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 17

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 17

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JAMES W. WEBB, M. D. Most punctilious preliminary discipline, natural predilection, deep humanitarian

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spirit and successful practical experience have given to Doctor Webb distinct precedence as one of the repre- sentative physicians and surgeons of Southern Oklahoma, and he controls a large and important general practice which attests his professional skill and his secure place in popular confidence and esteem. He maintains his residence and office in the Village of Berwyn and his practice extends throughout the wide area of country tributary to this thriving town of Carter County.

Dr. James William Webb was born at Winchester, Franklin County, Tennessee, on the 26th of February, 1882, and is a son of James L. and Sallie (Lawson) Webb, both likewise natives of Winchester, where the former was born in 1861 and the latter in 1867. James L. Webb was reared and educated in his native state and there he continued his residence until 1891, when he removed with his family to Texas and purchased a tract of land in Eastland County, where he has since continued successful operations as a farmer and stock- grower, his home being in the Village of Cisco. He is a democrat in politics, a broad-minded and public- spirited citizen, is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, and is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, as was also his wife, who was summoned to the life eternal in 1903, and who is survived by eight chil- dren: Charles is a confectioner and is engaged in busi- ness in the City of Wichita, Kansas; Doctor Webb of this review was the next in order of birth; John is a prosperous farmer near Quanah, Texas; Henry, who maintains his residence at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is a traveling commercial salesman; Mollie remains at the paternal home; Madison is engaged in farming and stock- growing near Quanah, Texas; and Car and Diona remain with their father and are attending the Cisco High School.

Doctor Webb was about nine years old at the time of the family removal to Texas, and he continued his studies in the public schools at Cisco, that state, until his graduation in the high school in 1899. In consonance with his ambitious purpose and well formulated plans he thereafter attended the medical department of the University of Nashville, Tennessee, where he continued his studies. during two terms. He then entered the Memphis Hospital Medical College, in the City of Memphis, that state, and in this excellent institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1903 and with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

Soon after his graduation Doctor Webb engaged in the practice of his profession at Cisco, Texas, where he continued his successful work until 1908, when he came to the new State of Oklahoma and established his home at Berwyn, where he has since continued his labors as a physician and surgeon and where his extensive practice is one of representative order. He established also a drug store in the village, and of this he continued the proprietor from 1909 until July, 1915, when he sold the stock and business to his father-in-law, Dr. John O. Gilliam, concerning whom individual mention is made on other pages of this publication. The doctor is actively identified with the Carter County Medical Society and the Oklahoma State Medical Society.

Though inflexible in his allegiance to the democratic party, Doctor Webb has had no time or inclination for the activities of practical politics, but his civic loyalty prompted him to give most efficient service when he was chosen clerk for Carter County of Rod District No. 11. His ancient-craft Masonic affiliation is with Berwyn Lodge No. 59, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and in Indian Consistory No. 2, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, at McAlester, he has received the thirty-second degree. In Oklahoma City he. is affiliated with India

Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and he holds membership in Berwyn Camp, Woodmen of the World. The doctor is a scion of a family that is of English lineage, the original Ameri- can progenitors having settled in North Carolina in the Colonial era of our National history.

At Berwyn, in 1908, was solemnized the marriage of Doctor Webb to Miss Lulu Maud Gilliam, daughter of Dr. John O. Gilliam, of whom specific mention is made elsewhere in this volume and who conducts the well equipped drug store at Berwyn. Doctor and Mrs. Webb have three children, whose names and respective years of birth are as follows: Theresa Amelia, 1910; James William, Jr., 1912; and John, 1915.

JOHN O. GILLIAM, M. D. Well may Doctor Gilliam be termed a pioneer of pioneers in what is now the State of Oklahoma, and it has been given him to wield much influence in connection with civic and industrial progress in Carter County, where he established his residence at Berwyn nearly forty years ago and where he became one of the first physicians and most influential citizens of the frontier community. He still maintains his home at Berwyn and here conducts a well appointed drug store, the while he finds it impossible to retire definitely from the practice of his profession, owing to the insist- ent demand made for his ministrations on the part of families to whom he has long been a guide, counselor and friend. It is specially gratifying to be able to present in this publication a review of the career of Doctor Gilliam, whose life has been one of signal use- fulness and deep humanitarian spirit.

