A History of the State of Oklahoma 1908

home page
99-109
pages 78-89
Vol. 2 site map

divider

-89-

DR. H. COULTER TODD. It is a proof of the rapid growth of Oklahoma City and its assumption of metropolitan proportions, that professions and industries have spread out into specialized forms here to as great extent as in cities with a century of history behind them. A few years ago one would not have looked for specialists in medicine outside of the few largest Cities of the country, and yet at the present time the larger cities of the southwest have representatives of the different branches of the profession with all the advantages of training and study that the best schools of the world offer, and with talent and skill that need not yield precedence to the best in America. Oklahoma deserves and demands the highest talents and the greatest industry that men possess, and in the sphere of medicine as in other professions and industries there can be no question that the demand bas been answered by men of the highest qualifications.
    Dr. H. Coulter Todd, of Oklahoma City, is a specialist in diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, who has availed himself of the highest facilities in post-graduate work to fit himself for this department of special practice. During the winter of 1905-06 he studied in London and other European centers, principally in the Royal London Ophthalmologic College and the Central London Throat and Ear Hospital. Since then he has been practicing his specialty in partnership with Dr. Buxton, another distinguished member of the medical profession in Oklahoma City.
    Dr. Todd has been identified with the practice of medicine and surgery in Oklahoma. City since the fall of 1902, when he came from the east with the intention of building a name and place for himself on his own merits, an end that he has succeeded in attaining during the past five years. He is president of the Central Oklahoma Medical Association, having been elected in January, 1901, at the annual meeting held in Enid; is also a member of the Oklahoma County and the American Medical associations. In addition to his private practice, Dr. Todd is secretary of the medical department of the Epworth University, an institution which, although of recent establishment, is in a flourishing condition, and its faculty contains some of the most brilliant men in the medical profession in the southwest. Dr. Todd is professor of anatomy, of clinical otology, rhinology and laryngology.
Dr. Todd inherits his faculty of research and scholarly skill from a line of ancestors who have been prominently represented in the professions and in public and private life in America since the colonial period. His parents were Rev. F. S. and Sarah Elizabeth (Black) Todd. On the paternal side, the Todds were a prominent Scotch family distinguished in scholarship and professional ability, especially in theology. Rev. F. S. Todd, who is still living, is and has peen for a long number of years a minister of the Baptist church in New Brunswick and the state of Maine. His father, Rev. Dr. Thomas Todd (grandfather of Dr. Todd) was probably the most distinguished of the family in the ministry, having been widely known all over the Canadian provinces, not only as a theologian and church dignitary, but as a profound scholar whose

-90-

learning comprehended many branches of knowledge aside from his regular profession. He was one of the board of regents of Acadia College in Nova Scotia, and in numerous ways was distinguished in the field of letters and scholarship.Sarah Elizabeth Black, Dr. Todd's mother, who is now deceased, belongs to an American family of English origin, whose home was in the colonies before the Revolution, but their allegiance to the cause of the United Empire Loyalists estranged them from their neighbors during the struggle for independence and in consequence they moved to the Canadian provinces.
    Dr. Todd was born in the province of New Brunswick, at the town of Woodstock in 1874. Receiving the best of educational advantages, he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Acadia College, Nova Scotia, in 1897, and has since received the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution (Acadia College is affiliated with Oxford University of England). His medical education was acquired in the medical department of Bowdoin College, at Brunswick, Maine, where he was graduated as M. D. in the class of 1900. Until coming to Oklahoma he practiced in the town of Brunswick. Dr. Todd was married at the town of Calais, Maine, to Miss Carrie Eulilla Lenehan. They have one child, Dane Lee Todd.


Return to top

-90-
cont.

DR. ARCHA K. WEST. The present dean of the faculty of the medical department of Epworth University, and likewise one of the founders of this school, is Dr. Archa K. West, one of the ablest physicians 'and surgeons of Oklahoma. Since locating in Oklahoma City in 1899 he has achieved high success and distinction in his profession, and besides having been so active in making Epworth University medical department a strong factor in medical education, has been honored in other ways to indicate his high rank. He is ex-president of the Oklahoma Medical Association, is a member of the various medical societies, including the American Medical Association and in 1907 was selected as delegate from the new state of Oklahoma to the annual convention of the American Medical Association.
    Besides a thorough equipment for practice obtained in the regular courses of medical preparation, Dr. West during his early life had a training that only a few physicians have, even those living in the southwest. He was born at Waynesboro, Mississippi, July 9, 1865, but lived there only thirteen years, and at that age accompanied the family to Uvalde county, Texas. For the following dozen years his chief activities and experience were connected with the great Texas cattle range. He was a real "cow puncher," and in that vocation rode his cayuse all over western Texas from San Antonio to El Paso. This sort of life gave him a training that he has found of great practical value in his subsequent career. When he began his professional preparation, he pursued most of his studies at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, but finished his medical education at the Memphis Hospital Medical College, where he was graduated in the class of 1894. He first practiced at Smithville, Bastrop county, Texas, until moving to Oklahoma City in 1899. Here Dr. West is chief surgeon of the Oklahoma Street Railway Co. Dr. West was married in Uvalde county, Texas, to Miss Mary Hancock, and they have six children— Leonard H., Willis K., Leah P., Maury A., Gillean R. and Katharine May.


Return to top

-90-
cont.

