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 59

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 59

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA .

for military duty. There were six children in the family, namely : Willie, who died in childhood; Mrs. Elizabeth . McKee, who is deceased; Thomas J., who resides near Cushing; Edward L .; U. S. Grant, who lives ou his farm five miles from Cushing; and Nora, who is the wife of Horve Custer, of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma.

Edward L. Cruzan was reared on his father's farm in Adams County, Ohio, and there received his education in the public schools. He was twenty years of age when he accompanied his parents to the West, and in the fall of 1889 came to Oklahoma, purchasing one-quarter sec- tion of land nine miles southwest of Stillwater, a property on which he resided until 1906, then disposing of his interests and moving to another tract on Euchee Creek, ten miles northeast of Cushing. Mr. Cruzan con- tinued to be engaged in agricultural operations until the winter of 1914, when he retired from that line of endeavor, disposing of his interests therein and coming to Cushing, where he founded his present business of Cruzan & Son Hardware Company, succeeding the Cush- ing Trading Company. He has directed the affairs of this concern with judgment, acumen and foresight, and has attracted a large trade in shelf and heavy hardware, agricultural implements, wagons, binder twine and gro- eries, making a specialty of the Deere agricultural machinery. Aside from this business Mr. Cruzan has practiced during the past four years as a chiropractor, and has gained success and reputation as a devotee of the science of adjusting the joints, especially those of the spine, by hand, for the curing of disease. For about. six years he was also a preacher of the Holiness faith, but in more recent years has been a member of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Cruzan is a republican in his political views and at various times has been elected to public office, having been particularly active in educa- tional affairs as a member of the school board. Since coming to Cushing he has been busily engaged with the establishment of his business, but has found time to take a lively and helpful interest in civic affairs.

Mr. Cruzan was married in 1887 to Miss Ida A. Stout, who was born July 17, 1866, in Indiana, daughter of Samuel and Eliza Stout, and they are the parents of five children: Virgil, who is a farmer; Carl B., who is his father's business associate in the firm of Cruzan & Son Hardware Company; and the Misses Golda Belle, Ethel and Naomi.

JOHN S. IRWIN, of Bartlesville, is one of the big men of Oklahoma. He deserves that reputation not on one count, but on many. He is a banker, a leader in oil development and operations, a big farmer, owning a large estate of farms and managing them under his personal supervision. Not only are his interests in a financial and material way of a large scope, but his mind and character are developed on an equally broad scale. His friends say that one of his dominating characteristics is his liberality. His business success can no doubt be attributed to the fact that he possesses a boundless energy and if he ever loses a minute no one has ever been found to convict him of the loss. He is readily approachable, affable, kindly and genial, yet those who seek him on business or for some other reason say that he is one of the hardest men to find in the state. He is seldom in his office, but is always where his services are most needed at the time, giving his personal super- vision to every detail, and that is just as likely to be out on one of his farms as in his office.

He is Scotch-Irish, of the typical stock of Western Pennsylvania, and the fact that he has lived his life often in close touch with the hardships of circumstance as well as with prosperity has undoubtedly made him unusually sympathetic with misfortune. Those who

know him best say that he thinks little of himself, but all for his family and his friends, and has helped many a struggling man over some of the hard rocks of the road.

