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 126

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 126

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Morris Handverker was born November 12, 1891, in New York City, and was given good educational ad- vantages, attending the public schools of Lawton and the Lawton Business College, from which he was grad- uated in 1908. He first became a stenographer in a law office, where he remained a short time and then secured a like position in the government service, follow- ing which he became a public court stenographer. In 1909 he entered his father's business, and in 1913 was admitted to partnership. He has inherited many of his father's excellent business qualities, is a young man of energy, enterprise and progressive spirit, and as a cour- teous and genial gentleman has done much to attract trade to the business. He is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce and a republican in politics, and was reared in the faith of the Jewish Church, to which he belongs. His fraternal connections include member- ship in the Woodmen of the World and in the Masons, in which he has reached the Rose Cross (Eighteenth) degree, being a member of Lawton' Lodge No. 183, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and Valley of Guthrie Consistory No. 1. Mr. Handverker is not married.

HENRY N. GREIS. Junior member of the firm of Ross & Greis, which controls an important business in the drilling of oil and gas wells in the Oklahoma fields, and with other noteworthy connection with the oil and gas industry, Mr. Greis is recognized as one of the substan- tial, straightforward and progressive business men of the younger generation in the City of Tulsa, and in addi- tion to the business associated noted above he is also president of the Wyoming Torpedo Company and vice president of the Central Torpedo Company, both of which are engaged in the manufacturing of torpedoes used in connection with the sinking of wells in oil and gas districts.

Mr. Greis was born in the City of Buffalo, New York, on the 5th of July, 1880, the eldest in a family of five children, all but one of whom are living. He is a son of Jacob M. and Amelia (Nauert) Greis, both of whom were born and reared in Erie County, New York, and both are living, the father at the age of fifty-eight years and the mother at the age of fifty-six. The political allegiance of Mr. Greis is given to the republican party. He whose name initiates this article acquired his early education in the public schools and Central High School of his native city, and there he initiated his business career as bookkeeper and clerical assistant in the German Bank of Buffalo, with which institution he continued to be iden- tified four years and in which, through effective and faithful service, he won promotion to the responsible office of cashier. On severing this association Mr. Greis became bookkeeper in the Marine National Bank of Buffalo. but within a comparatively brief time he re- signed his office and made his first independent venture, and that in connection with the important industry with which he is now identified. As a contractor he engaged

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in the construction of oil pipe lines from points in the oil fields of West Virginia and Maryland, and the first contract with which he became thus associated was for the building of a pipe line from the western part of West Virginia to Cumberland, Maryland He was for six months assistant to the superintendent of this work, and he then returned to Buffalo. There his marriage was solemnized in October, 1907, and shortly afterward he came to the newly created State of Oklahoma, and established his residence at Bartlesville, the present judicial center of Washington County. There he engaged in the invention and manufacturing of gas meters for natural gas and in general construction work in connec- tion with the oil and gas operations in that section of the state. Later he established a branch business .at Chanute, Kansas, where he maintained his residence about two years, since which time he has given his at- tention principally to oil and gas development opera- tions, in the drilling of wells and the supplying of incidental appurtenances and accessories. He has been a resident of Tulsa since 1910 and here his associated and able coadjutor in the firm of Ross & Greis is Edward A. Ross, the office of the firm being at 304 Drew Building.

Mr. Greis has gained secure place as one of the alert and ambitious young business men of the state of his adoption and is liberal and progressive in his civic atti- tude, his political allegiance being given to the demo- cratic party. He is prominently identified with the time- honored Masonic fraternity, in which he became and entered apprentice and was finally raised to the degree of Master Mason in Dupew Lodge, No. 823, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, in the City of Buffalo, New York. From this lodge he received his dimit and became a member of Delta Lodge, No. 425, at Tulsa. From Mount Sinai Chapter, No. 293, Royal Arch Masons, at Buffalo, New York, and from Wichita Commandery, Knights Templars, in the City of Wichita, Kansas, he received dimit to Trinity Commandery, No. 20, at Tulsa. In Indian Consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in the City of McAlester, he has received the thirty- second degree, and to form his present affiliation with Akdar Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in his home City of Tulsa, he re- ceived dimission from Abdalla Temple in the City of Leavenworth, Kansas. He is a popular member also of Tulsa Lodge, No. 946, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks.