JOSEPH M. POSTELLE. M. D., who fills the chairs of Materia Medica and Therapeutics and of Gastro-Intestinal Diseases at Epworth University medical school, is one of the prominent physicians of Oklahoma City, where he has been engaged in practice since 1900. With a large practice in general medicine he has also gained a distinctive reputation as a specialist on diseases of the stomach. In connection with his offices, it should be noted, he has a general laboratory that has the most extensive and modern equipment in the southwest, and is a much appreciated convenience to the medical profession of Oklahoma City, particularly for all kinds of chemical analyses, blood analyses, etc.
    As a member of the faculty of Epworth University medical school Dr. Postelle has been a very useful and energetic worker, not only as an instructor in his special branches, but for the improvement and upbuilding of the school. Both as an educator and as a practitioner he has become a valuable factor in the active citizenship of Oklahoma City. Dr. Postelle was born in 1865, during a temporary residence of his parents at Lafayette, Indiana. On the paternal side his ancestry is French Hugenot, his great-

-91-

grandfather coming from France to Virginia, and the family later becoming identified with North Carolina and east Tennessee. At the old family home at Ducktown in east Tennessee, near the Carolina line, Dr. Postelle spent his youthful years, attending the public schools and the Ducktown Academy. His first study of medicine was under a private tutor, Dr. L. Lankford, of Norfolk, Virginia, and he completed his medical education by graduation from the Baltimore Medical College in 1894. Before coming to Oklahoma City he was engaged in practice at Ducktown. Dr. Postelle has advanced in proficiency by constant study of the sciences connected with his profession. At the Turck laboratories and Post-Graduate Medical School of Chicago he took courses in diseases of the stomach, and his private investigations consume a considerable share of his time. He is a member of the staff of St. Anthony's Hospital, and also a member of the county and state and the American Medical Association. Dr. Postelle was married at Ducktown to Miss Emma Bray of that town. She is a descendant of a well known English family of that name. Their four children are Joseph Fred, Guy, Ruth and Kathryn.


Return to top

-91-
cont.

DR. GEORGE DAVIDSON McLEAN has practiced in Oklahoma City since September, 1902. He has a large general practice in the city, and is one of the most successful of the younger physicians. Professionally, he is connected with the county, state and the Southwestern Medical societies, and also the American Medical Association. Dr.
McLean, is a graduate of the medical department of the Vanderbilt University at Nashville, having been a member of the class of 1902. Besides an extensive preparation for his profession, he received an excellent literary education preliminary thereto, being a graduate with the class of 1897 from the University of Mississippi at Oxford.
Dr, McLean inherits the profession of medicine from his father and grandfather, and other members of the family in the different generations have also been physicians. Dr. McLean was born at Winona, Mississippi, in 1877, a son of Dr. J. L. and Margaret (Rainey) McLean. His father, who lived for a long number of years at Winona, where he was born, moved to Memphis, in 1902, and is one of the prominent practitioners of that city, also holding the chair of gynecology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of that place. Ancestrally, the family is Scotch and of long and distinguished residence in America. Several members of the McLean clan came from the north of Scotland to America in 1720. The military record of the family in America begins with conflicts against the Seminole Indians in Florida, and later, at King's Mountain and other battles of the Revolution, the McLeans fought against their traditional enemy, the British. After the achievement of American independence, some of the Doctor's immediate ancestors settled in east central Tennessee and were among the founders of the city of Nashville. His grandfather was a pioneer of Mississippi, moving to that state when it was occupied principally by the Choctaw Indians. Dr. McLean's mother, now deceased, was also of direct Scotch ancestry, the Raineys having come from Scotland about the same time as the McLeans.


Return to top

-91-
cont.

GREGORY A. WALL, M. D. The president of the board of directors of the Oklahoma Medical College, and also one of the incorporators of the institution in the fall of 1907, is Dr. Gregory A. Wall, who has been successfully engaged in practice in Oklahoma City since 1900. In the college he occupies the chair of diseases of women. He is a physician of long experience, and this with his professional ability makes him a valuable head for the new school.
    Dr. Wall was born at Waterloo, Monroe county, Illinois, January 1, 1866. Both parents were natives of Ireland, whence they came to America and settled in Monroe county, Illinois, in the forties. The mother died during the infancy of her son Gregory, but the father, John Wall, is still living, at Springfield, Missouri, most of his life having been spent in agricultural occupations. The grade and high schools of Waterloo furnished Dr. Wall his preliminary education. He prepared for his profession in St. Louis Medical College, from which he was graduated in 1886, when twenty one years old. For the following ten years he was engaged in practice at Topeka, Kansas, where he had a large and profitable following until 1896, when he was compelled to relinquish practice on account of ill health, and did not actively resume it until he moved to Oklahoma City in 1900. Just before locating in Oklahoma he pursued

-92-

general post-graduate work in Chicago. Dr. Wall is a member of the Oklahoma County and State Medical societies and the Southwest Medical Association. He was married in this city to Miss Sallie Stiff, who was born and reared in McKinney, Collin county, Texas.


Return to top

-92-
cont.

