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 35

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 35

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

than the statement that he has served consecutively since 1910 as a member of the board of county commissioners of Oklahoma County,-a body whose fuuctious arc of the most important order, and involve the expenditure of many thousands of dollars of public funds in the county in which is situated the metropolis and capital city of the state. Mr. Lutman has beeu closely and successfully concerned with the agricultural and livestock industries during the entire period of his residence iu Oklahoma, has been vigorous and progressive as a dealer in real estate, and his influence aud co-operation are invariably given in the furtherance of judicious policies of local government and in support of measures and enterprises projected for the general good of the community.

Plumer Wartes Lutman was born in Perry County, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of February, 1866, aud is a son of Johu Miller Lutman and Margaret E. (Comp) Lutman, both of whom were born and reared in the old Keystone State. Mrs. Comp was the daughter of Rev. Andrew Comp. Mr. John M. Lutman removed with his family to Morgan County, Missouri, in 1867, both he and his wife having passed the residue of their lives in that. state.

He whose name introduces this article was about one year old at the time of the family immigration to Missouri, and he was reared to adult age in Morgan County, that state, where he continued to attend the public schools until he had completed a course in the high school at Versailles, the county seat. That he made good use of the advantages thus afforded him is evidenced by the fact that after leaving the high school he was for three years a successful and popular teacher in the public schools of Pettis County, Missouri. He then turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, and during the long intervening years he has never severed his allegiance. to this great basic industry. He is at the present time the owner of valuable property in Oklahoma, where he has maintained his home from the time of coming to the territory, in 1898. He established his residence that year in the little village of Edmond, and he has been one of the promiuent figures in the development of the town into one of the inost attractive and prosperous cities of the state, besides having contributed much to the general industrial and civic progress of Oklahoma County. From 1900 until 1909 he served as assistant postmaster at Edmond and in the meanwhile controlled a large and prosperous business in the handling of real estate. In 1910 Mr. Lutman was elected, as a republican, a member of the board of county commissioners, and of this office he has since continued the loyal, circumspect and valued incumbent, through re-election in 1912. Con- cerning his association with this service for his county the following estimate has been given: "As a member of this important board, Mr. Lutman has distinguished himself as a most proficient and capable official, and his counsel has frequently resulted in saving to the tax- payers of the county large sums of money, through his having prevailed upon his associate members to coincide with his conservative and judicious policies. A successful business man and one of utmost civic loyalty, he has naturally brought to bear in the discharge of his public duties marked efficiency and safe business methods."

Mr. Lutman is known as a zealous and effective advo- cate of the principles and policies of the republican party, has attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, besides which both he and his wife are affili- ated with the adjunct organization, the Order of the Eastern Star. In the Independent Order of Odd Fellows he has filled all official chairs in both the subordinate

lodge and the encampment. Both he and his wife hold membership in the Presbyterian Church.

At Billings, Noble County, Oklahoma, on the 15th of August, 1900, Mr. Lutman wedded Miss Beulah M. Scars, a daughter of Wiggius W. and Mary (Cushing- berry) Sears, both natives of Kentucky, in which state Mrs. Lutman's paternal grandfather was a slaveholder and au extensive breeder of fiue horses and mules prior to the Civil war, he having been said to have had the largest number of mules in the Bluegrass State, long famous as a center for the breeding and raising of high- grade stock. Mr. and Mrs. Lutman have no children.

CHARLES G. VANNEST. One of the best known educa- tors in the old Cherokee Strip country of Oklahoma is Charles G. Vannest, now superintendent of the Medford schools, and formerly identified for a number of years with the office of county superintendent of Noble County. He came to this state in 1906, a year before statehood. He is an educator with high ideals and with a keen understanding of conditions and requirements. Much of his work in Oklahoma has been as an organizer and de- veloper. He has laid the foundation for sound aud wholesome educational work in Noble County and his name is known among educators all over the state.