On the 1st of October, 1907, was solemnized the mar-' riage of Mr. Greis to Miss Bertha DeLace Westcott, who was born at Rochester, New York, and they have one daughter, Elizabeth.

JAMES J. MORONEY. By inherent predilection and early discipline Mr. Moroney acquired in his youth a practical experience in the domain of newspaper publish- ing, and since the year that marked the admission of Oklahoma to the Union he has held secure prestige as one of the representative newspaper men of this state. Since that year, 1907, he has been editor in chief of the Okmulgee Democrat, which is now published in both daily and weekly editions, and which he has brought into special prominence and influence as an exponent of the oil-producing industry in Oklahoma, besides making it an effective force in exploiting the general interests of the city and state in which it is published. In connection Greis with oil and gas operations, the paper has a reputation nk of and circulation which far transcend local limitations, and he re both its daily and weekly editions have numerous sub- scribers in the leading centers of the oil business in other states of the Union. In the publishing of this

important and influential Oklahoma paper Mr. Moroney now has as his valued coadjutor Bert C. Hodges, con- cerning whom individual mention is made on other pages of this volume.

James J. Moroney was born in the beautiful collegiate City of Oberlin, Lorain County, Ohio, on the 22d of January, 1868, and is a son of James P. and Mary (Shields) Moroney, the former of whom was born in the City of London, England, in 1838, and the latter of whom was born in County Galway, Ireland, in 1840, she having thus been a girl of about seven years at the time of her parents' immigration to the United States, in 1847, and her future husband having come to America with his parents in 1851, when he was about thirteen years old. James P. Moroney was a man of most alert and vigorous mentality, was afforded good educational advantages as a youth, but his more liberal education was that which he acquired through self-discipline and through his long and effective association with the newspaper business. At Oberlin, Ohio, on the 30th of November, 1865, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Mary Shields, and they passed the remainder of their lives in the old Buckeye State, where both were called to eternal rest in the year 1898.

James P. Moroney early served an apprenticeship to the trade of printer, and as a journeyman he went to Ohio and engaged in the work of his trade. At Bucyrus he founded eventually the Crawford County Democrat, and prior to this he had been associated intimately with the distinguished founder of the Toledo Blade, David Locke. When the Civil war was precipitated Mr. Moroney promptly showed his loyalty to his adopted country, by tendering his service in defense of the Union. In 1861 he enlisted as a member of Company I, Forty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with which gallant command he proceeded to the front and with which he participated in a number of important engagements, be- sides many of minor order. At the Battle of Chicka- mauga he was so severely wounded as to become in- capacitated for further service in the field, and thus was accorded an honorable discharge. After recuperat- ing from his injury he re-enlisted, and thereafter he con- tinued in active service with his original command until the regiment was mustered out, at the close of the war. Mr. Moroney was a skilled printer of the old-school regime and developed much ability as an editor and publisher, virtually his entire active life as a farmer having been marked by quite close identification with the newspaper business and by friendships with numbers engaged in it. He was an influential and effective ex- ponent of the principles and policies of the democratic party, and prior to the Civil war he had been a staunch Union man though not an abolitionist. Of his twelve children all are living except one and six of the number are residents of Oklahoma, the subject of this review having been the second in order of birth. P. H. is en- gaged in the practice of law at Tulsa, this state; Nora C. is society editor of the Okmulgee Democrat; J. D. resides at Tulsa and is actively identified with the oil industry in that section of Oklahoma; M. F. is mayor of Okmulgee and interested in oil and real estate projects; T. M. is connected with the pipe line business at Bartlesville, this state; Ellen resides in Arizona; William resides at Kingman, Arizona, is engaged in the practice of law and was serving, at statehood, as county attorney of Mohave County; S. F. resides in the State of California; Margaret is the wife of G. C. Conrad, of Norwalk, Ohio; Alice is the wife of George C. Wilcox, of Toledo, Ohio; and Mary died in Ohio at the age of thirty years, as the wife of P. J. Murray.

