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 120

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 120

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affairs. In 1902 Governor McCurtaiu was again elected principal chief after a spirited contest in which he was opposed by an auti-statehood candidate, who was aided by the uational republican party. Two years later he was elected goveruor for the fourth time, and thereafter he was retained in the office by Congress and the general government until his death. His service of twelve years constituted the longest individual service in that office, and only death sevcred his official relations with his people.

Above all else, his fidelity to his people should be lougest remembered and most closely associated with his name and character. It was said of him that he was "first an Indian and then a democrat, but there came a time when he believed the democratic delegation in Congress was unfriendly to his people, and then he became, and died, a republican in politics."'

In religious matters he was a Baptist and he died in that faith at his home at Kinta, at the age of sixty- two. Governor McCurtain was twice married. By his first wife he was the father of one child, D. C. McCurtain, a lawyer and now a resident of Spiro. By his second marriage there were four daughters and one son.

DAVID CORNELIUS MCCURTAIN. One of the important phases of the statehood movement iu Oklahoma and Indian Territory was the convention of August, 1905, at Muskogee, which met for the purpose of providing for a government of the Indian country and for drafting a constitution for a single state comprising approximately what was then Indian Territory. As a result of the labors of this convention there was adopted what will always be known in history as "The Sequoyah Constitu- tion." The temporary chairman of this convention was D. C. McCurtain, a son of Governor McCurtain of the Choctaw Nation, and at that time as now a prominent leader among his people and one of the able lawyers of the state.

This representative of the Choctaw Nation was born at old Scullyville near Spiro, Oklahoma, January 29, 1873. He was the son of Greenwood and Martha A. (Ainsworth) McCurtain. His mother was a white woman and a native of Mississippi.

After getting his primary education in the national school near his father's home, he continued his educa- tion at Roanoke College in Virginia, and in 1895 grad- uated from the Kemper Military School at Boonville, Missouri. Taking up the study of law, he first entered the University of Missouri and finished his legal studies at Columbian University in Washington, D. C. On re- turning to Indian Territory he forthwith began the practice of law and took his place as a leader among his people. In 1898 he was elected district attorney for the First District of the Choctaw Nation, and re-elected in 1900, but resigned to accept his appointment as clerk of the Citizenship Commission. After one year he re- signed as clerk, and in 1901 was chosen a delegate to represent the Choctaw Nation at Washington. For this post his ability and training as a lawyer and his inti- mate knowledge of the Choctaw people and their needs proved exceptional qualifications. He continued as the Choctaw delegate at Washington until 1904, when he returned to Indian Territory and became probate attor- ney for the Choctaws. In 1906 he resigned that office to become again a delegate in the interest of the Choctaws at Washington, and represented his people before the national government until statehood.

In October, 1907, James R. Garfield, then secretary of the interior under Roosevelt, tendered him the position of attorney for the Choctaws, and he remained in that position, together with his associate in the practice of the law, until 1912.

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Mr. MeCurtain was a resident of McAlester from 1900 to 1914, and in December of the latter year re- moved to Poteau, and later to Spiro, where he is now living, engaged in the practice of law independently. While a resident of McAlester he filled out an un- expired term, by appointment, as mayor of that city. He is a democrat, a thirty-second degree Mason of the Scottish Rite, a member of the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Presbyterian Church.

In 1896 he married Miss Katherine N. Mitchell, a Choctaw woman. They have four living children: Ewart Preston, Greenwood Mitchell, Jackson Haskell and Martha Elizabeth McCurtain.

E. B. BREWINGTON, D. O. The leading representative of the school of osteopathy in Kay County is Doctor Brewington, who has conducted a very successful prac- tice at Tonkawa for the past fifteen years. He is one of the men who has brought osteopathy to an equal standing among the older schools of medicine, and is himself a graduate of the pioneer school of osteopathy, the Doctor Still Institute at Kirksville, Missouri.

