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 16

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 16

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His lifetime has covered a great variety of scenes and experiences. He was born in Denton County of Northern Texas August 22, 1854, and his father, T. H. Calloway, was also a physician and surgeon. Dr. T. H. Calloway was born in Missouri in 1825. It is interesting to note that the famous Daniel Boone had a brother-in-law named Calloway, after whom Calloway County, Missouri, was named. The Calloways were Scotch-Irish people and located in Virginia during colonial times. T. H. Callo- way 's parents were pioneers in Northern Texas, where he was reared and married. In 1859, when Dr. James R. was five years of age, he moved out to California, and lived in various places of that state and in Oregon. In 1863 he went as one of the first pioneers to Boise City, Idaho, and was in that state for several years during the interesting period following the discovery of the mines in that country. At one time he was a member of the Idaho Legislature, and always took a prominent part in civic and political affairs. In 1872 Dr. T. H. Calloway moved to the eastern part of Indian Territory, but not long afterwards returned to Texas and located near Decatur in Wise County. In 1884 he was again attracted to the Northwest and settled at Caldwell, near Boise City, Canyon County, Idaho, and lived there until his death in 1904. When a very young man he had served with Gen- eral Price as a soldier in the war with Mexico and was a participant in some of the campaigns in New Mexico. Besides his regular profession as a physician he was a minister of the Christian Church. In politics he was a democrat and a member of the Masonic fraternity. Dr. T. H. Calloway married Mary Allen, who was born in Missouri in 1835 and died at Caldwell, Idaho, in 1894. Their children were: Dr. James R .; William T., a farmer at Namba, Idaho; Ida, wife of Frank Brown, who is a miner and lives in Boise City, Idaho; Melinda C., wife of J. A. Dement, a stock raiser at Caldwell, Idaho; and Mary Allen, who is unmarried and a graduate physician now practicing at Boise.

Dr. James R. Calloway spent his early youth and man- hood in Texas, California and Oregon, was about nine years of age when the family removed to Idaho, and in 1872 came with them to Indian Territory and soon after- wards to Decatur, Wise County, Texas. His early ex- periences were as a farmer and he also did some mining in Colorado. From boyhood he was a student and some of his family called him a book worm. Having access to his father's medical library, he became well grounded in the medical science so far as text-books were concerned

Howard Weber In. D.

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before reaching his majority. His father was opposed to the idea of his practicing medicine, and it was not until he came to Paul's Valley in the fall of 1889 that he set up as a regular member of the profession. For a number of years he was an undergraduate practitioner, but finally entered the medical department of the Texas Christian University at Fort Worth, where he was grad- uated M. D. in 1897. He is properly regarded now as one of the leading physicians iu this section of Southern Oklahoma. He was frequently called into consultation by fellow physicians, and his wide experience has given him a thorough post-graduate knowledge of medicine.

Like his father he was a regularly ordained minister of the Christian Church, and between the ages of twenty aud fifty preached quite regularly and still fills an occa- sional pulpit. His office's are in the Bruce Building of Paul's Valley. In territorial days he belonged to the old Chickasaw Medical Society and was the first president of the Washita Valley Medical Society, which afterwards became the Garvin County Medical Society, to which he still belongs. He is a member of the Oklahoma State Society and a member of the American Medical Society. In politics he is an independent democrat and is affiliated with Paul's Valley Lodge No. 196, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which he has frequently filled the office of chaplain.

In Texas in 1876 Doctor Calloway married Miss Frances Elizabeth Clemens. Her father was the late Andrew Clemens. To their marriage have been born five children: John R., who is a physician and surgeon, having taken his degree in 1907 in the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is now practicing in Mescalero, New Mexico; Ethel M. is the wife of W. W. Howerton, a farmer at Foster, Oklahoma; Lillian M. is the wife of Francis L. Armstrong, a fire insurance man at Spokane, Washington; Etta Frances, who is still single, was graduated from the Boise City High School, was a teacher for a number of years and is now a sten- ographer and living at home with her father; Vivienne, also unmarried, is a sophomore in the School of Journal- ism at the Oklahoma State University at Norman.