A native of Vermilion Couuty, Indiana, Charles G. Vannest was born June 7, 1880. He belongs to what was really the first white family of Vermilion County, a county that lies along the Wabash River in Western Indiana. His great-grandfather was John Vannest, who is given the distinction of having been the first permanent white settler in Vermilion County. He came out to Indiana from Virginia about 1816, and secured a tract of Government land on which the City of Clinton in Vermilion County now stands. He lived there and devoted the rest of his years to farming. His family comprised several sons, one of whom was Samuel Vannest. Samuel Vannest married Amanda Potter, and their lives were spent as farmers in Vermilion County. They have three daughters and three sons: Samuel, Polk, Taylor, Jane, Mary and Serena. The daughter Screna is the wife of J. F. Raine and lives in Kansas.

Taylor Vannest, father of the Oklahoma educator, was also a Vermilion County farmer, where he spent all his life. He died in Clinton in that county in 1913 at the age of seventy-nine. He was a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil war, having gone out with Com- pany D of the Eighty-fifth Indiana Infantry as a private. He was in Sherman's army and after the fall of Atlanta went with that great commander on the march to the sea. The earlier part of the war he was in the western campaign and was wounded in the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas. After the war he gave his time with character- istic industry to his work as a farmer, and though an intelligent voter and a republican, he never held an office. He was a member of the Methodist Church. Taylor Vannest married Catherine Henry, who was one of the five children of James and Mary (Tolle) Henry who came from Kentucky. Catherine Henry's brothers served in the Union Army from Kentucky. Mrs. Taylor Vannest died in April, 1915. Her children were: Harry, of Clinton; Claud, of Clinton; Maud, wife of Clint Bennett of Sidel, Illinois; and Charles G. Mrs. Taylor Vannest by a former marriage to William Mitchell had one son, Samuel Mitchell, who died in Indiana.

The boyhood of Charles G. Vannest was spent in the Town of Clinton on the banks of the Wabash River. He attended the local schools, graduating from high school, and then entered the Terre Haute Normal School, where he was graduated in 1900. His first work as a teacher was done in the rural schools of his native county, and

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afterwards he became one of the instructors in the schools at Clinton. After five years as a teacher he turned his attention to newspaper work and for a year was editor of the Clintonian, a weekly paper at Clinton.

Giving up his connections in his native county, Mr. Vannest came to the Southwest for the purpose of look- ing up a newspaper location. Instead he was attracted into school work, a turn which has been very beneficial to the country, though perhaps not as remunerative as some other occupations would have been. He was first located at Morrison as principal of the schools. Morri- son is in Noble County, and after about two years as principal he was elected county superintendent. Alto- gether he spent four and a half years in that office. His chief aim in work as superintendent was to secure the proper consolidation of local districts and the correla- tion of subjects in the curriculum of instruction in the rural schools. His work in that office attracted much attention, and his recognized qualifications caused his nomination by the republicans of the state for the office of state superintendent of public instruction. This was in the campaign of 1912, when the republican party was itself divided, and though Mr. Vannest made a very vigorous campaign there was hardly any chance from the beginning that he would be elected. In July, 1913, Mr. Vannest took his present position as superintendent of schools at Medford, becoming the successor of J. O. Allen. He has always given his active support to the teachers association in Noble County, and while county superintendent he was a member of the State Teachers' Association and of the County Superintendents' Organ- ization. Mr. Vannest has accumulated a great fund of experience as a school man, and he is now engaged in compiling a United States history and a work on civics for use in the common schools.

He cast his first presidential vote in Indiana in 1904 for Roosevelt. While in his native county he took a considerable part in politics and was a member of the county committee and its secretary. He was elected mayor of Perry in April, 1915. Fraternally he is affili- ated with the lodge and chapter of Masons and with both the subordinate and encampment branches of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His church is the Methodist.

In Indiana on April 13, 1901, Mr. Vannest married Miss Maud Carmichael. Mr. and Mrs. Vannest are not people who take much account of superstitious belief. They were married on Friday the 13th. Mrs. Van- nest is a daughter of C. A. and Ruth (Moss) Carmichael, her father having been born in Greene County, Indiana, and was a farmer in Vermilion County, Illinios. Mrs. Vannest is the oldest of six children, and was a success- ful teacher before her marriage.

CHARLES EDGAR HILL, proprietor and editor of the Granite Enterprise, assumed his present position in 1909. Today no man in Granite is better known or more highly esteemed than he.