Dr. John Overstreet Gilliam was born in Chariton County, Missouri, on the 17th of August, 1849, and is a son of James A. and Martha Ann (Martin) Gilliam, both natives of the historic Old Dominion State and both persons of superior intellectual attainments. James A. Gilliam was born on the old family homestead on the banks of the Appomattox River, in Eastern Virginia, and the year of his nativity was 1820, his death having occurred in Saline County, Missouri, in 1905. He was reared and educated in Virginia, where his marriage was solemnized and where he continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits until his removal to Missouri. In the latter state he became a pioneer of Chariton County, and there he long held precedence as a progressive and successful farmer, planter and stock- grower. He held an appreciable number of slaves and not only raised tobacco but also became a dealer in this product, on an extensive scale. When well advanced in years he removed to Saline County, where he continued to reside until his death. He was an inflexible advocate of the principles of the democratic party, was a Royal Arch Mason and both he and his wife, who died in Chariton County, Missouri, were earnest members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. His father, William Gilliam, was a wealthy planter and slaveholder on the Appomattox River in Virginia, where he was specially prominent as a grower of tobacco, and where he con- tinued to reside until his death, which was the result of virtual starvation, owing to his being afflicted with the severest type of dyspepsia. He was a descendant of one of two brothers who came from England and settled in Virginia in the Colonial period of our national his- tory. Anthony Woodson, an uncle-of Doctor Gilliam of this review, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and the heavy cannonading incidental to the battle of Norfolk destroyed the drums of both of his ears, so that there- after he was totally deaf.

As a youth Doctor Gilliam, who was signally favored in being reared in a home of distinctive culture, was

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afforded the advantages of an academy at Keytesville, the judicial center of his native county, and this dis- cipline was supplemented by his attendance in William Jewell College, in Ray County, Missouri, and Central University, a Missouri institution conducted under the auspices of the Methodist Church. In the latter college his training was advanced to the point that made him eligible for the reception of the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in the institution he also availed himself of the advantages of the medical department. Leaving col- lege in 1872, Doctor Gilliam thereafter gave his atten- tion to farm work and the reading of medicine until he had gained a thorough training in medicine and surgery and was well equipped for the practical work of the profession which has been dignified and honored by his services.

On the 5th of August, 1876, Doctor Gilliam came to Indian Territory and established his residence at Berwyn, where he engaged in the practice of medicine and also assumed the direction of the Indian school, in which he was a successful and popular teacher. At that time there were nine schools maintained for the Indians in ' the Chickasaw Nation, and the office of teacher in the same was a position much sought, there being avid com- petition, owing to the fact that the teacher was paid a salary of $45 a month, which was looked upon as a large emolument under the conditions obtaining at the time. Doctor Gilliam proved his ability and was chosen from a number of competitors, his service as teacher of the Indian school having thereafter continued for a period of three years. Thereafter he gave his attention to the active practice of medicine for a term of twelve years, and in the meanwhile he became the owner of 1,100 acres of land in what is now Carter County. In 1880 he instituted the improvement of this property and established his home on the pioneer ranch, of which he still retains 400 acres, given over to diversified agricul- ture and the raising of excellent grades of livestock.

In July, 1915, Doctor Gilliam purchased of his son- in-law, Dr. James W. Webb, the drug store at Berwyn, and he now conducts the store, which was established many years ago and is the only one in the village. When Doctor Gilliam retired from the active practice of his profession, nearly a quarter of a century ago, he sold his stock of drugs and medicines to the proprietor of the drug store of which he himself is now the owner, it being interesting to note that certain of his original medicines are still to be found on the shelves of the establishment. Concerning the former owner, Doctor Webb, individual mention is made on other pages of this work.