JOSEPH LAMAR GRIFFITTS. During the twenty years siuce his admission to the bar in Tennessee, fifteen of which have been spent in Oklahoma, Joseph L. Griffitts has employed his talent and abilities in such a way as to place him among the front rank of Oklahoma lawyers, and he has the chief practice in his home Town of Buffalo, Harper County.

His birth occurred at Friendsville, Tennessee, July 23, 1864, and he represents old and prominent family stock of that state. His parents were John W. and Mary Elizabeth (Donaldson) Griffitts. His grandfather, Man- uel Griffiths, was a native of Virginia, and married a Georgia girl. John W. Griffitts, who was born in Ken- tucky, June 13, 1831, and died December 18, 1909, spent his active lifetime as a farmer in Tennessee. He was also prominent in local affairs, and for twenty years was a member of the County Court of Loudon County, Ten- nessee, having filled that office up to the time of his death. He served as an elder in the Presbyterian Church forty years. He was married in 1856 to Mary Elizabeth Donaldson, who was born February 3, 1839, in Tennessee, and died January 16, 1897. She became the mother of eight children, five sons and three daughters: James Henry, who was born July 16, 1857; Nancy Elizabeth, born September 15, 1859, was married in 1886 to Samuel S. Hutsell, and is now a resident at Sweetwater, Ten- nessee; Thomas Nelson, born September 26, 1861, is a farmer at Lenoir City, Tennessee; Joseph L. was the fourth in age; Stephen Alexander was born January 22,

1866, and died August 18, 1913; Jacob Lafayette, born May 20, 1868, is a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South at Cedar Keys, Florida; Lucinda Jane, born July 11, 1875, died November 28, 1903; Nora Blanche was born March 20, 1877, and is still single.

Joseph Lamar Griffitts completed his early education in Maryville College at Maryville, Tennessee. His early life was taken up with varied labors and employments, until he realized his ambition to study law. He read This text books at Loudon, Tennessee, until 1895, and was then admitted to practice in all the courts of the state. From Tennessee he came to Oklahoma in 1900, and began practice at Tonkawa. While there he served as police judge until 1905 and was elected city attorney in 1907. However, in the same year, he resigned that office and moved to Buffalo, and after statehood was elected the first county judge of Harper County. That office he filled with distinction and credit for three years and two months. Since then he has applied all his time and energies to his large private practice at Buffalo. He is a democrat, and is affiliated with the Masonic Order.

At Alva, Oklahoma, February 5, 1909, Judge Griffitts married Miss Grace Pennington. She was born February 11, 1880, in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, a daughter of J. W. and Catherine Pennington, who were natives of Illinois. Mrs. Griffitts prior to her marriage was for four years a teacher in the public schools of Dewey County, Oklahoma. To their union have been born three daughters and one son: Guendolen Grace, Josephine L., Cassius Lamar and Muriel Elaine.

HOWARD WEBER. Probably everyone in Oklahoma and anyone who has any general information on the oil in- dustry of the United States is familiar with the Weber pool in Washington County in the Bartlesville district. The discoverer of this pool and the man who supplied the enterprise and capital for its development has been an honored resident of Bartlesville for the past ten years.

Dr. Howard Weber is a physician, is enrolled in the medical fraternity of Oklahoma, but has never practiced since locating within this state. Since coming here he has been one of the really big men in Oklahoma affairs. A fortune has been amassed through his operations in mining and as an oil producer, and there are few Oklahomans who control a greater volume of resources both in this state and elsewhere. Doctor Weber is also a prominent man in the democratic party of Oklahoma, and is now serving as a member of the State Central Committee.

Considering his great achievements as an oil man it seems fitting that he should have been born in the state of Pennsylvania. Doctor Weber was born in Dempseytown iu the Keystone state, October 20, 1862, a son of George K. and Elizabeth (Homan) Weber. Both parents were born in Center County, Pennsylvania, and spent all their lives in their native state. When quite young they moved to Venango County in the western part of Pennsylvania, and George K. Weber died there in February, 1905, at the age of seventy-four. He was a tailor by trade, but later went into general merchandising. A stanch demo- crat, he was much interested in politics, and being a man of simple habits and plain living acquired a substantial competency. The widowed mother, who died February 23, 1916, at the age of eighty, represented people who were among the pioneers of Western Pennsylvania. She was the ninth in a large family of children, and nearly all of them are still living, the youngest more than seventy years old. Doctor Weber was one of teu children, six of whom are still alive.

