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L. T. SAMMONS, cashier of the Maud State Bank, is at the head of one of the most reliable financial institutions of Pottawatomie county. The bank was organized in November, 1903, by C. W. Miller and E. Riddle, and in 1905 the capital stock was purchased by its present officers, R. R. Henden, president; L. T. Sammons, cashier, and J. R. Smith, assistant cashier.
    The popular and well-known cashier of the Maud State Bank, L. T. Sammons, has been a resident of Pottawatomie county for six years, and was born in Hardeman county, Tennessee, October 5, 1865, a son of J. W. and Tennessee (Wilkes) Sammons, both now deceased. The father also had his nativity in Tennessee, and there the son was reared and educated and entered upon his subsequent successful business career. His first occupation was at farming, while later he was a clerk in a dry goods store for six years at Whiteville, and for two years was in the general mercantile business for himself. In 1901 he came to Shawnee, Oklahoma, and engaged in the real estate business, and he was one of the promoters of that town. From there he came to Maud in 1905 and purchased an interest in the Maud State Bank, which, as above stated, is one of Oklahoma's reliable banking institutions. He is also a prominent worker in local politics, affiliating with the Democracy, and he has served his party as a delegate to conventions, as the treasurer of its central committee for three years and in many other positions. He is a popular member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and also of the Woodmen of the World.
    At the age of twenty-one, and before leaving his home state of Tennessee, Mr. Sammons was united in marriage to Della Hillgard, and their two children are Elma Alline and Flossie E. The eldest daughter is at present a student in Kid Key College, Texas. The family are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian church.

S. M. RAMSEY, of Section 34, Brinton township, Pottawatomie county, secured his present homestead here September 22, 1891. With a team and wagon he left his old home in Missouri on August 4, 1891, where he had lived for forty-six years and started for Oklahoma, and on September 22, 1891, from Capshaw Field, nine miles distant from here, he made the race for the choice claims of Pottawatomie county and secured his present homestead, where he has resided most of the time since. He was five weeks in making the journey and was accompanied by his daughter Florence and niece Laura Tarbox. His sister, Mrs. Mary H. Tarbox, and three of his children remained in Missouri until October 16, 1891, when his sister came to Oklahoma and filed on a claim adjoining that of Mr. Ramsey, after which she returned to Missouri and remained there until the spring of 1894, at intervals making trips to Oklahoma to comply with the law in holding her claim. Her daughter's farm joins Mr. Ramsey's on the north. Here Mr. Ramsey has since lived and labored with the exception of the time spent in Tecumseh to afford his children better educational advantages, and he conducted a meat market during his residence there. Pottawatomie county is glad to claim him among her agriculturists and pioneer citizens.
    He is a son of one of the early pioneers of northeastern Missouri, Silas Ramsey,

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and was born in Lewis county, near Monticello, that state, December 5, 1845. The father was born in Kentucky of Scotch-Irish descent, and it was in 1830 that he established his home in Missouri. He received a deed of land there signed by President Martin Van Buren (which is still in the possession of S. M. Ramsey), and he died on his old homestead farm there at the advanced age of eighty-three years, both he and his wife having been earnest members of the Baptist church. She bore the maiden name of Henrietta Baker, and was also born in Kentucky, her death occurring at the age of seventy-six years. Their four children are: Silas M., James W., Mary H. Tarbox and Newton M., the last named a resident of Tecumseh.
    S. M. Ramsey married in Lewis county, Missouri, Mary A. Barkelew, a daughter of Henry and Charlotte (Spencer) Barkelew, the former dying at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, and the latter at the age of sixty. Mrs. Ramsey is also deceased, dying on the 21st of February, 1884, at the age of thirty-nine, after becoming the mother of four children: Francis M., a railroad conductor and a resident of Shawnee; Archie B., the owner and proprietor of a gin mill in the Seminole Nation, near Earlsboro; Florence L., who is a teacher and also has a homestead of eighty acres near her father's farm; and Zetie, with her aunt in Brown, Pottawatomie county. Mr. Ramsey has proved an efficient public officer, having served two terms as a registrar of deeds, and in 1906 was a delegate to the Guthrie constitutional convention. He is a member of the Masonic order, Lodge No. 13 of Tecumseh, and of the Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 82, of Brown. His religious affiliations are with the Baptist church of Tecumseh.