Mr. Hill was born in Jackson County, North Carolina, on May 24, 1869, and is a son of Charles D. Hill, born in South Carolina in 1844. The Hills are an Irish family, and they came to Virginia from Ireland among the first emigrants to that state. One of them, a brother of the paternal great-grandfather of the subject, was a colonel in the Revolutionary war, and was killed in action at Kings Mountain.

Charles D. Hill moved to Jackson County, North Caro- lina, from his native state, South Carolina, in company with his parents when he was a boy in 1852, and in 1870 he went to Macon County, North Carolina, where he lived until 1894, when he went to Grayson County,

Texas. In 1906 he moved to Pawnee, Oklahoma, where he remained three years and in 1909 took up his resi- dence in Davenport, Oklahoma, where he now resides and is engaged in the nursery and poultry business. All his previous years had been spent in mining in his various locations, but he is now content with the quiet life he leads in Davenport. Mr. Hill served three years in the Confederate army, enlisting from South Carolina in the First South Carolina Heavy Artillery. He is a member of the Methodist Church and a steward therein. His politics are those of a democrat and he is a member of the Odd Fellows.

Mr. Hill married Miss Jane Crenshaw, who was born in South Carolina in 1847, and eleven children were born to them. Charles Edgar Hill of this review was the first born. Thomas Edward lives in Blackburn, where he is a prosperous farmer. Frank Clifford is a pressman in Marshall, Texas. Jane married W. F. Coombs, of Deni- son, Texas, where they have a fine farm. Herbert Clinton is a farmer in Daverport, Oklahoma. Walter died at the age of twenty-one years. Sallie married Roy Youwell, and they live on a farm in Whitewright, Texas. Daisey married Charles Barker, a farmer of Iowa. Annie is the wife of Carl Whitman, a druggist at Henryetta, Okla- homa. Christine married H. Isbell, a Blackburn farmer. Felix Grundy is a farmer of Blackburn, and Georgia, the youngest, lives with her parents.

Charles Edgar Hill was reared on his father's farm until he reached the age of eighteen. During that time he entered the printing office of the Highland Enter- prise, in North Carolina, and there served a printer's apprenticeship. In 1887 he went to Knox, Tennessee, traveling two years as a salesman, and in 1890 went to Dallas, where he was employed in various printing establishments. He continued there until 1896 when he went to Fort Worth and there assisted in the establish- ment of the Fort Worth Register, now called the Fort Worth Record, and one of the leading newspapers of the state. Mr. Hill remained there for a year, and in 1907-8-9 was engaged in the job printing business in Fort Worth. In 1909 he came to Granite, Oklahoma, in search of a new field, and he promptly bought out the Granite Enterprise, which he has since owned and operated.

The Enterprise was established in May, 1900, by James Scarborough, and is a democratic paper in politi- cal sentiment. The plant is situated on Fourth Street, just off Main Street, and under Mr. Hill's management the equipment has been brought up to a high standard. The Enterprise circulates in Greer and other counties in Oklahoma, as well as in Texas, and has a large certified circulation outside its home state.

Mr. Hill, who is a democrat, was elected by acclamation to the office of mayor of Granite in 1915, for a term of two years. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and his fraternal affiliations are with the Masons, Granite Lodge No. 134, Ancient Free and Ac- cepted Masons, and Granite Lodge No. 127, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is secretary. He is a member of the State Press Association and the Typo- graphical Union.

In 1891 Mr. Hill was married in Arcadia, Louisiana, to Miss Mattie Owen, daughter of Rev. W. D. Owen, a Presbyterian minister, now deceased. She died in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1898, leaving him two children, Cecil and Earl, both employed by the Dallas News, in Dallas, Texas.

Mr. Hill married a second time, when in 1901 Miss Lena Van Vark became his wife in Fort Worth. She is a daughter of Peter Van Vark, a farmer, now deceased.

Five children have been born to them. Ethel is now attending the Oklahoma College for Women, in Chickasha.

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Charles and Irene are attending the Granite High School, and the two youngest, Ernest and Albert, are yet in the home.

The Hills own a nice home on West Third Street, and they have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the city.

DAISY M. PRATT. Oklahoma is a vigorous young commonwealth of large things, and in nothing has its bigness been more effectively manifested than the meri- ted recognition it has given to its womenfolk in con- nection with governmental and educational affairs in its various counties. The intellectual attainments and executive ability of Miss Daisy Maud Pratt have thus brought her prominently forward in the domain of prac- tical educational work and have given her the distinc- tion of being chosen to her present office, that of county superintendent of schools for Blaine County, an exalting position in which she is giving a most able and progres- sive administration.

