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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
KENNEDY. Pottawatomie county numbers among
her earliest residents Abraham Lincoln Kennedy,
a pioneer of 1889. At that time he located at King,
now known as Dale, where his brother Ranson B.,
was a trader, and one of the first to settle King.
Abraham L. Kennedy was born near Silver Lake,
Shawnee county, Kansas. His father, Evan Ross,
was one of the first to locate at Silver Lake, nine
miles west of Topeka, and he operated a ferry boat
on the Kaw river there until the memorable exodus
to California in 1849, doing an excellent business
as a ferryman. Mrs. Kennedy was a member of
the Pottawatomie tribe of Indians, Susan Kebeto
by name, and of their seven sons the following grew
to mature years: Evan Ross, whose home is in
Kansas; John E., of Shawnee; Abraham L.,
who is mentioned later; Allen, also of Kansas,
and Ranson B., who died at Dale, Oklahoma in
March, 1891. He was born on the 8th of March, 1850,
and was, therefore just in the prime of life at the
time of his death. To him belonged the credit of being
one of the first residents, the first merchant, and
the first postmaster of Dale, and he was well known
in Pottawatomie county. He left a widow and six children.
Abraham L. Kennedy spent the
early years of his life in his native county of Shawnee,
Kansas, and one of his boyhood's friends there was
the Hon. Charles Curtis. He received a good
business training at Haskell Institute, which he attended
for three years. After coming to Oklahoma in 1889
he was engaged in trade at Dale for a number of years,
and was also the assistant postmaster there for four
years. He now owns a good farm in Bales township,
and gives his entire attention to its cultivation
and improvement. He is a member and for eight years
a clerk of the fraternal order of Woodmen, and is
a member of the Catholic church.
Mr. Kennedy married the widow
of his brother, Sarah M. McKelvey Kennedy.
She is a daughter of David L. and Eleanor
(Rankin) McKelvy, both of whom are now deceased,
the father dying in Iowa and the mother in Colorado
when eighty-seven years of age. By her first husband
Mrs. Kennedy has six children: Charles Wilson,
Marion E., George T., Doshia Phillips, David R.
and Clara May. Unto Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Kennedy
have been born two children, Nettie Maud and
Walter Evin.
W. M. JARVIS
is prominently known throughout the southwest as an
agriculturist and stock raiser and as the proprietor
of The Heliker & Jarvis Seminole Company,
one of the largest ranches in Seminole county, Oklahoma.
This valuable tract contains ten thousand acres, eight
thousand acres of which are under cultivation, and
the land is very rich and especially well adapted
to the raising of cotton, corn and alfalfa. Seventy-four
tenant houses have been built on this farm, as well
as a blacksmith shop and a good store. On the Indian
lease land there is also a school house with an attendance
of eighty-four pupils, superintended by a capable
and efficient teacher, and church services are held
in this school house once a month and Sunday-school
every Sunday. The farm is under the management of
Heliker & Jarvis, and these gentlemen are
just and liberal in their dealings with their tenants
and are numbered among the most prominent business
men in this part of the state.
W. M. Jarvis came to the Indian
Territory in 1880, and in 1890 to Pottawatomie county,
Oklahoma, first locating near McLoud, from whence
in 1900 he came to his present large estate. He has
thus been a resident of what is now the state of Oklahoma
for twenty-eight years, one of its earliest pioneers
and now one of its leading business men. He was born
in Shelbyville, Shelby county, Illinois, August 12,
1863, and is a representative of an old Virginian
family. His father, Samuel Jarvis, was a Civil
war soldier and died in Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma,
when sixty-six years of age, a life-long farmer and
a member of the Christian church. His mother, Sarah
Foltz, was born in Pennsylvania and is of Pennsylvania
Dutch descent. She is now living in this county, the
mother of six children.
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Their son W. M. Jarvis was fourteen
years of age when he went to Iowa and from there he
came to the Indian Territory and rode the range for
years.
In Coles county, Illinois, he was united
in marriage to Nettie Horsley, who was the
first white child born in the Osage Nation of Indian
Territory. The Indian chief of the nation some time
later wished to adopt her, and being refused the parents
were notified to leave that country. Her father, Theodore
Horsley, died in Logan county, Oklahoma, a well
known cattleman. Mrs. Jarvis was educated in
the Osage Mission school, and her marriage has been
blessed by the birth of seven children: Ethel,
Pearl, Floyd, Lois, Henry, Gladys and Elaine.
Mr. Jarvis is an active Republican worker,
and has served as a delegate to the state conventions.
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and a charter
member of McLoud Lodge No. 157, which was organized
at Dale. He is a man of excellent business qualifications,
fair and honorable in his dealings, and he is one
of the best known men of Pottawatomie county. Mrs.
Jarvis is a member of the Christian church.
J. B. SMITH,
who is farming in Earlsboro township, was born in
Lawrence county, South Carolina, near Tylersville,
August 9, 1840, a son of Noah and Jane (Owens)
Smith and a grandson of Archer Smith, who
moved from his native state of Maryland to the Carolinas.
