The general insurance agency of Mr. Owsley, who is an underwriter of virtually all lines of insurance except that of life, has gained prestige as one of the most successful and important in the State of Oklahoma, and it is doubtful if there is another agency of the kind in this vigorous young commonwealth that has developed and controls as great a volume of business as does this representative institution, the headquarters of which are in Suite 412-13 First National Bank Building in the thriving City of Chickasha, the metropolis and judicial center of Grady County The career of Mr. Owsley has been one distinguished by remarkable initiative and executive ability and he has proved himself a veritable captain of industry, the while his advancement has been achieved entirely through his own efforts. The City of Chickasha can claim no more reputable, straightforward and popular business man and no citizen of greater civic loyalty and public spirit, so that consistency is observed in according, in this history, due recognition to Mr. Owsley.
John T Owsley was born at Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas, in the year 1867, and is a scion of a colonial American family of distinguished lineage, the genealogical line tracing back to Sir Thomas Owsley who bore also the title of captain and who evidently was of English birth and ancestry. This distinguished ancestor came from the West Indies to America prior to the War of the Revolution and the supposition is that he acquired his military title through service as an officer in the Continental line in the great war for national independence. In a later generation another specially distinguished representative of this family was Hon. William Owsley, who served as governor of Kentucky and who was a member of the Supreme Court of that state at the time of his death.
James R. and Jane Antoinette (Furlow) Owsley parents of him whose name introduces this review were both born and reared in Alabama, where their marriage was solemnized. James R. Owsley removed to Arkansas at the time of the Civil war and there enlisted in the Confederate service, as a member of a gallant Arkansas regiment that took part in many engagements and made an admirable record. Mr. Owsley continued his service as-a loyal soldier of the Confederacy until the close of the war and then turned his attention to agricultural pursuits. He later engaged in the merchandise business in Arkansas, in which state he continued his residence until 1901, when he came to Chickasha, Oklahoma, where he has since been actively engaged in the marble business and where he is still alert and vigorous as a man of affairs, though both he and his wife are now venerable in years.
The early educational discipline of John T. Owsley was acquired in the schools of his native state and was effectively supplemented by a course of higher study in Bethel College, a well ordered institution in the State of Kentucky. When but ten years of age he initiated his association with practical business by assisting in the general store of his father, and during this period of service as a clerk he attended school only three months of each year. Prior to attaining to his legal majority Mr. Owsley was appointed deputy circuit clerk of Columbia County, Arkansas, and of this position he continued the incumbent five years. He then, in 1890, assumed an executive position in the Gate City National Bank of Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas, where he continued his services until 1892, when he resigned to accept the position of general utility clerk in the Texarkana National Bank, with which institution he remained seven years and rose through the verious grades of promotion until he became its chief clerk. In 1899 he resigned his position and engaged in the fire-insurance business at Texarkana, where he continued his association with this enterprise for three years. Within this period ho became interested also in the wholesale grocery business, as vice president of the Texas Produce Company, his home city in Arkansas lying near the line between that state and Texas and thus gaining its title of Gate City. In 1902 Mr. Owsley sold his insurance business and assumed the active management of the business of the Texas Produce Company, which he served in this capacity, as well as its vice president, for the period of seven years. Within this time he effected the organiation of the Clay Products Company, of which he become president, and this corporation is still actively and successfully engaged in the manufacturing of pottery and other like products, with headquarters at Texarkana, Arkansas. In 1909 he organized the Mexican Tropical Fruit Company, of which he became president. This company placed in commission a line of steamships between Port Arthur, Texas, and the State of Tabasco, Mexico, for the purpose of transporting bananas and other tropical fruits from that section of Mexico to the markets of the United States. The company leased a number of large banana plantations in Tabasco, the same lying along the Griholm and affluent rivers, and after operations had been carried forward about eighteen months the company was forced to abandon its business, owing to disastrous floods, which destroyed all the banana plantation and practically inundated the extensive area of land through which the company was operating.
