa State Infantry in 1861. Both served through a three year period, and they were stationed at Beaconsville, Texas, when the war was closed. H. H. finished his service with the rank of second lieutenant. He was at Pikes Peak, Colorado, when the war broke out, but lost no time in getting back to his native state so that he might enlist for service. He was at the front when his son, J. E., of this review, was born. In 1869 H. H. Bvers came to the Osage Nation, near Old Hickory Fort. He thought he was on the Kansas side, but when the survey was made discovered that he was mistaken,

so he moved across the line into Kansas and settled on a farm on the state line. When the Cherokee strip was opened in 1893 he came to Oklahoma, and he died here, in Cleveland, in 1898. All his life he was a cattleman and farmer, and he enjoyed a generous measure of success.

Of his marriage with Mary E. Laughlin, five sons were born. J. E. is the eldest. W. L. is a resident of 'Osage County. Fred L. lives near Cleveland. Emmor also lives in Cleveland, and Rolla lives iu Cushing.

J. E. Byers spent his early life as his father's as- sistant, and he was very young when he familiarized himself with the details of the cattle business. He was eight years old when the family moved to the Osage Nation, where the father had contracts for supplying the Indians with beef, and the boy was not slow to learn the Osage language. When he first left his father young Byers went to Texas and there was employed by cattle men. He drove cattle over the trail from Texas to Emporia, Kansas, in 1872, and later made many trips over the same trail. It may properly be said that he has been a cattle man all his life, for he began in 1869 when he was only eight years old.

On coming to Cleveland Mr. Byers established a mer- cantile business. He ran a general store here and at Horning until 1897, when he moved on a ranch in Osage County and continued there for three years. He then became assistant cashier in the Cleveland National Bank, and a little later went into the oil business. Prior to that time, however, he had been interested in the oil activities of the district, and had operated to some extent, so that he may properly be called one of the pioneer oil men of the state. In fact, he was one of those who discovered the oil deposits in Oklahoma. To- day he is the owner of extensive oil lands. Mr. Byers owns considerable farm land in the county, and has a one-fourth interest in the second addition to the Town of Cleveland. He has a real estate and insurance office in the National Bank Building, where his interests are handled. Another enterprise that has had his attention is the zinc industry in Arkansas, where he has some valuable properties.

Mr. Byers is a member of the progressive party, and with his family has membership in the Presbyterian Church, of which he is a trustee. He is a Master Mason and a Pythian Knight.

On June 2, 1897, Mr. Byers was married to Florence Powell, of Independence, Kansas. They have three sons: Harold C., Dale and Lewis.

MILTON CLARK WARE. One of the prominent families of the old Osage tribe is that household of which Milton C. Ware is the head, residents of Pawhuska. For many years the Ware family lived on a large ranch and farm in Osage County, but moved to Pawhuska some year ago in order that the children might secure better educational advantages.

Mr. Ware himself is an intermarried citizen of the Osages. He was born in Collin County, Texas, October 11, 1856, a son of James and Nancy (Howell) Ware His father was born in Lawrence County, Arkansas, and his mother in Illinois, but they spent most of their live in Collin County, Texas, where his father was a farme. and stock raiser and also one of the pioneer settlers That section of Northern Texas had a very scant popula tion until after the close of the Civil war. In their family are five sons and one daughter still living.

Milton Clark Ware grew up on the old Texas farm gained his education in the common schools of that country and lived there as a farmer and stock man unti coming to Osage County in 1890. After his marriage h

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located on a large farm five miles south of Pawhuska, and that was his home until six years ago when he moved his family to Pawhuska in order that his children might be close to good schools. He keeps a home in town and also lives at the ranch, and still operates the farm and has some very extensive interests as a farmer and stock man. His wife and children have shared in the allotment of Indian lands, and there are seven. individual par- ticipants in this allotment among his own family, each one having more than a section of land.

Mr. Ware is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he and his family belong to the Christian Church. October 3, 1891, he married Agnes Martin. She was born near Tahlequah in the Cherokee Nation September 13, 1870, and she is of Cherokee and Osage blood. She lost her mother when she was fourteen months old, and soon afterward her father brought her to the Osage Nation. Her parents were Alexander and Rachel (Sanders) Martin. Her father was born near Pryor Creek in the Cherokee Nation, and her mother near Talequah. Both were half blood Indians, her father being of the Osage and her mother of the Cherokee blood. Her father died December 17, 1915, his home having been on Eighth Street, Pawhuska. He married for his third wife Minnie Denton. By the first mar- riage there were two children and Mrs. Ware's sister is Julia, the wife of William Edwards of Wynona.

