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 123

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 123

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Charles Martin was reared in the counties of Iron, Wayne and Howell, in his native state, and obtained his education by self-efforts, though he attended district schools for a time aud was also under the instruction of W. D. Vandiver of St. Louis, for two years. He left home at the age of fourteen, and his first regular em- ployment was in the train service of the Iron Mountain & Kansas City Road, now a part of the Frisco System.

He was au active railroad man from the ages of nineteen to twenty-eight, aud theu engaged in merchandising.

At the age of twenty-eight he was married at Siloam Springs, Missouri, to Miss Hallie R. Goodin, who was born in Missouri. Mr. Martin soon afterwards engaged in railroad construction work as a civil engineer, and in that capacity was connected with the building of several lines iu the Southwestern country. His last work was as assistant engineer in locating the route of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas from Coffeyville, Kausas, to Oklahoma City, which was finished in 1902. In that year he located in Hominy, spent two years with the Osage Allotmeut Commission, and for six months was with the Townsite Commission. This commission platted five towns in Osage County. Since then Mr. Martin has been largely engaged in the leasing of pasture lands for Texas cattle men. In 1911 he assisted in organizing the Farmers State Bank at Hominy and later became its vice presi- dent. His business is now largely general real estate and townsite promotion, with John L. Freeman as part- ner, under the firm name of Martin & Freeman. They leased 40,000 acres of land from William Blair of Tulsa each year. In a public way Mr. Martin has been active for a number of years, being an independent democrat. For several years he served as police judge, and in 1915 was elected to his present dignity as mayor. In Masonry he has taken thirty-two degrees of the Scottish Rite and is a member of the Mystic Shrine, is a member of the Presbyterian Church. In association with Mr. Freeman he has constructed a number of fine residences at Homiuy, and his own home is one of the attractive bungalows of the town. He has built most of the homes on Price Avenue and several blocks along the west side.

MRS. ELIZABETH PERKINS, of Pawhuska, is a member of the celebrated Chouteau family, which so far as his- torical records go was the first white family to locate in what is now the State of Oklahoma. Thus Mrs. Perkins, who carried in her veins the blood of those en- terprising French traders whose names are so intimately linked with the early history of the City of St. Louis as well as with Oklahoma, and also of members of the Osage Tribe, is one of the most interesting women of the state.

Quite recently in an article that appeared in local papers the editor of this standard history of Oklahoma called attention to the fact that Salina is the site of the first white settlement in Oklahoma. There in 1796 a trading post was established by the Chouteaus of St. Louis. The Chouteau brothers were mere lads when they were brought to St. Louis at the time of the first settle- ment in 1764. They had grown up in the Indian trade and for many years had a practical monopoly of that of the Osage Tribe, the members of which were several times as numerous as they are now.

In 1795 Manual Lisa, a Creole Spaniard, secured from the Spanish governor general of the Province of Louisi- ana an exclusive concession or monopoly of trading with the Indians of the valley of the Missouri and those of all its tributaries. As the Osage Indians spent most of their time in the valley of the Osage River and as the Osage River was a tributary of the Missouri, it followed that the Chouteaus would lose the lucrative business which they had built up among the Osages. However, there was nothing to prevent the Chouteaus from trading with the Osages at any place outside the watershed of the Missouri. Accordingly the members of this enterprising firm busied themselves in inducing a large part of the Osages to move over and settle in the valleys of the Neosho (or Grand) and Verdgris rivers in Southern Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. The establishment of the trading post in the valley of the Grand River, in

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Mayes County, on the present site of the Town of Salina, followed shortly afterward. The selection of this site was doubtless influenced by its proximity to the Saline Springs which made the manufacture of salt possible.