He went into the world with the equipment of a

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liberal education. He had attended Allegheny College at Meadville and in 1887 was graduated in medicine from Long Island Hospital Medicine College. For nearly ten years he applied himself diligently to his chosen work with home at East Hickory, Pennsylvania. With the resources then at his command he started his really great work in developing the natural wealth of the West. In 1896 he went to Colorado, became interested in mining, and in 1897 took part in the great rush to the Alaska gold fields, where he remained about a year, being as- sociated with H. H. Breene of Bartlesville in that field. In July, 1898, he returned to the states, and resumed the practice of medicine at Dempseytown and at Oil City, Pennsylvania.

His interests in the oil industry led him to move to Kansas in 1903, and he also became an investor in the Oklahoma fields. From Independence, Kansas, he moved to Bartlesville in 1905, and has since given all his time to his extensive interests as an oil and gas operator and to his large mining holdings.

As already stated Doctor Weber discovered the famous Weber pool east of Dewey, developed it, and made a large share of his fortune from that locality. He also discovered the shallow sand pool northeast of Dewey, and developed that and several other properties in Wash- ington County. With George B. Harmon, under the name of the Harmon Oil Company, he developed the Huff- steter & Burr leases half a mile south of Kiefer, finally selling his interests in that property for $87,000. He then bought 700 acres east of Delaware, was engaged in development work for a year and sold out to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company for half a million dollars. Doctor Weber still has some extensive holdings and leases in this vicinity.

For a year or more there was a lull in his operations as an oil operator and in that interim he invested heavily in copper mines north of Bisbee, Arizona. In August, 1914, he purchased from former Gov. Charles N. Haskell a half interest in the noted Barney Thlocco lease, and developed it to its output of about eleven thousand barrels per day, and it is still producing over two thousand barrels a day from thirty wells. He also owns 360 acres in the territory covered by the Weber pool, and operates under lease about as much more.

As a democrat, Doctor Weber has taken much interest in politics in every community where he has lived. For the past four years he has been a member of the state central committee, and served as a delegate at large to the Baltimore convention, which named Woodrow Wilson for President. On April 11th, 1916, he was elected a delegate at large to the Democratic National Convention, which convenes at St. Louis, June 14th, 1916, to renominate Woodrow Wilson for the next President by a unanimous vote. He was a member of the finance committee which supplied the funds for the Cruce eam- paign in Oklahoma, and since taking his place on the state committee the organization has never made any demand upon Washington County which has not been met. While living in Pennsylvania he was chairman of the Forest County Democratic Committee. He has also been appointed a member of the Southern Development Con- gress.

Doctor Weber is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and in 1915 took his first degrees in Masonry, and has now gone by rapid suc- cession as far as he can get in the various degrees and orders of that ancient fraternity.

With all his material success Doctor Weber finds his greatest pride in his family and home. In 1885 he mar- ried Miss Etta J. Carter, a native of Pennsylvania. They have five children: Dr. H. C., who lives in Bartles-

ville; Mark U .; Morris Kritzer, who graduated from the Culver Military Academy in Indiana in June, 1916; Savilla, wife of W. C. Raymond; and Sherwell G., who is now a student in the Culver Military Academy. All of the children have their home in Bartlesville and are young people of great promise, and the older ones are already filling useful places in the world.

WILLIAM W. WILSON. In Choctaw County, a place of distinctive prominence and influence is held by William Ward Wilson, who, as a merchant, banker and stock- man, has played an important and worthy part in con- ncetion with the eivic and industrial development of this section of the state and especially of his home town of Fort Towson.