Mr. and Mrs. Ware have eight children: Julia, wife of Gordon Wells, living near Bartlesville; Nancy, wife of Edward German of Ponca City; Beulah May, Rose Lee, Henry, Davis, Marie and James, at home.

EBEN SODERSTROM. This is one of the few men who can claim lifelong residence at Pawhuska, though until recent years there was no city specially worthy of the name in that locality. The milling industry in this section of Oklahoma owes more to the enterprise of the Soderstroms, father and son, than to any other individual. It has been with milling and the grain business that Eben Soderstrom has been identified all his active career, and his father before him was one of the promi- nent millers in the early days of old Indian Territory.

Born at Pawhuska November 3, 1879, Eben Soderstrom is a son of John and Laura (Coffey) Soderstrom. His father was born in Sweden in 1853, and died at Paw- huska in 1905. When nineteen years of age he came to America, having learned the trade of millwright in the old country, and from Chicago, where he first located, worked at different points until he came to Indian Ter- ritory in 1878. He was at that time and for a number of years in the employ of the United States Government, and it was under Government auspices that he built two mills in this part of Oklahoma, one at Kaw Agency and another at the Osage Agency at what is now Pawhuska. When the Government sold this latter mill at auction he and W. S. Mathews secured the property, and following this purchase he continued its operation until his death. His early death was the result of drowning in Bird Creek, while putting up ice. While he followed the milling industry all his life, and built a number of mills in different parts of the country, he was also for a number of years in the cattle business, operating a large ranch near Pawhuska. In politics he was a republican, but contented himself merely with voting, and was not an active party man. He was affiliated with the Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. John Soderstrom was married soon after coming to Indian Territory in the spring of 1878 to Miss Laura Coffey, who is still living at Pawhuska. Special interest attaches to her because of the fact that she is one of the daughters of Colonel Coffey, the founder of the City of

Coffeyville, Kansas, where she was born in 1863. Of their six children Eben is the oldest; Della is the wife of Ben Parsons of Pawhuska; J. W. lives at Pawhuska; Hannah is the wife of John Renfrew, also of Pawhuska; and Carl and Floyd are likewise residents of that city.

After his education in local schools up to the age of sixteen, Eben Soderstrom found a place in his father's mill, and under the latter's direction learned all the details of the milling business. He was associated with the elder Soderstrom until his death, and then in part- nership with J. E. Scarborough bought the old stone mill on Bird Creek which his father had built and operated. Three years later this landmark of early industry burned. Then with his own capital Mr. Soderstrom built the present grain elevator and seed mill located near the Midland Valley Railroad station in Pawhuska. The elevator has a capacity of 10,000 bushels of grain, and he also does a business of custom grinding for the farmers of that community. He is wholesale flour agent in this part of Oklahoma for the Globe Flour Mills. In his business Mr. Soderstrom employs three men, and is one of the live and enterprising citizens of Pawhuska. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In 1914 occurred his marriage to Naomi Conley, who was born at Arkansas City, Kansas, in 1886, a daughter of Joseph Conley. They have a son, John, who is one year old at this writing and named in honor of his grandfather.

LORIS E. BRYANT. One of the progressive young men who have fully availed themselves of the opportunities afforded in the vital young State of Oklahoma is Hon. Loris E. Bryant, who was elected representative of Osage County in the Fifth Legislature of this commonwealth and who is a prominent and successful merchant and agriculturist of that county, his home and mercantile establishment being in the thriving and ambitious Village of Bigheart.

Mr. Bryant was born at Chautauqua Springs, Chau- tauqua County, Kansas, on the 15th of October, 1884, and is a son of Thomas A. and Sarah (Davenport) Bryant, the former a native of Bates County, Missouri, and the latter of Cass County, that state, her father having. been a valiant soldier of the Union in the Civil war. Thomas A. Bryant was a pioneer of where he eventually became a substantial agriculturist and stock grower. Shortly after the close of the Civil war he re- moved from Missouri to Chase County, Kansas, where he settled near Cottonwood Falls. He endured the full tension of the turbulent period attended by the opera- tions of the jayhawkers and bushwhackers in the Sun- flower State after the close of the war and served as a member of the home guard, a militia organization estab- lished to defend the settlers against the depredations of these lawless elements. He became one of the honored and well known citizens of Chautauqua County and served at one time as mayor of Chautauqua Springs, where his death occurred on the 6th of July, 1914. He was seventy-one years of age .when he passed away, his devoted wife having been summoned to the life eternal on the 26th of April, 1907, at the age of sixty years, and both having been persons of sterling character as well as of deep and abiding Christian faith and effective practice.