The establishment of a trading post in this remote wilderness brought a retinue of hunters, trappers, trad- ers, clerks and other employees to live there. Probably most of these were Creole French, from Canada, Louisi- ana and the French settlements in Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, but there were doubtless several who were of Spanish or Anglo-American antecedents. In common with the customs of the time many if not most of these contracted matrimonial alliances with women of the Osage Tribe. So it is not improbable that there were several families who were prominent residents of the post from the date of its establishment. Prior to 1820 a number of the half blood French Osage offsprings of this community at the Chouteau trading post settled a few miles lower down the valley on the opposite side of the Grand River in the vicinity of the mouth of Chouteau Creek. The location of this French-Osage settlement was probably the consideration which most influenced Rev. Epaphrus Chapman in selecting the site for the estab- lishment of the Union Mission, located about seven miles southeast of the Town of Chouteau in 1820.

At some time subsequent to 1815 the Chouteau trad- ing post passed into the possession of Col. Auguste P. Chouteau and his brother Paul. Colonel Chouteau con- tinued to make his home at this place until his death, which occurred in the winter of 1838-39, though a large part of his trading operations had been transferred to other points after steam navigation was introduced upon the Upper Arkansas as far as Fort Gibson. Washington Irving visited Colonel Chouteau here in the fall of 1832, having brought letters of introduction from the kinsmen of the latter in St. Louis.

Shortly after the death of Colonel Chouteau the body of the Cherokee Tribe of Indians migrated to the Indian Territory and the site of the Chouteau trading post hav- ing been included within the limits of the Cherokee Nation, the property passed into the hands of Lewis Ross, a brother of Chief John Ross. After the death of Lewis Ross it was acquired by the Cherokee tribal government and it then became the seat of the Cherokee Orphan Asylum. The last of the log buildings of the Chouteau trading post was said to have been destroyed during the Civil war. No vestige of any of them remains now, though several uneven places in the ground are still noticeable, together with a few fragments of rock which were probably left when the remains of ruined fireplaces and chimneys were carted away. The site was on the edge of the second bottom just north of the origi- nal road to the ferry. It was in a thicket until the building of the Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad in the year of 1912. One noticeable feature was the fact that several ailanthus trees were growing where the post had stood. This species is not a native one in Oklahoma and there are no other specimens growing in the sur- rounding country. Another noteworthy fact was that prior to the building of the railroad the fleur-de-lis was growing wild in and about the thicket, a mute reminder of the loyalty of the French people of the western frontier to la belle France. As already stated, the rail- road right of way occupies a part of the site of the Chouteau trading post. Fortunately, the rest of it is included in the south end of the block reserved for park purposes when the town site was platted and opposite which is the depot location. This will afford an oppor- tunity for the people of Oklahoma to place a monument or marker upon the site of the old trading post.

It was in the locality of the old trading post that Mrs. Vol. V-27

Perkins' father, Legess Chouteau, spent many of his years. He was born in Missouri, but was educated at the old Hominy Mission. Legess Chouteau's mother was a full blood Osage, while his father was one of the French traders of that name. The elder Chouteau had been appointed a United States Indian agent in 1826, and died on the Grand River in the home that, as already stated, subsequently became the orphanage for the Cher- okee Indians.

Legess Chouteau died at Pawhuska when about sixty years of age. For many years he served as a Government interpreter for the Osage Tribe. He also accompanied the nine full blooded Osage scouts who were engaged by General Custer to trail "Sitting Bull" and his band in the Northwest, and for six months he acted as interpreter between the scouts and the general. He had become an interpreter soon after leaving school, being first employed in that capacity by the American Fur Company in Mis- souri. While the Osages were living in Southern Kansas Legess Chouteau helped to hew the logs for the building of the first Catholic Mission, now St. Paul, Kansas.

Legess Chouteau was twice married, having eight chil- dren by his first wife and two by the second. The chil- dren of the first mariage were: Mary Ellen Foraker; Joseph; Charles; Augusta Donavan, who is still living in Osage County; Lewis; Elizabeth, now Mrs. Perkins; Gesso; and Palisia. All these are now deceased except Mrs. Donavan and Mrs. Perkins. The two children of the second marriage were: Mrs. Lena Robinson, who lived at Adamson, Oklahoma; and Henry, of Pawnee County.