WILLIAM B. TROUSDALE, who for many years was prominently before the people of Pottawatomie county as its sheriff and now one of the couont'y leading agriculturists, came to the Indian Territory with his parents when a boy in 1872, coming from Cooke county, Texas. He was born at Paris, in Lamar county, that state, SEptember 27, 1858, a member of one of the pioneer families of the Lone Star state. His father, Allen Trousdale, was born in Madison county, Tennessee, but during his early life moved to Arkansas and later to Texas, and in 1872 came to Oklahoma. He died in Eason township, Pottawatomie county, at the age of seventy-three years, and was the first man buried in the Wanette cemetery. He was a prominent farmer and cattleman here, and was a Democrat politically. His wife, Mary Reed before her marriage, was an exceptionally well educted lady. She was born n Zanesville, Ohio, was a graduate of Zanesville Academy, and a lady of many high atainments. She died at the age of sixty-eight, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and left three children, one of whom, Alice Hamill, lives in the Choctaw country.
    W. B. Tousdale spent his early life as a cowboy in the range in Indian Territory, and he was well educated under the able instructions of his mother. During six years she served as the postmistress at Oberlin, Choctaw county, and during much of that time her son was her assistant. In 1874 he came to Pottawatomie county and located near Wanette, and he is now the owner of a valuable farm of five hundred and sixty acres in Eason township, near Trousdale, the land being especially adapted to the raising of cotton, corn and alfalfa, and in addition he is also quite extensively engaged in the raising of cattle and hogs.
    At the Sacred Heart Mission in 1881, Mr. Troudsdale was married by the Catholic priest to Mary Turpin, of French and Indian blood. She was well educated in the St. Mary's Mission school in Kansas. Their children are William, Alexander, Nickson, Augusta, Madeline, Kemp, Mattie Madeline, the latter a student in the convent at Purcell, Oklahoma. Mr. Trousdale is an active worker in the local ranks of the Democratic party, and as its representative he served in the office of sheriff in 1895 and 1896. In 1897 he was defeated for the office by only three votes, and he was again elected in 1899 and 1900, and served with credit and ability. He had many exciting experiences with outlaws and

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desparate characters in those early days of the southwest, and one of his most noted captures was the Christian brothers, who were convicted and imprisoned. He is a member of the fraternal order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 24. He bears the true characteristics of the cattleman, jovial and charitable to all, and his friends are many in Pottawatomie county.

IVY TARTER, one of the well-known soldier citizens of Moore township, was born in Pulaski county, Kentucky, in 1838, a son of Jacob and Polly (Weddle) Tarter. His paternal grandfather was born in Germany, and coming to this country served for seven years in the Revolutionary war. The father was born in Virginia, and the mother in Pulaski county, Kentucky, of Scotch-Irish and English ancestry. Of their family of nine children, four sons and five daughters, all grew to mature years and married, and one daughter is now ninety years of age. The father was a Whig and a slave owner in the ante-bellum days, but later became a Democrat, and he died in the faith of the Baptist church at the age of eighty-two years. His wife was fifty-three at the time of her death.
    On his parents' old home farm in Kentucky, Ivy Tarter grew to manhood's estate, and that state was his home for forty-three years. On the 15th of October, 1861, at the call of Lincoln for three hundred thousand more men, he enlisted in Pulaski county, Kentucky Infantry, and served under Captain John C. Bolan and Colonel Thomas Bromlet. His services were with the Army of the Cumberland in General Thomas' command, and he was first under fire at Shiloh, later taking part in the battles of Corinth, Iuka, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, where he served with General Thomas; Kenesaw Mountain, and in many others of the hard fought battles of the war. On teh 21st of June, 1864, at the battle of Maryette, Georgia, he was wounded above the knee in the right leg, and was in the hospital at Nashville from that date until the following August. Receiving a thirty days' furlough he returned home, but in the following September joined his regiment at Nashville, Tennessee, and was honorably discharged from the service on the 15th of June, 1865, with a brave and gallant record as a soldier, and as the second sergeant of his regiment, a non-commissioned officer.
    After a residence of forty-three years in his native state of Kentucky, Mr. Tarter moved to Texas, and after ten years in Collin county came to Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory. In 1892 he became a resident of Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, where he now owns a well improved farm of eighty acres located midway between Maud and Asher.
    Before leaving his native state of Kentucky, when eighteen years of age, he married Emily Dunbar, who was born in Russell county, that state, and is of English descent, a daughter of Siller Brown Dunbar, who was born in Kentucky near Mammoth Cave. Three of his sons were Union soldiers of the Civil war—Lieutenant Reuben Dunbar, Hugh Mace and Willis, both now deceased. Eight children, six sons and two daughters, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Tarter, namely: James W.; Hugh Mason; Sallie; Henry Harrison and Thomas Franklin, twins; Buthie [Ruthie?] Siller, George Wyat, who died at the age of twenty-five years; and Dan. Mr. Tarter is a stanch supporter of Republican principles, and during McKinley's administration he was for three years the postmaster of Siller, which office was named in honor of his daughter. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Avoca Post of Pottawatomie county.

