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 122

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 122

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In politics he belongs to the dominant party in Oklahoma, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and was formerly identified with the fraternal orders of the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World and the Mystic Circle. At Denton in 1896 he married Miss May Mat- lock, daughter of the late Dr. W. R. Matlock, a well known Denton physician. They have one daughter, Barbara Lee, who was born at Denton July 25, 1905.

HON. FRANK CARPENTER. So far as known Represen- tative Frank Carpenter is the only member of the Legislature who participated in three successive land openings of the original Oklahoma. Mr. Carpenter has been identified either with the State of Kansas or with Oklahoma more than thirty years, and for nearly fifteen years has been one of the most progressive and success- ful farmers in what originally was the Kiowa and Comanche Indian country. He was sent to the Legis- lature as representative from Caddo County, and his home is at Bridgeport.

Frank Carpenter was boru in Erie County, New York, in 1852, and in his pioneering followed the example of his ancestors, who in that relation were identified with several zones of settlement beginning with the early Atlantic coast. His parents were William and Julia (Foote) Carpenter. His father was at one time mayor of the City of Buffalo, New York. The ancestry goes back to the first settlement on Sherman Isle, now Prince Edward Island, the title to which is believed to be in the Carpenter family to this day, although the papers that would establish such a claim were lost by one of the Carpenters in Lake Eric. Mr. Carpenter's mother is a member of the historic Foote family, from which came Commodore Foote, one of America's naval heroes, and Dr. Luman Foote, a noted pioneer minister of the Episcopal Church in Michigan. In the earlier lines of the family one of the most prominent connections was Governor Bradford, the first executive of the Massa- chusetts Colony.

When Frank Carpenter was sixteen years of age his father moved to Michigan, and for his common school education he attended the schools both of New York and Michigan, and began making his own way in the world as clerk in a wholesale and retail grocery house in Charlotte, Michigan. He remained with that firm for seven years, then became identified with farming and lumbering in Michigan. In 1882 the family removed to Marion County, Kansas, where he took up farming and also engaged in stock raising.

As a resident of the neighboring State of Kansas the opening of the original Oklahoma appealed with special strength to Frank Carpenter, who was a member of the great throng of people who on April 22, 1889, awaited the signal fired at high noon and made the great

rush into Oklahoma to get public lands. He was on horseback, and rode for forty miles until reaching a homestead in what is now Deer Creek Township of Oklahoma County. Mr. Carpenter remained two years to prove up his claim, and then returned to Kansas, where in the meantime he had kept his former farm and livestock. The Oklahoma homestead was relinquished to his brother Henry. In 1893 Mr. Carpenter joined the second throng of people seeking public land in Oklahoma, making the run into the Cherokee Strip. Having already held a claim in Oklahoma, he assisted his sister and an uncle in obtaining land, and they settled in Payne County. Mr. Carpenter remained there four years, and again returned to his Kansas farm. Wheu the Kiowa and Comanche Indian reservation was opened in 1901, he went a third time among the land seekers, but this time instead of the race and physical contest engaged in the lottery by registering for claims at El Reno. He was unsuccessful in the drawing but bought land in what afterwards was known as Caddo County. There he established his first permanent home in Oklahoma, and has been identified with that locality ever since.

The first office through which Frank Carpenter served the people of Oklahoma was as county assessor of Caddo County, to which he was appointed by Governor Cruce in 1912. At the end of the same year he was elected to the office for a two year term. In 1914 he was elected a member of the Legislature, and at the beginning of the fifth session was appointed chairman of the Committee on State and School Lands and a member of committees on Appropriations, Public Roads and Highways, Prac- tice of Medicine and Mines and Mining. He was one of the authors of a bill making an appropriation for rewards for bank burglars and was a joint author of a bill correcting the practice of false statements made to merchants by their patrons. He was chairman of the Farmers Caucus in the Legislature and interested in legislation particularly tending to improve farm con- ditions. Mr. Carpenter has proved a stimulating factor in the Legislature, and has favored a short and busy session, has opposed his influence to the introduction of many useless bills, and has cared little for changes in legislation save those that were vital to the commercial and industrial welfare of the state. He was a supporter of most of the policies of Governor Williams, but avoided being an extremist on economy.