Mrs. Perkins grew up among the Osage Tribe and has many interesting associations with this section of Okla- homa. She first married John Ross. By that union there were four children, both sons dying young, while her two daughters still living are: Emma, wife of Clement de Noya of Osage County, and Ella, wife of C. C Haven of Osage County. Mrs. Perkins for her second husband married John Kilbie. There are also two children of this marriage: Coene, wife of William Leesey of Osage County; and Earl, of Chautauqua Springs, Kansas.

In September, 1895, Mrs. Kilbie became the wife of Dr. S. W. Perkins. Doctor Perkins was born near Van Buren, Arkansas, March 1, 1858. After the war his parents located in the Cherokee Nation, and he grew up in Northern Oklahoma and Southern Kansas, but since 1884 has been a resident of Osage County. In 1886 he graduated from the dental department of the University of Michigan, and soon afterwards began prac- tice in the Osage country, and continued the active work of his profession until 1900. Since then he has employed his time in looking after his extensive ranching and real estate interests. Doctor and Mrs. Perkins have a fine farm of 480 acres five miles west of Pawhuska.

JOHN MCMULLEN. In the office of municipal com- mission of highways and public improvements in the City of Bartlesville, the metropolis and judicial center of Washington County, Mr. McMullen has found ample scope for the effective manifestation of his progressive- ness and public spirit and he is one of the valued and popular officials of this vigorous and important city. He has been prominently identified with operations in the oil fields of this section of the state and has been concerned with this line of enterprise since his youth, his experience having been wide and varied and having touched various states in the Union.

Mr. McMullen was born at Batavia, Genesee County, New York, on the 31st of July, 1871, and is a son of Maurice and Catherine (Canbell) McMullen, both like- wise natives of the old Empire State, where the former was born in Niagara County and the latter in Wyoming County. The father died at Arcade, Wyoming County,

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

in 1907, at the age of sixty-five years, and his widow still resides at that place, in which her birth occurred. Maurice McMullen was prominently concerned with oil operations in the fields of Pennsylvania for a number of years and his activities in this line likewise extended into his native state. He was an energetic and duly success- ful business man and resided for varying intervals at different places in the State of New York, including Olean, Batavia and Arcade. He represented his native commonwealth as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which he served as a member of Company L, Eighth New York Heavy Artillery. He was with this command about two years, participated in a number of important battles, and his regiment was a part of the Second Army Corps under General Hancock, being in front of Petersburg at the time of the surrender of General Lee. Mr. McMullen participated in the Grand Review of the victorious but jaded troops in the City of Washington at the close of the war and in later years he perpetuated his interest in his old comrades through his active affiliation with the Grand Army of the Republic. His political allegiance was given unreservedly to the democratic party and he was a man who commanded the respect and esteem of all who knew him. Of the four children the subject of this review is the eldest : Maurice J. is a resident of Drumright, Creek County, Oklahoma; Elizabeth is deceased; Mary Jane is the wife of Walter J. McCormack, a farmer near North Java, Wyoming County, New York.

John McMullen acquired his early education in the pub- lic schools of New York and Pennsylvania, his parents having removed to Butler County in the latter state when he was a child and his father having become a prominent figure in oil operations in that district. As a youth Mr. McMullen was thus enabled to acquire practical experi- ence in connection with the oil-producing business, and in 1893 he went to the oil fields of Indiana, where he became associated with his uncle, Frank Campbell, and others in the oil-producing enterprise. In October, 1898, he went to Los Angeles, California, and after being identified for some time with oil operations in that section of the Golden State he made his way to the oil fields of Wyom- ing and became associated with the American Consoli- dated Oil Company. In 1903 he was identified with the same line of enterprise at Chanute and other points in Kansas, and the following year recorded his arrival at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where he found requisition for his services as an expert in the oil fields of this locality, his activities having extended also into the celebrated oil fields of Texas. He has thus kept in close touch with the development of the various new fields of the West and may well be considered an authority in practical details of oil production.

Mr. McMullen has never deviated from the line of strict allegiance to the cause of the democratic party and has been an active worker in its ranks. In 1913 he was elected to his present responsible office of com- missioner of highways and public improvements in the City of Bartlesville, and he has been indefatigable and circumspect in the discharge of his executive functions. Prior to assuming this office he has served two years as deputy sheriff od Washington County.

