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 94

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 94

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said to have begun when he was only twelve years of age. In the meantime he had attended the local schools in Oklahoma City and at that early age left home and assisted Wess Hilton in taking a great herd of some 2,800 head of cattle from Wyoming to Buenos Ayres in South America. After his return from this long voyage he was employed in a garage in Denver, Colorado, and for several years was engaged in making extended trips in automobiles. For two years he was a special detective in the employ of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and for two years after coming to Pawhuska was in the secret service. Since his marriage he has been engaged in ranching and is now owner of 640 acres in his home place and has several hundred acres under lease. Mr. Spurrier has recently completed the finest ranch home in his section of Osage County, it being located on his ranch close to Big Heart.

In December, 1914, he married Sarah L. Bigheart, who was born on the old Big Heart homestead in Osage County August 20, 1898. Her father, the late Chief James Bigheart of the Osage tribe, died in 1908 when about eighty-seven years of age. All his life had been spent among the Osage tribe and he was one of its most distinguished members, and held high rank not only as a business man but as a wise statesman in tribal affairs. Prior to the allotment of the Indian lands he had several thousand acres under fence, and at the allotment received the same share as other members of the tribe. For many years one of the most notable ranches in Osage County is that known as the Big Heart Ranch, and the Town of Big Heart was named for this notable Indian. In a business way he was identified with several banks in his part of the state and had merchandise store interests. About 1885 Chief Bigheart married Alice Butler, who was born in the Cherokee Nation and was a seven- eighths Cherokee in blood. She is now living on the Big Heart homestead. Chief Bigheart and his wife had seven children : Mary, wife of Thomas Clendenning of Broken Arrow; Louis, deceased; Rose Lee, wife of Sherman Deal of Pawhuska; William, deceased; Jose- phine, deceased; Mrs. Spurrier; and Belle, at home with her mother. By a previous marriage Chief Bigheart had one child, Maggie Oberlee, now deceased. The story of Chief Bigheart's marriage reveals an interesting Indian romance. Having found the young woman of his choice, he made the usual arrangements for the marriage with the girl's mother and in the marriage settlement gave a wagon, a team, an old cow and two pigs. How- ever, the Cherokee people objected to his taking away the Indian maiden, and after he was well started on his way with his bride to the Osage country the Cherokees assembled and started after the runaways with guns and determined to restore the bride to her people. Chief Big- heart barely succeeded in crossing the Osage line with his wife in time to escape his pursuers. Once among his own people he was safe, since the Osages were as ready to defend him as the Cherokees were to attack him. In contrast with this experience of his wife's parents, Mr. Spurrier took his bride to their new home in an auto- mobile, over roads that were made almost impassable by heavy rains. Their interesting romance and marriage occurred while Mr. Spurrier was in the secret service, stationed at Big Heart, and engaged in driving a car. There he met the little Indian princess, Miss Lillian Bigheart, now his wife, Mrs. John R. Spurrier, and then their romance started. As several months had passed they decided not to leave each other as long as the grass grew and the water run, and then they began to plan their long journey across the Osage hills and canyons to Pawnee to get married. They had planned this trip to Pawnee several times but something would prevail until finally one afternoon in December they

The independent career of John R. Spurrier may be had planned to start for Pawnee their third time and

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

about 5 p. m. they were off, Mr. Spurrier running his automobile as fast as the roads and car would permit. About half way from Big Heart to Pawnee it began rain- ing and sleeting. Everything seemed against this young couple, but in their hearts they were determined to reach Pawnee before morning. They got lost off of the roads and as all of the ranchers and cowboys had retired it was difficult to arouse them at that late hour by holloing, so Mr. Spurrier used his .45 six-shooter to warn them that there was some one at the road wanting them. They would respond immediately to the reports of his .45 and then would direct him the road to Pawnee which they finally reached at a late hour that night. They were married and back to Big Heart at 5 p. m. the following morning, the car being covered with ice and snow. The little Indian bride got out of the car to go to one of her friends, where she was to spend that night. She bid her squaw man (Mr. Spurrier). good night, and upon arriving at a livery stable, where Mr. Spurrier kept his car he was frozen to the steering wheel of his machine and had to have the assistance of the livery stable man to help him from his car, and it was three weeks before he could hardly use his hands and feet, but he is now enjoying the life of a squaw man and rancher on their magnificent estate near Big Heart, Oklahoma. A daughter, Alice Floreine, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Spurrier on the 8th of September, 1915.