Noah Smith was born on the east shore of Maryland,
and was but a boy at the time of his father's removal,
attaining to mature years in South Carolina and there
marrying the daughter of John Owens, a native
Irishman and a soldier in the Revolutionary war. By
her first marriage Mrs. Smith had one son,
James Meades, now deceased, and John B.
is the only child by her second marriage. She was
born in 1799, and died at the age of seventy-eight
years. Mr. Smith died at the age of sixty-eight.
He was a life-long farmer, a Democrat politically
and a member of the Presbyterian church.
During the early years of his life John
B. Smith enlisted for service in the Civil war,
serving under Stonewall Jackson and General
Lee, and he took part in many of the noted battles
of the war. Returning home after the close of the
struggle he lived for forty-seven years in on e house
and in the same locality in South Carolina for fifty-three
years, and then going to Collin county, Texas, in
1893, he was engaged in farming there near Anna until
his removal to the territory of Oklahoma in 1894.
Soon after his arrival he purchased the farm of John
Berry in Earlsboro township and he has lived there
ever since, developing and improving his land.
In his home state of South Carolina
in 1872 Mr. Smith married Sarah Carolina
Liles, a daughter of Abel and Nancy
Liles and their children are: Jane Jacks, deceased;
Martha E. Green, of Dent township, Pottawatomie
county; Edgar, who is married and lives in
Shawnee; and Claude, Lawrence B. and John
P., at home. The great loss of the family was
in the death of the wife and mother, a beautiful Christian
character and loved and honored by all who knew her.
Mr. Smith is a Mason, a member of Palmetto
Lodge No. 190.
GEORGE O. BROWN,
proprietor of the famous Red Apple Fruit Farm
in Brinton township, Pottawatomie county, has not
only attained distinction as the owner of one of the
most famous apple orchards in the entire state's earliest
pioneers, his residence here covering the intervening
years since 1892. Forty-five acres of his farm is
devoted to the raising of the choicest apples, but
besides this he raises many other kinds of fruit and
is one of the largest horticulturists in the southwest.
His choice varieties of apples have won many medals,
including the silver medal from the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, and the diploma medal
at Missouri Rapids for the best Ben Davis apples.
Mr. and Mrs. Brown have been
prominently identified with the fruit-growing interests
of Oklahoma since 1892, when, with a team of Arkansas
steers and a covered wagon, he made the journey from
Texas to this community and with the help of a few
neighbors built a little log cabin sixteen by eighteen
feet, the kitchen, parlor, bedroom and the postoffice
being all in one
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room. Both Mr. and Mrs. Brown moved
to Texas when he was sixteen years and she was seventeen,
and it was there they were married. It was not long
after his arrival in Pottawatomie county that he was
made the postmaster of Brown, his wife performing
most of the work of the office. In 1904 a good and
substantial residence took the place of the first
little home, around which clustered many pleasant
memories of their early life in the new country of
Oklahoma.
Mr. Brown was born in Vernon
county, Missouri, near Nevada, September 14, 1861,
and is a son of Moses and Elvira (Lewis)
Brown, natives respectively of Kentucky and Missouri.
The wife and mother died many years ago, in 1887,
but the father survived until July, 1907, dying at
the advanced age of eighty-five. He was a lifelong
farmer, a Democrat politically. One of their sons,
J. M., resides six miles east of Shawnee. G.
O. Brown was reared on a Missouri farm, where
he was early taught the value of industry as the only
means of success, and his subsequent success has proved
the wisdom of his training. In 1881 he was united
in marriage to Alice Allison, who was born
in Crawford county, Illinois, October 31, 1858, near
Robinson, a daughter of C. M. Allison and a
granddaughter of D. Y. Allison, both of whom
were prominently identified with the educational interests
of Illinois, the former a minister of the Missionary
Baptist church, the latter having taught in Illinois
for years, and his name is enrolled among the state's
pioneer educators. C. M. Allison was a Civil
war solder and died during war times when but thirty
years of age, leaving a widow and three children,
two sons and daughter, but Mrs. Brown is now
the only member of her family living. One of the sons
died when but eight years of age. The mother was a
second time married, having two daughters and two
sons by the last marriage, and she died at the age
of forty-nine. One daughter has been born to Mr. and
Mrs. Brown, Dessie Allison, who received
an excellent training in the Shawnee high school and
who was a teacher in one of the higher grades of the
Center Point school. April 22, 1908, she married W.
C. Ogle, of this county. Mr. and Mrs. Brown
have also given a good home to a half sister's three
children, Effie V., P. Henry and Osa Ella.
Mr. Brown has served as a member of the school
board for a number of years and votes with the Masonic
and Odd Fellows fraternities, and the family are earnest
workers in the Baptist church.
OMER McKOWN.
Among the solid financial institutions of Pottawatomie
county is numbered the First National Bank of Maud,
which is officered by keen business men and able financiers,
including its well-known cashier, Omer McKown,
who has held this responsible position since the 17th
of April, 1908. He was born in Clington county, Missouri,
in October, 1873, a great-great-grandson of a native
Kentuckian who moved from there to Missouri, a grandson
of a Civil war soldier, William McKown, and
a son of Thomas McKown, who was born in Plattsburg,
Missouri. He was a farmer and stockman and a member
of the Free Will Baptist church.