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until he had completed the curriculum of the high school, and later he pursued higher studies in the Ohio Normal School at Lebanon, Warren County. As a youth he be- came associated with the oil industry in his native state, and in the eastern fields he continued his association with this line of enterprise principally in salaried posi- tions. He resided in the City of Toledo, Ohio, about seven years and maintained his home at Marietta, that state, for five years. In the meanwhile he had gained as a boy a taste and ambition for his father's early life business and profession. In 1907 he came to Oklahoma and associated himself with Dr. O. A. Lambert in the purchase of the plant and business of the Okmulgee Democrat, of which he has continued the editor in chief since that time and which he has made one of the leading papers of the state, with broad influence and remarkably large circulation. In 1915 he, with his other partner, B. C. Hodges, purchased Doctor Lambert's interest in the business. Mr. Hodges owns a half interest and is busi- ness manager of the substantial and prosperous news- paper and job-printing enterprise. The firm issues three independent publications: The Okmulgee Daily Demo- crat, The Mid-Continent Oil and Farm News, and the Weekly Progress, besides which the firm also publishes the Morris News, of Morris, Okmulgee County.

Mr. Moroney has been a zealous and effective worker in advancing the cause of the democratic party and is one of its leading and most influential representatives in the eastern part of the state. He is identified with independent movements in connection with the oil in- dustry and has made his paper, the Mid-Continent Oil and Farm News, a potent influence in connection with both the oil and agricultural industries in Oklahoma, be- sides which the paper has gained a wide circulation in the oil regions of other states. He is a broad-minded, liberal and progressive citizen and is one of the strong and valued citizens of Oklahoma. Both he and his wife are zealous communicants of St. Anthony's Church, Roman Catholic, in Okmulgee.

In the year 1893 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Moroney to Miss Mary Boland, of Toledo, Ohio, and they are the parents of six children,-James P., William J., Francis, Vincent, Bernard and Anna. James P. is a member of the class of 1917 in the school of journalism of Missouri University; and William J. is a member of the reportorial staff of the papers of which his father is publisher, having a university course in view.

BERT C. HODGES. Holding prestige as half-owner and manager of the Okmulgee Daily Democrat, at the judicial center of Okmulgee County, Mr. Hodges is not only one of the prominent representatives of the newspaper busi- ness in Oklahoma but is also a specially influential figure in the local councils and campaign activities of the democratic party, as indicated by the fact that he has served as chairman of the Okmulgee County Democratic Central Committee since 1913 and has wielded much in- fluence in the successful maneuvering of political forces in this section of the state.

Mr. Hodges was born at Calico Rock, Izard County, Arkansas, on the 1st of November, 1883, and is a son of Ferd T. and Anna Elizabeth (Stark) Hodges, the former of whom was born at Paducah, Kentucky, and the latter near the City of Nashville, Tennessee. The father of Mr. Hodges served throughout the Civil war as a valiant soldier of the Confederacy, having been in the command of General Beauregard and having taken part in many sanguinary battles, including those of Shiloh and Gettys- burg. He was assigned to duty as a spy, was captured by the enemy and was sentenced to be shot, but he was saved through his affiliation with the Masonic fraternity.

He entered the Confederate service when but sixteen The years of age and was three times wounded in action After his marriage he established his residence ir Arkansas, and he and his wife now reside at Branch Franklin County, that state. Mr. Hodges was a railroad contractor in the earlier period of his independent busi ness career and later was successfully identified with the lumber industry in Arkansas, as the owner and operator of saw mills. He is now living retired,-a man 01 broad mental ken and sterling character and a citizen who commands unqualified popular esteem. He is : stalwart democrat in his political allegiance and is affil iated with the United Confederate Veterans .. Of the ten children seven are now living, and the subject of this sketch was the seventh in order of birth.