DR IRA L RAMEY, who located at Oklahoma City in 1903, has gained a profitable practice as physician and surgeon, and has been especially successful and has made a reputation as a specialist in surgery and diseases of women. He deserves his high rank among the medical fraternity by his close application and a prolonged period of study, which he has carried on almost without interruption, since he received his degree from medical school, twenty-five years ago.
    Dr. Ramey was born in Medora, Jackson county, Indiana, in 1857. In 1869 his parents moved to Perry county, Arkansas, and there he finished his literary education. He studied for his profession in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, graduating in 1882. His practice was begun at Perryville, in his home county, but after a few years he moved to Mena, Arkansas, in the western part of the state, Mena being a division point on the Kansas City Southern Railway. Besides attending to a large general practice, he was surgeon for the Kansas City Southern at that point. He lived at Mena until his removal to Oklahoma City about five years ago. Dr. Ramey's first wife was Mrs. Mollie (Stover) Rainey, a native of Tennessee, daughter of John Stover, a prominent man of that state. Mrs. Ramey died in Arkansas, leaving two children, Mrs. Ethel Meador and Eugene B. Dr. Ramey's present wife was before her marriage Miss Louise Owen, a native of Tennessee. They have two children: Mrs. Maud Barrow of Memphis, Tennessee, and Miss Hallie, now attending school at Birmingham, Alabama.


Return to top

-92-
cont.

DR. FRANCIS M. JORDAN. One of the oldest of the pioneer physicians of Oklahoma is Dr. Francis M. Jordan, who retired from active practice about six years ago, but is still well known to the profession. Dr. Jordan has been in the southwest for nearly a quarter of a century. After spending the early part of his professional career in Illinois, he moved to Kingman in Kingman county, Kansas, about 1883, located at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1886, being physician for St. Luke's hospital a year, and in 1887 came to Purcell, Indian Territory. During the two years preceding the Oklahoma opening he was surgeon for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad at this point, and was also, examiner for several life insurance companies.
    This practice brought him an intimate knowledge of this region, and when Oklahoma was opened to settlement in 1889, he was close at hand and joined in the rush with thousands of others from the south line of the territory; Being attracted to the site now covered by Oklahoma City he chose to take up a quarter section lying about a mile east of the town (the northeast quarter of section 35, town 12, range 3 west). He had to dispute the occupation of this land with "sooners," and a seven years' contest in the courts was necessary before he could establish his claim and receive a patent from the government for his homestead. At this excellent situation, almost alongside a growing town with unlimited possibilities, he built a home and engaged in practice in addition to improving his homestead. Since retiring from practice he has been busied with the supervision of his property interests, due to the fact that the growth of Oklahoma City has overspread what was at the time of his settlement, farm land well apart from the townsite. Part of his estate has been sold for city subdivisions and other purposes, but he still keeps thirty-five acres for a homestead that is one of the most attractive and valuable places in the vicinity of the city. His residence, situated on an elevation that commands a view of city and country, is a landmark. Of late years Dr. Jordan has made a specialty of fruit-raising, but in earlier years when, general farming was the principal occupation of Oklahoma, his place was a profitable wheat, cattle and dairy farm. The land adjoining this place was selected in 1907 as the permanent site for the Oklahoma State Fair.
    Dr. Jordan has been a member of the medical profession upwards of forty years. He was born in Menard county, near Springfield, Illinois, in 1836, a son of Henry and Keziah (Hall) Jordan. His home life and early surroundings were elevating and are of more than ordinary interest. His father, a native of Ohio, had located at Springfield,

-93-

Illinois, before the capital of the state was located there. In Menard county, where most of his life was spent, he was one of the prominent early citizens. He was sheriff of the county at the time of the arrest and trial for murder of Duff Armstrong, a trial that has become a feature of national history because of the prominence of the attorney who defended Armstrong—Abraham Lincoln, then at the beginning of his career. Lincoln lived at old Salem, just six miles distant from the Jordan home, where he was an occasional visitor. Another celebrity who found hospitable entertainment in the Jordan household was Peter Cartwright, known through the middle west for his energetic and successful work as an evangel of the Methodist church. The Jordan house served as this preacher's sanctuary several times, and later Mr. Jordan donated the ground for the Methodist church that was built near his home, and throughout his life was a prominent member of that denomination. Henry Jordan moved from Menard county in 1852 to Elkhart in Logan county, and thence to Macon county. On the maternal side Dr. Jordan has a grandfather who was a soldier in the Revolution.
    Dr. Jordan received his early education in Menard county and in Springfield, graduated from the state normal at Bloomington in 1863, and for three years was principal of the graded school of Elkhart in Logan county. For some time he also engaged in farming and cattle raising. He began the study of medicine under private tutelage at Decatur, Illinois, and also began practice there, but soon after located in Chicago where he remained three years, having his office at the corner of Twelfth and Loomis streets. In 1870 he continued his professional studies in Rush Medical College, but did not take the final course and graduate from that well known medical school, until 1879. From Chicago he moved to Sangamon county, Illinois, practicing at Berlin and later at Pleasant Plains. Politically, Dr. Jordan has a distinction that certainly belongs to few citizens of Oklahoma, in that he is one of the original members of the Republican party, voting for John C. Fremont, in 1856, and has been a member of the party ever since. The doctor was married in Illinois to Miss Rachel M. Mitchner. They have two children, Aura and Frank T.


Return to top

-93-
cont.

