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 119

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 119

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His first business experience was gained as clerk for his father at the age of eleven years in 1880. For schooling he attended Whiteman's Chapel and the Annona schools and later took a course in the Little Rock Commercial College at Little Rock, Arkansas. His diploma from that school is dated June 3, 1890.

Coming to the old Choctaw Nation of Indian Terri- tory in 1893, the following year he began his independent commercial career at Goodwater, his home ever since, and where he is now president of the Whiteman Mer- cantile Company, dealers in general merchandise.

With a genius for merchandising and general lines of business, Mr. Whiteman has acquired numerous in- fluential interests in his section of the state. He is identified with stores at Goodwater, Jadie and Haworth, with cotton gins at Goodwater and Haworth, owns farm- ing interests in different parts of McCurtain County, has been a director since organization of the First National Bank of Idabel, and is director and president of the First National Bank of Haworth. He is also a member of the Haworth Mercantile Company, the Haworth Pub- lishing Company, the Southern Oklahoma Abstract Com- pany of Idabel, and of several other concerns.

On December 19, 1894, he was appointed postmaster at Goodwater, and has filled that office continuously to the present time, a period of twenty-two years. At one time Mr. Whiteman was a member of the Red River Rifles, a volunteer company of the Texas militia, and with it he attended annual encampments at San Antonio and Austin.

Mr. Whiteman was a member of the first grand jury of McCurtain County after statehood. He has served as a member of the school board and is now president of the McCurtain County School Board Association, which was recently organized. Politically he is a repub- lican and is now republican nominee for representative from McCurtain County.

He was also actively identified with Choctaw national politics .. He drew up the bill which was presented by Gov. Greene McCurtain to the Choctaw Legislation in 1898, forbidding citizens of that nation to sell pine

timber from their reserve lands. He thus became an active ally in the movement for the conservation of the natural resources by the Choctaw people. In 1904 he was a delegate to the notable convention at Tuskahoma that nominated Thomas Hunter for governor of the nation. This brought on the famous feud between the Hunter and McCurtain factions, finally ending when the military authorities compelled the Hunter people to vacate the national capital in favor of McCurtain. Mr. Whiteman lived during that most interesting period of Oklahoma history when the tribe passed from their old forms of government to those set up by the new state, a period in Indian annals of equal importance to the inigration of the tribes to the Indian Territory. When Mr. Whiteman came to Goodwater in 1893, though it was one of the oldest Indian settlements, very few white men lived in that region. It was due to Mr. White- man's influence that a postoffice was established there, and he was the first and only incumbent to date of the office of postmaster.

Mr. Whiteman is prominent in Masonry, having filled nearly all the offices and having been worshipful master for five years of Goodwater Lodge No. 148, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and its secretary for seven or eight years; is also a member of Garvin Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons; belongs to Indian Consistory of the thirty- second degree Scottish Rite at McAlester, and to the Bedouin Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Muskogee. His church is the Methodist Protestant.

On August 2, 1896, at the residence of Judge H. C. Harris in Bokhoma County in the Choctaw Nation, he married Mattie J. Harris, daughter of Judge Henry C. and Margarette E. Harris. Judge Henry C. Harris was a member of the Choctaw tribe of Indians and one of the most distinguished figures for many years. He had founded the Harris ferry on Red River, one of the oldest and most historic crossings of that stream, had been sheriff of his county, royalty collector and senator, and as a member of the Legislature was author of the bill creating Wheelock Academy in what is now McCurtain County. At the time of his death he was serving as supreme judge of the Choctaw Nation. Judge Harris was a nephew of Peter P. Pytchlin, who was once a governor of the Choctaws and assisted in making the Choctaw treaty with the United States Government. Judge Harris was also related to the Garland and Fulsom families, prominent in Choctaw affairs. President Grover Cleveland married a member of one branch of the Fulsom family.