Mr. Carpenter was married at Florence, Kansas, in 1883, to Miss Annie Arnold, who died nine months after the wedding. January 15, 1893, he married Miss Flora Wagner of Florence, Kansas, who died in April, 1908. The three children of this marriage are: Charles, a graduate of the Bridgeport High School and now com- pleting his junior year in the Agricultural and Mechani- cal College at Stillwater; Edward, completing his fresh- man year in the Agricultural and Mechanical College; and Mrs. Eris Shacklin, a graduate of the Bridgeport High School and wife of a farmer near Bridgeport. Mr. Carpenter was married January 22, 1913, to Mrs. Annie L. Sharp, whose home was in the State of Wash- ington and whose father was a Polish count in banish- ment in America. Mr. Carpenter has three brothers and two sisters: Henry lives on the original Carpenter homestead in Oklahoma County; Edward is a farmer at Muskogee; W. H. was for a number of years prosecut- ing attorney of Marion County, Kansas, and now one of the leadiug land owners of that state; Mrs. H. S. McDonald is the wife of a retired druggist and capitalist of Kansas City; Miss Emma Carpenter lives with her brother at Bridgeport.

Mr. Carpenter is not a member of church, lodges, clubs or associations, and instead of such associations

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

has devoted himself to improving his farm and live- stock and properly rearing his family. Liberal but con- servative, he is one of the leading citizens of his county. He has never used tobacco or liquor in any form, and his sons are following his example in that respect.

C. O. WHITE. When Mr. White first became identified with the community of Wynona in Osage County about five years ago, it was in the capacity of a teacher. He was already a well qualified lawyer, and in a short time his practice demanded his entire attention, and as the only local attorney in that part of the county he has proved himself master of the situation and has handled an extensive practice, particularly the settling of estates and in questions affecting the land titles both in Osage and adjoining counties.

An Ohio man, Mr. White was born at Montpelier in Williams County May 30, 1877, a son of I. M. and Lavina (Weitz) White, the former a native of Williams County and the latter of Lucas County, Ohio. Mr. White's maternal grandfather, Adam Weitz, was boru in Germany, came when a young man to Pennsylvania, and was married there to Miss Yager, after which he became an early settler on a farm in Williams County, Ohio, where both he and his wife died. Adam Weitz in earlier years was a stone cutter by trade. The paternal grandfather was Joseph White, also a native of Penn- sylvania, and he married Miss Barclaw of that state, but of Welsh parentage. Joseph White was a cabinet maker by trade but spent most of his active life as a farmer in Williams County. I. M. White and wife are still living at Montpelier, Ohio, being retired from the farm. Their three children are: Alice, wife of George W. Farlee of Williams County; Myrtle, wife of Alva Shankster of Williams County; and C. O.

C. O. White lived at home with his parents in North- western Ohio until he was about twenty-two years of age. In the meantime he had graduated from the Montpelier High School, and prepared for work as a teacher in the Tri-State Normal at Angola, Indiana. His services were employed in several schools in Ohio, and he paid most of his expenses through law school and university either by teaching or by traveling on the road during vacation. In 1902 he entered the law department of the Ohio State University at Columbus, and was graduated in law in 1908. In June, 1909, Mr. White arrived in Oklahoma, and spent a few weeks in normal training at Bartlesville until getting a certificate as an Oklahoma teacher. For three years both he and his wife taught school at Wynona, and he then engaged in practice of the law, but interrupted that to take charge of a school at Osage, but after four months resigned his position and returned to his law office in Wynona. His business as a lawyer developed rapidly after he opened his office, and it was owing to the de- mands upon his personal attention that he was obliged to resign school work at Osage. In addition to his large practice as the only attorney at Wynona, Mr. White is owner and manager of the Wynona Telephone Exchange and is secretary and attorney for the Wynona Realty Company and handles considerable real estate on his own account. He has been interested in every local enterprise since he established his home at Wynona, and has effected a number of important oil leases in this district.