JOHN WHITEHEAD, of the "Valley View Farm," two miles to the southwest of Shawnee, Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, was born near Topeka, in Shawnee county, Kansas, in 1858. His parents were of French and Indian blood, and were among the first settlers of Kansas. He is the son of James Whitehead, the mother being of the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians. She was born in Michigan and lived for a time in Illinois, at Chicago; also for a time in Iowa, and from there her people went

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to Kansas. The father died, aged forty-five years. For her second husband her mother married Lucius Gooner.
    Mr. Whitehead was reared in Kansas and was taught to be industrious and honest. He received his schooling at St. Mary's Mission in Kansas. He received an allotment of two hundred and forty acres in the rich and fertile bottom land, and his wife received an allotment of one hundred and sixty acres. He was married in 1883 to Mary Wellfelt, who was born and educated at Topeka, and was a classmate of Hon. Charles Curtis, U. S. Senator from Kansas, who is a fast friend of the family. She is the daughter of Joseph Wellfelt, of French blood. Her mother was of French and Pottawatomie blood and now lives at Seattle, Washington. Mr. Whitehead lives in a two thousand dollar farm-house, surrounded by cement walks, a beautiful lawn, with everything that bespeaks civilization and refinement. The farm is a model one, and contains fine alfalfa meadows. His teams of draft horses are well worth five hundred dollars a team. The cattle and hogs are of the choicest grades. This farm contains four hundred and forty acres of choice land, which is well tilled and carefully cared for.
   Mr. Whitehead and wife have the following children: Irene, married Ed Pecore; and Webster Whitehead, an engineer on the government industrial farm, who is a carpenter and was educated at Sacred Heart Catholic School at Lawrence, Kansas, finishing at Haskell Institute.

WILLIAM BEATTY. The name of William Beatty is becoming a familiar one in the legal circles of Pottawatomie county and especially of Wanette. He came to Oklahoma five years ago, locating first in Lincoln county, and after a year there came to Pottawatomie county. Choosing the law as his life work, he prepared for the profession earnestly and thoroughly and was admitted to the bar January 3, 1905. In like manner with all others, Mr. Beatty started out to win for himself a name and place, and his success is placing him at the head of the Wanette bar.
    He was born on a farm in Johnson county, Missouri, in 1882, a son of a farmer, Archibald Beatty, a member of an old Kentucky family, and with his wife, nee Mary Sever, also a member of an old family of the Blue Grass state, he resides in Pettis county, Missouri. Of their eight children, five sons and three daughters, the Doctor was the fourth born, and while attaining to years of maturity on the old Missouri farm, he enjoyed the benefits of an excellent education training and became a successful teacher. He has represented his party, the Democratic, as a delegate to several conventions, and is a Mason and a Woodman. He is a member of the Baptist church.

DR. R. M. SHAW, a physician and surgeon practicing at McComb, is one of the well-known members of the medical profession of Pottawatomie county and is also the proprietor of the Pioneer Drug Store of McComb. He is a native son of Arkansas, born near Searcy, in White county, in 1874, and is also the son of a physician who died eleven years ago at the age of sixty-six years. He was born in Ohio and had a gallant record as a Union soldier in an Ohio regiment during the Civil war. The mother, Mahala (Mann) Shaw, born in Kentucky, is yet living and is now seventy-three years of age. They had nine children, three sons and six daughters.
    Dr. Shaw received a good educational training in the high school of Sugar Loaf Springs, Arkansas, and while yet a boy in his teens he began the study of medicine under the able instructions of his father. Later he entered as a student in the A. I. Uni College of Little Rock and graduated with its class of 1899, and since then he has been engaged in the active practice of the profession, and since 1902 has been one of the leading physicians and surgeons of McComb and the proprietor of its Pioneer Drug Store, in which he carries a large line of drugs, medicines, toilet articles and everything to be found in a first-class drug store.
    Dr. Shaw was married at Beebe, Arkansas, in 1897 to Ella Keel, who was born and reared in that state. Her father died many years ago, and her mother is Mrs. R. C.

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Garner. The only child of Dr. and Mrs. Shaw is Lila, four years of age. The Doctor is a prominent Republican worker in Pottawatomie county, and is a member of the fraternal orders of Woodmen of the World, Masons and Odd Fellows. He is also a member of the State and County Medical societies, and was one of the organizers and promoters of the Pottawatomie Southern Medical Society. Both he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