Mr. and Mrs. Whiteman are the parents of seven chil- dren : Magie E., who married W. L. Barrick; Mary L., who married Carl S. Prewett; Henry A .; Beatrice, David C., W. J., Jr. and Bessie A., all of whom are still unmarried.

HON. JOSEPH JEROME JONES. In a long, active and varied career, Joseph Jerome Jones has carried on activities in various states of the Union and has in- vaded the fields of law, real estate, farming and politics, in all of which he has won success and reputation. Of recent years agriculture has received the greater part of his attention, aside from his labors of a public character, and during fifteen years his home has been at or near Sapulpa.

Mr. Jones was born April 3, 1864, at Cowden, Shelby County, Illinois, and is a son of Samuel and Martha (Rhodes) Jones. He traces his ancestry back in a direct line to the year 1192, and in this country to 1631, when the founder of the family, a native of England and an uncle of John Locke, the great English phi- losopher, settled at Woburn, Massachusetts. Mrs. Martha (Rhodes) Jones was a direct descendant of Rev. George

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Whitefield, who was born in Gloucester, England, in 1714, in youth joined the Wesleys, was ordained preacher in 1736 and in 1738 came to the American settlement of Georgia. He became chaplain of the first colony of Georgia, was one of the greatest evangelists the world has known, founded the Calvinistic Methodists, and died in 1770 at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Joseph Jerome Jones is also a blood relative of two American presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Samuel Jones was born in Knox County, Ohio, in 1834, and as a young man went to Shelby County, Illinois, where he was married, his wife having been born there in 1837. They passed the remaining years of their lives on a farm in Shelby County, the father dying in 1881 and the mother in 1905. They were the parents of five chil- dren, of whom four are living, a daughter being deceased.

Joseph Jerome Jones attended the public and high schools of Cowden, Illinois, and at the age of seventeen years left the homestead farm and went to Valparaiso (Indiana) University, where he spent three years. His education was so far advanced, however, that, while continuing his studies, he taught school at intervals for four years in Illinois. His law studies also overlapped his career as a teacher, and he was finally admitted to the bar in 1890, in his native state. During the next ten years Mr. Jones practice in the courts of Illinois, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah and Oklahoma, residing at various points in those states, and in 1900 located at Sapulpa, where he carried on a successful practice until the time of statehood, when he gave up his practice to give his attention to real estate and investments, in which he had become largely interested. Still later he embarked in farming, and at the present time he has large and valuable landed holdings in Creek County. In January, 1916, he located at Tulsa, where he is engaged in the abstract business, being president of the Oklahoma Abstract Company.

Mr. Jones was a republican until 1912, in which year he cast his fortunes with the newly-organized pro- gressive party. His public service has been of great practical value to his constituents, and his fearless in- dependence, both of speech and political action, has sometimes brought him into conflict with certain leaders, while decidedly raising him in public estimation. He served as mayor of Sapulpa, until his resignation, and was also city attorney, from which position he likewise resigned. In 1910 he was elected to the State Senate and served one term of four years. In this capacity he was known as one of the most serviceable members of the upper house of the Legislature, ready and logical in debate and at the same time alive to all the practical demands of his district and industrious in pushing for- ward all needful legislation. He still holds membership in the Creek County Bar Association, and for twenty-five years has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Mr. Jones was married in 1894 to Miss Charlotte M. Paxton, who was born near Tama, Tama County, Iowa, where she resided until her marriage, daughter of Thomas Paxton, whose neighbor for forty-two years was Hon. James Wilson, ex-secretary of agriculture. Four chil- dren have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, namely : Jerald J., born October 9, 1895, who is now a student at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Indiana; Quelma, born January 4, 1900; Xerma, born December 24, 1902; and X, born January 21, 1905.

BION F. COLE. To the material success and broad industrial influence of the Live Stock Daily News, one of the most valuable and important of the progressive publications of the State of Oklahoma, Mr. Cole has

contributed much through his effective policies and services in the capacity of advertising manager, and he is consistently to be designated as one of the repre- sentative figures in the domain of newspaper enter- prise in this favored commonwealth.