Relative to the formative period in the life of Loris E. Bryant the following significant statements have been made: "Mr. Bryant's early training was exemplary and benignant, his parents having been devoted Chris- tians, and when, at the age of thirteen years, he faced the world alone and set forth to make his own way, he was fortified by conscientious honesty and integrity, from

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the course of which he has never wavered during the later years of earnest and successful endeavor." Between the ages of eight and eighteen years Mr. Bryant had at- tended school for a total period of only nineteen months, but his alert mentality and self-reliance have enabled him effectually to make good this handicap of earlier years. He was still a boy at the time of his parents' removal from Kansas to the territory of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, where they made settlement on a farm. The financial resources of his parents were extremely limited, but Mr. Brown determined to acquire through his own exertions the means for further education. It will thus be seen that his ambition was one of action, and by zealous application to farm work before and after enter- ing the institution, he was enabled to defray the expenses of a three years' course in the Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical College at Stillwater. He left college in his junior year and came forth well fortified in both academic and scientific knowledge, as he had applied himself with all diligence and earnestness. He returned to the home farm and later he became associated with one of his brothers in the operation of a ranch near Pawhuska, the present judicial center of Osage County. After a time this property was sold by the brothers and Loris E. Bryant then engaged in the general merchandise business at Kiefer, Creek County. There he contracted typhoid fever and in his period of convalescence it was found imperative for him to seek a change of climate. Accordingly he passed a year in Tampico, Mexico, where he held the position of managing editor of the Tampico Post, the only paper there published in the English lan- guage. After his return to Oklahoma he passed another year at Kiefer and then engaged in the mercantile busi- ness at Pawhuska, Osage County. Later he and his brother established a general store at Bigheart, this county, where they built up a prosperous business, under the firm name of Bryant Brothers. The subject of this review finally sold his interest in this enterprise and purchased stock in the Bank of Bigheart, of which he was assistant cashier until 1912, when he there resumed his association with the mercantile business, with which he is still actively and successfully identified, besides being the owner of valuable farm property in the north- ern part of the county. It is his purpose to devote eventually his entire attention to scientific agriculture and stock growing, and his experience and technical knowledge assure to him large and worthy success in this important field of industrial enterprise. Mr. Bryant has served as city clerk of Bigheart, as clerk of the board of education of the village, and as clerk of the Osage County Association of Boards of Education. He is progressive and energetic in his efforts to raise the standard of these lines of enterprise in his section of the state and is a close student of the scientific and prac- tical matters pertaining thereto. Mr. Bryant is a young man of sterling character and high civic ideals. He has shown a lively concern in political and religious affairs and assisted in the organization of the Young Men's Christian Association at the Oklahoma Agricultural & Mechanical College at Stilwell, representing the same at the meeting of the Western Division of the Students' Young Men's Christian Association at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 1903, while he was still a student in the college mentioned.

In the autumn of 1914 Mr. Bryant was elected repre- sentative of Osage County in the Oklahoma Legislature, as candidate on the Democratic ticket. He received a plurality of 322 votes, though the largest previous plu- rality accorded to a Democratic candidate for this office in the county had been but seventy votes. In the Fifth General Assembly Mr. Bryant was assigned to member-

ship on a number of important house committees, namely : General agriculture, oil and gas, insurance, county and township organization and government, relations to the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indians, and enrolled and engrossed bills. He was the author of a bill providing for the free distribution of dyphtheria antitoxin; a bill establishing a Pasteur station for the prevention and treatment of hydrophobia, this having the strong approval of the administration; a bill providing for the election of county commissioners for a term of six years, with the term of one of the commissioners to expire every two years; a bill providing regulations for the sanitary opera- tion of bottling works; a bill abolishing township govern- ment in Osage county; and a bill creating county courts at Hominy and Fairfax, that county. Mr. Bryant proved a far-sighted, careful and practical member of the legis- lative body and manifested specially active interest in measures relating to good roads, education, home owner- ship, and workmen's compensation.

