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Biographies
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JOHN W. BREMER
is director of music in the Southwestern State Normal School, Weatherford, Oklahoma. To one who is in any way conversant with the training and experience of Professor Bremer in his profession, the above statement tells much of the completeness and efficiency of the music department of that institution, for Professor Bremer came to his duties here splendidly equipped, both in talent and in training, for the duties of his office. Professor Bremer was born in Essen, Germany, in the Rhine Province, on November 25, 1874, and he is the son of William and Gertrude (Ferlmann) Bremer, both German born. The father was a native of the Rhine Province, born there in 1837, and he died in Essen, Germany, in 1896. The mother was born in Westphalia, Germany, in 1841, and her death occurred at the family home in Essen in 1892. William Bremer was for years the superintendent of a force of several hundred men in one of the large smelting mills in his province, and was a man of prominence in his field of activities. He was liberal in politics, and he served in the wars of 1864, 1866 and in the War of 1870-71, receiving the Iron Cross in recognition of bravery in action during the latter war. He was the father of two children, Joseph H., who died in 1901, in LaGrange, Indiana, at the age of thirty-three years, and who had come to America in 1891; and John W. of this review.
John W. Bremer received excellent educational advantages in Germany. When he had completed a course at the Pedagogical Seminary, Odenkirchen, he entered the Music Conservatory of Cologne and studied there until 1895. He had decided ere that time that his profession should be music, and after his graduation from Cologne he engaged in private work in his profession at Duisburg, Germany, until l897. In that year he came to LaGrange, Indiana, to which place his brother had preceded him, and he was a teacher of music there for six years, meeting with an appreciable degree of success in the work. In 1903 Professor Bremer went to Goshen, Indiana, continuing there in his chosen work until February, 1908, when he was called to Weatherford to fill his present position as director of music of the Southwestern State Normal School.
Professor Bremer is a democrat. His fraternal affiliations are confined to Goshen Lodge Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He was married in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1905, to Miss Alma Oberholtzer, daughter of Jacob Oberholtzer, now deceased. Three children have been born to them, John Victor, born July 31, 1906; Joseph Jacob, born February 14, 1909, and Gertrude Clara, born March 8, 1911. ["A Standard History of Oklahoma", 1916, By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]
JOHN DAVIS GARNER
While his name is now most familiar to the people of Custer County as president of the Farmers' State Guaranty Bank at Thomas, Mr. Garner was one of the real pioneers of this section of the state and has been variously identified with farming, merchandising, banking and public affairs for fully fifteen years. The family which he represents is of old colonial American stock, the Garners having come from Ire- laud to South Carolina, and the great-grandfather of the Thomas banker lived at Pendleton, South Carolina, and from that locality offered his services as a soldier during the Revolutionary war. John Davis Garner is a Georgia man by birth, born at Gainesville in Hall County, October 22, 1868. His father, Joseph A. Garner, who spent his active career as a farmer and stock man, was born at Gainesville in 1846 and died there in 1891. For eighteen months he was a soldier in the Confederate army. His church was the Baptist. Joseph A. Garner married Louisa Whelchel, who was born in Gainesville in 1847 and died in 1886. Their children were: John D.; India, the wife of W. S. Huff, an attorney at Dahlonega, Georgia; Eula is the wife of Herbert S. Blackwell, of Lula, Georgia, and Mr. Blackwell for twenty-one years has been an engineer in the service of the Southern Railway and the company ranks him No. 1 for efficiency; Cynthia married George W. Shackleford, an attorney living in Florida; Henry A. is a railroad man at Lula, Georgia; Robert C. is a farmer at Price, Georgia; and Joseph E. died in infancy. The educational training with which Mr. Garner started life was acquired in the public schools at Gainesville, and he was graduated from the high school with the class of 1886. The next fourteen years he spent as a Georgia farmer. In January, 1900, he came to Oklahoma, for about three weeks was located at El Reno, and then went out to Dewey County, where he spent twelve months in preparing the first and only map of its kind showing in red ink the allotments of every Indian of the Kiowa, Comanche and Caddo reservation. Obviously this was a work of great value to the early settlers there. Having perfected this map, Mr. Garner bought a farm of 320 acres three miles northwest of Fay. He still owns that property, though it has been operated under a renter since 1906. In 1905 Mr. Garner moved to Thomas, and was actively engaged in the mercantile business there until 1910. The greater part of that year he spent on the old home farm of 350 acres near Gainesville, Georgia, and this estate is now included in his property holdings. Returning to Thomas in October, 1910, he resumed his merchandising activities, and gave them his active supervision until August 12, 1913. At that date he became identified with the Farmers State Guaranty Bank as cashier. A few weeks later, October 15, 1913, he reorganized the bank, and has since been its executive head. Mr. Garner is an excellent financier, and under his management the bank has prospered as never before in its history, and the State Banking Department has had occasion to comment most favorably several times upon its management. [Submitted by Janice Rice]
SAMUEL H. LITTLE.