HENRY C. DALE. A recent addition to the citizenship of Yale, Oklahoma, Henry C. Dale was formerly for many years a resident of Kansas, where he was well known in public and business affairs. He was born in Jasper County, Missouri, April 6, 1848, and is a son of Robert J. and Olive (Cox) Dale. The Dale family in America traces its ancestry back to Sir Thomas Dale, the first governor of Virginia.

The great-grandfather of Henry C. Dale, Rev. George Dale, was a Missionary Baptist preacher who passed his entire life in Virginia, and who is remembered chiefly for his large physique, he weighing in the neighborhood of 400 pounds. His son, Elijah Dale, was born in 1794, in Virginia, and as a young man fought in the American army during the War of 1812-14. He was captured by the Indians at the battle of Tippecanoe, November 7, 1811, but after being made to run the gauntlet was exchanged for two blankets and four pounds of beads. Subsequently he moved to Kentucky, and was there mar- ried to Frances Shelton, with whom he moved to Boone County, Missouri, and later to Moniteau County in that state, where he died at the age of seventy-four years, Mrs. Dale surviving him for some time and passing away in Jasper County, aged eighty-eight years. They were the parents of the following children: Alfred, Robert J., James M., Pheldin, Meadley, Mrs. Malinda Griffith, Mrs. Mary Sunday and Mrs. Rebecca Martin.

Robert J. Dale, father of Henry C. Dale, was born in Kentucky in 1820, and in 1838 located with his parents in Jasper Connty, Missouri, where he was married to Oliver Cox, who was born in 1822 in Tennessee and had come to Missonri about the same time as her hus- band. With the exception of seven years, from 1863 until 1870, when they lived in Moniteau County, they passed the remaining years of their lives in Jasper County, and both died at Carthage, the father when ninety years of age and the mother aged abont eighty. He was a farmer, trader and stock dealer, was clerk in the Baptist Church for many years, and in politics was a stanch democrat. They were the parents of two sons and five daughters: George F., of Moniteau County, Missouri; Mary M. Hughes, deceased; Henry C .; Ann F. Wise, of Carthage, Missouri; Permelia B. Howard, of

Cooper Connty, Missouri; Martha J. Johnson, of Carl Junction, Jasper County, Missouri; and Canada Hind, deceased.

Henry C. Dale received his early education in the public schools of Missouri and resided on the home farm with his parents until twenty-three years of age. At that time he further prepared himself by attending school for six months, and for six years thereafter was engaged in teaching in the country schools. He next followed farming for sixteen years, and then took up mining at Galena, Cherokee County, Kansas, but after several years gave up that occupation to engage in the real estate business, which he followed two years. He became the owner of a valuable farming property, which he later sold, and was one of the substantial and highly respected citizens of his community. He was elected justice of the peace of Galena, Kansas, and served in that capacity for twelve years, resigning when he had twenty-two months to serve. On February 14, 1915, he came to Yale, Oklahoma, where he has since been assist- ing his son, Oliver C. Dale, in his extensive and im- portant business operations. Mr. Dale has been a lifelong democrat, and his religious faith is that of the Missionary Baptist Church.

On December 11, 1870, Mr. Dale was married to Miss Emma J. Barker, who was born November 19, 1851, in Moniteau County, Missouri, daughter of Charles L. and Delilah (Eads) Barker. To this union there were born eight children, as follows: Oliver C., mayor of Yale, and one of the leading business men and oil producers of this part of the state, a sketch of whose remarkable career appears elsewhere in this work; Charley, who resides at Galena, Kansas; Arthur, who is deceased; Maggie Lewman, who is deceased; Canzada Jarrett, also deceased; Henry Clay, principal of the high school at Columbus, Kansas; Gordon, who is manager of the O. C. Dale department store, at Yale; and Willa Auna Pettit, of Yale.