Miss Pratt is a representative of a sterling pioneer family of the fine old Hoosier State, which she claims as the place of her nativity. On her father's farm in Ripley County, Indiana, she was born on the 19th of May, 1885, and that she has imbibed fully the inspiration and progressive spirit of the great West is not to be held a matter of wonderment, for in the year succeeding that of her birth her parents removed to Kansas, a few years later finding them numbered among the pioneer settlers in what is now the State of Oklahoma. Miss Pratt is a daughter of John Diah and Almira C. (Shel- don) Pratt, the former of whom was born in Prattsburg, Ripley County, Indiana, and the latter in Iowa. Pratts- burg was named in honor of the Pratt family. The paternal grandfather of Miss Pratt was a native of Maine and a scion of a sterling colonial family of New England, where the original American progenitors set- tled upon their emigration from England. The grand- father of Miss Pratt, who was born in Maine March 12, 1808, became a pioneer in Ripley County, Indiana, where he was owner of some large sawmills. He died while a passenger on a Mississippi River packet-boat, which was near the City of New Orleans at the time, he having been about fifty years old at the time of his demise. He was buried at Prattsburg, Indiana. His wife, Nancy Hunter Pratt, survived him by a number of years, and died at Rago, Kingman County, Kansas. His father, Jonathan Pratt, served as a messenger for General Washington in the War of the Revolution.

Miss Pratt's father's grandfather on his mother's side was John Hunter, of Strong, Massachusetts. On April 15, 1805, he was appointed under Caleb Strong, governor of Massachusetts, as "captain of a company in the Fifth Regiment of the Second Brigade, Eighth Division of the Militia of this commonwealth." This paper is signed by John Strong, secretary. This same John Hunter was appointed by Christopher Gore, governor of Massa- chusetts, as justice of the peace of the County of Somerset, Massachusetts. This appointment was made February 19, 1810. Signed by William Tudor, secre- tary commonwealth.

The authentic record of this patriotic service makes Miss Pratt eligible for membership in the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The founders of the Pratt family in America were three brothers of the name who came from England in the colonial era of our national history and who became pioneer settlers of Maine, the historic Pine Tree State.

On the maternal side Miss Pratt is a descendant of George Niles Sheldon who came from Canada to York

State in 1812. He was a Methodist preacher. His son, Robert Palmer Sheldon, was born in Canada in 1806, and in 1824 he was married to Lucy Amy Marsh. He was also a Methodist preacher, and worked as a missionary among the Indians in Michigan in an carly day. In the magnificent new Methodist Episcopal Church at Mount Pleasant, Michigan, one whole window is inscribed to the memory of Rev. Robert P. Sheldon.

The grandfather of Miss Pratt, Ancile Lorenzo Shel- don, was born in Courtland County, New York, Janu- ary 21, 1826, and lived in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Okla- homa and Nebraska. He was married in 1848 to Mary Jane Richardson and they had three children: Harmon Palmer, Almira C. and Wilber Clarence. Mrs. Sheldon died in 1865 and several years after her death Mr. Sheldon was married to Mary R. Sutton. To them two · daughters were born, Maud S. and Clara. Mrs. Mary Sutton Sheldon died of typhoid fever, and in 1877 Ancile L. Sheldon married Georgia Edwards of Page County, Iowa, who survived him and is now living in Omaha, Nebraska. Mr. Sheldon was a devout Chris- tian and a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His early life was spent in farming and in after years he owned and kept a large hotel, and later owned and operated grain elevators. His last days were spent with his daughter, Mrs. Almira Pratt of Darrow, Okla- homa.