Bion Franklin Cole was born at Liberty Mills, Wabaslı County, Indiana, on the 1st of May, 1857, and when he was three years of age the family removed to North Manchester, in the same county, where the home was established at the time of the inception of the Civil war. The father, George E. Cole, manifested his patriotism by promptly enlisting in defense of the Union. He became a second lieutenant in the Forty-seventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry, and sacrified his life in the cause. He was killed in the final engagement at Champion's Hill, Mississippi, and his body was taken by the Confederates, who believed it to have been that of one of their own officers and who gave it burial as such, the location of the grave never having been dis- covered by the members of his family. Lieutenant Cole's parents were born in England and upon coming to the United States established their home in Pennsylvania. In the old Keystone State was solemnized the marriage of Lieut. George E. Cole to Miss Mary E. Raper, in 1843, his wife being a daughter of Adam Raper, a descendant of one of the sterling old German families of Pennsylvania, and finally they removed to Indiana, where the venerable wife and mother still resides, her home being in the fine little City of Goshen, Elkhart County, and her mental and physical powers being re- markable, in view of the fact that she is nearing the age of four score years and ten. Of the six children Bion F., of this review, was the fourth in order of birth, and all save one of the number are still living.

The devoted and widowed mother was left to care for her five young children and soon after the war had closed it became practically imperative for the older sons to contribute their quota to the support of the family. Bion F. Cole, when a lad of nine years, was taken into the home of a farmer in Wabash County, Indiana, his compensation being comprised in his recep- tion of his board and clothing. Concerning this unduly strenuous period of his life the following pertinent statements have been written and are worthy of per- petuation, as indicating the conditions and influences under which a strong and resourceful character was developed :

"This foster-father proved anything but a kind em- ployer, the boy being assigned to such work as cutting large logs by handling one end of a cross-cut saw, plow- ing new ground, husking corn, chopping wood, etc., and in the meanwhile being afforded no school privileges. At the end of two years family friends took action and brought about a dissolution of the agreement under which the boy was bound, and he was returned to his mother's home at North Manchester, where he was able to attend school one year. When his mother contracted a second marriage and removed to Albion, Noble County, Indiana, young Cole was hired out to a kinsman of his stepfather, but here his lot proved even less favorable than under former conditions. He was compelled to work early and late and when weather was unpropitious or there was nothing else for him to do he was set to clearing off dead timber and other work more onerous than he had done for the farmer to whom he was originally bound out. From Albion he accompanied his mother and step- father on their removal to Goshen, Indiana, and after working for a time in a manufacturing establishment he was there able to enter upon an apprenticeship in the office of the Goshen Times, owned and published by William Star. He completed a four years' apprentice- ship and the discipline in this connection justified the

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

statement that the service of this order iu a newspaper and printing office is equal to a liberal education. Young Cole had an alert mind, was ambitious and persevering and made rapid advancement in acquiring kuowledge of the intricacies and mysteries of the 'art preservative of all arts.' In those days the 'printer's devil' was the common pack-horse of the office and his duties comprised everything from sawing four-foot cord wood to standing at a press during the daylight hours, after which he carried the papers to subscribers in the evening."

At the completion of his apprenticeship of four years, withiu which his maximum salary was $3.50 a week, Mr. Cole obtained a position with the great Chicago firm of Rand, MeNally & Company, then one of the greatest publishing coucerns in railway maps and schedules in the United States and still one of the most important publishing houses in the City of Chicago. Here the a reception of a stipend of $12 a week while working under instructions seemed to the young printer wondrous financial stride, but in the meanwhile he had developed a distinct appreciation of and liking for news- paper work, aud through the influence of representative business men of Chicago he was enabled to make ad- vancement in this field of enterprise. By the well-known publisher of the Chicago Times, the late Wilber F. Story, he was sent to Springfield, the capital city of Illinois, where he profited much through observing the various details of the state governmental work and where he edited for the Chicago Times a column under the head- ing of "Rambling Musings." When he left Springfield Mr. Story gave him a command or admonition which he has ever retained as his guide in newspaper work. Story said to him: "We want news, not a story. To illus- trate, in case of a big fire give us simple facts-the cause, the loss, the amount of insurance if any, the owners of the property. Make it brief." The policies thus implied made Wilber F. Story one of the foremost newspaper men in the United States, and his counsel has been im- measureably valued by Mr. Cole, who recalls that eccen- tric personality with much of appreciation.