F. S. WRAY, proprietor of a cotton mill and a prominent cotton broker at Maud, is one of the most important business men of Pottawatomie county, an important factor in the cotton business. He came to the county in 1906 and opened his gin mill, which is well supplied with all the modern machinery known to the business, including a thirty-six power engine, and from the time the cotton is taken from the field until it reaches the consumer he has entire charge of the commodity. During the season of 1907 seventeen hundred bales of cotton were ginned and prepared at the Wray Gin, and in addition to this he also handled as a broker twenty thousand bales during the season.
    F. S. Wray was born in Shelby, Cleveland county, North Carolina, in 1877, a son of a prominent planter, stock dealer and business man of that state, G. W. Wray, of Shelby. He has been prominent in the business life of that community for over thirty years, and is one of its best known men. His father, W. H. Wray, was one of the early settlers of that part of the state. G. W. Wray married Sarah Suttle, a member of another of North Carolina's well known families, and they became the parents of seven children, four sons and three daughters, among whom was F. S. Wray, who was reared to manhood's estate in Shelby and received a good education in its common and high schools and in the University of North Carolina. For a time after leaving school he assisted his father in business, and finally came to Maud, Oklahoma, to take part in its business life, but he yet spends the most of his summers at his old home in North Carolina with his parents. His political affiliations are with the Democratic party, and fraternally he is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has made many friends in his new home in Oklahoma, his genial manner and straightforward business dealings winning him the confidence of all.

PROFESSOR N. M. SOWDER, superintendent of the McLoud public schools, is one of the best known educators in Pottawatomie county, keenly alive to the educational interests of the people, and has been instrumental in organizing the High School and in advancing the cause of the McLoud schools in general along all lines. His identification with school work as teacher and superintendent covers a period of fifteen years, and in that time he has taught in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. He is author and inventor of a book, pending publication, entitled "Concrete Arithmetic," a new method of science in mathematics, working all problems embracing either subtraction or division, or including square and cube root, solely by addition. The manuscript contains about 200 pages print.
    He was born near Maryville, Nodaway county, Missouri, March 22, 1874, a son of Abram Sowder, one of the early settlers and leading business men of that city. The latter was born at Brownstown, Indiana, in 1842, and during the Civil war he served as a brave and loyal soldier. He married Anna Walker, who was born in Lyons, New York, and in 1866 they moved to Pickering, Missouri, where Mr. Sowder was a successful laborer until his death at the age of sixty-six years, dying on the 20th of February, 1908. He was a member and deacon of the Christian church, and a loyal Republican, politically.
    Professor N. M. Sowder passed from the Methodist Seminary of Maryville to the Afton College, Afton, Iowa; then to Stanberry Normal in Stanberry, Missouri; then took a business course in Kansas City, Missouri; and from there entered higher institutions of learning at Taunton, Massachusetts, and Washington, D. C., receiving the degree of A. B. from the Potomac University at Washington. He is also the holder of a life state certificate, granted solely upon

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examination. After teaching for a number of years he entered the railroad service, first as a Pullman conductor for two years, and then for two years as a train auditor for the M., K. & T. Railway Company. The first school in which he taught in Oklahoma was in Lincoln county, of which he assumed charge in 1898, and later he was postmaster and in the mercantile business in that county. He also greatly improved the schools at Wellston, being superintendent. Since becoming identified with the little city of McLoud he has been thoroughly alive to her educational progress in the state, as evinced by its articulating with the State University at Norman.
    In 1902, in Pottawatomie county, Professor Sowder was united in marriage to Vivian Wilson, who was educated in Coffeyville, Kansas. Her father, Thomas L. Wilson, died in Lincoln county, Oklahoma, with a splendid record as a Christian and a Union soldier during the Civil war. The children of this union are a daughter, Genevieve, deceased, and a son, Harold C., two years of age. Professor and Mrs. Sowder are members of the Christian church, and he is also a Mason, Odd Fellow and Woodman. Both are members of the O. E. S. at St. Louis, Missouri.

[Note: In the Lincoln County Oklahoma History, published by the Lincoln County Historical Society in 1988, there is a bio on Ella Davis Wilson, wife of Thomas L. Wilson,{died in August, 1892, first person buried in the Arlington Cemetery} from a story written by their daughter Vivian Vanderpool, their only surviving child, (pp. 1421-1422) where she mentions loosing her little girl: "You know I married so young, and right after I lost my little girl who was twenty-three months old, we left and came up to Missouri to Mr. Sonier's [Sowder?] parents." The editor's note also mentions the fact that Mrs. Vanderpool had died, and it was believed that her son "H. C. Vanderpool", was also deceased and that there were no surviving members of this family. So if you are researching this family, be sure to check out the Vanderpool surname also.]

