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 49

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 49

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Andrew G. C. Bierer received his early education in the public schools of Hiawatha, Kansas, following which he attended Georgetown University, at Washington, Dis- trict of Columbia, where he was graduated in 1886 with the degree of Master of Law. In that same year he took up his residence and began practice at Garden City, Kansas, and while residing there served for two years in the capacity of city attorney. On April 22, 1889, at the first opening of Oklahoma, Mr. Bierer came to this state, having decided that the new community opened up better opportunities for the display of the young lawyer's abilities and talents, and from that time to the present, except when in the Supreme Court, he has carried on a large practice at Guthrie. On April 22, 1889, Mr. Bierer and H. B. Kelley were appointed the two members from Kansas on the initial committee, com- posed of two members from each state elected to initiate the organization of the provisional government, which was subsequently organized, laid out and governed the City of Guthrie until the organized act passed, May 2, 1889. The judge made a speech out of a wagon at the corner where the Guthrie Savings Bank now stands in the heart of city at that first meeting. He was not

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long in impressing the people of his adopted community with his abilities, and in 1891 was appointed city attor- ney, a position which he retained during that and part of the following year. On coming here he had formed a partnership with John H. Cotteral, under the firm style of Bierer & Cotteral, and this firm remained in business until Mr. Bierer was appointed on the Supreme bench. Mr. Cottcral at this time is serving as United States judge for the Western District of Oklahoma. On Janu- ary 8, 1894, the late President Clevelaud appointed Mr. Bierer to the office of associate justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, upon which bench he served with high ability, dignity and distinction until February 28, 1898. He has since devoted himself unreservedly to the duties of his constantly increasing practice, and has earned the right to be numbered among the foremost men of his calling practicing at Guthrie.

Mr. Bierer is a thirty-second degree Mason, and has immerous friends in that fraternity. As a citizen he has taken an active and leading part in promoting and sup- porting movements for the public welfare and in encour- aging enterprises for good citizenship and educational advancement. He was married, June 26, 1888, to Miss Nannie M. Stamper, daughter of Rev. J. N. Stamper, a well known divine of Meade, Kansas. They are the parents of two children: Margaretta Louise, born Sep- tember 21, 1895; and Andrew Gregg Curtin, Jr., born December 1, 1899.

ROBERT L. LAWRENCE, the present city attorney of Anadarko, Oklahoma, has gained a position of distinc- tive priority as one of the representative members of the bar of Caddo County and he gave efficient service as deputy county attorney in 1913 and 1914. He has gained success and prestige through his own endeavors and thus the more honor is due him for his earnest labors in his exacting profession and for the precedence he has gained in his chosen vocation.

A son of John and Mary C. (Hale) Lawrence, Robert Lee Lawrence was born in Hamblin County, Tennessee, January 1, 1881. The founder of the Lawrence family in America was a native of Ireland and he settled in Virginia prior to the War of the Revolution. James Lawrence, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in the Old Dominion commonwealth and died in Hamblin County, Tennessee, where he was killed by bushwhackers during the Civil war. John Lawrence was born in Virginia in 1834 and he removed to Tennessee as a young man and located on a farm in Hamblin County, where he was also engaged in stockraising. He was exceedingly well educated, having taken degrees both in law and as a divinity student. He was a grad- uate of old Newman College, now known as Carson & Newman College. He was active as an attorney and as a Baptist minister and his political affiliations were with the democratic party. He was summoned to the life eternal in Hamblin County, Tennessee, in 1890, aged fifty-six years. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary C. Hale, was born in Tennessee in 1858. After the death of her husband she removed, with her family, to Jefferson City, Tennessee, where she still maintains her home. The following children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence: John J., an attorney by profession and owner of a light and power company in his home city, is a resident of Jefferson City, Tennessee; Mabel V. is the wife of Rev. John F. Vines, pastor of the First Bap- tist Church of Richmond, Virginia; Robert Lee is the subject of this review; Maude E. died at the age of twenty-one ycars, unmarried; and Estelle is the wife of J. L. Withoite, manager of the Chattanooga Electric Light & Power Company, at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

