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 77

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 77

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James A. Utterback passed his boyhood and youth on his father's farm and attended the public schools of Riverton, Iowa. After reaching his majority he operated his father's farm for seven years and in 1900 came to Oklahoma, taking up a claim at Colony, in Washita County. In 1903 he sold his claim and located in the vicinity of Bridgeport, where he farmed for two years, at the end of which he opened up a general store in this city, the same being located on Market Street. In recent years he has enlarged his place of business and he now has the distinction of conducting one of the best equipped and most modern general stores in this section.

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

He caters to a high-class trade in both Caddo and Blaine counties. In politics he is a stalwart democrat and he served as city councilman. He affiliates with Bridgeport Lodge, No. 229, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons; and with the Valley of Guthrie Consistory, No. 1, being a thirty-second degree Mason. He is an ex-member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Utterback is an up-to-date business man, thoroughly alive to every chance for advancement.

In Rockport, Missouri, in 1892, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Utterback to Miss Ida Davis, a daughter of the late Benjamin Davis, formerly a farmer in Mis- souri. Mr. and Mrs. Utterback have two children: Leta is the wife of Francis Labounty, a merchant at Watseca, Illinois; and Cleo is at home with her parents.

GEORGE BARNETT has been closely associated with Okla- homa City's growth and development for nearly twenty- five years, having located in that prairie town about two years after the opening. As a merchant he conducted a ' business which made him familiar to thousands of local citizens, and since retiring from business he has given his time partly to the administration of public affairs as a county commissioner and also to his private invest- ments in local real estate.

George Barnett was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 28, 1859, a son of Joseph and Theresa (Hart) Barnett, his father a native of Berlin, Germany, and his mother of Leeds, England. Joseph Barnett joined the Confederate Army during the Civil war, and saw two years of service under General Beauregard. Both be- fore and after the war he was prominently identified with business affairs in New Orleans.

George Barnett finished his education in the Central Boys' High School in New Orleans, and at the age of eighteen entered the cotton business, following that two years. His business career has made him a cosmopolitan, and he is not only familiar with all the larger trade centers of America, but has spent much time abroad. This experience was gained largely during his work as a silk buyer in foreign countries. He imported large quantities of silk to the United States, and for several years was engaged in the business of selling silks to jobbers in the United States.

When George Barnett came to Oklahoma City in the spring of 1891 he found a raw western town,. but one with a promise of splendid development, and it was with an eye to the future that he determined upon making it his permanent home. All the older citizens of Oklahoma City will recall his place of business as a wholesale and retail cigar dealer, which was first in the Grand Avenue Hotel, and later in the fine store at the corner of Grand and Broadway in the City Building. He was the active proprietor of that business until he sold out to its present owner in 1907. In the meantime Mr. Barnett had invested extensively all the capital he could com- mand in real estate, and for many years has been a buyer and seller, and still owns some very handsome properties. Mr. Barnett still maintains a business office in the State National Bank Building.

In 1912 Mr. Barnett was nominated by the democratic party and elected a member of the board of county com- missioners. This was an unusual distinction, since he was the first democrat ever elected to this office from the city district. His two years of service were marked with faithful and conscientious work for the reduction of tax burdens and the placing of the county's affairs on a purely business basis. Mr. Barnett claims and is given credit for reducing the assessment values from $129,612 to $94,928 in 1913 and from $118,322 to $92,771 in 1914. While this reduction was obviously in the inter- est of the tax payers, at the same time he directed his

efforts to another phase of the county 's fiscal affairs so that public administration did not thereby suffer. As a result of reforms brought about during his membership on the board the county warrants, which had for several years been circulating often a number of months after issue and bearing 6 per cent interest, were placed on a cash basis, which saved many thousand dollars of interest charges. In other ways expenses of the fiscal adminis- tration were reduced so as to approximate a savings to the tax payers of $500,000 during the two years Mr. Barnett was on the board.