He was born in Butler County, Pennsylvania, Feb- ruary 10, 1867, a son of Samuel and Martha J. (Mc- Candless) Irwin. His parents 'were fine old Scotch-Irish people and spent most of their lives in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where his father died at the age of fifty- eight and his mother at sixty-four. Samuel Irwin was a gallant soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, and his period of service covered practically the entire period of struggle between the states of the North and the South. It was due to the hardships incurred during his military career with a Pennsylvania infantry regi- ment that his early death abbreviated his useful career. He and his wife were members of the United Brethren Church. There were four sons and four daughters in the family, and all the sons have been useful and suc- cessful men, though undoubtedly John S. Irwin has had. the faculty of doing things and thinking quickly and acting energetically to a degree superior to them all. A brief record of these children is: Mary, wife of John G. McKissick of Oklahoma; John S .; Robert, a mamu- facturer of engines in the State of Oregon; Eva, wife of Loyal Aggs of Washington County, Oklahoma; James M., of Bartlesville; Samuel C., a resident of Copan, Washington County, Oklahoma; Carrie, wife of Clyde Wicks of Butler County, Pennsylvania; and Belle, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Native judgment, common sense and the faculty of going ahead and doing things and profiting by experi- ence have been the factors chiefly responsible for John S. Irwin's success. He had very little book learning, though during the first twenty-one years spent on the old homestead farm in Pennsylvania he attended the public schools about as regularly as most boys. A few months before he reached his majority, in 1867, he came west to Sumner County, Kansas, and from there went to Colorado; spending two seasons in the cattle business. Eventually he became associated with that group of stockmen whose operations extended from Southern Kan- sas by lease right from the Cherokee Indians into the old Cherokee Strip of Indian Territory. His individual operations were at a point south of the present Village of Caldwell. He was among the cattlemen affected by the ruling of the Government department to vacate the strip, and all his improvements were confiscated. Thus Mr. Irwin had two years of experience as a pioneer in one of the most prosperous sections of Oklahoma prior to its opening to settlement. -

In 1892 Mr. Irwin married Miss Ollie H. Suddarth, and for the following two years was a Kansas farmer. He then returned with his family to Pennsylvania and turned to an entirely new vocation, the oil industry. In that as in other things he succeeded because of his temperamental courage and instinctive good judgment. He acquired a complete knowledge of all the technical details of oil development and from Pennsylvania, went to West Virginia and was a factor in oil operations in that state until 1904. In that year he came to Okla- homa. His previous years had brought him alternate success and vicissitudes and when he arrived in Okla- homa he had practically nothing and in fact owed some debts. Some of his early associates in this state tell some very interesting stories that show Mr. Irwin's positive character and ability to convince others of his resourcefulness as a worker. It is said that he could get money from the banks when even men with much larger visible resources failed, and he did this not by any subterfuge or covering up the real circumstances of the case, but by explaining in a straightforward

John & Friis

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manner that he had no money and did not know whether 'its beginning, and is now one of the leading merchants he would ever be able to repay the loan or not, but in and property owners and a vigorous and publie spirited citizen. some way he had the power of giving others the confi- dence which he seemed to feel in himself. He seldom encountered much difficulty in securing an outfit of rigs to start drilling in a new district, and such supplies were furnished him on credit as freely as they would have been given to others for cash. With eight years of experience in the oil business of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, he soon proved a factor in the oil develop- ment of Northern Oklahoma: For the past ten years he has been one of the most influential men in developing the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma, and in that time has drilled over 200 wells and more than 100 of them proved producing properties. At the present time he is president of the Matoaka Oil Company, which controls several producing wells in Washington County, and is also president of the Hester Oil Company, with wells in Greer County.

He is a stockholder in two of the national banks of Bartlesville, and since 1912 has been active in buying and improving Oklahoma lands, both as a farmer and stock raiser. One of his ranches comprises 1,700 acres and is situated at the head of Candy Creek in Osage County. He owns a fine farm six miles south of Bartles- ville comprising 500 acres. In the vicinity of Oglesby, in Washington County, is another farm of 200 acres, and there are several other small farms owned by him. He goes at his farming and stock raising with the same energy that he takes into other business affairs, and never neglects a single detail. In 1915 he had 300 head of cattle and sixty head of horses, and it has been his ambition and his policy to bring the standard of his stock up to the highest possible excellence. Not only in the management of his extensive private affairs but also in the work of building and developing Bartlesville does he deserve special mention. He has done things himself and has been influential in getting things done that are of material benefit to this community. He was associated with William A. Smith in the erection of the fine store and office building on Third Street known as the Irwin-Brin Building, Mr. Smith having sold his interest to L. N. Brin. With two other progressive Bar- tlesville business men, Burlingame and Maire Bros., he was associated in the erection of the Empire Building, and also in the erection of the Maire Hotel, the Elks Building and the Bartlesville Country Club Building.