After completing the high-school course in Jefferson

City, Tennessee, Robert Lee Lawrence pursued an aca- demic and business course in Carson & Newman College, finishing the latter course in 1904. He then farmed on the old homestead in Hamblin County, Tennessee, for three years, at the expiration of which he was matricu- lated as a student in Cumberland University, in the law department of which he was graduated, in 1909, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was admitted to the bar in the Supreme Court of Tennessee January 29, 1909, and initiated the active practice of his profession in Jefferson City, Tennessee, remaining in that place for the ensuing nine months. He then went to Cisco, East- land County, Texas, where he remained for three months, coming thence to Anadarko, Oklahoma, July 1, 1909. Here he has since maintained his home and here he has built up a large general, civil and criminal law practice. He was admitted to the Oklahoma bar in the fall of 1909. He was deputy county attorney in 1913 and 1914 and later was elected city attorney, his offices being in the city hall building. He is a member of the Commissioners of Insanity for Caddo County and in politics is a stal- wart democrat. He is a Baptist in religious matters and since his collegiate days has been a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Greek Letter Fraternity. He is broad minded in all matters pertaining to his profession and in private life is genial aud popular among his fellow men.

Mr. Lawrence married Miss Bessie M. Bettis, a daugh- ter of J. E. Bettis, a prominent physician and surgeon, whose home is in Cisco, Texas. This union has been prolific of two children: Mary Elizabeth, born May 21, 1910; and Robert, born December 6, 1913.

FRANK HALEY. The entire career of Frank Haley, of Henryetta, has been devoted to operations in mining. From the time he was twelve years old right up to the present he has been connected with one or another form of the industry, having visited many of the big fields in this country, and has steadily worked his way upward from an humble beginning to his present position as mine inspector for District No. 3 of the State of Oklahoma. His success speaks volumes for his energy, industry and steady perseverance, for cach promotion has come because he has deserved and fairly won it, and not by reason of any favoring circumstance or monetary or other in- fluence.

Mr. Haley was born in County Mayo, Ireland, October 12, 1872, and is a son of Frank and Winifred (O'Don- ahue) Haley, natives of the same county in Erin, where both families lived for more than 300 years, as testified by the inscriptions on tombstones, many of which are written in the Gaelic. When Frank Haley was eight years of age the family emigrated to the United States, first locating at Boston, Massachusetts, and later going to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the youth secured his early education in the public schools. While residing there, as a lad of twelve years he secured employment in the mines, and continued to do a man's work as a miner until 1886, when the family changed their place of resi- dence to the City of Marion, Ohio. There both of his parents died, the mother February 17, 1901, at sixty- three years of age, and the father in March, 1906, when he was seventy-cight years old. The father was a stone cutter by trade, a vocation which he followed during the greater part of his active life. There were five sons and five daughters in the family, and four children are now living.

After the family located at Marion, Ohio, Frank Haley of this review bettered his educational training by atten- dance at St. Mary's Convent School. He was nineteen years of age when he first came to the West, joining a

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

party that took part in the rush to the Cripple Creek diggings in Colorado. After participation in the excite- ment there he went to Bridgeport, Texas, where for seven years he worked in the coal mines, and in 1902 came to Indian Territory and engaged in mining coal at Henry- etta. This he followed until he was appointed mine in- spector by Peter Hanretty, chief mine inspector of the state, and later he was elected inspector of Mine Dis- triet No. 3. In 1914 he was reelected to this period for a term of four years. In his official capacity Mr. Haley is known as one of the most reliable men in this line ot work in the state. He is aggressive, but popular, and has the friendship of many of the leading coal operators of Oklahoma.

Mr. Haley has been a lifelong democrat and is con- sidered one of his party's influential men in this section. His fraternal counection is with the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, and since boyhood he has been a consistent communicant of the Roman Catholic Church. He is unmarried.

ED L. REED, While his time is now principally devoted to the real estate and timber business at Hugo, where he is head of the firm of Reed & Coffman, Ed L. Reed has had such variety of experience in the old Oklahoma Territory and in Indian Territory as to constitute him an authority on many matters connected with the de- velopment and political and social life of the country.