MILTON THOMPSON. When it is said that Milton Mír Thompson is the largest property owner and tax payer in that rich and populous County of Payne, it is evident Sand that he has not lived his forty years since birth with- out a great deal of practical accomplishment and success. ful enterprise. In Payne Connty his name is synonymous with push and vigor, and few men in the state starter vrat, t The 18 Scottish with less and have gained more in the course of a com paratively brief space of time. When he was eighteen years of age he left home with only $85.00 as his capital. He came as a pioneer to the Sac and Fox Indial On 3 reservation in Oklahoma, and has long been identified with farming, cattle raising, with merchandising, and more recently with the oil and gas development in the Cushing field. It is noteworthy that Mr. Thompson ha Kans had few partners during his business career. He him self says that his one best partner and chief assistan both at home and in business has been his wife.

Representing a family of Kansas pioneers, Milto: Thompson was born at Atchison, April 6, 1876, a son o Marion and Nancy (Southridge) Thompson. His fathe was born near Chicago, Illinois, and his mother a St. Joseph, Missouri, but they were brought as chi' dren by their respective parents to Atchison, Kansas, a the time Kansas Territory was opened for settlement early in the decade of the '50s. The parents were mat ried at Atchison and the mother died there twenty-eigh years ago. Marion Thompson came to Oklahoma a yea after the opening of the Sac and Fox reservation, ha been a farmer and stock man, and for the past twent years has lived at Avery. He made a record as Union soldier during the Civil war, serving in th

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Fourteenth Kansas, and was out for more than four years.

The sixth son in a family of nine boys and one girl, Milton Thompson has lived in close touch with practical affairs since early boyhood. After getting into in- dependent work for himself, he supplemented the few advantages which he had received in the common schools as a boy, by a course in the business college at Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he was graduated in 1896. He was with his father in the cattle business up to the age of twenty-one, and has since been working independently. Up to 1905 his home was in the vicinity of Avery, and for the past ten years he has been in Cushing. He still has ranching and cattle interests, but has also carried on merchandising at Cushing for a number of years, and still has two stores, one carrying a general stock and the other an exclusive shoe store, but no longer gives his personal supervision to either of these enter- , Le prises. In 1913 Mr. Thompson organized the Oklahoma sist- State Bank at Cushing, and was its president until he sold his stock on January 1, 1915.

As soon as Cushing came into prominence as a center theoof the oil and gas business, Mr. Thompson was identified with the movement, beginning in March, 1912. He has handled many leases and is individual owner of much land which has produced both oil and gas. It is now his unique distinction to be the owner of the largest rock pressure gas well in the world, known as Thompson Well No. 1, situated two miles east and two miles north of Cushing. The gas from this well is sold to one of the pipe line companies, and brings in a revenue of our thousand dollars a month. Mr. Thompson owns ifteen different farms in and about Cushing and in Payne County, and also has a large acreage under lease. n 1913 he built the Thompson Hotel, a modern 100-room hotel at the corner of Cleveland and Broadway in Cush- ng, and the first up to date house of public entertain- nent in the growing young city. For some time he vas president of the First National Bank of Terlton, Oklahoma, but resigned that office when the institution vas changed to a state bank.

Mr. Thompson's comfortable ten-room house in Cush- ng, where he and his wife reside, was originally the principal building improvement on a tract of fifty acres, which has since been laid out as the Thompson & High -. and Addition, and this part of the city is now well built p with homes. Politically Mr. Thompson is a demo- rat, though only a voter and in no sense a politician. He is affiliated with the local lodge of Masons, with the Scottish Rite Consistorv at Guthrie and the Temple of he Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City.

On Mav 2, 1898, Mr. Thompson married Miss Mande t in thackes. She was born in West Virginia, but was reared psou huh Kansas, a daughter of J. M. and Elizabeth A. (Smith) He lim Cekes. Her mother is now living at Wellington, Kansas. assistam [er father. who died in the Thompson home at Cushing, pril 20. 1912, was a Methodist Episcopal preacher and , Miltonpent four years as a soldier in the Twenty-second Ohio Regiment during the Civil war. Mrs. Thompson is an His father mother a t as chil Kansas, a settlement were mar renty-eigh ma a yea ctive worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church. She as like her husband been identified with Oklahoma for hany years, and finished her education in the State formal at Edmond. She was one of the first school achers in Lincoln County, and her first school was held a log building without a floor. She possesses almost Inique ability as a business woman, and Mr. Thompson ration, haives her full credit for his great success in business ost twentifairs. She was his bookkeeper in the stores as long word as as he gave his personal supervision to that branch of his ng in thasinese