In January, 1911, after disposing of the most of his business interests in Arkansas and Texas, Mr. Owsley came to Oklahoma and established his residence at Chickasha, where he purchased a half interest in the Price Insurance Agency. A few months later he acquired the entire control of the business and the agency has since been conducted under his name and able management, the while he has shown great discrimination, energy and progressiveness and placed the enterprise upon a most substantial basis, with a business that is constantly expanding and is excelled in scope by that of few, if any, similar agencies in the state. As a practical insurance man of fine conceptions of the functions and benefits of fire and other material indemnities aside from the domain of life insurance, Mr. Owsley has a high reputation and this, with his careful and honorable methods and policies, constitutes his best business asset, his agency being representative of an appreciable number of the strongest and best fire insurance companies operating in Oklahoma, and his facilities also being unexcelled in the underwriting of reliable insurance against tornadoes, floods and other material forces that may cause loss or destruction of property. Mr. Owsley is a member of the National Association of Local Insurance Agents and is specially active and influential in the affairs of the Oklahoma State Association of Local Insurance Agents, in which he is chairman of the executive committee.
As may naturally be inferred, Mr. Owsley is found aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party and is emphatically loyal and progressive in his civic attitude. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, his affiliation being still with Arkansas Consistory, No. 1, in the City of Little Rock, the while he still retains membership also in Sahara Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Paine Bluff, that state. His basic York Rite affiliation is with Texarkana Lodge, No. 341, at Texarkana, Arkansas, where he is affiliated also with Texarkana Lodge, No. 399, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, which he served two terms as exalted ruler. In his native City of Magnolia, that state, he has held all of the official chairs in the lodge of the Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chancellor, and he is identified also with the Sigma Nu college fraternity. He is a charter member of the Chickasha Country Club and was chairman of its golf committee in 1915.
In December, 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Owsley to Miss Elizabeth Sharman, daughter of Robert R. Sharman, who was a pioneer at Magnolia, Arkansas, and who owned and conducted the largest and most important mercantile business at that place. Mrs. Owsley was summoned to the life eternal in 1897, and is survived by two children, Sharman and Hazel.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

JOHN V. CABELL

Since the spring of 1910 Mr. Cabell has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Oklahoma City, where he gives his attention principally to general civil and corporation law, and his definite success attests alike his personal popularity and his admirable equipment for service as an attorney and counselor, his well appointed offices being in Suite No. 1014-17 Colcord Building. He is a man of fine intellectual and professional attainments and is a valuable acquisition to the legal coterie in the capital city of Oklahoma.
In the fine little City of Bowling Green, Kentucky, John V. Cabell was born on the 15th of June, 1877, and he is a son of Rev. Benjamin F. Cabell, D. D., and Ellen Douglas (Patterson) Cabell, the former of whom passed to the life eternal in September, 1909, and the latter of whom is still living. The lineage of the Cabell family in America traces back to Dr. William Cabell, who emigrated from England in 1741 and established his residence in the colony of Virginia, the paternal great-grandfather of the subject of this review having removed from the Old Dominion to Kentucky in the early part of the nineteenth century and having been a pioneer in that state. Rev. Benjamin F. Cabell was born and reared in Kentucky and was a distinguished clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as well as a prominent and influential figure in connection with educational affairs in his native state. He was graduated in the Ohio Wesleyan University, in the City of Delaware, Ohio, where he was n classmate of Senator Stone of Missouri and Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indianapolis, former vice president of the United States. He was identified with educational work during virtually his entire active career and for twenty years was president of Potter College, at Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his death occurred and where his widow still maintains her home.
John W. Cabell was signally favored in being reared in a home of distinctive culture and refinement and his educational advantages in his boyhood and youth were of the best. At Ogden College, Bowling Green, Kentucky, he was graduated as a member of the class of 1898 and with the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. Thereafter he completed a post-graduate course in Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, Tennessee, from which he received in 1899 the degree of Master of Science. In the law department of the same institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1901, and after receiving his degree of Bachelor of Laws, with concomitant admission to the bar of Tennessee, he was engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Nashville about two years. Thereafter he passed about eighteen months in travel through the West, especially on the Pacific coast, and in 1904 he came to Oklahoma Territory and engaged in the general practice of law at Ardmore, Carter County. He became one of the representative members of the bar of that county but in March, 1910, he found a broader field of professional endeavor by establishing his residence in Oklahoma City, where he has built up a substantial practice that shows a constantly cumulative tendency, as he is indefatigable in the work of his profession and has established an excellent reputation for effective service as an attorney and counselor at law. Mr. Cabell has identified himself most fully with Oklahoma and its capital city and is here financially interested in a number of industrial and commercial enterprises.
