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 70

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 70

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).

Up to the opening of the Cherokee strip there were few settlers, but after 1893 settlers came in rapidly and a number of towns quickly developed. Prior to the opening Dave Hendricks, a Cherokee, had a log cabin where the City of Cleveland now stands.

Colonel Jordan was one of a colony of seventy families receiving each an allotment of eighty acres by the payment of a nominal sum, amounting to $112 apiece. Colonel Jordan also bought from Dave Hendricks the latter's eighty acres for $1,200, and with Dr. G. W. Sutton and R. L. Dunlop laid out the original townsite of Cleveland. They formed the Cleveland Townsite Company, taking in sixteen members at $100 each. Thus Colonel Jordan was prominent in the founding and estab- lishment of what is now one of the most thriving cities of Northeastern Oklahoma. He was purchasing agent for the Cherokee Townsite Company, and placed sev- eral allotments as townsites on the line of the Rock Island and Santa Fe railroads. Throughout his dealings with the Cherokees Colonel Jordan has managed their business not only with a high degree of skill but hon- orably and fairly safeguarding the interests of all con- cerned. He made five trips to Tampico, Mexico, securing ranch land, and came out after President Madero was assassinated.

At the present time Colonel Jordan owns a farm near Cleveland, and that farm has some producing oil wells. The first well struck in the vicinity was on the land of William Lavery, and the second on the Jordan place. At one time his farm contained five producing wells.

Though a lifelong democrat, Colonel Jordan has never held office except by commission. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church, and he is a Knight of Pythias. In September, 1866, in Texas he married Sarah Thompson. She died near Muskogee, survived by three sons, Robert E. Lee, who is living in Vera, Okla- homa; Thomas Jackson and James Lang, both deceased. In July, 1882, Colonel Jordan married Tennessee Jane Riley, a distant relative. Mrs. Jordan also has Cherokee

blood in her veins, the sixteenth degree. Into their home have come five children : Dixie, who married Charles Miller of Cleveland; John B., at home; Daisy Lee, who died at the age of ten years; Robert Owen and Winnie Davis, both at home, the daughter being named in honor of the daughter of Jefferson Davis.

THOMAS FRANKLIN SPURGEON, M. D. A successful physician and surgeon who has practiced long enough in Western Oklahoma to be considered a pioneer, Dr. Thomas F. Spurgeon was one of the first members of his profes- sion to locate in the new town of Frederick in Tillman County as it is now, where he is recognized not only as a capable medical man but a high minded and useful citizen.

The Spurgeon family came from England during the seventeenth century and settled in Massachusetts, whence its descendants moved out in various directions, and are found in Tennessee, Virginia, and many other states. Doctor Spurgeon had ancestors who were soldiers on the American side in the Revolutionary war. Thomas Franklin Spurgeon was born in Gasconade County, Mis- souri, May 5, 1873. His father, W. M. Spurgeon, was born in Tennessee in 1842, and died at Coyle, Logan County, Oklahoma, in 1906. In 1852 at the age of ten he was taken to Iowa and in the following year to Mis- souri, and lived in that state as a prospering farmer up to 1906, when he moved to Coyle. He was a democrat, was a working member of the Baptist Church and had seen service as a member of the Missouri State Militia. W. M. Spurgeon married Miss C. C. Blevins, who was born in Missouri and is now living at Coyle, Oklahoma. Their children are: Allen, a retired farmer at Coyle; Cora, who lives at Frederick and is the widow of James Baxter, a blacksmith; Eliza, wife of James Nulty, a farmer at Frederick; Dr. Thomas F .; and G. M., a farmer at Frederick.

Doctor Spurgeon attended the public schools of Gas -. conade County, Missouri, and a high school in Crawford County of that state. Like many men who have made a success in other callings, his first vocation was that of teacher, and he taught five terms in Gasconade County before entering the Barnes Medical College at St. Louis. Doctor Spurgeon acquired his doctor of medicine degree at Barnes College with the class or 1897, and in 1908 took post-graduate courses in the St. Louis University. His practice began in Osage County, Missouri, in 1897, but after fifteen months he removed to Crawford County in the same state, and in December, 1898, identified him- self with Western Oklahoma, practicing for eighteen months at Cimarron City. He was at the opening of the new Town of Coyle in 1899, and remained in practice there three years. In February, 1902, he located at Frederick, and has since built up a large general medical and surgical practice in that town and surrounding community. His offices are in the Guarantee Bank Build- ing just north of Grand Avenue.