Apropos of the further advancement of Mr. Cole in his chosen field of endeavor the following succinct account has been given:

"On his return trip from Springfield to Chicago Mr. Cole stopped at Bloomington, Illinois. The place appealed to him especially on account of its beautiful homes and stirring business. There he met H. R. Persinger, who had just started a society paper called the Bloomington Eye, and he joined Mr. Persinger in the new venture, which was virtually the initiatory step in society journalism west of New York. The enterprise had proved so promising and successful in its early stages that Mr. Cole was offered a position on its editorial staff, and his technical knowledge likewise came into effective play through his serving as compositor and makeup man. From this experience young Cole was inspired to continue his association with society pub- lications, and after an interval of two years he went to Burlington, Iowa, where he assumed a position with the celebrated Burlington Hawkeye, of which the editor was at that time Hon. Frank Hatton, who later served as postmaster general of the United States. In this connection Mr. Cole formed the acquaintance of the late Robert J. Burdette, one of the greatest paragraphers and humorists of the West at that time and at the time of his recent death a clergyman in California. Leaving Burlington in the winter of 1883-4, Mr. Cole accepted a position on the Rocky Mountain News, the leading daily paper of Denver, Colorado. Being an all- round man he was soon assigned to detached duty as makeup on the city and state directories for Denver, Pueblo, Leadville, and Colorado Springs, and within a

short time thereafter, at the suggestion of John Arkins, owner of the News, he was assigned to service in the mining camps of Colorado, to report for the mining page of the Sunday editions of the Rocky Mountain News, the silver-mining excitement and operations having then beeu at their zenith in that state. In those days the present mode of illustrating newspaper articles was un- known, but young Cole injected illustrations of the various mining fields in connection with his articles, and these attracted attention throughout the entire country.

"Returning to Denver after six months passed in the mining camps of the mountain fastnesses, Mr. Cole found awaiting him a position on the Denver Republican, where he formed the acquaintanceship of the illustrious and loved Eugene Field, later with the Chicago Daily News, and of such satirists as O. H. Rothiker, Will Vicher and others of the world's greatest newspaper writers."'

Mr. Cole remained in Denver until going to Des Moines, Iowa, where he again became associated with Persinger, whom he assisted in the establishing of the Des Moines Mail and Times. With this paper he con- tinued to be identified seven years and he then purchased the Grand Island Times, at Grand Island, Nebraska, and in connection with the editing and publishing of this paper he first became actively concerned with political affairs. He made his paper a success and a power in politics in Nebraska. Through his paper and per- sonal influence he opposed the nomination and candidacy for the United States Senate of Hon. George W. E. Dorsey, one of the strongest republicans in the state, and supported the populist nominee, Senator Kemm, who was victorious at the polls and who defeated Dorsey by au appreciable majority. Mr. Cole had been a delegate to the republican state convention and the article which he wrote for his paper upon returning from the con- vention was entitled "Dorsey's Money Did It," this leading editorial having become the slogan of those opposing Dorsey in the succeeding campaign, which was a most spirited one.

In 1891 Mr. Cole assumed the position of traveling representative and salesman for the Western Newspaper Union, with the service of which he continued to be identified fourteen years, during the last four of which he was manager and made a record for being the best producer of business the organization ever had upon the road. He introduced the business of this corporation in Oklahoma and never thereafter lost a paper among the hundreds that were established within the period directly succeeding the opening of the territory to settlement. He assisted William Jennings Bryan in the establish- ing and launching of The Commoner, and his wide and varied experience had definite influence in furthering the phenomenal and almost instant success of this note- worthy paper.