In politics he is a republican, and took an active in- terest in politics even during his minority. He is a member of the Methodist Church. In June, 1908, Mr. White married Miss Ida Backus at Hillsdale, Michigan. Mrs. White was born in Kansas May 13, 1885, but when about four years of age her parents returned to Ohio, and she was afterwards sent as a student to Hillsdale

College in Michigan, of which institution she is a grad- uate. She was engaged in teaching school part of the time with her husband, until four years after her mar- riage. Mr. and Mrs. White have two sons, John Henry Isaiah, born at Wynona May 19, 1914, and Wesley Leonard, born at Wynona June 17, 1916.

E. B. WOOD. As superintendent of the public schools of Newkirk, Professor Wood occupies one of the most responsible posts iu the educational system of the state. He has an enviable record as an educator, having spent about thirteen years in the schools of Kay County. He has been identified with the schools at Newkirk for the past four years, and his administration must be given credit for the construction of the splendid new building for the schools in 1914, costing for building and fur- niture about $50,000. It is one of the most modern and best adapted buildings for school purposes in the state. On the first floor are five classrooms and a gymnasium, with seven rooms on the second floor. The staff of teachers includes twelve in number, with four in the high school which is a highly organized department and sends its graduates direct into the colleges and the uni- versities. The principal of the high school is A. J. Walter. The enrollment in the high school is about 115, and altogether there are 382 pupils. During his four years at Newkirk Mr. Wood has built up the schools in a highly creditable manner, and judged by results alone his position is among the first of Oklahoma school managers.

E. B. Wood was born on a farm near Winfield, Kansas, August 14, 1873. His father, Warren Wood, was a New York State man and during the Civil war served as a soldier in the Union army. He married in Norton County, Kansas, Jennie Hatcher. She was born, reared and educated in Kansas. There were four children, three sons and one daughter.

Professor Wood was reared in Kansas, had the disci- pline of a farm as well as the advantages of public schools, and after attending country schools entered the Winfield High School and in 1898 was graduated from St. John's College in Kansas. For the past thirteen years he has been connected with the public schools of Kay County. He spent two years at Kildare, and two years in the Tonkawa schools, two years in the Newkirk grade and four years as principal of the high school, before accepting his present post as superintendent of the schools of the entire city.

Mr. Wood was married June 5, 1901, to Effie Burke, a young woman of cultured mind and many happy social qualities. Her father was William Burke. They have two sons: Warren and Harold. Professor Wood is a republican in politics, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.

RALPH P. STANION has been connected with the United States Indian Service continuously for seventeen years, and in this long period is contained a service that for usefulness and faithful discharge of duty is rarely surpassed. His effective labors in connection with the Government's wards have been of a nature which have made him one of the most valued men in the service, and at the present time he occupies one of the most responsible positions therein, the superintendency of the Pawuee Indian Agency.

Mr. Stanion was born at Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York, May 12, 1875, and is a son of James H. and Harriet L. (Parsons) Stanion. His father was born in England, October 30, 1839, and as a youth of eighteen ycars emigrated to the United States, settling at Ithaca, New York, where he was married to his first wife, who died leaving two children. Later he married Harriet L.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Parsons, who was born in Connecticut, June 21, 1845, and they became the parents of four children. When the Civil war came on, Mr. Stanion, who had become a loyal citizen of his adopted country, enlisted in Company D, One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, with which organization he later veteranized, serving throughout the period of the war and receiving his honorable discharge at its close with the rank of orderly sergeant. He was in numerous important engagements and at the sanguine battle of Kenesaw Mountain received a wound which incapacitated him for several months. He always maintained his interest in his old army comrades, and until the close of his life was active in the Grand Army of the Re- public. As a business man Mr. Stanion was engaged in the manufacture of carriages, wagons and buggies, and won gratifying success through industry and honorable business methods. An Episcopalian, he was observant of church obligations, and reared his children to respect their religious duties. Politically he was a republican, and served several terms as tax collector of this city. His death occurred at Ithaca, August 25, 1914, Mrs. Stanion having passed away there February 11, 1908.