A resident of Oklahoma since 1901, Doctor Brewing- ton was graduated in osteopathy in 1899, standing among the first in his class. He was born near Monticello, Missouri, September 23, 1861, and was the son of a farmer and stock man, Capt. David Brewington, now deceased. His father made an excellent record as a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, and died at the age of fifty-seven. He was a citizen who commanded the high respect of all who knew him, and possessed many splendid qualities of heart and mind. The mother, whose maiden name was Miss E. Smith, a daughter of Rice Smith, is now living at Caddo, Okla- homa. His father was a republican in politics, and a very active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was also affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. There are five sons: E. M., a farmer and stock man at Caddo; Dr. E. B .; C. M., of Caddo; Dr. O. M., now well established in practice at Wichita, Kansas; and M. R., a farmer and stock man at Caddo.

Doctor Brewington spent the early years of his life on a farm, gained an education in the public schools, and has been an industrious and energetic citizen since early youth. For several years he was engaged in business in Kansas, and finally gave up merchandising in order to enter the school of osteopathy at Kirksville founded by the eminent Doctor Still, an institution which more than any other fact has made Kirksville known all over the country as a medical center. In 1901 Doctor Brew- ington came to Oklahoma to assist his brother, Dr. O. M., who was at that time living in Grant County, and from there moved to Tonkawa, where he has since been the chief representative of his particular school in medical circles.

In 1884 in Ellis County, Kansas, Doctor Brewington married Miss Daisy Lowe. Four children have been born to their union. Doctor Brewington is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. As a citizen as well as a physician he has supported all those movements planned for the benefit of his com- inunity, and is always mentioned among the leading citizens of that town.

RICHARD S. BURNS. Varied activities as an early homesteader, a farmer and citizen in Dewey and Blaine counties, have served to make the name of Richard S. Burns well known and highly respected in this section of the state, and at the present time he is identified with public service as postmaster at Canton. Mr. Burns has spent the greater part of his active career in the

West, is thoroughly familiar with the conditions in this section of country, and has always been a man of hope and enthusiasm concerning the future development and prosperity of Oklahoma in particular.

The Burns family to which he belongs originated in Germany, and settled among the pioneers of the old State of Kentucky. His grandfather, Jacob Burns, was born in the year 1799, and probably in Washington County, Kentucky. Anyhow, that county was his home when he was very young. He died there in 1881. As a boy he had given some active service as a soldier in the War of 1812, while the rest of his long lite was spent as a farmer.

Richard S. Burns, the Canton postmaster, was born April 21, 1861, at Willisburg, Washington County, Kentucky. His father, S. N. Burns, was born in the same county in 1832 and died there in 1877. His life was spent as a farmer and he belonged to the Baptist church and the Masonic fraternity. He married Mary A. Cheatham, who was born in Washington County in 1836 and died there in 1881. "There were three children: L. H. lives at Decatur, Illinois; the second is Richard S .; and Elizabeth, now deceased, married Jerome Trent, who is a merchant in Washington County, Kentucky.

From the time he was sixteen years of age Richard S. Burns has taken care of his own fortunes in the world. In the meantime he had attended public schools in Washington County, and at Perryville, Kentucky, re- ceived the equivalent of a modern high school education. On starting out for himself he made a living for several years by teaching school. In 1888 he moved West and spent a year on a farm near Hutchinson, Kansas, and thus combined the vocation of teaching with that of farming for several years. From Kansas Mr. Burns moved to Oklahoma in March, 1897, and acquired a home- stead of 160 acres near Fountain in Dewey County. That farm has been his home ever since, though his activities and interests are well diversified. His home- stead is located a half a mile south and ten miles west of Canton, in Dewey County.

During 1907 Mr. Burns served on the State Board of Agriculture for Oklahoma. On September 16, 1914, he was appointed postmaster at Canton, and has since given his principal time and attention to the duties of this office. His farm is in Little Robe Township, and he has been a member of the school board of that town- ship. Mr. Burns is a democrat, a member of the Baptist Church, and can always be found as a supporter of all public spirited movements in his community.

While living in Kentucky in 1884 he married Miss Mattie Sale, whose father, the Rev. R. Sale, was a Baptist minister. To their marriage have been born five children: Mary A. is the wife of L. L. Murray, and they live on their farm in Dewey County, Oklahoma; Lucy L. married W. F. Bussing and they have a farm at Fonda, Oklahoma; R. S. is a pharmacist at Dumright, Oklahoma; R. H. is the active manager of his father's farm; and Ernest is assistant postmaster at Canton.