At Little Rock, Arkansas, January 18, 1880, Mr. Barnett married Miss Corinne Winter, daughter of Moses and Sarah Winter of Fort Smith, Arkansas. Mrs. Bar- nett's father was born in Hungary, and her mother in Alsace-Lorraine, France. They have two sons: Joseph, born in 1890, and now in the State School Land Depart- ment of Oklahoma; and Louis, born in 1892, now in the county treasurer's office of Oklahoma County. While Mr. Barnett is not an orthodox in religion, he is a humanitarian in principle and action, and has done good wherever and whenever he could. Fraternally he is affili- ated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. He and his family reside at 217 West Fifth Street.

JAMES A. EMMONS. On the Rural Route No. 3 out of Pawnee, on a beautiful country homestead known as Wildflower Farm, lives one of the most interesting char- acters in Oklahoma, a pioneer of the Cherokee Strip, and with a record of experience in the West such as few living men can now equal.

James A. Emmons was born December 29, 1845, at Guyandotte, Virginia, a son of James and Nancy Smith Emmons. He was the first in a family of nine children. Some of his maternal forebears were early settlers in New England, probably at Boston, since a family of the name has been identified with business affairs in that city for many years. Some of them moved to New Jersey and thence on to Philadelphia. Mr. Emmons' grandfather was a soldier under Washington in the Cou- tinental army, and after the close of the war took up his home in Philadelphia, where he learned the trade of cabinet or furniture maker. In a few years there opened a prospect for taking up his revolutionary land grant, and he started for the border. At that time the Indians were troublesome in the Ohio Territory, and in the meantime he awaited for quiet at Guyandotte, Virginia. There he married a Miss Holenbaugh, whose family had come from North Carolina for the same purpose, namely to settle in the Northwest. The fruit of this marriage was James A. Emmons, Martin Luther Emmons and a daughter Sarah Emmons, respectively the father, uncle and aunt of James A.

James Emmons was born at Guyandotte, Virginia, May 20, 1810, and died in the fall of 1888. He grew to manhood and at the age of thirty-five in 1844 married Miss Nancy Smith, who was born at Staunton, Virginia, and died at Tecumseh, Nebraska, in the fall of 1902. Miss Smith was a beautiful woman, with bright blue eyes and coal black hair and fair complexion. She was also of revolutionary stock.

In the brick home of these parents James A. Emmons first saw the light of the sun on a cold December morn- ing in 1845. In 1853 his father succumbed to the wanderlust and started for the western frontier of Mis- souri. The family embarked on the little Ohio River steamer, Reveille, for Cincinnati, and there took passage on the Golden State for St. Louis. James A. Emmons recalls some of the incidents on landing in St. Louis, remembers the "runners" calling the name of Hotel Monroe and the Virginia House. He recalls the passage

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

of the boat through the locks at Louisville. From St. Louis the family steamed away up the Mississippi and the Missouri on the boat St. Ange, under Captain Smith, for Hill's Landing in Carroll County, Missouri. There they lived four years, the father taking up the busi- ness of hemp, tobacco and grain shipping. While there James A. Emmons attended a subscription school. In the fall of 1856 the family were once more on the move, this time for Omaha, Nebraska. They arrived at night- fall at the site now occupied by that thriving city. There James A. Emmons first saw an Indian camp, with hundreds of fires gleaming from the woods that climbed up the hillsides above the river. As he lay awake with staring eyes in his stateroom he could hear the drums and tom-toms and the weird music of their chanted songs, and could see their strange dances around the camp fires. He finally fell asleep to dream of Poca- hontas, Captain Smith and all the Indian characters he had read of. On the same evening he witnessed a ball held in the new City of Omaha, attended by all the pioneer settlers. He recalls the wonder and beauty of that scene to the present time, with the splendid figures of the happy young men and women, full of health and hope, the curtsies of the ladies, the grand march, the figures of the Virginia reel or the minuet. When he awoke the following morning the steamer was running rapidly down the muddy Missouri, his father having concluded to make Sonora Island his landing place. Sonora Island is an island in the Missouri River, included in what is now the State of Nebraska.