One of the old names in America today is that of Little, the family having been established in the South in early colonial times, and being identified with American history in a worthy manner from that time down to the present date. The house of Little supplied many of the pioneers that have figured so prominently in the development of the new places within our borders and much history has been written around certain picturesque and immortal souls connected with this family, as a result of their lives of aggressive and progressive activities. Samuel H. Little has carried the pioneer spirit that dominated his ancestors into one of the most recent developed sections of our country. He came to Custer County, Oklahoma, a pioneer in the best sense of the word, and from then to now he has been identified in a creditable manner with the development of this district. He is mayor of Custer City, and president of the Peoples State National Bank, and altogether, is one of the foremost men in the county today. He was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on November 5, 1858, and is a son of Samuel and Sarah (Jones) Little.
Samuel Little is a native south of North Carolina, born there in 1810, and he died in Lincoln County, Tennessee, in 1888. From North Carolina he moved to Smith County, Tennessee, and then to Lincoln County, where he was married, and where he spent the remainder of his life. He was a successful farming man and stockgrower, and was a leader in his community all his days. He was a relative of Daniel Boone, that historic old character, and was himself an interesting raconteur of pioneer tales. He was a lifelong member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and was for forty years a steward in its service. He was married to Sarah Jones in 1840. She was born in Tennessee in 1820 and died in that state in 1898. The son of these worthy people, Samuel H. Little of this review, attended the common schools of Lincoln County, Tennessee, in seeking the elements of an education. Beyond that his educational advantages were negligible. He remained on the home farm with his parents until he was twenty-two years old, and from 1880 to 1900 he farmed on his own responsibility in Lincoln County.
The year 1900 saw Mr. Little 's advent into Custer City, Oklahoma, where he was drawn by the irresistible call of a new country to a man of pioneer ancestry and instincts. He filed on a government claim of 160, six miles southeast of Custer City, lived on it until 1904 and sold it advantageously. He then moved to Elk City, where he hold an interest in the telephone exchange there until 1906, and in that year he went to Deaf Smith County, Texas, and operated a ranch for two years,. In 1908, however, he returned to Custer City, and here he engaged in cattle buying and selling. He is still active in that line, though his numerous other interests make heavy demands upon his time and attention. In the same year of his return to Custer City, Mr. Little entered the Peoples State National Bank in an official capacity, and since 1909 he has held the office of president of that institution. The hank was organized in 1901 as the Peoples State Bank, under the direction and management of C. O. Leeka and the Messrs. Peckham. In 1911 it was nationalized under the name of the Peoples State National Bank. Its present officers are as follows: Mr. Little, president ; vice-presidents, Dr. K. D. Gossom and G. G. Hostutler; cashier, Tom Chatburn, and assistant- cashier, Herman Klinger. The bank has a capital stock of $25,000, and a surplus of $5,000.
Mr. Little was married in 1877 in his native state, to Miss Maggie George, who died in 1899, the mother of five children. They are: Samuel Jesse, a practicing physician in Mineo, Oklahoma; John Lee, a farmer in Custer City; J. B., similarly occupied here; W. P., a hardware merchant in this city; Thomas Boone, a Custer County farming man. Mr. Little is a democrat, and he has served the city two years as a member of its council. In the spring of 1915 he was elected to the office of mayor on the democratic ticket, and is now filling that office in a highly creditable manner. He is a member of the Primitive Baptist Church, and he is a Mason and a Woodman of the World. His Masonic affiliations are with Custer Lodge No. 258, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is past master of that lodge. In 1902 Mr. Little was married in Custer County, to Miss Anna Chalfant, daughter of W. F. Chalfant, a prominent farmer of the county, now deceased. Two children were born to them : Helen and Aaron, both attending school in Custer City. The Littles have a pleasant home in Custer City, and enjoy the friendship of a wide circle of the best people in the county. They are prominently identified with the leading social activities of their community, and are reckoned to be representative people in the city and county. [Submitted by Janice Rice]
EDGAR BENTON MARCHANT
A man who is variously distinguished in Aline and other Oklahoma localities is Edgar Benton Marchant; in law, in politics, in Masonic activities, he holds high rank as a citizen of ability. It will be of interest to review his ancestry and to trace the causes of his success from stage to stage of his career.