Bert C. Hodges remained at the parental home unti he had attained to the age of twenty years, and in the meanwhile his principal experience had been that gained in connection with the work of his father's farm. He continued his studies in the public schools until he had finished the curriculum of the high school, and after leaving the farm he was employed in a general store for two years.

In 1904 Mr. Hodges came to Oklahoma and here hi: first service was in connection with a restaurant a Muskogee. He next became a solicitor for the Muskoger Democrat, and he continued his work in this capacity after the consolidation of the paper with the Muskogee Times. Since 1909 he has been manager of the Okmulgee Daily Democrat, and since January, 1915, he has been owner of a half-interest in the large and important publishing business in which his associate is James J Moroney, of whom specific mention is made on other pages of this work, the firm publishing not only the Okmulgee Daily Democrat but also the Okmulgee Prog ress, the Mid-Continent Oil and Farm News, and the Morris News, at Morris, Okmulgee County. Mr. Hodges is also the owner of a half-interest in the Wagoner Demo crat, published at the county seat of Wagoner County

Mr. Hodges has been a most enthusiastic worker il behalf of the cause of the democratic party, and, a: previously stated, is chairman of its central committee for Okmulgee County. He is affiliated with both the York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity and also with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He and his wife are earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Okmulgee, and he is serving on its official board.

On the 28th of June, 1909, Mr. Hodges wedded Mis: May Stinnett, who was born in Kentucky but reared and educated in Texas and Oklahoma, she being a daughter of P. B. Stinnett, who is still a resident of the Lone Star State. Mr. and Mrs. Hodges have a fine little son Bert C., Jr.

ISAAC T. GIBSON, who died September 20, 1915, while visiting relatives near his former home in Iowa, had endeared himself and his memory to the Osage people by many years of honest, constructive labor in behal: of their welfare, and justly earned a high place ir Oklahoma history. Affectionately known among both the Indians and the whites as "Father Gibson, " he helped make early history during the years when the Osage people were being settled in Indian Territory In his declining years he returned to live among the people for whom he so patiently labored forty o forty-five years ago.

He was born near Xenia in Greene County, Ohio May 11, 1831, a son of Montelian and Sarah (Embree) Gibson, the former a native of Fairfax County, Vir ginia, and the latter born near Jonesboro, Tennessee

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The father when a boy was indentured to a milling firm in Virginia, and thus learned the trade of mill- wright and miller. In 1805 he came to Ohio, and was engaged at his trade by Thomas Embree, a prominent land owner and miller in the Miami Valley, whose daughter he subsequently married. Thomas Embree had secured a military land warrant covering 1,000 acres of land and including a number of valuable mill sites along the Miami River in Southwestern Ohio. He divided this land among his children and Montelian Gibson and wife made a good farm out of their portion and also had a mill on the Little Miami River three miles north of Xenia.

Isaac T. Gibson was the last survivor of a family of nine children. His parents both died at Salem, in Henry County, Iowa. When Isaac was five years of age his parents removed to Morgan County, Indiana, and at the age of eighteen he accompanied his mother to Salem, Iowa, where two of his sisters lived at that time. Mr. Gibson considered the State of Iowa his home until 1906, though many years were spent in other states.

As a boy he had a limited education, since he was practically reared on the frontier, and largely edu- cated himself. He had not only a thorough knowledge of men and affairs, but also read extensively and was a most interesting conversationalist. His early years were spent on a farm and after going to Iowa he was employed as clerk in a store at $11 a month, paying his own board. Afterwards he engaged in business for himself, and was a merchant for ten years, but after his marriage returned to farming. On October 20, 1858, he married Miss Anna Mary Hiatt, who was born in that noted Quaker community of Grant County, Indiana, February 3, 1835, and who died in Salem, Iowa, September 16, 1906.