Arriving there the father bought a lumber and shingle machine, and set it up in the midst of a great forest of tall cottonwood trees. Mr. Emmons has many in- teresting recollections of that island, where he spent several of the formative years of his youth. He and the other boys of the country side enjoyed the very acme of happiness in hunting squirrels, turkey, deer and other small game, in fishing and in tracing the winged honey bee to his tree. When he and his companions would locate the home of the swarm, they would take their little axes and work for half a day in chopping the giant cottonwood. They would frequently secure as their booty a big tub and sometimes two tubfulls of white honey. In the woods could be found all kinds of fruit, plums, June berrics and blackberries. In the fall they would gather the popcorn and the great sweet yellow pumpkins, and their capacity for enjoyment was vastly greater than that of the present pampered race of youth. During the winter he and his companions attended a school kept in a log building. Spelling was chiefly emphasized in such schools, and all the scholars learned spelling as one of their chief accomplishments. His father finally sold out his lumber mill and went on a farm, where the children again spent ideal days and years.

Upon this happy pioneer life there finally came a cloud. People began to talk of war, and in 1861 the great national tragedy opened in the conflict between the states. Mr. Emmons was then sixteen years of age. One day he called upon his father for a half dollar, the first requisition of that kind in his life. The older man looked upon his son with surprise, and inquired as to the use intended for such money. The boy promptly answered that it was to buy a copy of Hardee's Military Tactics in order to get ready to fight for Virginia, his native state. The half dollar was given, and the book was bought, and young Emmons soon had all the neighboring boys marking time, marching and standing guard, parad- ing, and had organized a complete camp of aspiring young soldiers. But a mother's fears intervened to pre- vent the enthusiasm of the boy from enlisting and going away to the front. Like the wise woman she was, she

did not actually forbid him carrying out his designs, but gave him an attractive substitute. She showed him how much better it would be to become a sailor an occupation which would require clean clothes, with low quartered shoes and a jacket of attractive blue. That idea took hold, and at the age of seventeen, with the blessing of his father and mother, and the precepts of the latter impressed on his heart that he should not drink whiskey nor gamble, should be for life, he broke home ties and started down the river on the packet Emily, which plicd the river between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Omaha, Nebraska. His commander was Capt. S. P. Ray, and he was fortunately placed under the steward, Fred Harvey. His first duties were those of knife shiner, and he took care of all the silverware, counting and locking it up three times a day. Cabin work was not agreeable and seemed to offer little opportunity for learning naviga- tion. In the following spring he went to the lower deck in order to climb up, and the climbing was rapid and apparently easy. He became the boy mate, then the boy captain, and pilot, and for twelve years was in the steam- boat business on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

After giving up steamboating Captain Emmons went to Sioux City, Iowa, and bought a stock of merchandise and lumber, the latter to be used in the construction of a store building. He had made up his mind to locate at the crossing of the Northern Pacific over the Missouri River, far up and away from civilization. He embarked with his goods on a steamer, and after a voyage of a thousand miles landed in August, 1872, and there set up the first building on the location of what is now one of the important cities of the Northwest. While building his store Col. George W. Sweet came around and platted the town, naming it Edwinton, in honor of the deceased first chief engineer of the Northern Pacific Railway. Out first locating there his goods had been seized on the ground that he was in Indian territory and had no gov- ernment permission to trade. Later his property was restored to him by Major General Hancock.

He had hardly reached his new location before making up his mind that he could not get along without the pres- ence of his sweetheart, who was then at Yankton, a thou- sand miles away. Soon afterward he steamed down the mighty river, and on the 18th of September on a beauti- ful moonlight night at the home of her brother-in-law, Dr. Franklin Wixon, the Reverend Doctor Ward in the presence of a company of friends read the ceremony that united the hearts and hands of Nina B. Burnham and James A. Emmons for a life partnership. At 10 o'clock on the same night the steamboat Miner, with the bride and groom and a large passenger list, started off up the river, with the first bride and groom to arrive at old Edwinton, now Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. In passing it may be noted that the pioneer citizens to this day do not know who placed the hated name of Bismarck upon their town.