To start the story of his career when it first touched Oklahoma Mr. Reed made his first trip in 1893 as a participant in the run at the opening of the Cherokee Strip. He entered the Strip from Turkey Creek, a few miles west of Hennessey, and secured a homestead. That run demonstrated the fact that the Cayuse or cattle pony, had far the advantage of the blooded horse of the east for a service like that. Two extremes in methods of obtaining land are in the recollections of Mr. Reed. Near him in line, when thousands of men awaited the firing of the signal gun at the hour of noon, stood a negro, unmounted aud perfectly composed, with a stick in hand. When the gun fired the negro chanced being killed by charging horses, and, remaining in his tracks, stooped forward and planted the end of his stick in the ground. He thereby became possessed of a valuable claim. On the other hand men slipped into the reserved territory before the opening, in spite of the United States troopers on duty around the border. When the actual runners passed they found these "sooners" calmly plowing their claims with oxen.

Something of the atmosphere of the unpeopled West of that day is in Mr. Reed's subsequent experiences. For instance, he spent the first night on the prairie with his saddle blanket for a bed and his saddle for a pillow. Next morning he got a meager breakfast and feed for his horse at the camp of claim holders nearby. His luncheon next day consisted of ginger snaps and apples in the frontier village of Hennessey. In the afternoon he set out on a long horseback journey back to Kingman, Kansas, his home. On the river near Pond Creek he met a man who had buried some bottles of cold beer in the wet sand. The heat of a September day suggested their value to the traveler and Reed paid for three bottles at the rate of $1 a bottle. His supper that evening was at Enid, where a hamburger, some bread and butter and a piece of pie cost him $1.50.

Three years later Mr. Reed entered the lumber business at Blackwell, which was becoming one of the leading and most prosperous towns of the new country. Kildare was the nearest railroad point and his lumber was freighted overland from there. Blackwell was the habita- tion then of seventeen saloon keepers and seventeen

restaurant keepers, but could make no boast of having a hotel. The settlers brought money with them and all communities prospered. Many of them saved as they developed the region and had good bank accounts when Dennis Flynn, delegate to Congress from Oklahoma Terri- tory, secured the passage of an act granting free homes to the settlers. Then these savings were invested in improvements. So rapidly were they spent that Mr. Reed sold forty-seven cars of lumber in forty-two days. Naturally these financial conditions brought a maximum of prosperity to the town of Blackwell, and Mr. Reed, during his residence there of 31% years saw lots that at the outset could be bought for $10 sell for $10,000.

For a number of years now Mr. Reed's activities and home have been in the old Indian Territory section of Oklahoma. Making money with a stump puller has proved one of his fascinating occupations. Mr. Reed has not pulled stumps to rid agricultural lands of them, neither has he had any use for the average base of a tree that once helped to grace an eastern Oklahoma forest. Armed with modern forceps his men have trav- eled over the timber section and pulled the stumps of walnut trees exclusively. From the stumps the roots were cut and the stumps sawed into thin boards called flitches, and these have been sold by Mr. Reed for enough money to make the occupation not only an interesting one but highly profitable. The demand for walnut timber, of the variety that Oklahoma produces, created this novel industry, and it may be carried on indefinitely.

An idea of the value of Oklahoma walnut may be ob- taiued from the fact that a few years ago a log 10 feet long and 43 inches in diameter was sold to an eastern veneering firm for $3,300. At that time walnut timber with a minimum of 26 inches and a maximum of 33 inches in diameter sold readily for an average of $240 for 1,000 feet.

Walnut has been one of the most valuable of Okla- homa timbers, but in recent years the demand for cotton- wood and ash has increased the value of these varieties, and Mr. Reed as a timber dealer has turned his attention to them. His cottonwood and ash timber has been sold practically all over the world. Indeed, Hugo is the headquarters of the leading dealers of the world in these classes of timber.

Experiences of Mr. Reed and other timber dealers in Southeastern Oklahoma in the acquisition of timber would make an interesting volume. Some of them are unique among timber men of the United States because of the character and diversity of persons with whom it was necessary to deal. In earlier years, before Indian land was saleable, the Indian's interests were guarded by the United States Government and the Choctaw Tribal Government, and the dealer was constantly in dauger of trespassing. These two governments also were not always in harmony. For instance, Secretary Garfield of the Interior Department, granted Mr. Reed the privi- lege of cutting timber from a tract of Indian land, and still another branch of the government removed him from that tract under charges of trespass.