John Louis MitchJOHN LOUIS MITCH. Oklahoma City was represented in the convention by two delegates, John Louis Mitch and W. C. Hughes. Mr. Mitch served as a member of the committee on revenue and taxation, the committee on education, and the committee on revision, compilation and style of the constitution. Representing the metropolis of the new state, both members were very watchful of the interests of Oklahoma City, scrutinizing with great care the provisions embodied in the fundamental law with reference to municipal corporations. Mr. Mitch was especially diligent and helpful in framing the school legislation, having been closely identified with education ever since coming to Oklahoma.
    Mr. Mitch, who belongs among the pioneer citizens of Oklahoma, was born and reared in Fayette county, Kentucky, the year of his birth being 1850. His parents were of direct French ancestry. He completed an excellent education at the University of Kentucky at Lexington. Going west in 1878, and spending the greater part of the following fifteen years in Colorado, he was engaged at first in the sheep business on an extensive scale and later in the cattle business. Starting with a very limited number of sheep, in a few years he had become one of the largest and most prominent livestock men in Colorado, his sheep in very fact being scattered over a hundred hills. But during the latter eighties occurred the first hostile wool legislation, and as a consequence the price of wool fell so rapidly that few of the sheepmen of this western country escaped disaster and ruin. Mr. Mitch fed 5,000 head of sheep at Hutchinson, Kansas, when the break came, and he had to dispose of them at tremendous sacrifices, many of them going for thirty-five cents a head. During most of his residence in Colorado Mr. Mitch's headquarters were at Rocky Ford.
    Shortly after the opening of Oklahoma in the summer of 1889 he came to the territory for the purpose of retrieving his broken fortunes and making his permanent residence in the new and promising country. Edmond, in Oklahoma county, was his first home, and while there he helped organize the Bank of Edmond (which later became the First National Bank) and was its cashier. The educational interests of the town also received much attention and personal

-94-

effort from Mr. Mitch. He has always been particularly devoted to the welfare of the Territorial Normal School at that point. On account of his earnest and efficient efforts to keep the Normal in existence during the hard times and his continued interest in the institution and its teachers, he became known as the father of the Normal, of which he was elected one of the board of regents.
    Since 1901 Mr. Mitch has lived in Oklahoma City. In 1902 he was elected register of deeds of Oklahoma county, was re-elected in 1904, and gave the highest satisfaction to the public in this important position. At the last general election, 1907, he was also chosen delegate to the constitutional convention. Mr. Mitch, though but fifty-eight years old, made a record in the Civil war that entitles him to a veteran's honor. As a mere boy he marched and fought in the Union ranks, and to prove that he deserved as much glory as the alder soldiers, he several times suffered wounds in battle. Mr. Mitch married, at Edmond, Miss Lora D. Blizzard, a native of Indiana, and later a resident of Kansas. She was a student at Edmond and a teacher in the public school there. They have two children, John Louis, Jr. and Lora May.


Return to top

-94-
cont.

ANDREW T. PAYNE. The business record of Andrew T. Payne has been a steady and continuous mounting of the ladder of his own building to success and prominence. And success is not measured by the height which one may chance to occupy but also by the distance between the starting point and the altitude one has reached. Andrew T. Payne began his career as a driver of an express wagon for the American Express Company, at Macon, Missouri, in 1881, and by a steady and persistent climbing, going from one position to another as opportunity offered and as his own worth and merit became known, he has now reached the position of division superintendent .of the Wells Fargo Express Company, with jurisdiction over all the new states of the southwest.
    Born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1862, he was but a child when his parents moved to Iowa and located on a farm in Wapello county, and he was reared as a farmer boy there. From an express wagon driver in Macon, Missouri, he became express messenger, and about 1882 began running on the Santa Fe Railroad in the service of Wells, Fargo & Company on their lines west and southwest of Kansas City. By subsequent promotions from this company he came through Oklahoma in 1892 as a traveling auditor, and in this position he became familiar with many of the interesting and thrilling incidents of the early life in this state, particularly in the railroad express service. Some of the most notable express robberies and train hold-ups in the southwest took place in this country in the early nineties. Mr. Payne also served as agent for his company for some time at Wichita, Kansas, and during about seven years previous to assuming the duties of his present position he was assistant superintendent for the company at Kansas City. Early in 1907, he was appointed division superintendent for the Wells, Fargo Company of the Oklahoma Division, which embraces all the new states, and in this position he travels over the Santa Fe, Frisco, the Choctaw Division of the Rook Island, the Midland Valley, and the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe lines. His headquarters and his home are in the city of Oklahoma.
    Mr. Payne married Miss Anna Reynolds, of Wapello county, Iowa, and their only son is Donald Payne.


Return to top

-94-
cont.

CHARLES A. McNABB is known as one of the most successful farmers and horticulturists in the southwest. He has accomplished his splendid results through concentrated effort, deep thought and study of the business and keeping abreast of modern methods and discoveries. He was appointed by Governor Ferguson to the position of secretary of the Territorial Board of Agriculture, and served in that' office for two and a half years, his tenure of office expiring on the advent of statehood, October 6, 1907. During that time he worked energetically and unremittingly for improvement in the condition and resources of the farmers in Oklahoma, and a review of what he accomplished in that direction shows that his work was of inestimable benefit to the state. He organized farmers institutes in every county in Oklahoma Territory, and up to the time statehood came in had organized twenty of the counties in Indian Territory. He personally gave a large number of lectures and demonstrations in these institutes, his principal work being in urging and showing the financial benefit of diversification of crops and of more extended stock raising. The growing of alfalfa was one of his favorite