CLARENCE W. KERFOOT is an Oklahoma pioneer and during the twenty-five years spent in this state has touched with his enterprise a great variety of under- takings. He helped to start things in a business way in several localities at the successive openings of the old Oklahoma Territory. He was a homesteader in the Cherokee Strip. In the past fifteen years his home and activities have been centered at Shawnee, where he is now at the head of one of the largest real estate offices and has been a prime factor in developing Shawnee real estate.

Mr. Kerfoot is of Kentucky and Virginia lineage. Back in the old Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

his aucestors lived, the old family estate is still known as the Kerfoot homestead. His great-grandfather was Samuel Kerfoot, who with two brothers, John and William, came over from Dublin, Ireland, in 1777, and reached American shores in time to participate with the patriots in the war of the Revolution. All three of these brothers were in Washington's army in the final campaigu against Cornwallis and were present at the surrender at Yorktown. Afterwards these brothers were associated with some surveying and western land proposi- tion of General Washington, and in return for their services they received grants of land in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Samuel Kerfoot died in that valley. The grandfather was also named Samuel Kerfoot and was boru in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and died in Hardin County, Kentucky, before Clarence W. Ker- foot was boru. He was an early settler in Hardin County, owned a large farm, one of the finest in the state, at Long Grove, Kentucky.

It was in Hardin County, Kentucky, that Clarence W. Kerfoot was born September 9, 1866, and his father Jesse L. Kerfoot was born in the same county in 1835, and is still living there at the venerable age of cighty years. It has been his home all his life, and besides his work as a farmer he has. loyally served as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He is now retired. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and in politics a democrat. Jesse L. Kerfoot married Mattie Williams, who was born in Hardin County in 1845 and died there in 1899. The four children are: Annie, who lives at Louisville, Kentucky, is the widow of R. C. Crist, a contractor and builder; Clarence W .; Melvin H., who is a farmer and stock man in Hardin County; and Clitus, who graduated M. D. from the Louisville Medical College and is now practicing medicine at Prague, Oklahoma.

Growing up on the old Hardin County homestead, Clarence W. Kerfoot had liberal advantages both at home and in school. He attended the common schools, a private school at Millerstown, Kentucky, and in 1885 finished his senior year in the high school at Horse Cave, Kentucky. The first twenty-three years of his life were spent on his father's farm.

In 1888 he went out on his own account and bought a farm of 100 acres in Hardin County, and after cultivating it for two years sold out. Then on October 10, 1890, he arrived at El Reno, Oklahoma, in the sec- ond year after the original opening. At El Reno he remained as clerk in a grocery store until 1892. With the opening of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservations he made the run and established one of the first grocery stores at Cloud Chief. However, he soon sold out, and returning to El Reno was again connected with a local grocery establishment till September, 1893. With the opening of the Cherokee Strip he went in as a home- stead claimant, and secured 160 acres twelve miles east of Enid. He made this the scene of his activities for six months and then sold out to advantage.

Since that experience Mr. Kerfoot's activities have embraced a wider and more general scope. With his cousins, George and John Kerfoot, each of whom put in $1,100, he helped establish a wholesale dry goods busi- ness at El Reno. He was identified with that establish- ment until he sold out in 1899. In March, 1900, he came to Shawnee, and since then his influence has been a potent factor in the upbuilding of this central city of Oklahoma. He and his cousins, George H. and M. M. Kerfoot, bought the Mammoth general dry goods store, situated at the corner of Main and Bell streets. George H. Kerfoot is now manager of this large emporium, one of the best dry goods stores in the state. At the close of 1900 Clarence W. Kerfoot sold his interest in this store, and then opened the Kerfoot-Wayland wholesale

grocery, with which he was actively identified until 1906. This is now a brauch of the Williamson, Halsell, Frazier Wholesale Grocery Company, in which Mr. Ker- foot is still a stockholder.