Politically he is a republican. Both he and his wife are very prominent in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his wife is a member, and only those in close touch with the church know the exact quantity of his liberality in supporting its various enterprises. He is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is both a York and Scottish Rite Mason, having attained the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite and is also a member of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and belongs to the Country Club. Mr. Irwin is proud of his family and the mainspring of his tremendous energy and working ability is found in his devotion to his home. He and his wife have four children, all of whom were born in Kansas except the youngest, who was born in West Virginia. Ima, the oldest, is the wife of Don Tyler of Bartlesville, and they have one child, Helen Louise. The three younger children, still at home, are Iva, Ivan and Ruth.

JOHN T. McWILLIAMS. The flourishing Town of Tip- ton in Tillman County was founded as the result of the enterprise of the late W. A. McWilliams and its present site was originally comprised in the half section of land owned by that pioneer, and his son, J. T. John T. Mc- Williams has himself been identified with the town from

The Me Williams family came over from Ireland many years ago, and were pioneer settlers in the State of Arkansas. In White County of the latter state John T. Me Williams was born October 6, 1876. His father, the late W. A. MeWilliams, was born in Columbia County, Arkansas, in 1854, and died at Tinton, Oklahoma, October 3, 1911. He was a resident of White County, Arkansas, up to 1884, then removed to Hico, Texas, and in 1901 brought his family to what is now Tipton, where they were the first permanent settlers. At the opening of the Kiowa and Comanche reservation he brought a bunch of cattle to Lawton and in September, 1901, drove his stock to Tipton though at that time there was no village, no habitation, and nothing but a broad expanse of un- cultivated and unoccupied wilderness. In Arkansas and Texas W. A. McWilliams was a substantial farmer, and continued farming and stock raising combined with mer- chandising at Tipton. He acquired the half section of land on which the town has been built. He was likewise influential in democratic politics, was a deacon in the Baptist Church, and was affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. His first wife was Frankie Manning who died in White County, Arkansas. She was the mother of John T. MeWilliams and Lollie, who died at the age of fifteen. W. A. MeWilliams married Lizzie E. Black- well of White County, Arkansas. She is now a resi- dent of Tipton, and is the wife of J. M. Baker. Mr. Baker owns a half section of land near Eldorado, Oklahoma, has an interest in a cotton gin, a drug store and other business interests, though he is now largely retired from active pursuits.

John T. MeWilliams attended the public schools at Hico, Texas, grew up on his father's farm, and his pre- vious training and native vigor enabled him to take an active part in affairs as soon as he came to Tipton. Here he was first engaged in farming, and was associated with his father in the diversified cultivation of the soil and in raising stock and also in merchandising. Before the town site had been regularly laid out his father estah- lished a general merchandise store, and the land sur- rounding that nucleus was sold in small parcels and lots to the new comers as they arrived, and thus gradually the town came into being and its growth has since con- tinued until it is a populous and busy center. Mr. Me- Williams now manages and owns most of the original business established by his father, his mother having a quarter interest. The store is situated on Main Street at the corner of Broadway, and its new building was erected in 1910. It is a prosperous trading center, draw- ing trade from Tillman and Jackson counties, and the farmers come in for a number of miles from every point of the compass to lay in their supplies at this old and reliable house.

Mr. McWilliams is also a director in the Farmers State Bank at Tipton, has served on the town council, and is an active democrat. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masonie order, Tipton Lodge No. 417, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and with Tipton Camp of the Mod- ern Woodmen of America. In 1898 at Hico, Texas, he married Miss Maudie Watson. Her father, J. W. Wat- son, now occupies his farm five miles southeast of Tipton. There are three children of their marriage: Oran, now in the eighth grade of the public schools; Ona, in the seventh grade; and Aaron, in the fourth grade.