In politics Doctor Gilliam has always been found strongly aligned as a supporter of the cause of the democratic party, with well fortified convictions concern- ing matters of economic and governmental policy. He served one year as mayor of Berwyn and in the terri- torial days he served also as a member of the school board, an office of which he was the incumbent one year. His religious views are in harmony with the tenets of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, which he attends and liberally supports. He is affiliated with Berwyn Lodge No. 59, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and served eight years as master of the same. In this time- honored fraternity the doctor has received also the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and is affiliated with Indian Consistory No. 2, at McAlester. He holds membership also in the Berwyn Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Doctor Gilliam has been thrice married. In 1872, in Chariton County, Missouri, he wedded Miss Lizzie Harper, and she died at Berwyn, Indian Territory, in

1879. Three children were born of this union: Robert, who died at the age of thirty-two years, he having been a prosperous farmer; Mary Pauline, who died at Berwyn June 16, 1915,-her thirty-eighth birthday anniversary; and Alva Edward, who was killed by lightning when he was twenty years of age.

In 1880 Doctor Gilliam married Susan Brushingham, an orphan of part Chickasaw Indian blood, she having been well educated in the schools of Kansas, and her death having occurred in 1891. Concerning the children of this marriage the following brief data are entered: Lizzie is the wife of Frank Tindall, of Durwood, Carter County, in which vicinity he is engaged in farming, having formerly been a merchant. Olivet H. is the wife of Roy Cotner, of Pryor Creek, this state, and her husband is a traveling salesman. Sallie died at the age of eighteen years. John, James and Howard are triplets, John being a prosperous ranchman in Southwestern Texas, James being identified with the cattle business near Marietta, Oklahoma, and Howard being his father's assistant in the drug store at Berwyn.

On the 9th of August, 1892, Doctor Gilliam married Mrs. Nannie (Sigmon) Largen, a daughter of the late Israel Sigmon, who was a farmer in the State of Arkansas, the first husband of Mrs. Gilliam having been Frank Largen, who was a farmer of Carter County, Okla- homa, at the time of his death. Doctor and Mrs. Gilliam have four children,-Mary, Amon, Leslie and Donald. Mary, who has been a popular and successful school teacher, married, in July, 1915, Carson Hatifield, and they maintain their residence at Berwyn.

REV. JOHN REAGAN ABERNATHY. There are two fields in which Rev. Mr. Abernathy, who is a young man of about thirty-six, has attained more than ordinary distinc- tion. He is one of the hard-working, earnest and effect- ive leaders in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and in that capacity has traveled over nearly all parts of Oklahoma and has a wide acquaintance. He has turned his ability and talent to great usefulness in the cause of his Master. He is now pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Okmulgee. Rev. Mr. Abernathy is also one of the best known figures in Oklahoma Masonry, and was recently honored with the thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite, that honor having been conferred upon him at the minimum age of thirty-five.

A native Texan, he was born at Hamilton in that state October 29, 1879, a son of J. E. and Cassandra (McCleary) Abernathy. His parents were born in Giles County, Tennessee, and were partly reared there, but both were educated in Ebenezer College at Springfield, Missouri, where they graduated with the class of 1858. In the following year they were married in Giles County, Tennessee, and they afterwards moved to Texas, where J. E. Abernathy was a farmer and mechanic. His death occurred in 1885 at the age of sixty, and the mother passed away in 1912 at seventy-two. During the war J. E. Abernathy became a Confederate soldier under General Price and was a commissioned officer. For many years in Texas he was a power in church work. He possessed a fine tenor voice, was song leader in many of the meetings which he attended, and his presence was always felt as a stimulating course whether in the small meetings held within doors or the larger assemblages at camp grounds. His wife was also a devout Christian. In their family were five daughters and two sons, and the two sons and two of the daughters are still living.

As a boy Rev. Mr. Abernathy grew up largely at the home of his uncle M. T. Abernathy. He attended public schools both in Texas and in Missouri and graduated at Scarrett College in Neosho, Missouri, in 1900 with the

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degree Ph. B. In the same year he joined the Southwest Missouri Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and has now been active in church work for fifteen years. For the first year he was at Lamar Station, and then for two years was pastor of the Washington Street Church in Kansas City. The next two years, 1903-'04, he spent as a student in Vanderbilt University at Nash- ville, after which he returned to Missouri and was active in pastoral work until 1908.