ISAAC N. BRADBURN, a farmer in Section 11, Earlsboro township, near the town of Maud, has been identified with the southwest for many years. He left Texas nineteen years ago for the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, and that was his home until he came to Oklahoma eleven years ago. He was born in North Carolina September 11, 1837, a member of a family who had long resided in that state, his paternal grandfather having moved there from his native state of Virginia when a boy, and his wife was of English parentage. Isaac E., his son, was born and reared in North Carolina, and was there married to one of the state's native daughters, Ellen Starnes, and there they spent the remainder of their lives and died, the father at the age of seventy-five years. He was a prominent southern planter, a Democrat in his political affiliations and a member of the Baptist church. His children numbered nine, three sons and six daughters, of whom five are now living, a son and four daughters.
    Isaac Bradburn, the only surviving son of the family, left home at the age of eighteen and for three years traveled over the south and west, working at different occupations, and finally returning home he enlisted for service in the Civil war as a member of the Thirty-second North Carolina Volunteer Infantry, under Colonel Brabble and General Early, and took part in the battle of Spottsylvania Court House. In the engagement of Cedar Creek, while with a Virginia train, he was made a prisoner of war and held at Point Lookout by the Federals for some time, and when finally discharged the war had closed and he returned home to take up again the work of the farm. In 1873 he went to Grayson county, Texas, where he was engaged in farming and the cattle business until going to St. Jo, that state, and in 1880 he went to the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory, and from there to the Choctaw Nation in 1887. From the Indian Territory he came to Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, in 1896, and purchased one hundred and sixty acres of Indian land, where he has made an excellent farm home, and he has also donated one acre of land to the county for public purposes. For four years he has served his community as a justice of the peace, for nine years was a notary public, and for a number of years has served as a member of the school board, the cause of education finding in him a faithful friend. His political affiliations are with the Democratic party.
    Mr. Bradburn was married in 1866 to Mahala Pennell, who proved to him a worthy helpmate in their life on the plains of Texas, Indian Territory and Oklahoma. She was born January 3, 1835, and reared in North Carolina, a daughter of Richmond Lewis, bother her parents dying in North Carolina. Of the seven children born of this union, five sons and two daughters are now living: Joseph W., Elisha, Charles, Eva Miller and Lillie Kenyon. The two deceased are Robert, who died at the age of

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twenty-two years in the Chickasaw Nation, leaving a wife and one child, and Hugh, who was also a young man of twenty-two at the time of his death, both young men of great promise, well known and admired. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bradburn are members of the Baptist church.

REV. PHILLIP H. DOWNING. One of the best known and one of the most valued citizens of Earlsboro township is Rev. Phillip H. Downing, a minister in the Free Will Baptist church and the president of the Rural Telephone Company. He is thoroughly earnest and sincere in all his works and deeds and has done much to further the upbuilding and improvement of his section of Oklahoma since coming here in 1905. He was born in Jefferson county, Iowa, December 15, 1851, a son of William and Sarah (Miller) Downing, the father a native son of Indiana of Pennsylvania parentage, while the mother was born in that state and was a representative of a Pennsylvania German family. The parents are both now deceased, the mother dying near Jefferson, Iowa, when her son Phillip was but a babe, leaving six children, five sons and a daughter, and the father survived until the age of eighty, dying in California. He was a tiller of the soil, a Republican politically and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
    After the death of his mother Phillip H. Downing was reared in the home of his uncle, Phillip Miller, where he laid the foundation for his future field of usefulness. Leaving his native state of Iowa in 1895 he went to Franklin county, Illinois, and there he made home until coming to Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, in 1905. Here he has two good farms, with eighty acres under cultivation and well improved with orchards and good buildings. On the 28th of August, 1898, Rev. Downing was ordained a minister of the Free Will Baptist church in McDonough county, Illinois. Since coming to Oklahoma he has been active in the field of missionary work, diligent in the continuance of the work to which he early consecrated his life, and he has proved an efficient laborer in his Master's cause. He has at the same time been loyal to his duties as a citizen, and was one of the first promoters of the telephone here and assisted in organizing the Rural Telephone company, of which he was made the president. The company was organized in 1907 and has proved of inestimable value to the citizens of the town and county.
    Rev. Downing married first Ermine Snook, who died at the age of thirty-six years, a member of the New Light church. She left three children, Lulu Walker, Frank and Carl. ON the 26th of October, 1892, he wedded Miss Evila Glasgow, who was born in Bloomfield, Davis county, Iowa, a daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah (Stagg) Glasgow. The father, a native of Kentucky, and of Scotch descent, died when fifty-seven years of age, and the mother survived until her sixty-eighth year, both members of the New Light Christian church. Of their eleven children seven are now living. One son, Warren Clyde, has been born to Rev. and Mrs. Downing, a lad of fourteen years.