In recent years Mr. Kerfoot has bought and sold a number of merchandise stocks, but primarily has been in the real estate business as a developer and property owner on his own account. His offices are in a building which he owns at 112 East Main Street. On Ninth and Union streets he owns a block of laud 100x140 feet, on which are three substantial buildings, one of them recently completed. He also owns a comfortable home at 327 North Union Street, and a number of city lots. As a farmer he is proprietor of 120 acres one mile from Maud, but has sold all the other farm property which at different times he has owned in this state.

In politics Mr. Kerfoot is a democrat, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is affiliated with Shawnee Lodge No. 657, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. On October 28, 1898, at El Reno, he married Miss Anna Richardson. Her father is David Richardson, a farmer in Mead County, Ken- tucky. Mr. and Mrs. Kerfoot have two interesting children. Mary Weldon, who was born October 21, 1900, has shown brilliant scholarship, and is now combining the junior and senior years of work in the Shawnee High School, and will complete the regular four-year course in less than three years. She is especially pro- ficient in history. C. W., Jr., born September 30, 1909, is now in the first grade of the public schools.

T. S. CHAMBERS. One of the pioneers of the Cherokee country, T. S. Chambers has for more than twenty years been actively identified with Kay County, was one of the builders of the first railway line in that section of the state, and is now giving an excellent administra- tion to the duties of postmaster at Tonkawa. He re- ceived his appointement to this office during the Wilson administration on August 18, 1913. Tonkawa is one of the thriving little cities of Northern Oklahoma, has a population of about 2,000, and was first settled in 1896. The postoffice is third class, and the personnel of its official staff are: T. S. Chambers, postmaster; R. K. Ferguson, assistant postmaster; and three rural carriers, P. J. Devore, R. L. Johnson and H. S. Chambers.

T. S. Chambers was born in Clay County, Indiana, October 31, 1868, and has had a life filled with activities, from school teacher to postmaster. He is a man of great breadth of mind, vigorous in the handling of business affairs, and has been a constructive factor in the life of Kay County. His father, T. Chambers, was born in Ohio, and was a successful farmer. He married Sarah Eckert, also a native of Ohio. Her father died at the age of seventy-two and the mother at seventy-one. They were the parents of the following children: L. P., a resident of California; O. L., a farmer; T. S .; F. G., a farmer; H. N .; Anna Ballinger, a widow living at Ponca City; H. S., in the service of the postoffice at Tonkawa; Edna V. Thomas of Tonkawa; and Dennis D., of Junction City, Kansas.

T. S. Chambers spent his early youth on an Iowa farm, and acquired a substantial education. For about ten years he was engaged in the work of teaching school, largely in Sumner County, Kansas. He received part of his education in Guthrie Center, Iowa, and also at- tended a college.

Mr. Chambers made the run into the Cherokee Strip in September, 1893, and succeeded in staking out a claim for himself. He then took the lead in securing better transportation facilities for the county, and was secretary and treasurer of the old Southwestern Railroad Company, which constructed the first railway line in the county.

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This road was subsequently sold to and is now a part of the Frisco System. It was Mr. Chambers who went to New York and succeeded in interesting capitalists, who took the bonds of the proposed road, and he also secured a large part of the right of way. For four years Mr. Chambers was an active factor in the develop- ment of the oil and gas resources about Tulsa.

At Perry, Oklahoma, in October, 1906, he married Miss Edith Ferguson. Mrs. Chambers has spent most of her life in Oklahoma, and completed her education in Norman. Her father, D. K. Ferguson, is now assistant postmaster at Tonkawa. To their marriage have been born two children: Roland S. and Robert Glen. Mr. Chambers is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and also a Knight Templar and Shriner. In politics he has long been an influence in the democratic party in his section of the state, and in 1912 was a delegate to the Baltimore Convention which nominated the great statesman and scholar, Woodrow Wilson, and Is one of the enthusiastic supporters of that Presi- dent, whose administration bids fair to take rank as one of the most notable in the country's history.

J. BERT FOSTER. The position of J. Bert Foster in the City of Chandler is one both of prominence and in- fluence. He is city clerk and superintendent of water- works, and is also president of the state firemen's asso- ciation of Oklahoma. During the twenty years he has lived in the town no one has been more actively and public spiritedly useful in boosting the resources and development of that thriving Oklahoma city. His popu- larity is as great as his usefulness, and he has that excellent faculty of making and retaining strong friend- ships. In both his private business and in public affairs he has shown intelligence, hard common sense, and an ability to meet all the exigencies that come up during the routine of responsibility.