Vol. V-21

FREEMAN E. MILLER. Fortunate it is for the weary and workaday world that there are those whose lives are attuned to deep human sympathy and appreciation, who find time and opportunity to touch upon and glorify the common things of life, who in realm of fancy and gracious ideality of thought come near to the castles of their dreams and who trail the beatitudes in their train. Such a man is Prof. Freeman E. Miller, who is a native of Indiana and worthy to be classed among the foremost in the galaxy of Hoosier stars in the literary firmament. His dreams have crystallized into deeds of kindness and into inspiring thoughts and sentiments that have offered lesson and incentive to all who have read or heard. Professor Miller has played a large part in bringing the manifold attractions and advantages of Oklahoma before the reading and thinking people of the Union, and his reputation as a poet, author, editor, lawyer, legislator and educator has far transcended local limitations. He has been consistently designated the poet laureate of Oklahoma, and he is now the incumbent of the chair of English in the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, at Stillwater, Payne County, a position which he had previously filled when the institution was in the initial stage of its development. Oklahoma shall ever owe much to Professor Miller, and this publication can not be consistent with itself if there is failure to pay to him a measure of appreciative tribute. So admirable is the estimate written by C. M. Sarchet and published in Daily Oklahoman of Sunday, August 29, 1915, that it is a pleasing privilege to incorporate at this juncture cer- tain quotations from the article, though minor para- phrase and certain elimination must necessarily be in- dulged in the reproduction :

"Freeman E. Miller, of Stillwater, Oklahoma's poet laureate, criminal lawyer and newspaper man, has been showing up the bright side of life and of things in gen- eral to the people of Oklahoma for so many years that his writings are proving to be a prolonged 'journey in contentment' for the many who have followed him-and that means thousands. For the man or woman who reads Miller's 'Oklahoma Sunshine,' which has been appear- ing in the Daily Oklahoman for the past ten years, his daily little sermons, cotton-patch philosophy, sayings by the way, and from the short-grass country, can not help be benefitted. They put a song in the heart of men, lighten the labors, brighten the daily life and keep dull care far in the background. Miller is constantly directing his pen that others may be happier. He preaches individual effort as the best method of dis- pelling sorrow and dissatisfaction-declaring that the man who is busy at honest labor is the happiest man of the human race. 'When a man whistles at his work,' writes Miller, 'the angels come down to boss the job.' And again he writes: 'Dis ole worl' am all de time chtuhning debright side up, so break up dem dahrk specs on youah eyes an' grab a hoc.' and another time- 'there may be more devotion in tears than in laughter, but I'll tie up with the latter and take the risk.'

"Miller is a Hoosier by birth; perhaps that's one of the main reasons that he is a poet. He came to Okla- homa when President Harrison, also a Hoosier, issued the proclamation that opened this country to white settle- ment, in 1889, and he located in Stillwater. He was a newspaper man, owned and edited a weekly paper, and he has returned to the pastepot and shears several times since. He has always found it difficult, although a suc- cessful criminal lawyer, to keep away from a newspaper office, and his friends are never surprised when he breaks over the traces again.

"There are numerous sweet singers developing through- out Oklahoma, but the newspaper men have always liked Miller, not only because he is one of them but also

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HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

because he has a way of saying things that appeals to the average reader. There is no parent that can not appreciate his 'Santa Claus Boy.'

"It was as editor of a country weekly that Miller first won fame throughout the Southwest as a poet, when Oklahoma was still young. His paper always contained some verses by the editor, but his distinction as Okla- homa's poet laureate was when he composed the poem read when the Oklahoma building at the St. Louis expo- sition was dedicated. That was 'Oklahoma.' In his Stillwater Advance and later in his Stillwater Progress there appeared 'The Opening of Oklahoma,' 'The Ballad of the Alamo,' 'The Plaint of the Tenderfoot,' 'The Faith Cure,' and other poems. When statehood came he was ready with 'The Birth of the State,' and when the constitutional convention assembled in Guthrie, late in 1906, it was opened by the clerk's reading of Miller's poem, 'The Builders':

" ' Oh Builders, called forth of the people!