DR. JAMES MONROE BYRUM was born in Monroe county, Tennessee, July 19, 1871, a son of Peter and Mary (Cavette) Byrum. The family are descendants of the early settlers in East Tennessee and the Carolinas and are of Scotch-Irish origin. The parents, with the three sons and two daughters, removed to Charlotte, Arkansas, in 1881, where the children were given a common school education. The subject of this sketch, the eldest child, completed the high school course at Sulphur Rock, Arkansas, and a college training at the State University.
    After teaching school at various places in his home county he conceived the idea of studying medicine and immediately began preparation for his life work under the well known physicians and surgeons, Drs. Kennerly and Dorr, of Batesville, Arkansas. He graduated from the Memphis Hospital Medical College with the class of 1900, and won a year in the City Hospital as intern. Returning to Sulphur Rock he located for practice, but the call to the west was too strong, so he relocated at Asher,

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Oklahoma, in 1902, where he has a large and lucrative practice.
    Dr. Byrum has always taken considerable interest in politics. Coming of southern blood, the Democratic party is his home. He served two terms as chairman of his county central committee, looking in person after many of the details of the campaign when the new state was admitted, the majority of his party in Pottawatomie county at this time being larger by several hundred than ever before. He served as a delegate to the Congressional and State conventions in 1907 and 1908.
    Dr. Byrum inherited a high regard for the Masonic fraternity and became a member at twenty-two years of age, serving as master both in Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is an active member of the County and State Medical societies and for two years was superintendent of public health for Pottawatomie county and president of the Oklahoma State Health Association in 1908.
    He was married at Sulphur Rock, January 29, 1903, to Miss Leah Knox, daughter of Captain T. C. Knox, an old Mississippi family and a relative of President James Knox Polk. The only child of this union is a son, James Knox Byrum.

B. S. SHAW, whose beautiful country home is situated within Bales township, Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, is by birth a Yankee, born near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1862, during the great Civil war period, son of Bartlett Shaw, who was born in New Hampshire and served as a gallant soldier in that conflict which took so many of American's best men to the field of battle, between 1861 and 1865. He was a member of the First Massachusetts Cavalry. He married Sarah E. Geleucia, born in Swampscott, Massachusetts, of an old New England family. The parents of Mr. Shaw removed from their home in Massachusetts to Jefferson county, Kansas, where the father died, aged sixty years. He was a Republican in politics and a member of the Universalist church. As a citizen and father there was no better within any community. His good wife now resides on the old home place in Jefferson county, Kansas. They were the parents of two sons and one daughter.
    B. S. Shaw received his education in the common schools in Swampscott, Massachusetts, and grew to manhood on a farm in Kansas, where he was taught the usefulness of industry and frugality. His farm is known as the "Opal Farm," and contains one hundred and sixty acres of well tilled land. His cottage farm-house is a model of neatness, well furnished and cost him fourteen hundred dollars. He also has good tenant houses on his farm, which place is situated four miles northeast of the thriving town of McLoud. He is numbered among the pioneers who made the famous "run," at the time of the opening of the Kickapoo reservation, May 22, 1893, when he secured this valuable quarter section of land from the government, and thus commenced to lay the Shaw foundation for his present charming home, where he and his family are surrounded with all the comforts of life. Mr. Shaw was happily united in marriage in 1899 to Mary McCoy, a native of Texas, where she was reared and educated. She is the daughter of Charles McCoy, of McLoud. The issue by this marriage is one daughter—Opal Belle, a bright girl of eight summers now.

W. S. CLARK, M. D. was born in Alabama, near Eufaula, in 1870, a son of Daniel and Lucy (Thompson) Clark. The father was born in 1844 and died at the age of fifty-three years, a member of the Christian church, and to him and his wife were born twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. On their home farm in Texas the Doctor grew to a sturdy and vigorous manhood and received his literary training in its public schools. He first began the study of medicine under Dr. Walker, at that time a prominent and well known physician of Shawnee, and later he continued his medical re-[search]

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search in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of St. Louis, graduating at the completion of his course there. At the time of his arrival in Oklahoma he secured a choice claim two miles south of McComb of one hundred and sixty acres, upon which he proved, and he has since been identified with the business and professional interests of that city.
    Dr. Clark was married in the Chickasaw Nation to Sarah Elizabeth Cloer, and their children are Oma A., Tandy Overton, Dooley V., Harley Briggs and William Suter. Dr. Clark is a prominent worker in Democratic ranks, and was a delegate to the first convention of his party held in Oklahoma. He is a member of the State and County and the South Pottawatomie Medical Societies and has also membership relations with the Masonic fraternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge No. 207, in which he has held all the offices. He is a stanch advocate of education, religion and reform, and is one of the upbuilders of Pottawatomie county.