Omer McKown spent the early years
of his life on the home farm in Clinton county, Missouri,
and it was in 1900 that he left that state for the
southwest and located in Lincoln county, Oklahoma.
He bought and improved farm lands in the vicinity
of Stroud, that county, and was very successful in
that line of business. During four years he also farmed
in Keokuk township, Lincoln county, and at the close
of that period accepted the position of deputy county
treasurer under A. McLaughlin. Mr. McKown
was bookkeeper of the First National Bank of Stroud,
and later became the cashier of the First National
Bank of Maud, both well-known and thoroughly reliable
banking institutions.
In Buchanan county, Missouri, in 1891,
Mr. McKown was married to Cora Stephens,
a daughter of William T. Stephens, of Pottawatomie
county, and the only living child of this union is
Floyd R., twelve years of age. The second born,
Leota, died at the age of ten years. Mr. McKown
is an active Democrat worker, and in
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Lincoln county in 1907 he was the candidate
for the office of county treasurer, and was defeated
by only one hundred and fifty votes. He is a man of
pleasing personality and makes and retains many friends.
STEPHEN D. HEAL
is one of the prominent residents of Pottawatomie
county, Oklahoma, where he has resided since 1893.
He owns and cultivates a fine farm of two hundred
acres, which he is bringing under a high state of
cultivation, adding thereto all of the accessories
and conveniences of a model farm of the twentieth
century. A native of McLean county, Kentucky, he was
born on the 23d of February, 1861. His father, Robert
P. Heal, was a native of Maine and was a soldier
in Florida at the time of the Seminole war. He was
born in Waldo, Main, in 1809, and died in 1881, at
the age of nearly seventy-three years. Almost his
entire life was devoted to general agricultural pursuits.
In politics he was a Democrat and gave stalwart support
to Stephen A. Douglas. His wife, who was born
in Davis county, Kentucky, in 1824, lived to the age
of eighty-four years.
Stephen D. Heal was on of a family
of ten sons and a daughter. Two of the sons were soldiers
of the Civil war. Stephen D. pursued his education
in the common schools and has learned many valuable
lessons in the school of experience. At thirty years
of age he was married in Henderson, Kentucky, to Miss
Emma Bohannon, who was born in McLean county,
Kentucky, and was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.
Bohannon, both of whom are now deceased.
It was in the year of 1893 that Mr.
Heal arrived in Oklahoma and later purchased
two hundred acres of land. His first house was a box
dwelling of cottonwood, sixteen by sixteen feet, to
which he afterward built an addition ten by sixteen
feet. In 1901 he erected a modern residence with a
slate stone roof. It is supplied with many equipments
and accessories of the model home and is an attractive
feature of the landscape. He has also built a large
barn sixty-four by one hundred feet, which furnishes
ample shelter for the mules which he raises. He makes
a specialty of stock-raising of that character and
in the cultivation of his fields in raising large
crops of potatoes and alfalfa, having about one hundred
and fifty acres planted to the latter crop. In fact,
he is one of the largest alfalfa producers not only
in this county but in the state. He has labored earnestly
and persistently to bring his farm to its present
state of development and improvement and has every
reason to be proud of what he has accomplished. He
holds to advanced ideas in his agricultural interests
and has made a close study of the soil and climate
and the possibilities offered thereby. In all of his
labor he is practical as well as enterprising and
is accomplishing splendid results.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Heal have been
born two children, a son and daughter: Pearl Sarah,
now sixteen years of age, and Earl Stephen,
a lad of eleven years. Mr. Heal politically
is a stalwart Republican and a warm admirer of President
Roosevelt. Fraternally he is connected with
the Ancient Order of United Workmen and with the Modern
Woodmen, and is true to the teachings of both organizations,
which are based upon mutual helpfulness and kindliness,
at the same time having certain insurance features.
In manner he is frank, jovial and of kindly, generous
spirit and has made many friends. His home is a hospitable
one, the latch string always hanging out and those
who know him greatly enjoy his genial companionship
and his many good qualities.
WILLIAM OSCAR TIMMS,
deceased, was for many years prominent in the agricultural
life of Earlsboro township, and from 1894, when he
arrived in the county, until his death on the 26th
of December, 1905, when he had reached the age of
sixty-seven years, he was intimately connected with
its varied interests. He was born near Lena, on Yellow
creek, in Stephenson county, Illinois, July 6, 1839,
his parents having been among the early pioneers of
that community, moving to that state from New York.
One of their sons served as a major in the Ninety-sixth
Illinois Infantry during the Civl war, and he now
lives in Portland, Oregon.
On the home farm in Stephenson county,
Illinois, William O. Timms grew to man-[hood's]
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[man]hood's estate, and later in life
he began dealing in horses and became very successful
in the business. He sold his horses in New York and
other large cities of the east, but finally his health
began failing and he wen to Butler county, Nebraska,
a few years later, locating in Lincoln, that state,
and after a time he came to Oklahoma. He first purchased
a tract of eighty acres in Earlsboro township, but
later, by purchasing Indian allotment land, he became
the owner of an estate of four hundred and eighty
acres, known as Sunny Slope Farm, and now the property
of Mrs. Timms and her son, H. H. The
estate contains a large and well-built residence and
seven tenant houses, and is one of the beautiful homesteads
of Pottawatomie county. His influence for good was
felt by all who knew him, his sympathies were broad,
and his memory will long remain in the hearts of his
friends and associates.