Ralph P. Stanion was a resident of Ithaca until 1898. He secured his early education in the public schools of that city, following this by attendance at Georgetown University, from which he was graduated in law in 1905, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and two years later was admitted to practice in the courts of Oklahoma, but has never followed his profession as a calling. In the meantime, in 1898, Mr. Stanion had successfully passed the Civil Service examination for the position of teacher in the Indian Service, and began his duties at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Subsequently, he was sent to the Fort Shaw (Montana) Indian School, in 1903, and in 1904 went to the General Land Office at Wash- ington, District of Columbia, as clerk, and it was while thus engaged that he pursued his college course. Later he was sent to Darlington, Oklahoma, as superintendent of the Rapahan Indian School, then to the Rosebud Indian School in South Dakota, as superintendent, and in 1909 to Otoe, Oklahoma, as superintendent of the agency. There he remained until 1914, when he came to Pawnee as superintendent of the Pawnee Indian Agency. Mr. Stanion is a republican, stands high in Masonry, being a Shriner and a member of the Consistory at Guthrie, and is an adherent of the faith of the Episcopal Church, in which he was reared.

On January 31, 1900, Mr. Stanion was married to Miss Lillian Carter, who was born at Syracuse, New York, and to this union there have come four children : Elizabeth Lillian, born at Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Ralph Carter, born at Rochester, New York; James Henry, born at Washington, District of Columbia; and Charles Parsons, born at Rosebud, South Dakota.

EDWARD MILTON WASHINGTON. In the local campaign for the election of county officers in Hughes County, in 1914, Mr. E. M. Washington supplied much spice and vigor in his candidacy for the newly-created office of court clerk. Mr. Washington at that time. was clerk of the County Court, but by an act of the Legislature in 1913, the offices of county clerk and clerk of the District Court were to be consolidated, resulting in a new office, known as court clerk, the incumbent of which should perform the duties of clerk of both the County Court and the District Court.

The actual qualifications of Mr. Washington for the position to which he aspired were unquestionable. He had been a resident of the county for many years, had a successful business record, and had proved capable and efficient in every position of trust to which he had been

called. Especially convincing to the voters was the fiscal record of his administration as county clerk. This rec- ord showed that from receipts of something more than $7,000, all the expenses of the office, including salaries, were paid, and a surplus turned over to the county treas- urer of over $3,000.

With all these solid facts behind him he could well afford to introduce some of the amenities into the cam- paign, and one of these which attracted special atten- tion was a speech in which he said that the people of the United States had elected George Washington the first President of the United States, aud consequently why should not the people of Hughes County elect E. M. Washington the first court clerk. The people answered this question by electing him by a substantial majority, and he has justified their confidence and so far in his administration has been able to realize the ideal ex- pressed in his promise to the people that he would do his full duty, would assume the responsibilities of the office without delegating them to a deputy, and would do all in an official capacity that any one man should reasonably be expected to do.

Edward Milton Washingtou is a native of Missouri and was born near Portland, Callaway County, October 5, 1875, a son of Lewis E. and Marian (Bryan) Washing- ton. His father was born at Lexington, Kentucky, August 12, 1835, and was a son of Edward S. Washing- ton, a native of Virginia, who came to Missouri in 1849, and followed farming and stock-raising in Callaway County until his death at the age of seventy-seven. The Virginia branch of the family was closely related to the Washingtons of whom the most conspicuous representa- tive was President George Washington. Lewis E. Wash- ington spent most of his life in Missouri as a farmer and merchant, was for four years county clerk in that state, and he died at the home of his sou in Holdenville, Oklahoma, February 3, 1914. He was an active democrat in politics. His wife was born December 10, 1855, near Portland, Missouri, iu the same honse in which E. M. Washington first saw the light of day, and she died there in July, 1909. Her family was related to the Bryan of which William Jennings Bryan is the most notable representative. E. M. Washington was the first of six children, the others being: Lottie L., of Tulsa; W. D. Washington of Ashfork, Arizona; Vera A., wife of R. B. Williams of Stigler, Oklahoma; Lewis E., Jr., of Tulsa; and Bettie M., who died in infancy.