DR. M. A. WARHURST is the secretary and treasurer of the Southern Pottawatomie County Medical Association and one of the best known medical practitioners of the county. He was born in Chariton county, Missouri, near Salisbury, September 21, 1864, and is a member of a family illustrious both in England and the United States. His great-grandfather was a native of England and was a valiant soldier under King James while in this country. Dr. Warhurst is a member of the same family as the Hon. John Morgan of Alabama, and Robert E. Lee. He is a son of Francis Marion and Virginia (Harris) Warhurst, the former of whom was born in Missouri. The mother is yet living on the old home farm in that state, now seventy years of age, but her husband died at the age of forty-two. He served as a soldier in the Missouri State Militia and was for many years a school teacher. He was a member of the Baptist church, as is also his wife. Their family numbered eight children, three sons and five daughters, and one of the sons, Charles, is a resident of Marceline, Missouri, while Robert is a resident of Howard county, that state.
    The first son, M. A. Warhurst, is a graduate of Pritchett Institute of Missouri, with the class of 1885, and during ten years following his graduation he was at Lerado, Reno county, Kansas. Going from there to Arkansas, he was located near Fort Smith until his removal to Oklahoma in 1903. But previous to coming to this state he graduated from the Chicago Medical College with the class of 1899, and is now a member of the Medical Society of Oklahoma and of the American Medical Association of the United States, as well as being the secretary and treasurer of the Southern Pottawatomie County Medical Association. He is also the examining physician for the Woodmen of the World. He owns a splendid farm of eighty acres in Pottawatomie county, the land being fertile and well improved and the place also contains excellent buildings and an orchard.
    Dr. Warhurst married in Missouri Miss Lydia Noll, but she died in 1899, and in 1901 he married his present wife, Kate Pinkston, who was born in Savannah, Tennessee, a daughter of William H. and Elizabeth (Robertson) Pinkston. Dr. and Mrs. Warhurst have two sons, Hubert Olin and Herschel Eldon. Dr. Warhurst gives his political support to the Democratic party, and he is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity, Remus Lodge No. 145, and of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mrs. Warhurst is a member of the Free Will Baptist church.

LINA P. HELM, of Earlsboro township, is one of the best known men of his community, public spirited, and an active worker in the cause of temperance, education and the church. He was born in Fauquier county, Virginia, March 3, 1854, of Scotch ancestry and a son of Richard and Ellen (Smith) Helm, both of whom were also born in the Old Dominion state. They moved to Carroll county, Missouri, in 1859, near Dewitt, where the mother died in December, 1864, and the father at the age of

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fifty-three. They were members of the Methodist Episcopal church and in their family were twelve children, six sons and six daughters.
    It was in 1893 that Lina Helm joined the tide of emigration to Oklahoma, and choosing Pottawatomie county as the place of his abode he purchased a farm in Section 28 and has since been active in its improvement and cultivation. At the same time he has taken an active interest in the public life of the community, serving with credit and honor as a member of the school board. The cause of education and religion find in him an especially good friend, working faithfully and earnestly in their upbuilding, and in the Methodist church, of which he is a member, he is a trustee and the superintendent of the Sunday-school.
    In 1876 Mr. Helm was united in marriage to Julia Stanley, who was born on the 16th of February, 1860, a daughter of Bartlett and Nancy (Mahoney) Stanley, who were born in Kentucky. The mother died at the early age of thirty-five years, the mother of but one child, who grew to maturity, Mrs. Helm, and the father has now reached the advanced age of seventy-eight years and is a resident of Missouri. He served in the Confederate army during the civil war, under the command of General Sterling Price, and was wounded in battle. He is both a farmer and a Democrat. Four sons and four daughters have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Helm—Edna Dyer, Violet Gibson, Douglass, Charlie, Myrtle (Vanlandingham), Forest, Stanley and Lottie. Mr. Helm votes with the Democratic party.

PROFESSOR B. C. KLEPPER. Foremost in the ranks of the educators of Pottawatomie county stands the name of Professor B. C. Klepper, recently the principal of the Asher public school. The school had been under his charge for five years, since 1903, and it is worthy of record that the office was never more competently or satisfactorily filled. In the fall of 1908, Professor Klepper accepted the principalship of one of the ward schools in the city of Shawnee. His connection with the interests of Oklahoma covers a period of thirteen years, antedating the arrival of the first railroad here, and in all that time he has directed his energies to the building up of its schools, an important branch in the line of work leading up to good citizenship.
    Professor Klepper was born in the state of Tennessee in 1871, a member of a prominent old family of that commonwealth, and a son of B. M. and Mary (Howard)Klepper, the former from Tennessee and the latter from Virginia, and the father died in his native state at the age of seventy-two years. B. C. Klepper was their only child and he grew up in Tennessee, receiving an excellent education in Washington College, and at the age of twenty-five he entered upon his long and successful career of teaching. It was in 1895 that he came to Oklahoma, teaching for a time near Tecumseh, and he then accepted the principalship of the Earlsboro schools. From there he went to Avoca, this county, and after two years there came to Asher to become the principal of the schools here. The Asher school is a large four-room building, with an enrollment at the present time of two hundred and sixty pupils. Four competent teachers are employed, and all are under the direct supervision of the principal, Professor B. C. Klepper.
    He married, May 31, 1899, Hattie Surber, who was born in Butler county, Kansas, reared and educated in Tecumseh, Oklahoma, whence the family had removed at the opening; she was a daughter of John H. Surber. Their two children are Herbert B. and Randal Gaw Wayne. Professor Klepper votes with the Republican party and has membership relations with the Odd Fellows fraternity, Lodge No. 127, which he has represented at the Grand Lodge. He is a member and an earnest worker of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, filling the office of clerk and superintendent of its Sunday-school.