In Grant county, Wisconsin, January
1, 1863, Mr. Timms married Miss Ellen Hugins,
who was born in Iowa, March 5, 1843, before its admission
to statehood, in Lee county, a daughter of Elliott
and Mary Ann (Marchant) Hugins, natives respectively
of Massachusetts and of Rochester, New York. The mother
died in 1906, at the advanced age of ninety-five,
and the father, who was one of the early pioneers
of Iowa and a prominent and well-known lawyer there,
died in Grant county, Wisconsin, at the age of fifty-four.
The mother was a member of the Episcopal church. They
left three children: Mary, Ellen and Laura.
The six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Timms
are: Louisa, whose home is in Atchison, Kansas;
Mrs. Eva Belle Bean, died April, 1906, and
left a family of three children; Homer H.,
who is mentioned below; Lewis W., a traveling
salesman, whose home is in Wichita, Kansas; Josephine,
wife of Dr. McGee, surgeon for the Chicago & Rock
Island Railroad Company, and a resident of Shawnee,
and one died in infancy. Mr. Timms was Democrat
politically and was a thirty-second degree Mason,
also a member of the chapter and commandery. Mrs.
Timms and her daughter, Mrs. McGee, are
members of the order of Eastern Star, and, with two
of her daughters, the mother is also a member of the
Episcopal church.
Homer H. Timms, who, with his
mother, carries on the work of Sunny Slope Farm, was
born at Lena, Illinois, September 12, 1870, and was
reared at his birthplace and in Butler county, Nebraska,
receiving his higher educational training in the Lincoln
University. He is married and has one daughter, Geneva
Alice. Homer H. Timms upholds and supports the
principles of the Democratic party.
CHRISTOPHER C.
LEONARD is one of the prominent early residents
of Earlsboro township, his identification with its
agricultural interest covering a period of eighteen
years, for it was in 1890 that he came to Pottawatomie
county. At that time he bought the claim of a "sooner,"
and has made of this tract a fine farm, a part of
the farm being rich bottom land on the Buzzard creek.
The homestead farm contains one hundred and sixty
acres, locates six miles east of Shawnee and four
miles from Earlsboro. Mr. Leonard is further
honored by being a veteran of the Civil war, in which
he served in the Union army as a member of Company
E, Eighth Kansas Volunteers, under Captain Greeley,
of Leavenworth, that state, and Colonel Martin.
During his military service of nine months he took
part in many battles and skirmishes, including those
with Colonel Quantrell's troops in Missouri,
General Forrest's troops and Hart's Rangers
in Missouri.
Mr. Leonard was born in October
of 1832, in Alsace-Lorraine, France, a son of a weaver
and a man of excellent education, well versed in the
law. His wife, Susan LaPont before marriage,
died in France, but he came to the United States on
a sailing vessel and located in New Orleans, Louisiana,
from whence he later moved to Ohio, near Columbus.
The first business experience of his
son, Christopher C. Leonard, was as a steamboat
clerk. One of his early experiences was the witnessing
of the cholera epidemic of 1844 in New Orleans, and
going from there to Kansas in 1855, he took part in
the
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bloody border war with John and
Jacob Brown, father and son, and Jim Lane,
and he was in the battles of Lawrence, Kansas, in
1855. He also served as a guard at one time at the
house of Jim Lane when the inmates were threatened
with murder. Mr. Leonard continued his residence
in Shawnee county, that state, for a time, but after
the close of the Civil war he spent some time in Nodaway
county, Missouri, near Filmore, but later returned
to Shawnee county. From there he came to Oklahoma
in 1890, and has since been identified with its agricultural
and business interests.
He was married in Topeka, Kansas, in
June, 1862, to Martha A. Marple, who was a
native of Ohio and of Irish and German ancestry, and
they became the parents of the following children:
Susan Howard, Lafayette Porter, Frank, Adel Morland,
Virgil (who died at the age of nineteen), Laura
Howard, (deceased), Eugene V., Mabel Hewit,
Winnie Mosher and Zulmee Holt. Mr. Leonard
is a stanch and true Republican, an earnest worker
for the party and he cast his vote for its first presidential
candidate, General Fremont, in 1856. The family suffered
an irreparable loss on the 2d of October, 1904, when
the wife and mother was taken from them by death.
She was born in 1842, and was, therefore, sixty-two
at the time of her death. She was loved and honored
by all who had the pleasure of her acquaintance, a
loving and affectionate wife and mother and a true
friend, and her death is truly mourned.
J. L. COTTEN.
Honored and respected by all, J. L. Cotten
has been for several years prominently identified
with the public affairs of Pottawatomie county, and
since 1907 he has served in its office of clerk. In
his early life he secured an excellent educational
training, studying for a time at Pine Grove Academy,
of Alabama, and finally he became a successful teacher.