He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; he is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; and his political allegiance is given to the democratic party.
In July, 1912, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Cabell to Miss Lula Garrison, daughter of George W. and Ann Garrison, of Oklahoma City, her father having lost his life by assassination while in performance of his duty as sheriff of Oklahoma County. Mr. and Mrs. Cabell have one child, Ellen Ann.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

JOHN ARTHUR CAMPBELL
 

In the City of Tulsa can be found many of the veterans of the oil industry, and whose experience covers every oil district in America, if not in the entire world. One of the local oil operators and producers who has been identified with practically every phase of the business and in various states is John Arthur Campbell, who has had his office in Tulsa since June, 1913, and is an extensive independent operator.
John Arthur Campbell was born in Washington County, Ohio, July 16, 1871, the third of five living children of John P. and Jane Elizabeth (Thompson) Campbell. His father was born in Connecticut and died at the age of sixty-six, and his mother in Ohio and died at the age of sixty-four. John P. Campbell was engaged in the general merchandise business at Cowrun in Washington County, Ohio, and later in the same business in Marietta, Ohio, and was one of the first to take up the development of the oil districts of Ohio. In early (life he had voted with the whig party and subsequently was a republican.
John A. Campbell received his education from the public schools. His first work when quite young, about thirteen years of age, was as a farmer and farm hand. He worked in tobacco fields, and was also a tobacco stripper in Ohio up to the age of nineteen. Since that time his activities have all been centered about the oil industry. He began as a teamster, later sharpened oil well tools and then had some experience in the drilling of wells. He helped put down some of the wells in Ohio, and subsequently began as an oil well contractor, following which he engaged in the oil business himself as an independent operator. His experience covers the different oil districts of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and from those states he came to Tulsa.
Mr. Campbell is a republican in politics. On September 23, 1896, he married Miss Clara L. Rake, who was born in Washington County, Ohio. They have two children, Glen and Grace C.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

AMBROSE C. WEICKER

The president of the O. K. Transfer & Storage Company of Oklahoma City is one of those valiant and self-reliant men from whom success can not long withold her hand, and he has been in the most significant sense the essential medium through which he has worked his way to definite prosperity. He is now one of the substantial business men and liberal and progressive citizens of the capital city of a state to which he first came the year prior to its creation as a territory. Mr. Weicker has been one of the world's productive workers, has ordered his course with unwavering integrity of purpose and well merits the high regard in which he is held by his fellowmen.
Ambrose Claborn Weicker was born in Mississippi County, Missouri, on the 9th of April, 1861, and is a son of George Otto Weicker and Mary Jane (Lett) Weicker, the former a native of Germany and the latter of the State of Tennessee. When the subject of this review was five years of age his parents transferred their residence to a farm in Carroll County, Missouri, and there he attained "the rural schools at regular intervals until he had attained to the age of sixteen years, in the meanwhile having giving effective aid in the work of the home farm. After leaving the parental roof he was employed two years on a farm in Jackson County, Missouri, and he then went to Leadville, Colorado, which mining town was then in the height of its ambitious industrial activities, and after there being employed one year as a workman in the smelters, he returned to Jackson County, Missouri, where he remained three years, within which he took unto himself a wife three months prior to the celebration of his twentieth birthday anniversary. He then removed with his wife to St. Clair County, that state, where he devoted the ensuing three years to farming and sheep-raising, his ambition ever prompting him to forward movement and to making the best of opportunities presented. The next stage of Mr. Weicker's activities was at Garden City, Kansas, and after having there been employed one year as driver for a transfer company, he purchased a horse and wagon and engaged in the same line of business on his own responsibility, his cash capital at the time of initiating this independent enterprise having been only .fifty dollars.