PIRL B. MYERS, M. D., is of German descent, although his paternal great-grandfather was born and reared to maturity in Switzerland, whence he immigrated to the United States in the early part of the nineteenth cen-

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tury. Frederick Myers, graudfather of the doctor, was likewise born in Switzerland and he was a mere boy at the time of his parents' removal to this country. The family settled in the vicinity of Patton, Missouri, and there engaged in farming operations. Riley Myers, son of Frederick Myers, was born on his father's farm near Patton, iu 1851, and he was summoned to the life eternal in July, 1914. At the age of thirty years Riley Myers located in Barton County, Missouri, and one year later he established his home at Edgewood, that state. In 1883, however, he was again farming near the old homestead at Patton and there he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. He was a republican in his political affiliations and he served his community as justice of the peace for a number of years. He was prominent in local affairs and was held in high esteem by all who knew him. He married Mary Sharrock, who was born at Patton, in 1855, and to them were born seven children: Marcella died at the age of twenty years; William C. is a farmer near Patton; Perry J. is an electriciau for the interurban railway at Coffeyville, Kansas; Nick is a resident of Stillwell, Kansas, where he is telegraph operator and agent for the Missouri Pacific Railway Company; Emma is the wife of W. C. Evans, a merchant at Doe Ruu, Missouri; Pirl B. is the subject of this sketch; and Rayford R. is a teacher in the public schools of St. Louis, Missouri. Mrs. Myers survives her honored husband and now resides at Patton, where she is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

At Patton, Missouri, August 5, 1887, occurred the birth of Dr. Pirl B. Myers. He passed his boyhood and youth on his father's farm and was educated in the pub- lic schools of Patton, where he graduated in high school in 1906. He then went to Coffeyville, Kansas, and there worked at the trade of carpenter for one year. In the spring of 1907 he came to Oklahoma and worked at the trade of boilermaker in the oil fields near Tulsa until fall, when he was matriculated as a student in Barnes University, at St. Louis. He was out of school during the year 1909-10 and during that time worked as car- penter at Garden City, Dodge City and Kingsley, all in Kansas. He then returned to college and Juue 17, 1912, was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine, receiving the same from the American Medical College, which is combined with Barnes University. June 9, 10 and 11 he passed the state board medical examination for the State of Oklahoma and immediately entered upon the active practice of his profession at Bernice, where he remained for two months. He came to Lookeba, in Caddo County, October 29, 1912, and here he has since resided. He controls a large and lucrative medical practice and has been very successful in his work. His offices are located on Main Street. He is a member of Caddo County Medical Society aud of the Oklahoma State Medical Society. In politics he is a democrat and in religious faith is a Methodist. Fraternally, he is affiliated with Lookeba Lodge, No. 456, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he is past noble grand; . Patton Lodge No. 10680, Modern Woodmen of America; Lookeba Camp, No. 919, Woodmen of the World; and with the Oklahoma National, an old life insurance com- pany. Doctor Myers is popular with all classes of people and he is looked upon as one of the rising young physi- cians of this section of the state.

August 31, 1911, at Kinsley, Kansas, was celebrated the marriage of Doctor Myers to Miss Myrtle Smith, a daughter of O. E. Smith, who owns a section and a half of fine wheat land just south of Kinsley. Doctor and Mrs. Myers have one child, Neal, born December 25, 1912.

GEORGE M. TREDWAY. For practically twenty-five years Mr. Tredway has been intimately associated in a commercial way with the people and affairs of the old Osage Nation, and it is doubtful if any white man stands higher in the esteem of those citizens than Mr. Tredway. For a number of years he has been one of the leaders in commercial affairs at Hominy in Osage County, and is perhaps best known at the present time as cashier of the First National Bank of that city. The First National Bank is an organization now ten years old, and Mr. Tredway has been with it during most of its existence. As a bank it is a solid institution, well managed, and its officers are all .conservative bankers. The president is Prentiss Price, and the vice president Daniel B. Maher, and these three men comprise a notable group in the handling of financial affairs in Osage County. The bank is capitalized at $25,000, has a sur- plus of $30,000, deposits of over $200,000, and its aggre- gate resources according to a recent statement shows more than $300,000.

How Mr. Tredway first came to be identified with this section of old Indian Territory is an interesting little story. He was born at Madison, Wisconsin, April 22, 1872, a son of William and Margaret (Mclaughlin) Tredway, the former a native of New York and the latter of Pennsylvania. His father enlisted from New York and rose to the rank of an officer in the United States navy during the Civil war, and at the close of the war was married at Washington, D. C., and soon afterward went out to Wisconsin, where he followed farming until his death, and his widow still lives there. Of their three children, John D. is now living in Seattle, Washington, and Mary is the wife of Joseph W. Hanley of Roberts, Wisconsin.