Mr. McMullen is a prominent representative in Okla- homa of the time honored Masonic fraternity, in which he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. His ancient craft affiliation is with Bartlesville Lodge, No. 284, Ancient Free & Ac- cepted Masons, of which he is past master, and he is past patron of Bartlesville Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star, with which his wife likewise is affiliated. He has been specially active in the affairs of the York Rite bodies with which he is identified and is at the present

time, 1915, representative of the same before the Con- necticut Grand Lodge.

In October, 1905, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. McMullen to Mrs. Nettie Adkins, who was born in Indiana and who is a daughter of Nathan and Octavia Lounsbury. Mr. and Mrs. McMullen have no children but Mrs. McMullen has one daughter by her previous marriage, Octavia Adkins, who is a member of the home circle.

GEORGE C. PRIESTLEY. One of the best known and influential men in all Oklahoma is George C. Priestley, whose home since 1904 has been in Bartlesville. Mr. Priestley is primarily an oil man, an industry with which he became acquainted in Western Pennsylvania while growing to manhood. His mature years have brought many distinctions and achievements. A few years ago he was regarded as the largest individual oil operator in Oklahoma, and possibly the largest in the United States. He has helped to build and operate many miles of electric railway lines in the Southwest, and has recently concluded improvements and extensions which make the system of waterworks at Bartlesville the best in the state for a city of the size. His financial and busi- ness connections are numerous, and his name is one of national prominence in politics. He became identified with the progressive movement in the summer of 1912, and was made chairman of the finance committee of the national progressive party.

George C. Priestley was born at Houlton, Maine, June 10, 1862. He is of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather, George Calvin Priestley, was born in Scotland in 1802, was a graduate of the University of Edinburg, and came to America late in the '20s. He was an engineer by profession, and was a prominent man both in Maine and other sections of the United States. During the threatened war around the Maine-Canada boundary he was employed to locate many of the defenses erected by the United States near the boundary. The trouble was finally settled by arbitration. He became identified with the lumber business, and during the '60s was in the service of Jay Cook in the construction of the Union Pacific Railway, and lost heavily in the memorable "Black Friday " of 1873. He was also engaged in trad- ing with the Indians along the western frontier, and spent his last years in Minnesota, where he died in 1884, and was buried at Brainerd in that state. He was the father of one son and two daughters.

George C. Priestley is a son of George C. and Mattie (Pollock) Priestley, both of whom were born in the State of Maine. His father lived in Maine until the Civil war and then entered the service of the Union army as a private in the Fifteenth Maine Regiment and con- tinued a soldier until the close of the war. He then moved to the oil fields in Western Pennsylvania, and be- came prominent in the oil well supply business during the early history of that industry. In 1873 he suffered a fracture of his skull and was practically an invalid for many years and died from the effects of the accident in 1892 at Pleasantville, Venango County, Pennsylvania. His widow continued to live in Pennsylvania until her death in 1911. She was the mother of five sons and three daughters, George C. being the oldest child.

Mr. Priestley spent his early life in Pennsylvania, and left school when a mere hoy to take up practical affairs. He was employed in a store at Pleasantville, and one of his first employers was the late Sam Q. Brown, at one time president of the Tidewater Oil Company, a subsidiary organization of the Standard Oil. Mr. Priestley soon got into the oil business, and oil has been a study with him for many years, and he is familiar with all phases, producing, refining and marketing. From