John D. Pratt, father of the popular superintendent of schools in Blaine County, Oklahoma, was born in Ripley County, Indiana, in the year 1852. In 1886 he disposed of his farm property in his native state and removed with his family to Kingman County, Kansas, in the second tier of counties above the Oklahoma State line. There he continued his operations as an agricultur- ist and stock-grower until 1891, when he came to the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma, took part in the "run" made by ambitious settlers at the opening of the territory to settlement and obtained a tract of land in Kingfisher County, as at present constituted. He did not, however, perfect his title to this government claim, but in April, 1892, at the Cheyenne and Arapahoe opening, he "made the run" into this new district and entered claim to a homestead of 160 acres in the north- ern part of what is now Blaine County. He improved this property, developed the same into a productive and valuable farm and it is still owned by the family, the place being eligibly situated three miles west of the town of Homestead. He subsequently rented the farm and moved to Homestead. At the time of the platting and upbuilding of the new town of Darow Mr. Pratt removed to the new town, and there he continued to maintain his home until his death, which occured August 7, 1914, his widow still residing in the attractive homestead which he there provided.

Mr. Pratt was a man of strong mentality, broad information and well fortified convictions, the while his life. was guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity and honor. He manifested a specially lively interest in public affairs and, after his removal to Okla- homa, did all in his power to further the development and progress of both the territory and the state, was unswerving in his allegiance to the republican party, and was influential in political and other civic affairs. He served many years as a member of the school board and held also the offices of justice of the peace and notary public. He was a republican committecman for years and delegate to many conventions.

She whose name initiates this review was the fourth in order of birth in a family of seven children, and concerning the others the following brief data are available. Nella, a young woman of gracious person-

J. D, Pratt

Daisy m. Pratt

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ality and high attainments, died on the 13th of June, 1906, at the age of thirty-two years, she having been the wife of Clifford Drum Thaxton and having served as county superintendent of schools of Blaine County for sonie time prior to her death. Mr. Thaxton is now superintendent of the schools of Port Hill, Idaho. Lola W., the second daughter, is principal of the Central School of Watonga, the judicial center of Blaine County. Diah Sheldon resides at Duncan, Stephens County, and is one of the representative farmers of that section of Oklahoma. Florence Mabel is the wife of Earl A. Schreffler, a blacksmith at Homestead, Blaine County. Cary A. remains with his widowed mother at Darrow and has the supervision of the old homestead farm. Delphine Almira, a graduate of the Oklahoma State Normal School at Alva, is the wife of Rolla T. Hoberecht, who holds an executive position in the First National Bank at Watonga.

Miss Daisy M. Pratt was about six years of age at the time of the family removal to Oklahoma Territory, and she was reared to adult age in Blaine County, to whose public schools she is indebted for her early educa- tional discipline. Later she attended the Southwestern Oklahoma State Normal School, at Weatherford, and she has continued an ambitious student, has made marked advancement in the higher planes of academic learning, and has proved also a most successful and popular teacher, as well as a strong executive in the directing of educational affairs of important order. In 1901 Miss Pratt served her pedagogic novitiate by serving as teacher in the rural school of District No. 74, Blaine County, and here she brought, through consideration of kindliness, combined with insistent discipline, the best of order and most efficient work in a school that had previously been known for its unruliness. After teach- ing two terms in this district Miss Pratt taught one year, 1903, in the primary department of the village schools of Homestead, and during the following year she held the position of principal. In 1905-6 she was a valued and popular teacher in the public schools of Wa- tonga, the county seat of Blaine County, where, in her official and private capacity, she now maintains her lome. In 1907 she became principal of the schools at Darrow, where she continued her effective labors until 1910, when there came a most gratifying popular recog- nition of her ability and successful achievement, in that she was elected to her present responsible office of superintendent of schools of Blaine County,-this prefer- ment, in view of her having maintained her home in the county since her childhood, setting at naught the appli- cation of the conditions implied in the scriptural aphor- ism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country.''

Miss Pratt assumed her official duties as county superintendent of schools in January, 1911, and the best voucher for the admirable way in which she has administered the affairs of the office is that offered by her re-election in November, 1912, and again in No- vember, 1914, so that she is now serving her third consecutive term. Within her jurisdiction are 111 schools; 158 teachers are employed; and the enrollment of pupils shows a total of 5,006. Miss Pratt has made an excellent record as one of the admirably qualified and specially successful county superintendents of Oklahoma and is enthusiastic and active in all matters pertaining to educational work in the state. She holds membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church and is a popular teacher in the Sunday School. In a fraternal way she is affiliated with the Royal Neighbors and the Daughters of Rebekah. She is a popular factor in the social life of her home county, throughout which her circle of

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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