Not only for us is your toil!

For tribes that shall follow through shadows the paths of the stars and the soil,

Through seed-time and harvest forever, whatever ye fashion or frame

Shall live till the land is legend and time is a meaning- less name! '

"Things that happen in Oklahoma and that are told about in the news columns of the papers, the current events, are promptly made use of by Miller. When a Territory election was over, a number of years ago, and the democrats were overwhelmingly defeated in Okla- homa and also in the nation at large-Miller is a demo- crat-he comforted his party comrades with a resignation that caused the verses to be the most widely copied of all of his productions up to that time. All of his verses have been free-will offerings. They appeared originally in his paper, 'without money and without price,' but they increased the paper's circulation just the same. And for ten years past they have been appearing regu- larly in the Sunday issues of the Daily Oklahoman, ever carrying their sermon of contentment :

" 'Needn't talk to me of sorrow, Needn't tell of Sorrow Town, For the blossoms heap the highways Till they hold the brambles down.'

"He preached contentment and happiness in his 'Birth of the State,' outlining that the state that is wealthy is not the best unless the character of its men and women is high and its people are happy :

" 'Glory and peace and power, but greater than all of these

Is the smile of a happy people and the laugh of a land at ease,

And the states that are rich and mighty are poor and helpless yet,

If the lips of its men are ashen and the eyes of its women wet! '

" 'So fashion the state in glory, but build it wise and good,

And build it strong for the weak ones and rich for the peasant 's brood;

And fashion it all with justice, till the joys of the peo- ple's mirth

Shall conquer the ancient sorrows and gladden the sad of earth. '

"For a long time Miller has had his weekly grist of 'little sermons' for the readers, and they contain many good, pithy sayings :

" 'No one except Christ ever called the devil Satan to his face; and then they went up into a high mountain and into a private place where no one else could hear the muss.'

" ' All that Joy asks is a place to eat aud sleep and fairly good company; but when you bring Old Trouble into the kitchen and go to introducing him to the family, right then Joy tells you goodbye.'

"It is necessary in treating of Miller to give him due credit for being the first member of an Oklahoma Legis- lature to introduce a 'Jim Crow' or separate-coach law. Many have claimed this distinction, but to Miller it be- longs. He represented his County of Payne in the old Oklahoma Territorial senate on several occasions, and in 1901, six years prior to statehood, he fathered a bill that sought to compel all railroads in the territory to furnish separate coaches for negroes. Later his idea was enacted into a statute of the state. Miller has always been a prominent figure in politics, but never a partisan. An Indiana democrat, he has frequently re turned to his native state to campaign it for his party's nominees, and he has been on the ticket in Oklahoma 01 several occasions. He was twice the nominee for dis trict judge, but on both occasions in a district that wa: decidedly republican in its voting.

"In the near future the people of Oklahoma are to see Freeman E. Miller in a new role to many of them but an old role to the first-day people of old Oklahom: Territory-that of instructor in English in the Oklahom: Agricultural and Mechanical College, at Stillwater. H held the chair of English when that institution was firs opened, in the early '90s, but later retired to go back t newspaper work. Now, after many years, he is to re turn and be in charge of the English department. I was a deserved honor and his selection will give a di: tinction to the school. If the young men who atten the college will get close to Miller, and it will not be h. fault if they do not, they will find him a fine, ente taining gentleman, an ever-ready friend; and if the will heed his sermons in contentment they will find life pathways have been smoothed down in their journeying to 'Happy Town':

" 'Folks are always apt and able all their hearts' d sires to crown,

If they journey to the sunrise at the gates of Hapı Town.

They are always finding blossoms in the glories of t. dew,

That will crown their dearest longings and their roy robes renew.' "'

It may be further stated at this juncture that Profess Miller's ode entitled "Oklahoma " was read on Oklahor Day, July 19, 1915, at the Oklahoma Building, Panar Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, Ca fornia, and that the beautiful and appreciative poem reproduced in full on other pages of this publication.

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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