Wherever the United States Government established a frontier military post in the early part of the eighteenth century there abounds history and a eertain atmos- phere of romance at the present day. Fort Towson, where once were stationed two members of the United States Army who were destined to achieve great dis- tinction, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. George B. Mc- Clellan, possesses more of historic charm and interest than many other military posts that, like it, have lived and thrived and finally been abandoned. The martial phase of its history can never fail of interest and this interest is enhanced by its later record as a place of im- portance in the Choctaw Indian Nation. The story of Fort Towson is for another chapter of history, but be- eause its crumbled ruins still mark the place where it was built nearly one hundred years ago, almost within a stone's throw of the modern and vigorous town which perpetuates its name, a reversion to its ancient history puts a breath of charm into the community that "Billy Wilson" founded. On the site of the present Village of Fort Towson Mr. Wilson once herded and fed his cattle, and long before that he killed deer and turkey on the site where substantial brick business buildings now stand. The Town of Fort Towson, not far distant from the site of the old fort, is situated on a tract of land that Wilson and his brother possessed or controlled before the allotment period. This tract was once a part of their cattle range, and they were among the pioneers of the cattle industry in this section of the former Choc- taw Nation. When it was made known that Billy Wilson is not yet sixty years old and that he grew to manhood long after the post at Fort Towson had been abandoned, and when it is made known that within a few hundred yards from the post he has seen deer in herds of forty and fifty and wild turkey by the hundreds, some idea is conveyed of the frontier wildness of the landscape at the time when the government here established a military post, nearly a century ago.

The Town of Fort Towson is new and vital. It was established in 1903, at the time when a line of railroad was in process of construction through this section. Prior to its founding Doaksville had been the general trading post of this region, the latter place having been one of the earliest settlements of the Choctaw Nation. The first store in the new town was erected and stocked by the Doaksville Trading Company, which had developed a sub- stantial business at Doaksville, from which older town soon came other merchants to cast in their lot with the ambitious and newer community, the result being that within a comparatively short time Doaksville became little more than a memory. The Wilson brothers eventually purchased the stock and business of the Doaksville Trad- ing Company and about the same time they organized one of the first banking institutions in the new town. Several ehanges and reorganization have taken place since, and on December 31, 1915, the First National Bank,

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of which W. W. Wilson, E. H. Wilson and R. D. Wilbor had controlling interests, and the First State Bank, con- trolled by Ed Leonard and Sam Mckinney and T. E. Hopson consolidated and retained the name of the First State Bank. This is a strong institution, with Ed Leon- ard, president; W. W. Wilson, vice president, and Sam McKinney, cashier. Que of the largest and best equipped mercantile establishments of the former Choctaw Nation is the finely equipped general-merchandise store of Wil- liam W. Wilson and it occupies a substantial brick build- ing of modern design and facilities, so that both the establishment and the business are a distinct contribu- tion to the civic and business prestige of Fort Towson.

That Mr. Wilson should continue to maintain his home in this community and here rise through his own efforts to a position of commanding influence and large success, is the more interesting in view of the fact that he was born at a point but a few miles distant from the fine little town that is now the stage of his important business activities. In a pioneer log house near the old educa- tional institution known as Wheelock Academy, and one- half mile distant from the stone Presbyterian Church that was erected in 1846, by Rev. Alfred Wright, Mr. Wilson was born in the year 1857, and the old log house which was his birthplace is still standing, in a fair state of preservation and as one of the landmarks of this part of the state. In the neighborhood he acquired his first definite educational instruction in the primitive school- house in which Miss Jane Austin was the teacher, she later becoming the wife of the principal chief of the Choctaw Nation, Chief Jacksou MeCurtain. Mr. Wilson continued to attend the neighborhood schools until he had attained to the age of fourteen years, and his parents then sent him to Spencer Academy, which was then estab- lished about ten miles northeast of Fort Towson and which was the first higher educational institution estab- lished by the Christian missionaries who here labored faithfully among the Choctaw Indians. The interesting and important history of this old institution has never been properly written and is worthy of the careful study of those who would attempt to prepare adequate record concerning the history of Oklahoma and its early advances along educational lines, long before Indian Ter- ritory had lost its original identity. The Civil war caused a cessation in the work of Spencer Academy, but in 1871 it was reopened for the reception of students, under the superintendence of Rev. J. H. Colton, and Mr. Wilson entered the school at the time that it thus re- sumed operations. Prior to the war it had been a scho- lastic mecca for many years. Some of the old buildings at Spencer are still standing and are situated on land owned by the heirs of the late Robert Frazier, an Indian citizen of sterling character and excellent repute. After spending four years at the academy Mr. Wilson sought to obtain from the Choctaw Nation an appointment as a student iu some eastern school, but his application was rejected, owing to the fact that the nation's quota of students to be given such advantages had already been filled. In his earnest ambition for a higher education he · sought the assistance of his uncle, George James, who was one of the leading citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, but through this medium he likewise failed to realize his desires, under which conditions he entered the employ of his uncle, George James, in the cattle business, and here he earned his first money, his employer having paid him $15 a month. The James ranch was near Bloomfield Academy, in the Chickasaw Nation and the range of the James cattle to the north covered a vast era of country in which houses were on the average twenty miles apart.