His educational work, however, was interrupted by
the trouble between the north and south, and for two
years and eight months he served with valor as a member
of the Eighth Alabama Cavalry, under the cavalry commander,
General Joe Wheeler. He represented Holmes
county, Mississippi, for six years (three terms),
from 1890 until 1897. He is a man of genial personality,
frank and cordial in manner and a true southern gentleman.
To know him is to admire him and to like him, and
the latch string of his hospitable southern home is
always out for those who come to see him.
Mr. Cotten is one of the eight
children, four sons and four daughters, born to B.
C. and Amanda (Sayers) Cotten, natives
respectively of South and North Carolina. The birthplace
of their son was in Monroe county, Alabama, in 1846,
and when he had reached his twenty-second year he
was united in marriage to Josephine Lindsay,
their union being blessed with the following children:
F. L., J. M., Mrs. Lee and Mittie C.
The eldest son, F. L. Cotten, is his father's
deputy clerk. The younger son, J. M. Cotten,
is a resident of Mitchell county, Texas. Mr. J. Cotten,
Sr., is a member of the Masonic order for over thirty
years.
F. L. COTTEN.
During the past eight years F. L. Cotten has
been identified with the business and political interests
of Pottawatomie county, and during three years of
that time he served the county as its jailer, and
during a similar period he has been the efficient
deputy sheriff.
Mr. Cotten was born in Mississippi
in 1867, was reared there, a son of the well-known
county clerk, J. L. Cotten. When he had attained
the age of twenty-four, F. L. Cotten wedded
Beulah Pinkstone, who was born, reared and
educated In Tennessee, and their six children are
Glover, Sadie, Montie, Vivian, Guion and Grady.
Mr. Cotten is an active worker in the local
ranks of the Democratic party, and has served as a
delegate to its territorial and state conventions,
and is a member and past officer of Lodge No. 3, of
the Masonic fraternity.
F. W. CREEL,
superintendent of the Pottawatomie County farm, has
been a prominent figure in the events which form the
history of Pottawatomie county. His name is enrolled
among its pioneer citizens and also among the early
residents of Oklahoma, where, during the first four
years
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of his residence in the territory, he
farmed a claim in Canadian county, but selling his
land there came to Pottawatomie county. For some time
he made his home in the town of Tecumseh, where he
served his fellow citizens as a street commissioner,
and being made the superintendent of the county farm
he is now operating one hundred and twenty acres of
land, the farm being located just midway between Shawnee
and Tecumseh. The house was built in 1905, a two-story
structure of twenty-five rooms, and there is also
a large barn fifty by sixty feet. Ninety acres of
the farm are under cultivation, and Mr. Creel
is quite extensively engaged in the raising of Poland
China hogs. He is proving the right man in the right
place, and is an efficient public officer.
He was born in Adair county, Kentucky,
in 1849, a son of Henry and Elizabeth (Hatcher)
Creel, both of whom were born in Virginia, and
they were farming people, but are now deceased. Both
families were represented in the Civil war, fighting
on both sides, the Creels in the Confederate
army and the Hatchers in the Union army, and
they were Baptists in their religious belief.
F. W. Creel was one of their
four children, three sons and a daughter, and when
twenty years of age he went from his home state of
Kentucky to Carroll county, Missouri, where, in the
following year, he was married to Bettie Allen,
a native daughter of the Blue Grass state, and their
three children are: John H., of Missouri; William,
whose home is in California, and James C.,
of Fort Worth, Texas. Mrs. Creel died in Missouri,
and Mr. Creel afterward married Mrs. Ida
Sommers Kendall, from Virginia, their five children
being: Arthur, in business in Shawnee; Golden,
Le Roy, Hunter and Burney. Mr. Creel
is an active worker for the Democratic party, has
attended its conventions as delegate, and in 1904
was elected one of the commissioners of the county.
He is a member of Tecumseh Lodge No. 24, I. O. O.
F., and is a member of the Christian church, Mrs.
Creel being a member of the Baptist church.
EDWARD C. NICHOLS
is one of Tecumseh's most active business men, prominently
identified with its mercantile and banking interests.
He was born in New York September 3, 1839, a son of
Roland and Betsy (Durand) Nichols, members
of prominent old families of the Empire state. Roland
Nichols was prominent as a farmer and stock raiser
and died in 1865, when sixty-five years of age.
In the common schools and the Keysville
Academy, of New York, Edward C. Nichols received
his educational training, and during the early part
of his business life was a farmer and stone cutter.
In 1860 he journeyed to the golden state of Californian
and engaged in the marble business in Red Bluffs and
Santa Cruz, at the same time following mining to some
extent in Trinity county. He remained on the Pacific
slope for twenty-two years, and at the close of the
period, in 1882, went to Cook county, Texas, and purchased
twelve hundred and sixty acres of land. For ten years
he was in the cattle business there, finally drifting
into the hardware business, and in June, 1892 he came
to Tecumseh and embarked in the same business, building
the brick store in which S. P. Larsh now carries
on his hardware trade. Mr. Nichols sold his
business to Mr. Larsh in 1906, intending to
retire from active labor, but at this time another
building which he owned was vacant and he opened therein
his present furniture, carpet and casket business,
one of the leading mercantile interests of the city.