A year later, when Oklahoma Territory was opened for settlement, Mr. Weicker heard the voice of opportunity and decided to cast in his lot with the pioneers of the new territory, to which he came in July, 1880, about one year prior to the formal organization of the territory. He established his residence at Guthrie, where he found remunerative employment with a firm engaged in the transfer business. In 1893 he purchased the interest of one of the partners and after continuing the business, as senior member of the firm of Weicker & Fairfield, for three years, he sold his interest to his partner and removed to Denver, Colorado, where he became associated with his brother, Robert V., in the same line of business. The enterprise was made successful through their energy and close application, and at the expiration of four years Mr. Weicker disposed of his interests in Denver and came once more to Oklahoma, the year 1900 having thus marked the establishing of his permanent residence in Oklahoma City. Here he purchased the business of G. W. R. Chinn & Sons and became the sole owner of the substantial enterprise conducted under the title of the 0. K. Transfer & Storage Company. The business is now incorporated with a capital of $75,000, Mr. Weicker owning 95 per cent of the stock and being president and manager of the business, which is the largest and most effectively managed enterprise of the Bind in the state. Concerning his vigorous and effective management of this important business the following pertinent statements have been made:
"Since Mr. Weicker assumed control of the O. K. Transfer & Storage Company the history of that corporation has been parallel with that of Oklahoma City itself,-an upward march day by day, hour by hour. Upon the massive wagons and vans of the company is painted a handsome picture of the globe, and beneath appears the inscription, 'The world moves; so do we. Whoever comes to Oklahoma City enlists the service of the 0 K Company in moving the household effects to the new home, and if a resident changes location it is the O K. wagons that are called to make the careful and expeditious transfer, for the company has proved itself in every sense reliable and just in its dealings. Though somewhat peripatetic in his movements before he found the exact place that fitted his idea of the real one for the development and upbuilding of the business of his choice, Mr. Weicker knew when he came to Oklahoma City that he was finally anchored in the desired port, and the progress of his splendid business, which in scope and importance he has made second to no other of the kind in the West, testifies to the accuracy of his judgment.
There is not in Oklahoma City to-day a more lucrative, and more carefully and systematically conducted business of any nature than that of the 0. K Transfer & Storage Company, and in every detail can be traced the capable directing power of its president. Facing the Frisco Railroad Station at the corner of First and Hudson streets, is the mammoth home of the O. K. Transfer & Storage Company,- a fireproof, reinforced-concrete structure, seven stories in height and occupying a ground space 75 by 120 feet in dimensions Within the walls of this immense building are afforded the best of facilities for the storage and safeguarding without impairment of valuable household goods and of her personal effects, and all patrons realize that tins steadfast and popular business concern will take better care of the properties entrusted than could the owners themselves."
Both as a citizen and as a business man Mr. Weicker has high standing in the community. He is a democrat in politics, is a member of the local lodge of the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and is affiliated with all Of the Masonic bodies in Oklahoma City, m which great fraternity he has the distinction of having received , the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite.
At Independence, Missouri, September 29, 1880, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Weicker to Miss Lucy Ann Walker, daughter of Andrew J. and Polly (Braden) Walker her father having served in Quantrell's command as a Confederate soldier during the entire period of the Civil war. The wife of Mr. Weicker's youth was summoned to the life eternal on the 24th of December, 1910 and of their three children the eldest, Marian Evah, who was born March 9, 1882, died at the age , of twenty years; Robert Andrew, born July 7, 1890, and Oliver Francis, born September 26, 1898, are now associated with their father's business.
In Oklahoma City, on the 27th of December 1913 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Weicker to Mrs. Cora (Storm) Jordan, who had come to this city in 1901 and who through judicious local investments, soon accumulated an appreciable fortune in valuable proper. She still owns in her own right the modern fourteen apartment brick building at the corner of Sixth and Harvey streets, as well as several fine cottages m desirable sections of the city. The family home one of the attractive residence properties of the capital city, is at 104 East Fifth street.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

GEORGE S MARCH

Among the men who have been observers of and participants in the developments which have formed the history of Oklahoma, one who has passed through many interesting experiences both in the earlier and lawless days of Indian Territory and the young state and in its later period of civilization and prosperity, is Hon. George S. March, former judge of Montague County, Texas, and now a leading member of the Marshall County bar, at Madill .