After getting his education in the public schools of his native state, George M. Tredway went to visit a relative in St. Louis, and at the same time looked for a business opening. His uncle was at that time president and the active head of the wholesale grocery house of the Greeley-Burnham Grocer Co., and one of the valued customers at the time young Tredway was making his visit was Mr. Campbell of Nowata, Oklahoma. Mr. Campbell was asked as to the prospects for an opening in a business way in the Southwest for the nephew, and Campbell told the young man to go to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and inquire for Colonel Bartles. Thus in 1890 he came into Indian Territory on the recommenda- tion of Mr. Campbell, presented himself before Col. Jacob H. Bartles, and was almost immediately put to work. He was soon afterwards sent by Colonel Bartles to his branch store in Pawhuska, operated under the firm name of Barndollar, Bartles & Gibson. Young Tredway was also to give his asistance during the regular distribution of payment and rations among the Indians. He lived at Pawhuska and was connected with the mercantile business until 1895, and since then has had his home at Hominy. Here he was connected with Read & Bopst, Indian traders, until they sold out to W. C. Wood & Company, and he continued with the new firm until February, 1904. At that time he associated with Pren- tiss Price, Fred Drummond and Percy Dixon, formed the Hominy Trading Company, Incorporated, with Mr. Tredway as treasurer and one of the active managers. Several years later he sold his interests in the trading company, and then engaged in the real estate business and the leasing of Osage lands. He also became iden- tified with the First National Bank as assistant cashier, and on the death of the late Howard M. Maher suc- cecded to his position as cashier. Mr. Tredway is also treasurer of the Osage Gin & Light Company. He and Mr. Price conducted a large business in the leasing of

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farm lands in this part of Oklahoma, and has carried on extensive farming operations.

In politics Mr. Tredway is a democrat. ' He was elected the first treasurer of Black Dog Township and has always shown a vigorous and public spirited attitude in local affairs. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and in Masonry is affiliated with the Consistory of the thirty second degree Scottish Rite Masons and is a Knight Commander of the Court of Honor, was one of the charter members and the first master of Hominy Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, is a member of the Knight Templar Commandery and the Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Through his intimate commercial relations with the Indians through the past twenty-five years he has acquired a fluent command of the Osage tongue. He prizes a large collection of Indian relics, and all the more for the fact that he has bought none of them, all of them being given to him as marks of appreciation and friendship by different members of the tribe.

In 1895 Mr. Tredway married Miss Sally B. Hughes, who was born in Missouri, a daughter of John B. Hughes of Sedalia, that state. They have two daughters, Margaret and Frances, both of whom were born at their home in Hominy.

MILTON B. COPE. The present postmaster of El Reno, Milton B. Cope, is a lawyer by profession, and is one of the men who can claim the honor and whose name will go down in history as members of the first State Legisla- ture of Oklahoma. Mr. Cope has been identified with the Oklahoma bar nearly fifteen years and throughout his professional career has been more or less closely identified with public life.

Milton B. Cope was born in Wilkes Barre, Pennsyl- vania, March 3, 1877, a son of Chester and Permilla (Steele) Cope. On his father's side he is of Dutelt descent, while his mother's family was Scotch-Irish. Both his parents were born in Pennsylvania, and when Milton B. was thirteen years of age they came west in 1890, first locating in Brooks County, Kansas. Ten years later, in 1900, they located in Canadian County, Okla- homa, but in 1902 removed to Gotebo, in Kiowa County, where they now reside. Chester Cope has always fol- lowed farming as his vocation.

It was on a farm that Milton B. Cope spent his boy- hood and gained discipline for mind and body. His early education was acquired in the common schools, and in 1895 he was graduated from the Stockton Academy, now the Northwest Kansas Normal at Stockton. It was at Stockton that he began the study of law, in one of the law offices of that place, and in 1901 was admitted to the Oklahoma bar before the Supreme Court.

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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