Edward M. Washington spent the first eighteen years of his life on the old farm in Callaway County, Missouri. He finished his education in that well-known institution of higher training, Westminster College at Fulton, Mis- souri. A little more than twenty years ago, in 1894, he came to Indian Territory and located at Eufaula in Au- gust of that year, and for ten years applied himself assiduonsly to his duties as a druggist and for three years was bookkeeper in the Eufanla National Bank. In 1907 Mr. Washington came to the cast side of Hughes County and at Lamar was engaged in the mercantile business for five years.

On January 1, 1913, he was appointed clerk of the County Court and from that office he entered upon his duties in 1914 as the first court clerk of Hughes County. He has been a democrat all his life and among other positions was city treasurer of Eufaula three years and city recorder two years. He is active in the Methodist Episcopal Chuch South, is a thirty-second degree Scot- tish Rite Mason, being affiliated with the Indian Con- sistory No. 2 at McAlester aud with the Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter at Holdenville. He is also a member of the Modern Woodmen of America.

On October 19, 1898, Mr. Washington married Miss Catherine Simpson. Mrs. Washington was born at

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Eufaula, Oklahoma, August 3, 1878, a daughter of John D. Simpson, an Oklahoma pioneer from Kentucky, who was married in Oklahoma to Susan A. Crabtree Morris, a widow. Mrs. Washington has a little Indian blood in her veins, being a one-sixty-fourth blood Creek. Mr. and Mrs. Washington have four children: Marion M., Sue, E. M., Jr., and George.

JOHN H. BRENNAN, of Bartlesville, is a prominent lawyer of Oklahoma. As attorney for many of the great oil and gas companies operating in the state he has han- dled a great volume of litigation.

Mr. Brennan is the general counsel for the great nat- ural gas pipe-line interests and oil interests of the allied companies known as the Wichita Natural Gas Company, Wichita Pipe Line Company, Quapaw Gas Company, Em- pire Gas & Fuel Company and Indiau Territory Illumi- nating Oil Company, operating in the several states of the Southwest.

These interests are known as the Doherty & Company interests.

Mr. Brennan was born at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in Sep- tember, 1861. Largely by his own efforts he gained a liberal education, attending the Wisconsin Normal School and the University of Wisconsin. Admitted to the bar in 1884, he was engaged in general practice in Wisconsin for a number of years. While a resident of Wisconsin he was retained by the Foster Estate of Rhode Island to look after its interests involved in the noted Foster lease ou the Osage Reservation in Indian Terri- tory, which he haudled from Wisconsin from 1902 to 1906, when he came to Oklahoma to be more closely identified with it.

HON. CHARLES MARTIN, who in 1915 took the post of mayor of Hominy, has long been identified with business affairs in the Southwest, is a civil engineer by profes- sion who helped construct several of the railroads pene- trating Oklahoma, and in the handling of large tracts of land and the improvement of real estate has performed a notable service in Osage County.

Born in the rugged mineral section of Southern Mis- souri, at Pilot Knob, April 18, 1868, he is a son of D. F. and Emily (Franks) Martin, the former a native of Tennessee and the latter of Missouri. His father was long prominent in public affairs in Missouri, served as a major in a Missouri regiment with the Confederate army throughout the war, later ,became sheriff and tax collector in Iron County, and was also Circuit Court and Probate judge of Howell County. He died at Piedmont in Wayne County, Missouri, in October, 1901, at the age of sixty-niue. His wife, who was reared at Arcadia, Missouri, died at Elkhart, Indiana, in 1913, at the age of sixty-nine. The father was a democrat and while liv- ing in Howell County gained the public offices already mentioned against a normal republican majority, and in all his political life was stronger than his local party. There were five children: George, who died at St. Louis in June, 1914; Charles; May, wife of George J. Williams of Elkhart, Indiana; Virginia, wife of T. M. Polk of Wayne County, Missouri; and Jessie, wife of J. W. Story, who is a presiding elder of the Methodist Epis- copal Church South, living at Claude, Texas.

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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