Within a short time Mr. Wilson engaged in the live- stock business on his own account, and for nearly forty

years this line of enterprise engrossed the major part of his time and attention, his herds having grazed over large areas of the southern section of the Choctaw Nation. The open range was the common property of the cattle men and hence few fences were needed. Mr. Wilson was one of the pioneers in the cattle industry in this region and to him is due in large measure the credit for the develop- ment of this important line of enterprise into one of the profitable and permanent features of industrial activity in this section of Oklahoma. Over this country rode the buyers who came from other states and territories and from other Indian nations, and good prices were usually paid for the cattle. Market cattle that were not sold to such buyers locally were shipped principally to the City of St. Louis, Missouri, aud Mr. Wilson made such ship- ments in an independent way. He still continued to be associated with the cattle industry on a modest scale, the former broad scope of operations having met with gradual curtailment with the elimination of the open range, the allotment and sale of Indian lands and the general settling up of the country by farmers, several of whom may be found to the square mile on the tillable land, and roads having been established along section lines.

Shortly after he attained to the age of twenty-oue years Mr. Wilson was elected to a seat in the Choctaw Nation, from Towson County. Later he became a mem- ber of the senate, and his service in legislature was under the administration of Chief C. C. Cole and Chief B. F. Smallwood as principal chiefs. In this connection it is interesting to note that the officials of the Choctaw Nation never have been compelled to live at the capital. Until the tribal government was abolished they assembled at the capital each successive year, and ordinarily the mem- bers of the legislature and other officials completed the transaction of their business in about thirty days, after which they returned to their homes. Mr. Wilson served two terms as national auditor of the Choctaw Nation and one term as national treasurer. He was frequently im- portuned to become a candidate for the office of princi- pal chief, but as often declined the honor, by reason of the exactions of his private business affairs and his lack of desire for political office.

Under appointment by Principal Chief Gilbert Dukes, Mr. Wilson became a member of the Choctaw commis- sion that assisted the Dawes Commission in making the supplemental treaty by which the vested rights and prop- erty interests of the Choctaws were effectively conserved and protected. The other members of the Choctaw com- mission were Chief Dukes, C. B. Wade, Simon Lewis and Thomas Ainsworth. The first office to which Mr. Wilson was called in the service of the public was that of circuit clerk of the Apokshonubbi District, under appointment by Circuit Judge Jefferson Gardner. He and his wife hold membership in the Christian Church.

In 1879 Mr. Wilson married Miss Rose Garland, a kins- woman of Crockett Garland, who was once principal chief of the Choctaw Nation. She died in 1882 and is sur- vived by no children. The second wife of Mr. Wilson bore the maiden name of Nannie Carney and she was of Choctaw blood, a relative of Albert Carney, who was a prominent citizen of Savannah, Indian Territory. The one child of this union is a son, Oscar. In 1906 was sol- emnized the marriage of Mr. Wilson to Miss Ollie Baird, of Paris, Texas, and they have two children, William Ward, Jr., and Ollie Jane.

Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have an attractive home in the Village of Fort Towson and they delight to extend its hospitality to their many friends.

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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