Both parents of Mr. Marchant were persons of strong character and high ideals, his father being of French and his mother of Irish origin. Abraham Marchant, the former, was a native of Fayette County. Ohio, and followed agricultural pursuits throughout his life. At the outbreak of the Civil war, he was in California and enlisted in Company G of the Second California Cavalry. He died in service in 1861. He was one of the five sons of William Marchant, a relative of the noted Marchant family of Rhode Island. Mrs. Abraham Marchant, the mother of our subject, was, like her husband, a native of Ohio, and on her mother's side a descendant of one of the old Virginia families. Mrs. Marchant, nee Catharine Limes, was when still a very young woman, a very ardent advocate of temperance. In 1866 she participated in one of the famous crusades against the liquor traffic. This courageous raid took place at Greenfield, Ohio, and is said to have been the first "slashing raid" ever made against the saloon evil. All her life was devoted in generous measure to influence against the national curse of alcoholism and in favor of law enforcement of all kinds. Hers was a gallant fighting spirit, inherited perhaps from her Revolutionary great-grandfather, Jesse Rowe. That noted gentleman used his pension money for the lofty purpose of buying material for the first Methodist Episcopal Church ever built in Fayette County, Ohio, buying the lumber for the same from the grandfather of the late Senator Foraker of Ohio. After the war between the states the widowed Mrs. Merchant was again marred in later years. Her second husband was Thomas Gaskill. of. Wilmington, Ohio. He died in 1895. She survived him fifteen years, her worthy and efficient life closing at Aline, Oklahoma, on January 4, 1910.
The birth of Edgar Benton Marchant had taken place on March 23. 1858, in the log house which was the farm home of Abraham and Catharine Marchant. Orphaned by the war the lad early turned his mind to ways and means of procuring his own livelihood. For him, also, the newspaper route proved to be the first stage on the road toward success. Greenfield, Ohio, was the locality in which he began his independent activities. And for him, too, the printer's office seemed the logical second step. He served an apprenticeship in the plant of the Highland Chief, of Greenfield, his first salary being $t per week. At nineteen years of age young Marchant began to be attracted to the profession of law and proceeded to fit himself for that line of vocational activity. In 1881 he removed to Kansas and in that same year he was admitted to practice in the Sunflower State. His bar examinations were passed at Kingman and he settled for practice at St. John, of the same state. For sixteen years Mr. Marchant continued in active practice, and held various successive offices of distinction. For a time he was police judge of St. John; was deputy county attorney of Stafford County; and also served as assistant attorney general of Kansas for the special purpose of enforcing the prohibition laws of that state in Stafford County.
In 1893 Mr. Marchant took an active and prominent part in the opening of the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma, locating at Pond Creek, where for a time he continued his law practice, which he later carried on at Cleo, Oklahoma. In 1894, business affairs called him back to St. John, Kansas, and there he established the fraternity paper known as The Kansas Free Mason. This periodical was the official gazette of the Kansas Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. The publishing offices of this paper Mr. Marchant in 1895 removed to Wichita, Kansas. It is needless to remark in this connection that he was one of the leading Masons of the State of Kansas, having been master of the first Masonic lodge ever instituted in Stafford County. His was the honor of making the first Mason ever created such in that county.
To his adopted State of Oklahoma Mr. Marchant returned in 1900. At Cleo he continued his work as an editor and publisher, at this time establishing The Chronoscope at that place. In county and state politics he has always been a consistent republican and his newspaper policy has always been clearly defined as such. In 1901 the Chronoscope was transferred by Mr. Marchant to Aline, which has since been the home of the paper. In 1907 he sold the plant and established his residence at Clinton, Oklahoma. There he gave invaluable, service in the advertising and upbuilding of the town. For two years he was secretary of the Commercial Club of Clinton and was one of the most enthusiastic "boosters" of that growing municipality. Indeed, it is said of him that it was through his activities that Clinton was placed upon the map in conspicuous letters.
Aline became Mr. Marchant's definite home in 1910, for a second time. In that year he became identified with the law department of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad, representing its interests in personal injury cases. Aline is still the attorney's home and he adds much to the town's well known atmosphere of success and social warmth. Mr. Marchant has ever been one to whom distinction comes, now and again, for his is a personality that invites such honor and fitly bears it. At the time of the St. Louis World's Fair he was made secretary of the Oklahoma Commission to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. He had entire charge of the Oklahoma Building and its exhibit; while Mrs. Marchant was the gracious and competent hostess of the same.