Since 1895 Mr. Nichols has been a stockholder
and director in the First National Bank of Tecumseh,
and since 1905 has been its vice president. He is
also the vice president of the state bank at McComb,
the vice president of the First National Bank of Wanette
and is a stockholder in the Tecumseh Oil Mill.
In Santa Cruz, California, in 1873,
Mr. Nichols married Amelia Langenback,
born in Boston of German parents, and their four children
are: Emily, now Mrs. E. B. Monday, of
Wanette; Herbert R., the cashier of the First
National Bank of Tecumseh; Edna A., and Edward,
who died in 1900, at the age of twenty-nine year of
age. Mr.
(p. 228) Nichols is a Thirty-second
degree Mason and a member of the commandery and the
shrine.
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CLARENCE ROBISON
is a member of one of the first families to establish
their home within the territory of Oklahoma, and from
an early period in its development to the present
time he has been prominently identified with its educational
interests. He was born in Comanche county, Texas,
December 11, 1875, a son of Martin Van Buren and
Maria L. (Williams) Robison, natives respectively
of Illinois and Alabama. Martin V. Robison
served for three and a half years in the war in the
Forty-seventh Illinois Infantry, under Grant
and Sherman, and fought at Vicksburg, Corinth
and in other of the hard-fought engagements of the
conflict. In 1870 he moved to Texas, and in 1884 came
to Tishomingo, of the Chickasha [Chickasaw?] Nation,
Indian Territory, where he farmed until his removal
to Pottawatomie county in 1893.
In the schools of Texas and Oklahoma
Clarence Robison received his educational training,
graduating from the Central Street Normal School at
Edmond. He has taught for eleven years in Pottawatomie
county, five years in the country schools, three years
as principal of Earlsboro, and for three years was
principal of the Tecumseh high school. At the election
in September, 1907, he was made the county superintendent
of schools of Pottawatomie county, and he is proving
an able and competent official. He may be termed one
of the pioneer educators of Oklahoma, for his name
has been inseparably interwoven with the history of
its educational interests since the days of its log
schoolhouses to the present time. He is a member of
the Masonic order at Tecumseh, and is noble grand
in the fraternal order of Odd Fellows. He is a member
of the Christian church.
GEORGE STONE,
the registrar of deeds for Pottawatomie county, was
born in Arkansas, July 25, 1867, a son of Job
and Frances (Townsend) Stone, the father a
native of Pennsylvania and the mother of South Carolina.
When a young man Job Stone moved from the east
to Arkansas, where he was engaged in farming until
his death in 1887, aged sixty-four years.
George Stone received his educational
training in the schools of his native commonwealth,
and thereafter was identified with agricultural pursuits
until his father's death, while for four years he
was also the proprietor of a flouring mill. Going
from there to Texas he was for four years in the cattle
business and for three years the proprietor of a blacksmith
shop, and it was in January of 1897 that he came from
the Lone Star state to Cleveland county, Oklahoma,
where, for four years, he conducted a blacksmith shop,
and then moved to Asher, this county. In 1902 he volunteered
to assist in the capture of desperadoes who had committed
robberies in that city, and in the pursuit which followed
received a shot wound which lamed him for life. He
continued to serve as a deputy sheriff until in 1904,
when he was elected the registrar of deeds for Pottawatomie
county. At the election he received a majority of
eight hundred and forty-six votes, and was returned
to the office for a second term by a majority of sixteen
hundred and twelve votes. He was elected by the Democratic
party.
On the 16th of March, 1891, Mr. Stone
married Margaret Jones, a native of Arkansas,
and among their eight living children are triplets.
They also have one child deceased. Mr. Stone is a
member of the Masonic order, Lodge No. 110 of Asher,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Asher Lodge No.
127, and of the Eagles, No. 198, at Shawnee.
JUDGE JOHN A. CLARK
is known in southern Oklahoma as a man of high attainments
and ability as a lawyer and as one who has achieved
success in his profession. His professional career
was begun as a teacher in the schools of Illinois,
but his work was shortly interrupted by his enlistment
for the war, and after returning home at the close
of the conflict he resumed his teaching and also began
the study of law. He was an earnest and diligent student
in the preparation of his future life work, and was
admitted to the bar at Mount Vernon, Illinois, in
1881, and he located for practice
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at Paris, that state. At the opening
of the Pottawatomie reservation for settlement he
came to Oklahoma, arriving here on the night of the
memorable cloudburst, May 21, 1891, and he secured
claim No. 1. During a number of years following his
removal to this state he was in partnership with B.
F. Burnell, of Oklahoma City, and both became
very prominent in the legal fraternity here. His homestead
is now known as Glenwood, one of the beautiful estates
of the county.