-95-

enterprises for fanners, and directly as a result of his efforts there have been thousands and thousands of acres of Oklahoma lands given up to this profitable crop that were formerly giving poor returns to their owners in wheat. Mr. McNabb largely concentrated his efforts on the alfalfa proposition in the northwestern part of Oklahoma, the "Strip" country, beginning in Garfield county, with the result that that section of the state, including the counties of Garfield, Kingfisher, Grant, Alfalfa, Woods and Majors, now contains some of the largest and richest alfalfa farms in the west, and several alfalfa mills have been established in those counties. The acreage of wheat has been cut down fifty per cent. Through the influence of these institutes the farmers have also gone more largely into other fields of profitable enterprise, such as raising corn, fruit and high grade live stock. One of the more recent questions that Mr. McNabb took up was that of sheep raising, with the result that hundreds of farmers began to make investigations and preparations for going into the sheep business.
    In horticulture particularly Mr. McNabb has been looked upon as authority throughout the southwest for a number of years, and has been very energetic in the development of horticultural interests in Oklahoma. He was one of the charter members of the original Oklahoma Horticultural Society, organized in 1891. He was in attendance at every meeting but one of that society from its organization until in 1907 it was dissolved to give place to the present Oklahoma State Board of Agriculture. Through the efforts of the Horticultural Society a uniformity of action was obtained with reference to the selection of varieties of fruits and the dissemination of all kinds of information that aided very materially in the development of fruit growing in the state. No man has put in the amount of work for the public benefit as has Mr. McNabb. To his individual efforts belong the credit of organizing Oklahoma along civic improvement lines. He organized civic improvement clubs throughout Oklahoma, and followed this up with lectures giving valuable ideas in the work of civic improvement. This work includes farming regions as well as cities, and one of its main features is the influencing of farmers to beautify the surroundings of their home. He is president of the Oklahoma City Civic Improvement Club.
Since retiring from the position of secretary of the Oklahoma Board of Agriculture Mr. McNabb has devoted a part of his time to the real estate and loan business in Oklahoma City. In the early years of the history of the city, before he purchased his farm, he was for three years a member of the city council from the Fourth ward.
    Born in Green county, Ohio, December II, 1861, Mr. McNabb is a son of Milton and Amanda (Didie) McNabb. The father was also born in Greene county, and his father, a member of a Scotch family, was born in western Pennsylvania but was one of the first settlers of Ohio. His name was Abner William McNabb, and he came on a raft down the Ohio river looking for a location beyond the Alleghanies, locating first on the Kentucky side, but remained there only a short while and with his family located permanently in Greene county, Ohio.
    Charles A. McNabb came west in 1885 and located in Winfield, Kansas. He had been reared on a farm, and farming had been his principal occupation. On the 22d of April, 1889, he took part in the opening of the Territory of Oklahoma, locating on that day in Oklahoma City, where he was in business until 1895 and then bought a quarter section of land, the northeast quarter of section 22, township 12, range 3, west, three miles north of Oklahoma City, and began farming and horticultural operations. He has since sold a part of this land, but still retains the principal portion of the farm, and although he still carries on its work his home is in the city. .
    Before coming west he married in Dayton, Ohio, Miss Callie Seeger, of that city, and their four children are Fred C., Jeannette, Mildred and Marie.


Return to top

-95-
cont.

DAVID McKINSTRY. Among the men of marked enterprise and business ability who are pushing forward the wheels of progress and contributing to the substantial upbuilding and improvement of the new state of Oklahoma, is David McKinstry, a capitalist of Oklahoma City, whose wise counsel and keen discernment have been and are important factors in the success of many business concerns. He is now president of the Perry Mill Company, a director of the Pioneer Telephone Company and an officer of the Oklahoma Refining Company, while in other concerns he is financially interested.
    Mr. McKinstry is a native of Ulster county, New York, and his father was president of

-96-

the Wallkill Valley Railroad. The McKinstrys are of Scotch lineage of several generations residence in the historic Ulster county. David McKinstry pursued his early education in the local schools and afterwards attended the Riverview Military Academy at Poughkeepsie, New York. He continued to reside in his native county until 1892, when he removed to the west, first locating at Denver, Colorado, but in 1893—the year of the opening of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma—he went to Perry, Noble county, where he built a mill and established the business which for several years has been conducted under the name of the Perry Mill Company. This is one of the most important and successful industrial plants in the state. It has a capacity of four hundred barrels of flour per day and two hundred barrels of corn meal, and in connection therewith is operating an elevator with a capacity of two hundred thousand bushels. The company enjoys a large domestic and export trade' in hard wheat flour, and the excellence of its product is a guarantee of a continued sale. The plant is thoroughly equipped for the conduct of the business along the most modern lines of milling and as a factor in its control Mr. McKinstry displays the capable demonstrative direction and executive force which have been marked characteristics in his life.
    A man of resourceful ability, he has extended his efforts to various lines. He built and managed the water works and electric light plant at Perry, also erected and put in operation an ice factory there and in many ways has been prominently connected with the industrial upbuilding and consequent prosperity of the town. Early in 1907, while still retaining his mill and other interests at Perry, he removed to Oklahoma City, and in that year began the erection of one of the finest and costliest residences of the city, located on West Fifteenth street near Walker. It was completed in 1908 and would be a credit to a city of much larger size. Since coming here he has been elected one of the directors of the Security National Bank, one of the leading financial institutions of the state. His business capacity is so well known as to make his co-operation continuously sought and thus he has become a prominent factor in industrial and commercial circles.
    Mr. McKinstry was married in Wichita, Kansas, to Miss Leona Herzer, and their position is one of notable social prominence. Mr. McKinstry is a genial, cordial gentleman, of marked individuality and strong force of character. Such has been his business discernment and his unfaltering industry that he seems to have accomplished at anyone point of his business career the possibilities for successful accomplishments, and as the years have passed he has progressed to a position of prominence in the state, his labors proving a source of value in its upbuilding and advancement in the territorial days.