Always interested in local progress, Doctor Spurgeon for ten years has served as a member of the Tillman County School Board. He is a democrat, a member of the Baptist Church, and affiliates with the Modern Woodinen of America.

In 1896 in Dent County, Missouri, Doctor Spurgeon married Miss Fannie Vaughan, daughter of the late Wil- liam Vaughan, who was a Baptist minister. Two chil- dren have been born to their marriage: Theron, living at home; and Thelma, now in the public schools at Fred- erick.

LEVI S. MUNSELL, M. D. The exacting and all im- portant profession of medicine has found many able,

1998

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

loyal and zealous representatives in the various counties and communities of the vigorous yonng State of Okla- homa, and Beaver, the judicial center of Beaver County, is sigually favored in having gained as a citizen a phy- sician and surgeon of such distinctive technical attain- ments and such broad experience as are defined in the character and achievement of Doctor Munsell, who has here built up a large and representative practice and who holds high place as one of the leading members of his profession in Western Oklahoma.

In ascribing to Doctor Munsell special distinction of nativity the object is best attained by recalling the humorons paraphrase of a familiar quotation that was indulged in one of the famous post-graduate speeches of Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, when he said: "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some are born in Ohio." Under the last clause Doctor Munsell is able to make classification, for he was born at Coldwater, Mercer County, Ohio, on the 21st of September, 1841. He is a son of William A. O. and Deborah (Gray), Mun- sell.

William A. O. Munsell was born near Fletcher, Miami County, Ohio, in the year 1812, and, as the date indi- cates was a representative of one of the very early pio- neer families of the old Buckeye State, where his father, Levi Munsell, initated the reclamation of a farm from the wilderness prior to the War of 1812, the original American progenitors having come from England and settled in this country in the early colonial days. Wil- liam A. O. Munsell was reared to manhood in Ohio, and though school facilities were very meager in the lo- cality, and period, he provided advantages for himself, and his alert and receptive mentality enabled him to become a man of large intellectual force and broad mental ken. He became a representative farmer in his section of Ohio and also labored with consecrated devotion and zeal as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he was what was commonly designated as a "local preacher." During the climacteric period of the Civil war he served as a United States marshal for the Northwestern district of Ohio. In 1888 he removed to Missouri, and he died at Cameron, that state, in 1902, at the patriarchal age of ninety years. Early in his career he had been prominently identified with the promotion of railroad building in Ohio, and he was a man of marked business ability as well as one of exalted personal character.

In the year 1825 was solemnized the marriage of Rev. William A. O. Munsell to Miss Deborah Gray, who was born in 1818, a daughter of David and Sarah Gray, and who was summoned to the life eternal in 1849. Of this union were born two sons and two daughters, of whom Elmore Y. and Mary Elizabeth are deceased, Doctor Munsell, of this review, having been the third in order of birth, and the eldest of the children being Sarah L., who is the wife of Stephen Frank, a representative farmer near Cameron, Missouri.

The common schools of Ohio afforded to Dr. Levi S. Munsell his early educational advantages, and at the age of twenty-three years he was matriculated in the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, in which he com- pleted his higher academic studies. In preparation for the profession of his choice he entered the medical depart- ment of the University of Ohio, at Columbus, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1870, and with the well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine. Establishing his residence at Geneva, Adams County, Indiana, he there continued in the active practice of his profession nine years, and during the ensuing nine years he was engaged in practice at Rock- port, judicial center of Atchison County, Missouri, where

he was associated in practice with his brother, the late Dr. Ehmnore Y. Munsell. In 1886 he removed to Wichita, Kansas, where he built up a substantial practice and where he remained until the latter part of the year 1889, when he came to Indian Territory, and became one of the pioneer physicians in the Old Chickasaw Nation. When, in 1891, the present Town of Chickasha was founded, he became one of its first settlers, and there he maintained his professional headquarters two years. In 1897 he located at the old Town of Hardesty, Beaver County, where he remained until 1900, when he estab- lished his home at Beaver, the county seat, where he has since continued in active practice and where, in point of years, he holds prestige as the dean of his profession in this county. He has been an active prac- titioner for forty years, has kept in touch with the advances made in medical and surgical science, has honored his profession by his character and efficient services and is worthy of special consideration in this history as being one of the pioneer physicians and . surgeons of Oklahoma. The Doctor has served as coroner and also as health officer of Beaver County and has in all things closely identified himself with community inter- ests, as a broad-minded and progressive citizen. His political allegiance is given to the republican party, he has attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fra- ternity, as an affiliate of the consistory in the City of Guthrie, and is identified also with the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He holds membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his wife was a lifelong and devoted adherent. He is a member of the Oklahoma State Medical Society and the American Medical Association.