Mrs. Marchant is a woman of education and culture. Before her marriage she was Miss Ellen Kerns and a native of near Mannington, West Virginia, that state also being the birth place of her parents, E. S. Kerns and Jane Kendall Kerns. In 1880 the family home was removed to Kansas, and there Miss Kerns accepted a teaching position at the early age of fourteen and a half years. In 1884 she was united in marriage, at St. John, with Mr. Marchant, then a leading lawyer of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Kerns removed to Oklahoma in 1893. The latter died at Sedan, Kansas, in 1898; the former now resides in Cleo, Oklahoma. Mrs. Marchant's graceful presence and fine intelligence make her a distinguished member of society whore she goes. She holds high honors in the Order of the Eastern Star and is a leader in club and Sunday school work.
We conclude this review by appending a few details regarding Mr. Marchant's Masonic standing, for that phase of his prominence is so well known both in Kansas and Oklahoma. He is now deputy grand master of the third district of Oklahoma, in the organization of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; as this district is composed of Alfalfa, Woods and Major counties, Mr. Marchant has jurisdiction over fourteen Masonic lodges. In 1914 he officiated as special deputy grand master at the laying of the corner stone of the new High School Building of Lambert, Oklahoma. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner, at Guthrie and Oklahoma City, respectively. All in all, he may be said to have reached a high pinnacle of success and popularity. His ability, his geniality, his sincerity form the keynote of both his business achievement and his social relations. ["A standard history of Oklahoma", Volume 3, 1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]
NELSON P. H. WHITE, M. D.
Seven years of devoted service in maintaining the health of a large part of the population of Clinton has drawn the career of Dr. Nelson P. H. White within the fold of a large and emphatic need, giving him an increasing outlet for a wealth of professional and general usefulness. Doctor White was born in Washington County, Virginia, September 27, 1864, and is a son of Pascal H. and Elizabeth (Essary) White, natives of Virginia. The father, of Scotch descent, was a farmer and stockman in Virginia all of his life, where he owned a large plantation, and died in 1872, at the age of fifty-seven years, at Mendota, Virginia, where Mrs. White still resides.
Nelson P. H. White attended the public schools of Washington County, Virginia, and was graduated from the Mendota High School in the class of 1882. In the following year he was graduated from Hamilton (Virginia) College, and after leaving that institution taught school for one year in Washington County, Virginia, and one year in Sullivan County, Tennessee. He commenced the study of medicine in a preparatory school at Blountville, Tennessee, where he spent three years, and then entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at Baltimore, Maryland, and was graduated there from in 1890, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He did not cease his study and research when he left college halls, however, for he has been a constant student, having taken a post-graduate course at the Medical College of Virginia, in 1896, where ho specialized in obstetrics and in the diseases of women and children.
The doctor spent the entire year of 1897 in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University, and in the Pasteuret department of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1898-9 and 1900 he spent from six weeks to three months in the college at Baltimore.
Doctor White commenced the practice of his profession at Mendota, Virginia, where he remained until 1900, in which year he came to Gerry, Oklahoma, and remained there eight years. In July, 1908, he transferred his field of practice to Clinton, where he has been deservedly successful, and where his practice in both medicine and surgery is a large and representative one. He maintains offices in the Thurmond Building, where he has appliances for the most exacting demands of his profession. Doctor White is a man of rare discretion, tact and sympathy, an earnest and painstaking exponent of the best tenets of medical science, and an indefatigable seeker after those things which produce health and happiness. He belongs to the Custer County Medical Society, of which he was formerly president, and to the Oklahoma Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is a fellow of the American Medical Association. He belongs also to Mendota Lodge No. 281, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is past noble grand of Mendota Lodge of the Odd Fellows. Politically, Doctor White is a democrat, but public affairs have attracted him little. With his family, he belongs to the Baptist Church. He has been successful in a material way, and in addition to his home on Ninth Street, North, Clinton, is the owner of much valuable farming property, including 320 acres in Gray County, Texas, and 1,280 acres in Ochiltree County, Texas.
Doctor White was married at Mendota, Virginia, in 1888, to Miss Della Lee Barker, a daughter of Col. Joel Barker, now deceased, who was a farmer and veteran of the Confederacy. Eight children have been born to Doctor and Mrs. White: Mamie Lee, who married Charles Moon, a clerk in the office of the general superintendent of the Frisco Railroad System; Nat D., who is the assistant manager of a large furniture establishment at Tulsa, Oklahoma; Nelson Stuart, who is attending the University of Oklahoma; Frank B., a senior in the Clinton High School; Bonnie K., a freshman at that school; and John V., Pearl and Erick, who are all attending the Clinton public schools. ("A standard history of Oklahoma" Volume 4, 1916, By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter)