Return to top

-96-
cont.

MEADE MILLER, whose valuable homestead farm lies southwest of the city and on which natural gas prospecting is being done, was born in Madison county, Kentucky, in 1876, and was reared on a farm in Jessamine county, that state, receiving his education principally in the schools of Nicholasville. Coming to Oklahoma in 1899 he bought his present homestead seven miles southwest of Oklahoma City, in section 26, Oklahoma county, where he owns four hundred acres of rich farming land. He has been gratifyingly successful in his farming and business operations, but in 1905 he moved his home from the farm to Oklahoma City, where he owns a beautiful residence in Maywood, No. 629 East Ninth street.
    In March of 1908; while boring a well for water a pocket of natural gas was struck on Mr. Miller's farm, with such favorable indications of further resources of gas at a greater depth that he with others at once organized a stock company for drilling a test well on the Miller farm. .
    Mr. Miller was married in Denver, Colorado, to Miss May Benjamin, of Little Rock, Arkansas. Her father, Judge Benjamin, was a very prominent citizen there.


Return to top

-96-
cont.

RICHARD AVEY. In every city of considerable extent it will be found that the requirements of business have caused an expansion beyond the original limits of the business district, and as a result many private homes once well aside from the bustling- activity of commerce and industry have either been sacrificed to make room for business or remain as conspicuous land marks of an earlier period, In Oklahoma City one expects to find fewer examples of this than elsewhere, since the city is so new and has really been made over several times since it was founded. So great has been the business development of the city within the last ten years that the district devoted to business has encroached upon and absorbed by the wholesale the areas

-97-

where during the first years the citizens had their homes. One of the milestones for the measurement of the city's growth is preserved in a well known homestead at 505 North Broadway, where Mr. Richard Avey built his home on coming to Oklahoma City in 1890. At that time all other building operations were at a considerable distance from the site selected for his home, and in fact he was among the first to begin the extension of the residence district on the northside. But in recent years not only has the residence area been extended far north of his home, but even the business district is beginning to , encroach upon his homestead. He now lives on Virginia avenue, near Thirteenth, in a modern and beautiful residence, into which he has recently moved.
    Although retired from active business, Mr. Avey has from the first been a public-spirited factor in the city's development, and besides the acquirement of valuable property interests has concerned himself with educational and other affairs. Mr. Avey is an Englishman by birth, having been born at Kentford, Suffolk, England, in 1837, and was educated at Swindell's Academy, Newmarket, where he was a classmate of the Rev. Charles Hadden Spurgeon. His father, before the days of railroads in England, owned and operated a number of mail coaches for the government in eastern England. Mr. Avey came to the United States at the age of nineteen, locating first at Ottawa, Illinois, but in 1859 moved to Coles county, near Charleston, that state. This is the rich corn and broom-corn belt of Illinois, and engaging in farming, Mr. Avey became one of the leading farmers and prosperous citizens of the county. He was honored on various occasions by election to public office, especially to those which controlled school affairs. In 1890, without disposing of his valuable property in Illinois, he came to Oklahoma City to seek the benefits of this more salubrious climate, and has enjoyed a pleasant residence here since that year. He has interested himself, in a conservative way in the growth and development of the city, and has been well rewarded in a material way and in the esteem of his fellow citizens. He has served as a member of the city school board. By his marriage to Miss Celia Oakland, which was celebrated in Coles county, Mr. Avey has seven children: Newton, a member of the insurance firm of Overholser and Avey; Oscar L., assistant cashier of the American National Bank; William T., cashier of a bank at Mattoon, Illinois; John L., publisher of the Lindsay News, Mrs. Maud Widmeyer, of Wytheville, Virginia; May and Martha. One of Mr. Avey's brothers, Thoman, enlisted for service to his adopted country during the Civil War and after three years of duty gave up his life on the field of battle near Shreveport, Louisiana.


Return to top

-97-
cont.

COL. JAMES C. GOGGERTY. Stockmen generally throughout the southwest country of Oklahoma and Texas know personally or through business relations Colonel James C. Goggerty of Oklahoma City, who has been identified with the stock industry all his life and is particularly well known as an auctioneer. Few men in this profession have gained more satisfying success. He possesses by nature the rare and peculiar, and unteachable, qualities that are prerequisites for the success of the man who sells property from the block. To begin with, he has for years enjoyed, and deserved, the reputation of being thoroughly honest, with never a word of misrepresentation from his lips. He satisfies himself by personal investigation as to the weak points as well as the strong points of anything he is called on to sell, and states them frankly to his hearers. A crowd of buyers invariably show the utmost confidence in honest, frank and genial nature, and being in complete mastery of the details of his business he never fails to obtain the highest prices for what he sells. He has made sales amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout the southwest, and besides live stock and general auctioneering, has conducted some of the largest and most successful townsite and town lot sales in this section of the country.
    Colonel Goggerty was born at Anamosa, Jones county, Iowa, in. 1856, where his mother is still living. His father, Henry Goggerty, who died at the old home in Anamosa in 1900, was one of the first white settlers of Jones county, locating there in 1844, before Iowa became a state. Colonel Goggerty was reared on a farm and gets his close and thorough knowledge of live stock, especially horses, from many years of study and connection with the practical business of stock raising. Leaving home in 1876, he spent a time in Montana, then came to Texas, and for several years was engaged in that now almost obsolete custom of taking horses over the old trails from the Lone Star state into Kansas. His home from 1879, until he moved to Ok-