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Pennsylvania he moved to Bartlesville in 1904, about the time the Oklahoma oil fields were coming into prominence, and operated on an extensive scale until 1909, when he sold some of his most valuable holdings to an English syndicate. However, he has continued to be interested in the industry, though many other concerns have taken much of his time. Mr. Priestley bought and recon- structed the waterworks system of Bartlesville, and dur- ing the past eighteen months has spent $100,000 in improvements. The Bartlesville Waterworks Plant repre- sents an investment of $250,000. Mr. Priestley was also president of the local stock company which constructed the Maire Hotel at Bartlesville, at a cost of $135,000, a handsome five-story hotel building that would be a credit to a city twice the size. This hotel was constructed by local citizens for the good of the town and not as an investment. Mr. Priestley has also been a director of the Union National Bank at Bartlesville since its reor- ganization. This bank has total resources, according to a statement of March, 1915, of nearly $1,200,000, and its deposits aggregate more than $1,000,000. M. F. Stillwell is president, and all the other officers and direc- tors are well known and substantial men in south- western financial affairs. Mr. Priestley acquired a ma- jority of the stock in this institution, and brought about the reorganization.

He is also president of the Union Traction Company of Kansas. This company has fully 100 miles of electric lines in operation, connecting Coffeyville, Independ- ence, Cherryvale and Parsons. These roads were built by Mr. Priestley associated with eastern capitalists. Mr. Priestley has been a power for good at Bartlesville in connection with various local betterments, particularly the upbuilding of schools and churches. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Presbyterian Church. Fraternally he is a Mason, and a member of a number of clubs, societies and civic organizations. The only political office he ever held was that of treasurer of Warren County, Pennsylvania. He is one of the largest realty holders in Oklahoma and Texas. During the Spanish-American war he very materially assisted General Wood.

Mr. Priestley 's political career has been one of dis- interested service. He is a practical and successful busi- ness man, and has always believed in the square deal in political life. He came into national prominence during the campaign of 1912, when he upset the republi- can machine in Oklahoma and gave Roosevelt his first delegate to the national convention. Colonel Roosevelt's remark, "Oklahoma turned the trick," gives Mr. Priest- ley credit for starting the movement which resulted in the practical disorganization of the republican party at its convention of that year. Mr. Priestley entered that convention as a republican of the progressive type, and later was one of the many who repudiated the actions of the convention leaders and brought about the organiza- tion of a new party. Mr. Priestley resigned as national committeeman of the republican party for Oklahoma on August 1st, and soon afterwards was made national committeeman of the progressive party, and became a member of its executive committee and was then made chairman of the finance committee.

Mr. Priestley was married in 1885 to Miss Ruland of Pennsylvania. They are the parents of five children : Willis B., who is associated with his father in business; Hazel, wife of Paul R. Johnson of Bartlesville; Bessie, at home; George C., Jr., connected with the Union Oil Company of Tulsa; and Helen, at home.

B. W. KEY. If there is one firm name that means more than any other to the old timers of Western Okla- homa as well as to the present generation, it is the York-

Key Mercantile Company. In the days when this organization sold supplies to ranches and cattle men all over the Southwest, the company had a highly developed organization for supplying goods to all points, whether on the railroad or not. In later years the company's business is almost entirely confined to lumber and build- iug material. The present headquarters of the York-Key Mercantile Company are at Woodward, Oklahoma, but the company maintains a number of branch yards all over the Southwest.

The junior member of this firm is B. W. Key, who was born in Alabama and has been associated with this firm for thirty years. He first became identified with the firm of York-Parker-Draper Mercantile Company. Under this title the company carried on an exceedingly extensive business, handling supplies for cattle men and ranchers and maintained several branches in Western and Southern Kansas, during which time he came to know all of the old ranchers and cattle men in the Panhandle of Texas and Western Kansas and Oklahoma. In a few years Mr. Key had risen to a partnership in this firm. He was a very business-like and astute young man, a hard worker, could be relied upon to make every promise good, and for many years the people of Okla- homa as well as elsewhere have looked upon him as one of the foremost business men. After the deaths of Messrs. Parker and Draper, he became a full partner ; to F. B. York and the present firm style of York-Key Mercantile Company was originated. It has been a very successful business, and has done a great deal to develop many of the towns of the Southwest. Although Mr. York died December 19, 1915, he, too, like Mr. Key, will always be remembered for his many notable achieve- ments and as a grand, good man-and this is said by the writer of this sketch. who knew him well for almost half a century and knew him to stand the acid test in the different walks of life.

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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