The March ancestry extends back in this country before the Revolutionary war. George O. March, one of the Colonial forefathers, became a book publisher at Lebanon, Ohio, and Francis A. March, who settled in Pennsylvania, became the father of Col. Peyton C. March, who assisted in the capture of Aguinaldo in the Philippines. The maternal grandmother of Judge March- the mother of Clementine Elizabeth (Sory) March still lives at the age of ninety-four years, and an interesting character of the maternal ancestry of the Judge was Col. Robert Haltom, his mother's uncle, who built the first courthouse and jail, in Rusk County, Texas. A. M. March, the father of Judge March, who was a surveyor, was among the first settlers at the historic site of Spanish Fort, on Red River, just over the river from the Indian country. There he made settlement in 1857, nine years after he had made his advent to Texas from Jackson, Tennessee, and built one of the first log houses in Rusk County. Comanche Indians frequently were on the war-path in that day and the log houses bore "port holes" on each side, being thus transformed into forts for the protection of the settlers against the hostiles. Mr. March was a member of a party of Texans who participated in the last fight with the Comanches, at Eagle Point Texas, in 1876. Twenty years later he died, and his body lies buried in the old cemetery at Montague,
As it appears in retrospection, the cattle range epoch of former Indian Territory was one of the most fascinating periods of this section's history, and tragedy frequently split the even trend of the day's events. Judge March recalls the important facts of a fight which took place during a roundup at Erin Springs, near the present Town of Lindsay, in 1886, between two rival forces of cattlemen, when his father, who dealt extensively in cattle in that section, accused one Wyatt and Curg Williams and Frank Murry of taking unlawful possession of some 300 to 400 head of his cattle. Men on both sides were armed, as were all frontiersmen of these days, and twenty to thirty men were engaged, the result being that four or five were killed. The after-effects reflect the spirit of the time: there was peaceful division of the herd and Mr. March secured all the cattle that he had claimed. .
The early education of Judge March was obtained in the public schools of Texas. His first experience as a cowpuncher was secured under U. S. Joines, now a wealthy citizen of Ardmore, who was a pioneer ranchman of the Indian Territory. The ranch was situated on Mud Creek and from it drives were made every year over the Chisholm Trail into states of the North. On one of these drives the man in charge of the herd came to the conclusion that he had more men then were needed and five of them (among them Judge March) were discharged in a lonely and uninhabited region of the northern end of Indian Territory. These men set out on their return to the Spanish Fort country of North Texas, and their lack of food and being forced to eat green corn from roasting-ear patches near the southern end of their journey, are incidents characteristic of the hardships of the day. The annual spring roundups on Big Valley were among the chief events of the time in the cattle country and many a young man was initiated into the mysteries of cowpunching degrees while learning a new occupation on these occasions.
After his cowboy days, Judge March returned to Texas, furthered his educational training and became a teacher in the rural schools. Finding himself adapted to this vocation, he pursued it with vigor and increasing knowledge and later taught in some of the leading schools of North Texas. In the meantime, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in July, 1890, at Montague, Texas, and four years later was elected county judge of Montague County, Texas, and as such was ex-officio county superintendent of schools. During the four years he filled this office he labored with Prot. J. M. Carlyle, one-time state superintendent of public instruction of Texas, in behalf of a law creating the office of county superintendent of schools and their efforts finally resulted in success. For twelve years Judge March was a member of the executive committee of the Educational Association of Texas.
Judge March returned to Oklahoma in 1901, being among the throng that came from all over the southwestern country and made up the population of the Town of Lawton, which was established during that year. Here he found a return to the era of lawlessness, and after the brief annals of the new city had been stained with the Hood of many murdered men, he joined the forces, 5,000 strong, of young Robert Goree, a party which marched down the notorious Goo Goo Avenue and cleared the city of crooks and gamblers. Later Judge March returned to Nocona, Texas, where he made his home after retiring from the judgeship of Montague County, and there remained until 1910, when he settled in the practice of law at Madill, which has since been his residence and the scene of his labors. He has taken his place as one of the most forceful learned and thorough lawyers of the Marshall County bar, and his connection with a number of important cases has given him prestige and attracted to him a most important professional business. Judge March served one term as city attorney of Madill and during his administration the city hall was erected and the sanitary sewer system installed. In Marshall County he became a leader of the organization at Madill that, after five elections, succeeded in securing the courthouse for this city, the election being won by twenty-two votes. Later a magnificent courthouse was erected at a cost of $75,000 and Judge March was the first man to try a case therein. He is a member of the Marshall County Bar Association, of the Madill Commercial Club and of the Madill Civic League, and his fraternal connections include membership in the Knights of Honor, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World, the Rebekahs and the Woodmen's Circle. With his family, he belongs to the Methodist Church. While the days of lawlessness have passed, a glamour sets upon the country to this day, and there is an interesting and singular twinkle in the eye of the judge who passed through the epoch of the cattle range and who finds in retrospection the material for many charming stories.