At Coldwater, his native town in Ohio, the 1st of March, 1866, recorded the marriage of Doctor Munsell to Miss Elizabeth J. Young, daughter of Philip and Mary (Plummer) Young, who passed their entire lives in Ohio. Mrs. Munsell was born July 7, 1841, and the supreme loss and bereavement in the life of Doctor Munsell came when his cherished and devoted wife was summoned to eternal rest, at Fred, Oklahoma Territory, on the 2d of July, 1891, just five days prior to her fiftieth birthday anniversary. Of their seven children Paul and Fusia died young; Dayton is engaged in the banking business at El Reno, this state; Pearl E. is the wife of Thomas B. Carey, of Dallas, Texas; William O. is a resident of the City of Portland, Oregon; R. Netta is the wife of E. V. Roe, who maintains his residence at Caldwell, Kansas, and is in the railway postal service of the United States; and Grace A. is the wife of Robert Osborne, their home being now in the City of Detroit, Michigan.

W. M. ADELHELM. A prosperous farmer citizen of the Holdenville community, W. M. Adelhelm has lived there for the past fifteen years, and has busied himself with the care and cultivation of his Indian wife's allotment, comprising one of the fine farms of Hughes County.

His parents, Christian and Maggie (Reece) Adelhelm, were of German ancestry and were born in France. They first met and became acquainted while crossing the ocean to America and were married in Pennsylvania, where Christian Adelhelm for a time worked in the mines. He afterwards became an early settler at Burlington, Iowa, where his son, W. M. Adelhelm, was born July 15, 1863. The father died when this son was a small boy and the mother died later at Murray, Iowa. Their four children were: Rika, wife of Anton Schall of Murray, Iowa; W. M .; Tina, wife of Thomas Gore of Murray, Iowa; and Lizzie, who is married and lives in Oklahoma City.

Rosalie avant.

Dem I doanh

tı K N

1999

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

By the early death of his father W. M. Adelhelm was thrown upon his own resources and had only limited advantages in the way of an education. When most of his age were at home and in school he was accepting every legitimate means of earning his own livelihood, and constant industry has been the keynote of his success.

Coming to the Creek Nation in 1901, Mr. Adelhelm has lived on his present place near Holdenville since his marriage. The farm comprises his wife's allotment of 160 acres, and in the last fifteen years it has been improved in many ways and rendered highly valuable as a stock farm. Mr. Adelhelm raises some registered and high grade horses and a number of cattle. The farm is 312 miles north of Holdenville.

On February 22, Washington's birthday, 1902, Mr. Adelhelm married Jennie Tuttle. She was born on the farm where she now resides, a daughter of Chester and Betsy Tuttle. Her father was a white man, while her mother was a fullblood Creek. Both died in what is now Hughes County. Mrs. Adelhelm by her first marriage to John McCaslin had four children, namely: Mrs. Mary Harris of Henryetta; Mrs. Nettie Palmer of Yeager, Hughes County; Mrs. Myrtle Long of Seminole; and Mrs. Jessie McBride of Henryetta. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Adelhelm have been born four children, named Chester, Charles, Tina and Louis. The two older were born in time to receive allotments of Indian lands, but the two younger were not sharers in that distribution. Mrs. Adelhelm is a member of the Free Will Baptist Church and she was educated in the Tallahassee Mission.

FREDERICK EHLER. One of the leading business men of Kingfisher County, Frederick Ehler has the distinc- tion of being the only merchant now in business at Hennessey who was here when the town was founded in 1889. While mercantile pursuits have claimed the major part of his attention, he has been interested also in other business, agricultural and financial enterprises, and in . each direction has won well-earned success, in addition to conducting himself at all times as a practical, progressive, sound-minded and public-spirited citizen.

Mr. Ehler was born December 23, 1861, at West Alex- andria, Ohio, and is a son of Harmon and Catherine (Schreel) Ehler. His father was born in Germany, in 1833, and was twenty-one years of age when he accom- panied his mother to the United States, settling at West Alexandria, Ohio, where he continued to follow his trade of merchant tailor until his death, in November, 1900. He was married in 1858 to Catherine Schreel, a native of Ohio, born December 7, 1840, and they became the parents of four sons and two daughters, namely: Fred- erick, of this notice; George, born in 1863, who died in 1914; Mary, born in 1865, and now the wife of George Emerick, of Dayton, Ohio; Sallie, born in 1867, and now the wife of Lewis Herget, of Hennessey, Oklahoma; Joseph, born December 7, 1878; and Harry, born July 21, 1883.