Judge Clark was born in Blount
county, Tennessee, near Marysville, November 17, 1845,
the same year in which Texas was admitted to the Union,
and he is descended from one of the oldest and best-known
families of Tennessee. He is in direct line from the
valiant Revolutionary soldier of that name who served
with the Light Horse cavalry of Virginia. The first
of the name to locate in Tennessee was "Old
Johnnie Clark," a pioneer miller and a noted
character of his time. He was perhaps one of the best-known
men then of his part of the state, for his mill was
patronized by people from a distance of fifty miles
or more. The father of the Judge was St. Clair
Clark, a carpenter and contractor and a Jackson
Democrat politically. He married Nancy E. Davis,
of Mississippi, and they became the parents of six
children, four sons and two daughters, but only two
are now living, John A. and W. E., the
latter a physician of Marion, Illinois. The parents
have also passed away, the father dying in Saline
county, Illinois, at the age of forty years, and the
mother in Paducah, Kentucky.
John A. Clark spent the first
few years of his life in his native state of Tennessee,
receiving an excellent education in its public and
normal schools, and he then moved with his parents
to Saline county, Illinois. In 1861 he enlisted in
the Twenty-ninth Illinois Infantry, from which he
was shortly afterward discharged, and in 1862 he became
a member of the Seventh Illinois Cavalry, Company
H, Colonel Erskin's regiment and Captain
Webber's company. Receiving his discharge from
that command in 1863, he then assisted in raising
the reorganized Thirteenth Illinois Cavalry, of which
he became a commissioned officer and saw active service
in Mississippi and Tennessee. He was with General
Banks and Steele in the Red River expedition,
and was twice wounded, on the 22d of July, 1864, while
in front of Atlanta, and while with the Red River
expedition was wounded in the leg. He was honorably
discharged from the service at Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
At Vincennes, Indiana, in 1881, Judge
Clark wedded Ninnie, a daughter of John
and Margaret (Badolette) Coan. Colonel Badolette,
Mrs. Clark's grandfather, was a West Point
graduate and an officer in the Mexican war. The two
children of this union are Nina and John
St. Clair. The daughter is the wife of Max
Lee Cunningham, a civil engineer of Enid, Oklahoma.
The son is yet a student.
JOHN G. HUDIBURG
has the honor of having been elected the first clerk
of the district court in the new state, assuming the
duties of the office in November, 1907. He has also
been prominently before the people as an instructor,
and few have a wider acquaintanceship in Pottawatomie
county than John G. Hudiburg. Although so conspicuously
identified with the interests of Oklahoma, he is a
native son of Tennessee, born in Hardin county on
the 29th of October, 1861. On both the paternal and
maternal sides he represents prominent old families
of that state, both of his grandfathers having been
numbered among the first settlers of Hardin county,
which was named in honor of his grandfather Hardin.
He is a son of S. S. and Rachel (Coveny) Hudiburg,
who were also born in Tennessee. The father, born
in 1835, still resides in the state of his nativity,
but the mother died in 1885, at the age of fifty-three
years.
After attending the public schools and
Hardin College, John G. Hudiburg began teaching
at Waynesboro, Tennessee, in 1888, taught about two
years in Tennessee, then was traveling salesman in
twenty-two states for about three years; again took
up teaching until the fall of 1897, when he came to
Oklahoma. He resumed his school work in the country
schools of Pottawatomie county. During one year he
was the
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superintendent of schools at Wetumka,
Indian Territory, and his professional labors were
continued until he entered the office of district
clerk in 1907, being elected on the Democratic ticket.
He is a member of the Farmers' Union,
having ever taken a deep interest in the welfare of
the agriculturist, and is a member of the Cumberland
Presbyterian church.
WALTER C. PERRY.
The public officials of Pottawatomie county include
among their number Walter C. Perry, who is
an active worker in the local ranks of the Democratic
party and is now the incumbent of the office of treasurer.
He assumed the duties of this position in 1904, and
in 1907 was returned to the office for another term.
He also has the honor of having been made a commissioner
at the first election held in Cleveland county.
Mr. Perry is a member of an old
Southern family of Georgia, of English and Scotch-Irish
descent on the paternal side, and both of his parents,
James L. and Martha J. (Bellah) Perry, were
born in that commonwealth, the father born in 1812.
From there they moved to Florida in 1867, and James
L. Perry died in that state in 1889. Their son,
Walter, was born in Coweta county, Georgia, October
7, 1847, and received his education in the high school
and the Georgia Academy at Newman. In July, 1864,
when a boy of seventeen, he became a member of the
Confederate army, Phillip's Legion, and served until
the close of the Civil war, having been in active
service during most of the time. He also had two brothers
in his command, W. H. and J. M. Perry. After
the close of the conflict Mr. Perry began farming
with his father in Florida, but in 1874 removed to
Texas and farmed there until his removal to the Chickasha
[Chickasaw] Nation in 1884. He was identified with
agricultural pursuits there at Paul's Valley before
the advent of the railroad into that section of the
country, but in 1889 he left there and came to Cleveland
county, Oklahoma, still continuing as a tiller of
the soil. He can thus claim the honor of being one
of the pioneers of Oklahoma. In 1897 he became a resident
of Pottawatomie county, farming for a time one hundred
and sixty acres of land, five miles east of Shawnee,
but, selling his farm he went into the mercantile
business in Asher. His election to the office of county
treasurer in 1904 necessitated his removal to Tecumseh,
where he is prominently identified with its political
and social life. He is a member of the Masonic order
at Asher, and has membership relations with the Methodist
Episcopal church.