On coming to Oklahoma Rev. Mr. Abernathy became pastor of the large church at Guthrie, and remained there until 1914, when he accepted the call to the church at Okmulgee. During the last four years at Guthrie he was also a Masonic lecturer under the auspices of the Scot- tish Rite bodies, spending about five months of the year at that work in addition to his church duties. It was in October, 1915, at Washington, D. C., that Mr. Abernathy received the thirty-third and highest degree in Scottish Rite Masonry. He has also done some lecture work in the State Chautauquas.

He is a man of many interests and possesses many splendid talents which have made him valued and es- teemed in whatever community he has lived. He is now an active member of the chamber of commerce at Okmulgee. In 1907 he married Miss Helen Hinman of Centralia, Missouri. Mrs. Abernathy takes a prominent part in church and club work, especially in the musical side, possessing a well trained voice for singing.

JEAN P. DAY. Few of the vital and progressive cities of Oklahoma have forged so rapidly, and substantially to the front rank as has McAlester, the metropolis and judicial center of Pittsburg County and the center also of one of the finest coal-producing districts in the state. The elements of stability have been in distinct evidence in this splendid advancement and the city is vigorous and prosperous-the stage of large and important com- mercial and industrial activities and the home of an enterprising and progressive element of citizenship. He whose name initiates this paragraph has secure prestige as one of the able and successful representatives of the legal profession in Pittsburg County and is in control of a substantial and important law business in the City of McAlester, so that he is well entitled to recognition in this publication, as one of the representative members of the bar of this section of the state.

Mr. Day was born in Webster County, Mississippi, on the 31st of January, 1874, and is a son of Jonathan J. and Amanda R. (Pollan) Day, both of whom were born and reared in Mississippi, where the respective families were founded in an early day. In 1889 Jonathan J. Day came with his family to what is now the State of Oklahoma and became a pioneer settler when the original section of the old Indian Territory was thrown open for such settlement, though Oklahoma Territory was not formally created until the following year. He entered claim to a homestead in what is now Oklahoma County, where he instituted the reclamation of a farm and where he and his wife continued to reside until 1903, when they removed to Pittsburg County and established their home in the thriving little City of Hartshorne, where Mrs. Day was summoned to the life eternal in 1914, at the age of sixty-six years. The death of Mr. Day occurred November 13, 1915, he having celebrated his seventieth birthday anniversary in that year. He had the energy and good judgment to profit fully by the advantages afforded to him in Oklahoma and became one of the sterling and honored pioneers of the state to whose civic and industrial development and upbuilding he contributed his quota, practically his entire active career having been marked by close and effective identi- fication with the great basic industry of agriculture.

He was aligned as an unswerving advocate of the prin- ciples of the democratic party and during the climacteric period of the Civil war he represented his native state as one of its gallant soldiers who went forth in defense of the cause of the Confederacy. Jonathan J. and Amanda R. (Pollan) Day became the parents of only two children, and the elder is Jean P., whose name intro- duces this article; Allie is now the wife of Robert M. Boardman and they maintain their home at Decatur, Illinois.

Jean P. Day acquired his early education in his native state and was a lad of fifteen years at the time of the family removal to the wilds of the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma, into which he recalls that he rode in dignified state by the side of his father and mounted on the back of a gray mule which claimed the "dejected havior of the visage" that is common to the animals of this type. Mr. Day found ample demand upon his time and services in connection with the recla- mation and other work of the pioneer farm in Okla- homa County, but was not denied opportunities for the proper supplementing of his education. He attended the old Central Normal School of Oklahoma Territory, at Edmond, where he fortified himself admirably for suc- cessful work in the pedagogic profession. For several years he was an efficient and popular teacher in the public schools of Oklahoma, and his services in this line included his effective work as principal of the Emerson School in Oklahoma City.

In preparation for the vocation of his choice, Mr. Day began the study of law under the able preceptorship of Hon. Henry H. Howard, of Oklahoma City, and in 1899 he was admitted to the territorial bar. He initiated the practice of his profession at Poteau, Indian Territory, a place that is now the judicial center of LeFlore County, Oklahoma, and there he remained ten years, within which decade he developed a good practice and gained a place as one of the leading members of the bar of that section. In 1909 Mr. Day was appointed to aid in the revision of the code of laws of the recently organized State of Oklahoma, and the result of that revision is the well known Harris-Day Code of Oklahoma Law, issued in 1910. During the time that he was engaged in this important work Mr. Day maintained his residence at Guthrie, the former territorial capital, and in 1910 he removed to the rapidly growing City of McAlester, where he has since continued in the successful general practice of his profession and where he has appeared in much important litigation and as attorney and counselor for many representative corporations and individually influ- ential citizens.

