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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.


pp 522-532 Vol 1

Mardos Memorial Library

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