J. Bert Foster has lived in Lincoln County twenty- three years, having come to Oklahoma from DesMoines, Iowa. He was born in Decatur, Illinois, July 18, 1872, of a family noted for honesty and integrity. His father was Sam T. Foster, a native of Ohio, and of Scotch- Irish ancestry. He was married in Illinois to Jane Stevenson, who was born in Pennsylvania of an old family of that state. . Sam T. Foster died at the age of fifty-three, after an active career as a farmer. In politics he was a democrat, and once served as sheriff of Moultrie County, Illinois. He was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

J. Bert Foster, who was one of two children, was reared and educated in Illinois and at Des Moines, Iowa, and as a young man learned the cigar maker's trade. He followed that occupation as a workman until remov- ing to Chandler, when he founded one of the first cigar factories in this part of Oklahoma. Mr. Foster was mar- ried in Chandler to Miss Ella Mills, who has spent most of her life in Oklahoma and received her education in the Sac and Fox schools. They are the parents of one son, J. Bert, Jr. Mr. Foster is affiliated with the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Wood- men of America and has passed the different chairs in these lodges. He is affable, courteous, and everyone who has business at the office of the city clerk or with the superintendent of the waterworks plant is impressed both with his efficiency and his genial manner.

HON. MAXWELL SLOAN BLASSINGAME. By patient and conscientious work and consistent study during the first half of his term as a member of the State Senate, Senator Blassingame established himself in the esteem and confidence of his colleagues, thereby laying the foundation for the honor that was conferred upon him

at the beginning of the regular session of the Fifth Legislature. With little or no opposition he was chosen chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, by virtue of which position he was majority leader of that body in the Fifth Legislature. The first half of his senatorial career was filled with efforts toward constructive legisla- tion and party harmony, and the experience gained qualified him for both legislative and political leader- ship in the second half. Senator Blassingame has spent many years in Oklahoma Territory and State, and in his home town of Sallisaw was a prominent newspaper editor and publisher.

Maxwell Sloan Blassingame was born March 29, 1874, in Murray County, Georgia, and represents some fine old southern stock. His parents were W. G. and Mar- garet (Anthony) Blassingame. His father, now living, at the age of seventy-seven, with his son in Sallisaw, is a veteran of the Confederate army, in which he served with distinction as a lieutenant. He was born in Georgia and descended from ancestors who were among the earliest settlers of the Carolinas. The Blassingame fam- ily left South Carolina aud removed to Georgia in 1870. On his mother's side Senator Blassingame is descended from Germans in Saxony who became pioneer Americans in Pennsylvania and later in the Carolinas. The various generations of the Blassingames in America have been among the foremost people of their communities in political, social, church and military life. Dr. William Fields, a cousin of W. G. Blassingame, and Thomas Bowen, a nephew, represented Pickens County in the con- vention that framed the present constitution of South Carolina. Doctor Fields was one of the few democratic members of the House during "reconstruction days" in that state, and later of the Senate, during which time Thomas Bowen served in the House. The Bowens were among the leading families of the state during more than one generation, and now have distinguished repre- sentatives in South Carolina and Texas. Samuel E. Fields, a double cousin of Doctor Fields and another cousin of Senator Blassingame's father, once served as state senator from the Forty-third Senatorial District of Georgia.

Senator Blassingame has been largely the architect of his own fortune, and has had few favors in life which he did not earn. As a boy he attended the short-term rural schools of his home county, later was a student in the Coosawatee Institute at Decora, Georgia, in the Fairmount College at Fairmount, and also in the N. G. A. College at Dahlonega, Georgia. In 1893, in order to earn money to complete his college education, he came out to McGregor, Texas, and by the sweat of his brow in cotton fields labored early and late until his savings were suf- ficient for his ambitious purpose. He then returned to Georgia, entered Fairmount College as a student under George S. Fulton, one of the ablest, best-known and most loved professors of his day, and subsequently attended the N. G. A. College:

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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