-98-

lahoma City in 1900, was at Circleville, near Holton, in Jackson county, Kansas. On coming to Oklahoma City he built his present home at the corner of Second street and Central avenue, and purchased several other lots in that neighborhood. Some of these lots he has since sold at large advances. On Second street, between Central avenue and Stiles avenue, he owns and conducts a horse barn, and does a large business in fine driving and saddle horses. Colonel Goggerty is secretary of the Oklahoma Auctioneers' Association. He was married in Holton, Kansas, in 1880, to Miss Martha Roby, daughter of Barton and Elizabeth (Rouse) Roby of that place.


Return to top

-98-
cont.

LEWIS THOMAS. After an active career covering participation in the pioneer development of Kansas, an active experience as soldier in the war of the rebellion, and many years passed in farming, Lewis Thomas, now a retired resident of Oklahoma City, joined in the settlement of Oklahoma during the first year of the opening and has since been identified with this great southwestern empire. He came to Oklahoma county in June, 1889, and bought a farm near Spencer postoffice, on what is known as the Nine Mile Flat, east of Oklahoma City. He has had a full share of the experiences which befell the early agriculturists of this section, and passed successfully through them developing a valuable farm property, and in 1906 retired to the city, chiefly in order to afford more convenient educational facilities to his children, some of whom had already been educated in this city. At the southeast corner of Ames and Nineteenth street, near Epworth University, he built one of the beautiful homes that adorn this desirable residence section. He has had a varied life, and fully deserves his comfortable retirement.
    Mr. Thomas was born in Davis county, Indiana, December 23, 1842. In the following year his parents moved to Buchanan county, Missouri, living on a farm eighteen miles from St. Joseph for twelve years, and then moved over into Kansas, locating on a farm about fifteen miles from Leavenworth. During Mr. Thomas' youth, Kansas was the scene of turbulence that marked the freestate movement, and the family homestead, which was about eighteen miles from Lawrence, was directly in the path of the fierce civil warfare that produced such dreaded figures as Quantrell. He recalls vividly the terrors and hardships that beset the family in those days, and relates some interesting incidents of the well known characters who rose to prominence amid the contentions of the period. In the spring of 1858 the family moved to Butler county, in the southern part of the state, and as ranchers and farmers and stock-raisers took an active part in the pioneer development of that section of Kansas. In 1862 Lewis Thomas enlisted at Easton, Kansas, in Company G, Ninth Kansas Cavalry, for service in the Civil war, afterward becoming a member of company C of the same regiment. His early service was on the frontier in Colorado against the Indians, but later his regiment took an active part in the service along the Kansas border and in southwest Missouri. In 1864 he traversed the state of Arkansas, beginning at Fort Smith, and in June 1865, was discharged at Duvall's Bluff. From the close of the war until his removal to the new country of Oklahoma Mr. Thomas was actively engaged in farming in Butler county, Kansas. Outside of the public sacrifice that marked his career as a soldier and the quiet interest in public life that marks the good citizen, he has never participated in political life, although two of his brothers were formerly prominent in Butler county politics, one of them being sheriff and the other probate judge. Mr. Thomas was married in Butler county to Miss Elspa A. Huller, a native of Indiana. They have a family of eight children, namely: Mrs. Maggie Davis, James M., Leander, Bertha, Etta May, Maude E., William F. and Iva E.


Return to top

-98-
cont.

JOHN F. WINANS. Winans' Highland Terrace, a beautiful residence addition of the city with which all are familiar, has a history that well illustrates how Oklahoma City has developed within the last few years. It is a part of what was originally a quarter section homestead, in the language of the survey being known as the northeast quarter of section 28, township 12, range 3 west, and adjoined the first Oklahoma City site on the north. One of the homesteaders of April 22, 1889, was John F. Winans, an enterprising lawyer and business man who took part in the rush with an eye open to the possibilities of future development, and in selecting this particular piece of land chose a fortune, though it took some years of patient waiting for him to realize it. This homestead now lies entirely within the city limits, extending north from Sixteenth street, and being intersected by

-99-

Walker, Hudson, Harvey, Robinson and Broadway. Part of it has already been laid out in lots and occupied for residences, and the remainder will be developed as the movement of population demands. The attractive name is a happy title for this excellent addition, whose heights command extensive views of both the city and the surrounding country. The management of this property is now the principal business care of its owner. Oklahoma City has been his permanent home ever since the opening, but for several years he was in the general land office at Washington, having been appointed to a responsible position there because of his expert knowledge of land matters and land warrants.
    John F. Winans was born on a farm in Seneca County, New York, but was reared at Clyde, in Wayne county, to which place his parents moved when he was seven years old, and where he attended the Clyde high school. His parents had come to Seneca county from Elizabeth, New Jersey, when the former place was a wilderness. On May 10, 1861, he enlisted at Clyde in Company D, Sixty-seventh New York Infantry, and, this regiment being assigned to the Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac, he saw service in all the great historic battles of Virginia and the east, including Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, the Peninsular campaign, etc. He was severely wounded in the head at the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, May 12, 1864, and spent several months in the hospital. About the time he returned home, his father died, and he devoted a number of months to keeping up the home farm. He then found opportunity to study law in the office of Judge Cole at Clyde, where he was admitted to the bar. In the late sixties he moved west, arid during brief periods of residence in several states he was engaged in teaching school and in law practice and the abstract business. Springfield, Missouri, was his place of residence for some years, and it was from that city that he went to participate in the rush to Oklahoma. In Oklahoma City he is a member of the Baptist church, and is prominent in the local G. A. R. post, having held most of the offices in the post. While living- in Springfield, he married Miss Cora B. Raney, a native of Memphis, Tennessee. Their two children are George Clark Winans and Mrs. Edna L. Howell.