The democratic party has found Mr. Day as one of its resourceful and unfailing supporters in Oklahoma and though he has been influential in the party councils and campaign activities under both the territorial and state regimes he has not been ambitious for public office, but recently he was elevated to the supreme court bench and his friends, both democrats and republicans, joined in a banquet celebrating this honor. Mr. Day was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1908. He has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity and is affiliated also with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks. He is a prominent member of the Pittsburg County Bar Association and holds membership also in the Oklahoma State Bar Association.

The year 1900 recorded the marriage of Mr. Day to Miss Aubic Oates, of Paris, Texas, and they have one child, Doris, who was born in 1901.

LINDSEY L. LONG., M. D. That historic section of Western Oklahoma that was designated as No Man's

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Land and organized into Cimarron Territory in a local way prior to the opening of Oklahoma Territory to settlement, has become one of the vital and prosperous sections of the state, and one of the important counties is Beaver, in which Doctor Long controls a large and important practice as a physician and surgeon and has gained precedence as one of the representative members of his profession in Western Oklahoma. He maintains his residence and professional headquarters at Beaver, the county seat, and is one of the progressive and loyal citizens of the town and county.

Dr. Lindsey Lowder Long was born on a farm in Neosho County, Kansas, on the 22d of September, 1875, a date that clearly demonstrates that his parents were numbered among the pioneers of that section of the Sunflower State. He is a son of David and Jeanette (Lowder) Long, the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of Indiana, in which latter state their marriage was solemnized in 1850.

David Long was born in North Carolina on the 15th of October, 1824, and his parents claimed the Old Dominion State of Virginia as the place of their nativity, the respective families having there been founded in the colonial era of our national history. In 1828, when he was a child of about four years, the parents of David Long removed from North Carolina and became pioneer settlers in the wilds of Greene County, Indiana, where they passed the remainder of their lives and where the father reclaimed a farm from the wilderness. In Greene County David was reared under the conditions and influences of the early pioneer days, in the mean- while availing himself of the advantages of the schools of the locality and period, and in 1850, when about twenty-five years of age, he there wedded Miss Jeanette Lowder, who was born in Lawrence County, that state, on the 2d of July, 1832, a daughter of John R. and Acsah (Hodson) Lowder, pioneers of that county, to which they removed from their native State of North Carolina. After his marriage Mr. Long continued his activities as a farmer in Greene County, Indiana, until 1871, when he removed with his family to Kansas and became one of the pioneer settlers in Neosho County. He purchased a tract of land two miles south of old Osage Mission, and there reclaimed a productive farm. He became one of the substantial and representative citizens of Neosho County and there continued to reside on his fine homestead farm until his death, which oc- curred on the 7th of March, 1896. His widow survived him by nearly fifteen years and was a resident of Erie, the judicial center of Neosho County, when she, too, was called to the life eternal on the 25th of November, 1910. Concerning their children the following brief data are entered: Rev. Matthew T., who was born October 16, 1851, is a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church and maintains his home in Oklahoma. In 1875 he wedded Miss Etta Noble, and they have four children-Stella, Frederick, Ethel and Ruth-the eldest daughter, Stella, being now the wife of Rufus O. Renfrew, a prominent capitalist and influential citizen of Woodward, Oklahoma, one individually mentioned on other pages of this work. Linda A., who was born November 9, 1853, is the wife of John J. Fields, editor and publisher of the Sentinel Leader at Sentinel, Washita County, Oklahoma. Their marriage was celebrated in 1875, and they have four children-Robert, Cornelius, David and May. Cornelius, the next in order of birth of the children of David and Jeanette (Lowder) Long, was born March 6, 1855, and died on the 13th of the same month. Finley, who was born March 30, 1857, died December 20, 1908. Henry, who was born January 22, 1861, is a leading lawyer in the City of Ottawa, Kansas. John R., born February 23, 1864, is a prosperous farmer of Neosho County,

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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