Frederick Ehler received his education in the public schools of West Alexandria, Ohio, where he was gradu- ated from the high school with the class of 1880, follow- ing which he enrolled as a student at the Ohio State University, Columbus, being graduated from that insti- tution in 1884, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. During the same year he went to Anderson, Indiana, where he became manager of a drug store, continuing in that capacity for six years and gaining much useful experience. However, Mr. Ehler felt that he was not advancing fast enough, and, believing that better oppor- tunities awaited him in the West, he went to Kingman, Kansas, and secured employment as teller in the Kingman National Bank. This position Mr. Ehler held until 1889, Vol. V-16

in which year he became a resident of Hennessey, here opening the first general store of the town. This was started in a modest and unassuming manner, but grew in strength and size with the growth and development of the city, and is now the most important department store in Kingfisher County, occupying a store 100 feet deep and with 100 feet front. This establishment, growing out of the needs of the community, has reached the proportions of a necessary commercial adjunct. Its success is due to the efforts and integrity of its proprie- tor, who has studied the wants of his patrons and supplied them with the best goods obtainable and at reasonable prices. He is also president of the Hennessey State Bank, one of the strong financial institutions of the county, is president of the Hennessey Electric Light Company, and has large farm holdings in Kingfisher County. In every possible way he has contributed to the upbuilding of the town and to the advancement of the general welfare. He has served as mayor of Hen- nessey, an office in which he secured a number of local improvements. Mr. Ehler is one of the best known Masons in Oklahoma, having been elected to the K. C. C. H. degree in 1905, and receiving the thirty-third honorary degree at Washington, District of Columbia, in October, 1907. He was one of the founders of the Scottish Rite Consistory of Oklahoma, organized at Guthrie, in 1900, and is a member of Indian Temple, Ancient Accepted Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Oklahoma City.

Mr. Ehler was married at Hennessey, July 26, 1907, to Mrs. Annette B. Haskett, daughter of Joseph Black- burn. She was born in 1863, at Lawrenceville, Illinois, and after the death of her first husband, James Haskett, came as a widow to Oklahoma, in 1900, becoming prin- cipal of the Hennessey High School, a position which she held for four years. At the time of her marriage to Mr. Ehler she was acting in the capacity of editor of the Press-Democrat. Mrs. Ehler is prominent as a lit- erary woman of marked talent, being the author of a book of poems entitled "The Fire Fly,"' and of a booklet relating to the early history of Hennessey and to the massacre of Pat Hennessey by Indians, in 1872, on the site where the town now stands and for whom it is named. Mrs. Ehler is likewise well known in club and fraternal circles, being chairman of the literary com- mittee of the Oklahoma Women's Federated Clubs, and grand worthy matron for Oklahoma of the Order of the Eastern Star, in which organization she has filled all the chairs.

BEN F. AVANT. The name of this prominent farmer and cattle man of Osage County, who has conducted his operations in that vicinity of Oklahoma for the past twenty years, has a permanent memorial in the little Town of Avant, which was established as a station along the Midland Valley Railroad some years ago, and was given his name. The townsite comprises a part of the allotment of Mrs. Avant.

Through a period of more than thirty-five years Mr. Avant has been closely identified with the great cattle industry of the Southwest, both in Texas and in Okla- homa. He was born in Gonzales, Texas, January 6, 1868, a son of Abner and Letha (Elder) Avant. The Avant family is descended from French stock. Both parents were born in Tennessee, his father at Nashville, and they spent most of their lives in Texas. Abner Avant was in the Confederate army during the war, and the spring before he enlisted he branded 500 head of calves, but owing to the unsettled conditions and ravages resulting from the war this stock was all scattered or killed, and after his return from the army he had to begin his ranching operations with only a nucleus of about ten calves. Abner Avant spent all his career as a farmer

2000

HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

and stock raiser, and lived in the vicinity of Gonzales until his death in 1901 at the age of seventy-two. His first wife and the mother of Ben Avant died when the latter was nine years of age. She was the mother of six children: Mamie, the wife of M. E. Lowry of Tisho- mingo, Oklahoma; A. M., who lives at Marfa, Texas; Ella, wife of John F. Laird of Wrightsboro, Texas; R. F., of Dilley, Texas; Ben; and Eula, wife of Charles Lory of Del Rio, Texas. The father married for his second wife Mattie Davis, and the one child of that union is Wallace M., now living at Jourdanton, Texas.