In July, 1909, Mr. Cole established his residence in Oklahoma City, where he assumed control of a syndicate of ten county papers designated as the Suburban List, and founded also the Live Stock Exchange, a weekly paper. He made the ventures definitely successful and after disposing of his interests in the same he became the valued incumbent of his present responsible position, that of advertising manager of the Oklahoma Daily Live Stock News, which has a wide circulation throughout the state and the broad usefulness and value of which have been significantly fostered through the effective methods and policies which he has evolved. Mr. Cole is con- sistently to be considered one of the leading newspaper men of the West, his acquaintanceship is specially large and his manifold activities and broad mental ken have made him a person of great versatility-and resourceful- ness, the while his steadfastness and genial individuality

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

have gained to him troops of friends iu both business and social circles.

In the City of Deuver, on the 14th of June, 1882, Mr. Cole wedded Miss Jessie F. Miller, daughter of Samuel P. and Emily W. (Swan) Miller, formerly of Des Moines, Iowa. Mrs. Cole was summoned to the life eternal on the 10th of January, 1900, and is survived by her only child, Holland Ralph Cole, who was born October 28, 1884. At Lincolu, Nebraska, on the 4th of June, 1903, was solemnized the second marriage of Mr. Cole, when Mrs. Ida (Vaustrum) Dillon, of that city became his wife. They have uo children.

GREENWOOD MCCURTAIN. Of the names that have figured most conspicuously in the history of the Choctaw Nation from its removal to Indian Territory until the tribal relations were dissolved and the nation was merged into the State of Oklahoma, none has enjoyed more of the worthy distinctions of private and public houor than MeCurtain. One of the finest counties in the southeastern part of the state bears the name of the family as a permanent tribute to their valued citizenship, and it was the lasting distinction of the late Greenwood McCurtain to have been elected the last principal chief or governor of the nation, and was the executive head in winding up its tribal affairs, and he continued to enjoy the honorary title after statehood until his death. He was a leader among the Tuskahoma or progressive party in Indian politics.

In the early years of Indian Territory the home of the McCurtains was near Fort Smith, Arkansas, in what is now LeFlore County, Oklahoma. Greenwood McCurtain was born in that locality in November, 1848, but for many years had his home in what is now Haskell County, and in that county at the Sans Bois Cemetery he was laid to rest after his death on December 27, 1910.

The name McCurtain is of Scotch or Irish origin, though Governor MeCurtain was almost a fullblood Choctaw. His father Cornelius McCurtain was born in Mississippi and was a member of the Choctaw tribe and married a fullblood Choctaw woman, Miss Belvin.

Green McCurtain, as he was most familiarly known, grew up ou the frontier, a part of his youthful expe- rience coinciding with that desolating period of the Civil war. In a business way he was chiefly successful as a stock raiser, aud he was also identified to some extent with mercantile and trading interests.

However, it was in his public relations that he most thoroughly impressed his influence upon the life of the Choctaw Nation. One of the greatest services he ren- dered in behalf of his people, and in which he attracted the attention of the United States Government, was in the office of Choctaw National Treasurer. He served two terms of two years each as treasurer of the Choctaw Nation and during that time the Federal Government paid through him $2,000,000 to the Choctaws. He dis- tributed this vast sum to his tribesmen, the Government requiring no bond of him as its agent. He was twice chosen to represent the Choctaw tribe as its delegate at Washington, but resigned during his second term.

Mr. McCurtain's first position of importance was as a member of the national board of education from his, the first, district. He was ever a friend and ardent supporter of education among his people. He was later elected to the position of district attorney, wherein he distinguished himself as a public prosecutor aud an official who vigorously enforced the law.

In 1896 he was elected governor of chief of the Choctaw Nation, and two years later was re-elected to that high office. Under the law he was not eligible to election a third time, so he retired after four years of careful and conscientious administration of the national

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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