FRANK H. McDIVITT, proprietor of Sunrise Farm, a fine estate of one hundred and sixty acres in Brinton township, was born in Pana, Illinois, November 9, 1871. His father, W. E. McDivitt, a successful and well known physician of Illinois for many years, was born and grew to years of maturity on a farm in Ohio, and during the

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Civil war he served as a brave and loyal soldier. He married Sarah Hartup, also an Ohioan by birth, but she died in Illinois on the 12th of October, 1884, aged sixty years, leaving four children: Nancy E., Whittaker (who is a civil engineer and architect of Shawnee), Jennie May, at home; Frank H. and Mary E., a teacher in Shawnee public schools. The father is now living retired from active professional career, a resident of Shawnee. The paternal grandmother of Frank H. was a fist cousin of U. S. Grant.
    In the state of his birth, Illinois, Frank H. McDivitt attained to manhood's estate, receiving in the meantime a public and high school education. In 1893 he became a resident of Oklahoma, residing for some years on the claim of his sister, Jennie M. McDivitt, adjoining the town of Shawnee, but this was before the advent of the railroad here and even before the town had been organized. In 1902 he purchased one of the choice farms of Brinton township, known as Sunrise Farm, which he has brought to a high state of cultivation and on which he has erected a nine-room residence costing twenty-eight hundred dollars. He also has a large barn for stock and grain, and is engaged quite extensively in the raising of high grade stock, including road horses, hogs and cattle.
    Mr. McDivitt has been twice married, first in Schuyler county, Illinois, to Anna White, who was a teacher of music before her marriage and a daughter of W. P. and Harriet (Glandon) White, the father a veteran of the Civil war and a resident of Brooklyn, Illinois. The mother is deceased, as is also the first wife of Mr. McDivitt, who at her death left two sons, W. Lysle and Harold. She was but twenty-seven at the time of her death. Mr. McDivitt afterward married her sister, Bertha, and they have five children: Bruce T., Myrle, Mary Alice, Olive B. and John G. Mr. McDivitt is a Republican, stanch and true, as have been the family for several generations, and religiously the members of the McDivitt family have long been connected with the Methodist church. His paternal grandmother was a cousin of Bishop Simpson, a noted Methodist divine of the early days, and the family trace this religious connection back for over one hundred years. Pottawatomie county numbers Frank H. McDivitt among her most valued citizens.

WILLIAM H. BROWN, proprietor of the Canadian Valley farm, one of the most valuable estates of Pottawatomie county, is numbered among the early settlers of the valley. It was in 1888 that he came from his home state of Iowa to Indian Territory, farming for a time on leased land in the Chickasaw Nation, and in 1892 he came from there to Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma, and bough forty acres of his present estate, his first residence being a small board house. He is now the owner of a rich and fertile farm of two hundred and sixty acres, adorned with a pleasant, commodious residence costing seventeen hundred dollars, and the homestead is located three miles west of Shawnee.
    Mr. Brown was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburg, November 2, 1866, his parents being George S. and Frances (Bowman) Brown. The father lived to the age of four score years and ten, a brave and loyal soldier during the Civil war and a member of the Grand Army Post at Shawnee. His wife died fourteen years ago, aged fifty-seven, and of their six children, three sons and three daughters, the sons and one daughter are residents of Oklahoma, and another daughter resides in Minnesota.
    William H. Brown was but a boy at the time of the removal of his parents to Franklin county, Iowa, near Hampton, where he grew to manhood on a farm. He was married in the Chickasaw Nation in May of 1889, to Minnie Moore, who has proved a faithful helpmate in the journey of life and nobly shared with him the hardships of establishing a home in the southwest. She was born in Moultrie county, Illinois a daughter of John and Rachel (Maple) Moore, well-known residents of Pottawatomie county. The mother died at the early age of thirty-two years, leaving three children. Five children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Brown: Thomas, Carl and Carrie (p. 521) twins, Lester and Martha. Mr. Brown is a Democrat in his political affiliations.