The early life of Ben Avant up to the year 1890 was spent in the vicinity of Gonzales, Texas. He acquired his education from local schools and has lived close to the activities of ranch and range all his life. In 1890 he went to Atascosa County, in the country south of San Antonio, and was employed as a cowboy. On June 1, 1892, he came into the Osage country with the cattle firm of Gussett, Brooks & Company, and remained in their employ until the fall of 1893. In 1894 he took the firm's herd of horses into Arkansas, where he sold them, and went back to Texas. In 1895 Mr. Avant returned to Osage County and has lived in this locality practically ever since. He was connected with the Skinner Cattle Company for a time, but in 1896 began independent operations as a cattleman and farmer. Like most men engaged in the business, met adversities, and several times has "gone broke," but has had the courage and persistence to begin over again and for a number of years has been prosperous and one of the substantial business men of Osage County. His home has been at Avant since 1895 with the exception of two years when he and his family resided in Tulsa in order that the children might have proper educational advantages. Mr. Avant has 200 acres of farming land, also owns 1,800 acres of grazing land, and keeps under lease about 1,200 acres more. He and his family reside in a modern home which was built in 1911 just outside the corporation limits of Avant.

When the Midland Valley Railroad was built through Osage County a postoffice was established and given the name of Avant, and as already stated, the townsite, where is now located a flourishing village, was originally a part of Mrs. Avant's allotment.

In 1895 Mr. Avant married Rosa Lee Rogers. She was born in Osage County July 8, 1877, a daughter of Lewis and Ellen (Ross) Rogers. Her mother is now deceased and her father resides at Pawhuska. Mrs. Avant's mother was a member of the Osage tribe, while her father was of Cherokee birth and extraction, but was adopted into the Osage tribe. Mr. and Mrs. Avant have two children: Theodore, born March 22, 1898; and Ethel, born February 16, 1901.

ADAM BERT FAIR, M. D. When the Kiowa and Co- manche country was opened to settlement in 1901, among the thousands of new comers, including profes- sional men of all classes, there was perhaps no better equipped physician who selected the new town of Lawton as his home than Dr. Adam B. Fair, who a few years later removed to Frederick, now in Tillman County, and has since developed not only a large professional prac- tice as a physician and surgeon, but has also made him- self a factor in the varied social life and enterprise of that community.

While Doctor Fair may be properly regarded as a pioneer of Southwestern Oklahoma, earlier generations of the same family earned similar distinctions in the ter- ritory and State of Iowa. Doctor Fair was born at Agency, Iowa, November 22, 1870. His father, E. D. Fair, was born in Maryland February 15, 1846, and has had his home at Agency almost continuously since he

was ten years of age. The grandfather, John Fair, was a native of Pennsylvania, where the Fair family settled in colonial days on coming from Germany. John Fair was born about 1809, and after living in Pennsyl- vania a number of years took his family out to the new State of Iowa in 1856, and was one of the pioneer farmers in that locality, where he died at the age of eighty- three. E. D. Fair has been a bridge contractor, a manu- facturer of iron bridges, and at one time operated a factory at Ottumwa, not far from Agency. He is now living retired in the latter city. The maiden name of his wife was Sarah E. Giltner, who was born near Agency in 1848. Her father, William Giltner, a native of Indiana, moved out to Iowa Territory about 1840, and was one of the first farmers in the vicinity of Agency. He was a prominent factor in that section of Iowa, known for his influential part in civil and political affairs, and reared a large family, his descendants being now scat- tered over that and other states. Doctor Fair was the oldest of the six children born to E. D. and Sarah E. Fair. His sister Loie is the wife of C. E. Adams, who is a stockholder and employee in the J. W. Edgerly Whole- sale Drug Company at Ottumwa, Iowa, where they reside; Amy married O. E. Slater, who lives in Fort Dodge, Iowa, where he is an assistant railroad superintendent; Jessie married Roy W. Johnston, an Ottumwa manufacturer, and the son of A. W. Johnston, who invented the John- stou Ruffler and other devices that have had an extensive manufacture and sale; Pearl is the wife of Dr. Benjamin Erb, a dentist at Anamosa, Iowa; William E., a resident of Cheyenne, Wyoming, is assistant bank examiner in Wyoming.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

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