Return to top

-99-
cont.

WILLIAM H. MERCHANT. The chief representative of the State Life Insurance Company, of Indianapolis, Indiana, in Oklahoma, is William H. Merchant, who is general manager, with offices at Oklahoma City, for the district embracing Oklahoma. He was transferred to this position in the spring of 1907, having previously been in charge of the company's business in Alabama, with headquarters at Birmingham, Alabama. Although he entered the fie1d of life insurance only a few years ago, he has displayed rather conspicuous ability in this line, having gained results where others have tried hard and failed and for this reason he has been advanced rapidly from soliciting agent to an executive position. It was through the influence of his brother in-law, the president of the Citizens Life Insurance Company of Louisville, Kentucky, that he took up life insurance, and when this business gained a capable worker the field of daily journalism lost a correspondent of great natural ability and successful experience.
    Though never identified with the press in Oklahoma, Mr. Merchant's career is so closely connected with the newspaper profession that it seems natural to place him among the newspaper men of the state. At least his biography has the interest of a "human document" to the men who depend upon the activity of the current press for a living. He was born at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1868, was reared in that city, but at an early age was compelled to depend on his own work for support and for that reason .had few school advantages. The liberal education and extensive knowledge which a brief acquaintance reveals him to possess were largely self-acquired, and the result of years of close observation and study. He was not very old when he developed the "nose for news" which- is so essential to newspaper reporting, and when he sought opportunity in the city of New York he had little trouble in getting an assignment on one of the morning papers, at first as a substitute, but later as a regular reporter. His newspaper experience includes employment with many of the best known of America's newspapers, and he was successively on the World in New York; on the Record and the Chronicle of Chicago; on the Post Dispatch, the Pulitzer paper, of St. Louis; and from St. Louis went to San Francisco to join the Examiner's force. Later he was a representative of the Associated Press at Honolulu, during the unsettled times in the Sandwich Islands preceding their cession to the United States, and it fell to Mr. Merchant to report

-100-

the diplomatic negotiations and other events that received so much newspaper space in those days. When President McKinley made his notable trip through the west, to California and return, Mr. Merchant accompanied the party as representative of the Hearst papers, and at the end of the trip he received a personal letter from the President commending him for the accuracy and truthfulness of his correspondence. On another occasion the Providence Journal and a syndicate of eastern newspapers sent him to South America as correspondent. His most notable work in the newspaper field was as war correspondent during the Spanish-American war, when he represented the New York World. Most of the time he spent aboard the U. S. Steamship New Orleans, from which he viewed all the combats of the navy with the Spanish forces on the Cuban shore, participating in the landing of the army under General Shafter and later the landing of the army under General Miles, at Porto Rico. At the evacuation of Havana, while he was on the steamship Arethusa, he was struck in the shoulder by a Mauser bullet. It is one of the results of modern methods of warfare that the position of the correspondent is one of equal danger with the private soldier, and requires unusual qualities of daring, endurance and loyalty to duty. Mr. Merchant has some trophies that testify to his own record in the last American war. One is the U. S. Government bronze medal presented to him in August, 1907, for heroism in face of the enemy, the medal bearing the dates of the naval engagements of May 31, June 6, 14 and 16, 1898. He has also received a medal of similar import from the state of Rhode Island.
    For several years he signed his newspaper correspondence with the name of R. E. Porter, and became as familiar to a large circle of daily readers under this nom de plume as under his real name. He had the faculty for getting at the essential facts of the news, and he got correct information if it was possible to obtain it. This reputation of being honest and exact in his newspaper articles is a matter of pride to him at this time, and as a result he was able to command the best salaries on some of the leading newspapers of the country. His writing was marked by force, yet his diction was eminently simple, and he resorted to the embellishments of language only when the theme required it. Although no longer connected with the newspaper service, he is an interesting and esteemed figure in the press circles of Oklahoma because of his prominence in former years. His wife is a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and was Miss Fannie Fay Lester, a descendant of Revolutionary stock, on her mother's side while her father, Colonel James S. Lester, is a prominent Tennesseean.


Return to top

Next

 

Mardos Memorial Library

More Historical Books online

AHGP logo

This nonprofit research site is an independent affiliate of the American History and Genealogy Project (AHGP),, and proud to be hosted by USGenNet, a nonprofit historical and genealogical Safe-Site Server™ solely supported by tax-deductible contributions. No claim is made to the copyrights of individual submitters, and this site complies fully with USGenNet's Nonprofit Conditions of Use

divider

 

Copyright © 2000 - 2002 D. J. Coover All Rights Reserved Webmaster: D. J. Coover - ustphistor@usgennet.org