For a few months after leaving the farm in Iowa Mr. Gibson was employed in the commission business in Chicago, but about the close of the war was appointed at the yearly meeting of the Society of Friends for the purpose of looking after the educa- tional and material welfare of the colored freedmen in the State of Missouri. This was a work which required not only a sincere interest in the welfare of the colored people, so recently freed from slavery, but also a splendid moral courage in carrying out a work which was met with strenuous opposition by most of the white people in the southern states. On that mis- sion Mr. Gibson established colored schools in nearly all of, the principal towns that were located along rail- way lines in Missouri, and was also influential in inducing the school board of St. Louis to establish schools for the instruction of colored children in that city. It was not only difficult to get money appro- priated for such schools, but almost impossible to secure competent white teachers in the southern states, and this deficiency was met by the Friends Society in agreeing to furnish teachers for the colored people. He was one of the men who endeavored to secure the proper expenditure of the thousands of dollars raised by the Society of Friends for the educa- tion of the colored people in the South. He spent nearly two years in the work, and almost every day had to proceed to his duty in the face of threats on the part of the white people, who entertained strong prejudices against the entire freedmen movement. While in St. Louis he discovered that the school board was wasting funds which had been set aside for the colored schools, and the colored people in addition to paying taxes on $1,000,000 worth of property in the city were also supporting half a dozen colored schools

by private subscription. Mr. Gibson found his most difficult work in St. Louis, where the school board raised every possible argument against the advantage of educating the negroes, but under his courageous direction and with the support of his Quaker teachers he finally aroused and created a different sentiment, and one which favored colored education.

After the conclusion of this work Mr. Gibson was engaged in farming in Iowa until the fall of 1869. He was then appointed United States Indian agent for the Osage Indians and other tribes. On taking up his duties he found the temporary agency for the Osages located four miles east of Independence, Kansas. The Osage Reservation at that time included a tract of country fifty miles wide and 300 miles long, includ- ing about a fifth of the present State of Kansas, and bordering the north line of Indian Territory. In the previous year, 1868, these Indians had been com- pelled to sign a treaty with a railroad company sac- rificing their land at 18 cents per acre. They were forced to accept this price, the threat being made that they would get nothing at all in case they refused to accept the treaty. Through the intervention of Presi- dent Grant agents were appointed to the Indians by various religious bodies, and Mr. Gibson was selected for these duties by the Society of Friends. When he first came among the Osages they were people still existing in a semi-barbarous condition, and lived on buffalo meat nearly altogether. He assisted Enoch Hoag, the superintendent of Indian Affairs in the cen- tral superintendency, in investigating the affairs of the Indians, and helped to demonstrate how the Indians had been swindled out of their lands, and it was the Hoag report which caused President Grant to with- draw the treaty already mentioned from the United States Senate. Later Mr. Gibson went to Washington and assisted in securing leglislation by which the Indian Reservation might be surveyed and sold and the Indians transferred to another reservation in Indian Territory. This was in line with the Govern- ment policy at that time to concentrate all the Indian tribes possible within the borders of Indian Territory. Mr. Gibson was the sole representative of the Osages in Washington for several years, and was instrumental in securing the sale of the Osage lands at a price aggregating $1.25 per acre. The proceeds from this sale were placed in the United States treasury at 5 per cent interest, and it was that fund, growing from year to year that made the Osages the wealthiest body of people in the world.

While acting as Indian agent Mr. Gibson moved the agency to Silver Lake, a few miles south of where Bartlesville now stands. Then, as a result of further legislation and re-arrangement of boundaries, he moved the agency to its present location. He selected this site, where the city of Pawhuska now stands, on May 1, 1872, and moved his quarters to that point on the 15th of May. It was then a beautiful location, in the midst of a fine valley, with the Osage hills almost enclosing it, and with a landscape which could not but please and charm. Mr. Gibson also established the Indian school at Pawhuska and erected the build- ings. Out of the $50,000 fund appropriated for the removal of Indians to their new reservation, Mr. Gib- son did not use a single dollar, and that is only one illustration out of many to prove his absolute disin- terestedness and honesty in all his dealings with the Indians. He was appointed local agent October 1, 1869, and was succeeded in the office on February 22, 1876.

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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