Mr. Emmons and wife remained in Bismarck up to 1885, and prospered until the great capitol boom col- lapsed through the greed of a dishonest governor, causing them a loss of the fortune which had required years of toil to accumulate. In 1873 Gen. Edwin S. McCook had come to select three commissioners to organize the County of Burleigh. Captain Emmons was selected as chairman of the board, he being a democrat, and all the other members republicans. He served as chairman of the county board for ten years, and in that time put up all the county buildings. He was then appointed by Judge Shannon as United States Court Commissioner, and in that office served three years. By a special act of the Territorial Legislature he was designated to organize the County of Emmons, which was named for him, and in that work as in every other public capacity he performed

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his duties with a strict fidelity to the public welfare. A few years after locating at Bismarck, when General Custer came to Fort Lincoln, he would allow no one else to act as his captain and pilot in transferring the troops, and Captain Emmons spoke the words of farewell to that noted general when he started out on the fatal expedi- tion which ended with the Custer massacre. After that calamity it devolved upon Captain Emmons and Col. Wil- liam Thompson, who had seen service under General Custer, to break the news to the family at Fort Lincoln. Mrs. Custer being the ranking lady at the fort they had to. communicate their tragic intelligence to her first of all. and it was a most trying ordeal for all concerned.

In 1883 the citizens of the village of Edwinton, now Bismarck, raised a hundred thousand dollars in order to build the capitol. Governor Ordway caused these funds to be withdrawn from two reliable banks and deposited in a bank which he had established himself. As a result of this transfer and misuse of the funds, the citi- zens who had so generously donated their cash aud credit were almost financially ruined. At that time Mr. Emmons was associated with the First National Bank and with William A. Hollenback in building a three-story brick block, the finest steam heated building at that time between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. He had also been appointed by the Territorial Legisla- ture as the commissioner to build a twenty-five thousand dollar public school house. Through the treachery of the governor this accumulation of responsibilities bore heav- ily upon Captain Emmons, and when he left Bismarck in May, 1885, having paid all his debts, he possessed only $400. At that time he had a trunk full of worth- less deeds to town lots of land, which he never recorded until August, 1915.

Captain Emmons then brought his wife back to Nebraska, and leaving her on the old homestead went West to Leadville, Colorado, where he leased a mine twelve miles up the Arkansas River. A short time pre- viously three men had been blown to pieces in a blasting explosion, and the cabin and all the equipment wrecked. He engaged in mining there until his capital had been depleted to $25, and then started back to Lincoln, Nebraska, arriving there with only $10 in his pocket.

Captain Emmons has had almost a veteran's share in the newspaper profession. In 1877 he bought the Bis- marck Tribune, a weekly paper to support the campaign of Hon. Bartlett Tripp for Congress on the democratic ticket. He conducted the paper altogether for about six months, and at the close of the campaign sold it to Stan- ley Huutley and Marshall Jewell, on credit. After his mining ventures in Colorado, Captain Emmons again took up the newspaper business, establishing the Nebraska State Democrat, a weekly paper. This was in 1888. He set up the plant in a new bank building in Lincoln. Prior to the first issue he engaged a young lady to attend a meeting out in the country at a school house, where William Jennings Bryan, then unknown to fame, was to make his maiden speech. The young lady returned with an account of the meeting and a report of the speech, and it was published in the first issue of Mr. Emmons' paper. He continued in the newspaper business at Lin- coln until 1892 and sold out and moved to Guthrie in Oklahoma Territory. Here he became connected with the West South, a populist newspaper, and was one of its editors until September, 1893.

On September 12, 1893, Captain Emmons set out for Stillwater to register for a homestead in the Cherokee Strip. Four days later, on the 16th of September, he was one of the great horde of homeseekers who entered the

strip. He made the run on a very aged gray horse, and and in on the 20th located his homestead claim, now the nucleus formed of the beautiful Wildflower Farm, near Pawnee.