There was always danger of making purchases where titles were not valid. Indians of the same name sold tracts that were not theirs, and some Indians made several sales of the same tract. There is on record a case in which one Indian sold the same body of land thirteen times. Errors in titles and departmental orders kept timber men on the move for several years. Mr. Reed and his associates established several sawmills, and some of these were moved about several times.

Mr. Reed was one of the first residents of Coweta, Indian Territory, and his lumber yard was one of the first established there. Difficulties beset the first resi-

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dents because of a questionable title to the land on which the town was being built, and ten months elapsed before the question was finally settled. An intermarried citizen nearly created war by threatening to dynamite the Reed lumber yard. Mr. Reed also opened a timber and lumber business at Porter in the early days of the town's history. There he handled walnut timber successfully and in one and a half years shipped from that town eighty cars of walnut logs.

During his residence of fifteen years in former Indian Territory Mr. Reed has studied philosophically many of the fundamental phases of the Indian problem. His activities have taken him all over the Choctaw Nation and practically all of the Creek Nation. The Indian problem has not been solved and is the biggest problem in Oklahoma. Mr. Reed believes a solution might be found in the appointment of a commission of three men, two of them unfamiliar with Indian conditions in Oklahoma, to make a study of the various phases of the problem. The vital question would be the com- petency of Indians, and the commission should be instructed to remove all restrictions from competent Indians. This would result in the sale, and naturally the development of Indian lands, and all such lauds, not now taxed, would be placed on the tax rolls of the state.

Ed L. Reed was born in Greenville, Illinois, August 17, 1873, a son of Perry and Marie (Rea) Reed. When he was a small boy his parents moved to Kingman County, Kansas, and there he grew up. The father, who has been a farmer and land owner, is now retired and lives in Kingman, at the age of eighty-two. Mr. Reed's mother is also living at the age of seventy-nine. Perry Reed is of English parentage and born at Ashtabula, Ohio.

Mr. Reed was married at Blackwell, in 1900, to Miss Jettie Tierney. In Mr. Reed's family are four brothers and two sisters: Mrs. Anna Griffing, wife of a pearl button manufacturer in Plainview, New York; Mrs. P. H. Parmenter, whose husband is at the head of a chain of retail stores, and they live in Kingman, Kansas; Andrew Reed, employed by the Peters Shoe Company in St. Louis; George B. Reed, a resident of Raven, Colorado; A. T. Reed, in the creamery business at Pratt, Kansas; John A. Reed, a retired merchant at Kingman. Mr. Reed is affiliated with the Masonic Lodge, and is also a well known member of the Oklahoma Lumber Dealers' Association.

FRED DRUMMOND. The late Fred Drummond was one of the foremost men who made commercial history in Osage County. He was one of the pioneer white men, and for a quarter of a century was a trader among the Osage Indians, and held a license from the Government until the system was abolished. He helped to build up Hominy as a commercial and population center, was active in banking and merchandising, and had begun to make farming and stock raising a specialty a short time before his death. While his material accomplish- ments were many, he is best remembered in that section for his sterling character, his thorough kindliness, and his ready acceptance of all the opportunities to benefit his fellow man. He always favored giving every man a chance, and frequently lent a helping hand to those who were struggling with difficulties.

A native of Scotland, Fred Drummond was born May 2, 1864, a son of Alexander and Henrietta (Henry) Drummond. He was the only member of the family in America except a brother, George H. Drummond, of Providence, Rhode Island. His mother died in 1911 at the age of seventy-five and his father passed away