As may be inferred, Mr. Bryant is a stalwart advocate of the principles and policies of the Democratic party and is one of its influential representatives in Osage county. In his home village of Bigheart he is affiliated with the organizations of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America, and at Pawhuska, the county seat, he is identified with the fra- ternal association known as the Homesteaders. He has been liberal in the support of measures and enterprises tending to advance the general welfare of his home village and county and is vice-president of the Bigheart Telephone Company. He has two brothers-Charles A., who is engaged in business at Pawhuska, and Thomas Edward, who conducts a general merchandise business at that place.

At Pawhuska, on the 29th of December, 1909, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Bryant to Miss Mary Jessie Tinker, whose father possesses a strain of Osag- Indian blood. Mrs. Bryant was educated in the Ursline Academy at Paola, Kansas, is a young woman of refine ment and gracious presence, and is active in religious and social affairs at Bigheart. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Bryant are Harold T. and Velma, the former having been born in 1911 and the latter in 1913.

FRANCIS T. NORBURY was a man most prominent and influential in founding the town of Hooker in Texas County. The creation and upbuilding of that center of population and trade are the facts which give Mr. Norbury a special place in Oklahoma City.

By profession he is a lawyer, has been in practice in Oklahoma in connection with his large business interests and is also a real estate and loan broker.

An Englishman by birth, he was born February 16 1857, at Worcestershire, was educated in Cheltenham College, beginning with the age of nineteen and took up the law in his native country. In 1889 he came t America and practiced in Wisconsin and Illinois and for a few years was a member of the Chicago bar.

It was in 1903 that he came to Oklahoma with Captain A. R. Cobb. They bought the site and started the town of Hooker and Mr. Norbury erected the first house il that town. He also opened the first law office and was soon appointed a justice of the peace. Everything vitally concerning the welfare and upbuilding of the town has had his earnest support. He organized the first Christian church, and was ordained a deacon and has been especially prominent in its affairs. Since becoming an American citizen he has been aligned with the republican party and in Oklahoma has served as chairman of the township committee and for four years was clerk of the town of Hooker.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

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While living in England Mr. Norbury married and has eight children, three daughters aud five sons, all of whom live in England aud the boys are now fighting with the British army. On February 14, 1893, in Oconto County, Wisconsin, he married Miss Clara Anderson, who was also a native of England. They have no children of their own, but adopted a son Lionel, who was born September 10, 1912.

THOMAS E. WILLIS,. a lawyer at Fairview in Major County, is an Oklahoma pioneer. His early years in this state were spent as a teacher, and he has been an active member of the bar since 1897.

Mr. Willis represents an old and honorable line of American ancestry. His forbears were patriots, and all of them for several generations had military records. His great-grandfather Colonel Nathaniel Willis served with that rank in the army of General Washington during the Revolution. Colonel Samuel Willis, the grandfather, saw active service at the head of a regiment in the War of 1812, being under the command of General Andrew Jackson.

Captain William R. Willis, father of the Oklahoma lawyer, was born April 6, 1834, in Grayson County, Ken- tucky. Though a Keutuckian he was a strong Union man, and commanded a company in the army of General Sherman during the Civil war. He also came to Okla- homa, where he spent his last years aud died at Canton April 6, 1906. In 1865 Captain Willis married Harriet L. Brown, who was born in Grayson Couuty, Kentucky, in 1842 and died at Enid, Oklahoma, in 1901. Her par- ents Jacob H. and Sarah (Anderson) Brown were natives of Tennessee. Captain Willis and wife were members of the Christian Church. They were the parents of eleven children, eight sons and three daughters, namely: Thomas E., H. Clay, Jacob H., Oliver P., Sarah Viola, William E., Eugene, Phelegmon, (deceased), Albert R., Laura and Myrtle.

In the same log house in Grayson County, Kentucky, where his father was born, Thomas E. Willis also saw the light of day September 15, 1865. His early years were spent on his father's farm. He attended the public schools until he was nineteen, and graduated from the Litchfield Academy of Litchfield, Kentucky. Mr. Willis came west in 1885, locating in Kansas with his parents. In Comanche County of that state he proved up a claim of land, and for six years was also a locomotive engineer. In 1892 Mr. Willis came to Oklahoma, identified himself with Kingfisher County, and was one of the early school teachers in that locality. While teaching he also pursued his studies of law, and in 1897 was admitted to the territorial bar. In the same year he was elected on a fusion ticket to the fifth session of the territorial legis- lature, representing Kingfisher County. He took an active apart in the deliberations of that body and was chairman of the Committee on Education. In this capacity he became author of the first bill providing for free school text books that was ever introduced in Oklahoma. He was also author of the fee aud salary law which found a place on the statute books.

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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