Captain Emmons has from the first taken a great interest in developing this country. He has developed the Egyptian wheat and Fetrita, a grain which Mr. Bryan has prophesied will become the future breadstuff of the world. In the organization of Pawnee County in the early part of 1894 Governor Renfrew appointed Captain Emmons one of the first board of commissioners, and he was made chairman of the board and took a very impor- tant part in organizing the county government. He served three months, supervised the planning of the court house and jail. His friend Charles E. Vandervoort then took up his plans, organized a building company, and constructed the court house and jail. This court house was the first in Oklahoma and did not cost the tax payers a single cent. Captain Emmons and his noble wife have been farming in Pawnee County for twenty- one years, and have never yet failed to raise a crop. They plant from early spring until July, and then with the help of the rains and the wonderful Oklahoma climate, bring in their bounteous harvest. Captain Emmons has for a number of years been a correspondent to some of the leading newspapers in the United States.

MRS. JAMES A. EMMONS is likewise a pioneer of the West, and her associations and experiences are such as to deserve an individual sketch.

Nina Barbara Cole was born at Philadelphia April 15, 1853, a daughter of Howard M. and Louise (Torbert) Cole. Her father, Howard M. Cole, served in the Mexi- can war, according to the official information given by the War Department, as a corporal in Company G of the First Pennsylvania Infantry. He was mustered into service December 17, 1846, was transferred to Company F in the same regiment June 23, 1847, and was honor- ably discharged July 28, 1848.

Howard M. Cole was a victim of the ill-fated steamer San Francisco, and the following information concerning that vessel is a close quotation from the Navy Depart- ment Record. The steamer San Francisco was chartered by the United States Quartermaster's Department Octo- ber 15, 1853, to transport the officers and men of the Third United States Artillery from New York to Benicia, California, and also carried the families of some of the officers and other passengers. The vessel sailed from New York December 22, 1853. Two days later, when about three hundred miles from port, the engines gave out, a heavy sea washed over the steamer, carrying away the entire upper cabin and with it four officers, a number of enlisted men, the wife of Major Taylor, the son of Colonel Gates, commanding the regiment, and a number of the citizen passengers. For four days there was a constant succession of gales. On the 27th the bark Kilby hove in sight, and her commander Captain Lowe lay by the wrecked steamer until the 28th, when the sea having abated in a measure a hawser was used to attach the two vessels, and boats sent back and forth removed the women and children, citizen passengers, about fifty soldiers and some officers to the Kilby. Before the work was completed a sudden squall of wind separated the two vessels, the hawser parted and the vessels drifted apart. The Kilby being unable to render further aid tried to make an American port. She was picked up by the packet ship Lucy Thompson and taken into New York.

On the 30th of December the ship Three Bells, Captain Creighton, hove in sight of the San Francisco, laid by her until January 3, 1854, by which time the waves had sufficiently subsided for those left on the wreck to be taken off. The next day the ship Antarctic, Captain Stouffer, came to their relief and assisted in the rescue of those for whom there was not room on the Three Bells. Captain Watkins, the commander of the San Francisco, was the last man to leave the steamer, and with his

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officers and crew was taken on board the Antarctic to Liverpool, whither she was bound. Before leaving, Captain Watson had the San Francisco scuttled, so she sank as he was leaving. The Three Bells sailed for New York, and largely owing to the hard work and self- sacrificing efforts of its commander, Captain Creighton, and his crew, the ship, though leaking badly, and with her pumps constantly manned, finally came into safety. The sufferings of the passengers on the Kilby were very great, they were reduced to a few handfuls of parched corn daily to each person, the water supply was limited to a wineglassful a day, adverse winds drove them back several times as they neared shore. The providential arrival of the Lucy Thompson January 13th prevented threatened mutiny on board the Kilby. To her the pas- sengers from the San Francisco were transferred and reached New York January 14th. The Kilby eventually reached her port, Boston. The Three Bells arrived in New York January 13th, and though it brought grief to many was a great relief to those watching for news of the disaster, since news of the perilous condition of the San Francisco had come to New York some days before.

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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