at the age of seventy-one. His father was a barrister or lawyer in the old country. Fred Drummond, who was one of eleven children, was the favorite son of his mother, who desired that he become a minister. At the age of eighteen his venturesome spirit and active nature got the better of these early influences, and he started out to see the world, having no special inclination toward the profession which his mother had chosen for him. He came to New York City and spent one year in business experience there, and then moved to Texas and for a year and a half tried ranching. He found that his early experiences in Scotland and New York had hardly pre- pared him for this industry, and he returned to St. Louis and took a position with a wholesale dry. goods house. It was through his connection with this house that he finally came into the Osage Nation. John R. Skinner was for many years one of the big traders in the Osage country, and while in St. Louis on a buying trip induced Mr. Drummond to come out to the Osage country. Mr. Drummond was then twenty-two years of age, and arriving at Pawhuska found employment with Mr. Skin- ner and later with Emory Gibson, and finally became associated with R. E. Bird & Company in merchandising, being identified with some of the oldest Osage traders. In time Fred Drummond learned to speak the Osage language fluently and became one of the most popular and successful of the traders operating under Govern- ment license. At a later date he also took up ranching near Ponca City, but continued trading at Pawhuska until 1903, when he removed to Hominy and took a leading part in organizing the Hominy Trading Com- pany, buying out the Price Mercantile Company as the basis of the business. Mr. Drummond continued actively as a member of the Trading Company until his death, which occurred August 22, 1913.

At the time of his death he was also president of the Farmers State Bank of Hominy, which had been organ- ized a year or so before. His oldest son, Cecil, was his lieutenant in the ranching business, and together they operated' a ranch of about 3,000 acres seven miles east of Hominy, and were extensively engaged in raising cattle. Mr. Drummond was in the Indian trading service until the white men began to come into the Osage country in large numbers, and then turned his trading post into a general mercantile business.

He was affiliated with the Guthrie Consistory of thirty- second degree Scottish Rite Masons, and his funeral service was conducted by members of that body. He was also a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World, and of the Presbyterian Church. A public distinction that was very appropriate was his election as the first mayor of Hominy after its incor- poration. In 1904 he also built the largest and finest home of the city, where his widow and some of his children now reside.

On July 6, 1890, Fred Drummond married Miss Addie Gentner at Coffeyville, Kansas. She was born in Kansas October 9, 1870, a daughter of Frederick and Blanche (Leonard) Gentuer. Their children were: Blanche Henrietta, now wife of Oscar K. Petty, vice president of the Farmers State Bank of Hominy; Roy Cecil, manager of the large Drummond ranch seven miles east of Hominy; Frederick Gentner, who is a graduate of the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College at Stillwater, also took work in the commercial department of Harvard University, and is now an active partner in the Hominy Trading Company; Alfred Alexander, who is a graduate of the Oklahoma Agricul- tural and Mechanical College, and is now a student in the agricultural department of the Illinois State Uni-

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versity ; and Lois Hope, who is still at home with her mother.

REV. JOHN W. GARNER. An able aud earnest worker in the evangelistic field, Mr. Garner has fought the good fight, has defended and upheld the faith and has been instrumental in bringing many souls as worthy sheaves in the harvest of the Divine Master whom he has served with all of devotion and consecrated zeal. He has not beeu lacking in the militant spirit of the church faith and in a secular way he did valiant military service as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war. He is one of the honored and loyal citizens of Payne County, is the owner of a well improved farm, was the organizer of the Christian Church at Perkins, of which he served four years as pastor and with which he is still actively identi- fied, his work in the ministry having been largely along evangelistic lines since his retirement from the pastorate noted.

Mr. Garner was born in Wayne County, Kentucky, on the 14th of January, 1843, and is a son of Freeman and Rachel (Coyle) Garner, both likewise natives of Ken- .tucky, where the former was born in 1806 and the latter in 1826, the respective families having been founded in the old Blue Grass State in the pioneer era of its history and both family names having been identified with American history since the colonial days. Freeman Gar- ner was a stone cutter by trade and vocation and both he and his wife continued their residence in Kentucky until the time of their death, the subject of their review being the oldest of their five children; Henderson, the second son, is now a resident of the State of Washington, and he likewise is a veteran of the Civil war, in which he served the Union as a member of Company I, Sixth Kentucky Volunteer Cavalry, with which gallant com- mand he remained at the front for a period of three years; Sarah is the widow of Lieut. Nathaniel Dobbs, who was a Union officer in the Civil war, aud she still resides in Pulaski County, Kentucky; James P. is a prosperous farmer of Payne County, Oklahoma; and Martin died when young.

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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