Mr. Perry married, in 1867, Miss
M. C. Roberts, a native daughter of Florida
and a member of one of its prominent early families.
Her father, Arthur Roberts, was one of the
pioneers of the state and was a man of prominence
there. He was a valiant soldier in the Indian war,
and during the conflict between the north and the
south he served with the rank of colonel. The five
children of Mr. and Mrs. Perry are: Maggie
L., the wife of F. L. Davis, of Tecumseh;
James A., in business in Shawnee; Hattie,
the wife of W. M. Percy, of Lindsay; Ernest
L., in the treasurer's office with his father,
and Maud C., married W. M. Cole, now
deceased. Mr. Perry is a man of high character,
and true worth, a splendid type of pioneers of Oklahoma.
JOSEPH C. ORR
resides on his farm in northeast part of Davis township,
Pottawatomie county, which is known as the Gertrude
Washington farm, having been allotted to her,
a Shawnee Indian, now deceased. He first located in
the Seminole Nation, Indian Territory, four miles
east of his present place, and brought the first portable
sawmill into this part of Oklahoma. For seven years
Mr. Orr continued in the lumber business, finally,
however, drifting into the mercantile trade and for
five years was associated in business with J. T.
Peyton and George Traynor at Econtuchka,
one of the early trading points of this section of
Oklahoma. Mr. Orr's farm contains three hundred
and sixty acres, and is devoted principally to the
raising of cotton and contains six tenant houses,
in addition to his own residence, which is beautifully
located in a grove of native trees.
Joseph C. Orr was born in Cumberland
county, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, in 1862, a
son of James and Elizabeth (Crain)
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Orr, both of whom were also born
in that locality, and the paternal family is a stanch
Scotch-Irish Protestant of the Presbyterian belief.
Their four children are: Rebecca Sponsler and
William, both of whom are living in Pennsylvania,
the latter in Pittsburg; James S., whose home
is in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Joseph C. During
his early life Joseph C. Orr received an excellent
educational training, attending the public schools
and finally graduating from one of the oldest educational
institutions in the state.
Mr. Orr was married to Miss Daisy
Mathis in 1894. She was a daughter of J. B.
Mathis, one of the prominent early residents of
Pottawatomie county, and the union was blessed by
the birth of one son, Don M., now a lad of
twelve years. Mrs. Orr died in 1895 and in
January, 1904, Mr. Orr wedded Miss Esther Acock,
who was born and reared in Missouri, a daughter of
W. R. and Elizabeth (Stephens) Acock. To this
union have been born two daughters, Agnes E.,
who is now two years old, and Rebecca May,
born May 6, 1908. Mr. Orr is a member of the
Masonic fraternity, Shawnee Lodge No. 27.
THE LAZZELL
FAMILY. Julia Lazzell, of section
22, township 8, of Pottawatomie county, Oklahoma,
is well known to the English settlers of the county
in which she resides, as the widow of Thomas Jefferson
Lazzell, one of the first men to lead the vanguard
into this part of the state of Oklahoma. He was prominently
connected with the first settlement and was one of
the delegates to select lands for the allotment of
the Pottawatomie county Indians. He was born March
19, 1835, in Old Virginia, a son of William and
Sarah Lazzell, French people. He was one of a
family of fourteen children, four of whom became soldiers
in the Civil war. Thomas J. was reared in Virginia,
until aged twenty-one years, when he went, in 1856,
to Kansas, and later went to Pike's Peak, with a mule
pack train, with John Anderson.
Thomas J. Lazzell came to Oklahoma
in 1874, when it was yet a reservation for the Indian
tribes of the great southwest. Here he owned a good
farm, which he sold in 1900, and purchased a quarter
section of fine land, upon which he erected a good
modern house of six rooms, and furnished in style
better than most of his neighbors. He improved the
place by setting out many fruit and shade trees. Mr.
Lazzell was aged seventy-two years at his death
in 1906. He was a large man, weighing two hundred
pounds, and was six feet in height. Mr. Lazzell
was a Mason and was connected with the Kansas military
companies and saw much service on the plains of the
great west, as well as in the Civil war.
The date of his marriage was September
11, 1858, when he wedded Julia Delain, born
at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1842, daughter of Charles
C. Delain, a Frenchman, who was a blacksmith in
the employ of the government. Her mother, Archange
Morae, born in Chicago, is of the Pottawtomie
tribe of French Indians. Eight children were born
to Mr. and Mrs. Lazzell, five of whom are deceased,
three dying in infancy, one at fourteen years, one
married, died aged seventeen, and three are living
on the reservation. John Willis Lazzell lives
in Shawnee; Peter is a farmer in this township;
the other child is Ivy Quinn, and she has one
daughter, a bright-eyed child of eight years. Mrs.
Julia Lazzell, the good mother, has seen much
of pioneer hardship in the western country. She witnessed
the exodus of the Mormons in 1846-7, as well as the
gold seekers of 1849, who went to Pike's Peak. She
was educated at St. Mary's, Kansas, and is a member
of the Catholic church.
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