Judge March was married April 12, 1888, at Mount Enterprise, Texas, to Miss Margaret Westfall, and they have eight children living: Miss Lester, who recently completed a course at Chillicothe Business College, Chillicothe, Missouri, and has chosen a business career for herself: and Clyde, Mona, Marguerite, Lucile, George S., Kathleen and John Abe, living at home. Four of the eldest have made perfect records in attendance and unusually high grades in the public school and two are graduates of the high school. The brothers and sisters of John March are: John S., who for thirty years has been engaged in the hardware business at Nocona, Texas; Mrs. Clementine E. McNew, of Oklahoma City; Mrs. Rhoe Matlock, widow of the late Judge Matlock, of Texline, Texas; R. L., who for twenty-five years has been a lawyer at Duncan, Oklahoma; Mrs. Frankie Hagler, of Nocona, widow of the late Will Hagler; W. W., who met an accidental death while hunting near Nocona in 1909; and Abe and A. M., who are pioneer hardware dealers of Lawton, Oklahoma.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

SAMUEL O. BOPST

In the history of pioneer mercantile affairs at Bartlesville there are three names that stand out conspicuously and have the moot prominent associations in the minds of all who located in that city ten years ago or more. These were the late Samuel O. Bopst, George B. Keeler and William Johnstone. Their family names are given permanent memorial in different ways at Bartlesville, one of the principal business buildings bears the name Bopst, while an important avenue has the name Johnstone. These three men were close friends, and were associated together in business affairs. Up to about ten years ago they were primarily Indian traders, and all three of them spoke the Indian dialect and tongues as well as the Indians themselves. The late Samuel Bopst was master of five Indian languages.
Samuel O. Bopst was an active resident of Bartlesville nearly thirty years. In his death on April 4, 1912, that city lost not only one of its pioneers but one of its most useful and well known citizens. Samuel O. Bopst was born in Atchison County, Missouri, in 1855, son of Othaniel Bopst, who with his wife was a native of Germany, and the German language was the tongue usually spoken in their home. Othaniel Bopst, who died in Missouri at the age of eighty-four, was a merchant for more than thirty years at Nishna in Atchison County, and was likewise an extensive farmer. Samuel O. Bopst was one of two sons and four daughters, and spent his early life on a farm, attended the public schools until eighteen, and learned the mercantile business in his father's store at Nishna.
When Mr. Bopst arrived at what is now the City of Bartlesville in 1884 he found only a blacksmith shop and store with a few rude dwelling houses along the Caney River. For twelve years he was employed in the store of Johnstone & Keeler, and subsequently bought the Johnstone interest and was first a member of the firm of Keeler & Bopst, and after George Keeler sold out to C. M. Keeler the firm then became Bopst & Keeler. Mr. Bopst finally bought the Keeler interests and continued as sole proprietor of the business until he sold out about a year before his death. He succeeded in building up the largest hardware, implement, furniture, wagon house in Bartlesville, and when he sold out it was to the Cherokee Hardware Company, which still continues this business, now established for more than thirty years.
Mr. Bopst was also regarded as one of the largest oil operators in Northern Oklahoma until ill health compelled him to sell out his interests about a year before his death. He was treasurer of the Caney Valley Oil & Gas Company, which had a notable record in oil production in the Bartlesville district. At one time out of forty-eight wells drilled by the company there were only two dry holes. In 1908 Mr. Bopst erected the Bopst Building, a fine two-story brick block, with store below and offices and living rooms above. This building, which is one of the monuments to his enterprise, stands on Johnstone Avenue next door to the First National Bank Building.
Mr. Bopst was popular in all classes of business and social circles. He was a thirty-second degree Mason, and also a member of the Independent Order of Odd Follows, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He gave a great deal of attention to Masonry, and his funeral was conducted under the auspices of the consistory body at McAlester, who came to Bartlesville for that purpose in a special chartered car. The funeral services were held in the Methodist Church.
Mr. Bopst was married December 25, Christmas Day, 1887, to Miss Racia Hampton, who was born June 8, 1865, in Moultrie County, Illinois, and is still living with her children in Bartlesville. Mrs. Bopst when a small child was brought out to Kansas by her parents and four years later they located in Indian Territory. She is a daughter of William A. and Jane (Rail) Hampton, both of whom died in Bartlesville. Her father was a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and was a carpenter and contractor. Mrs. Bopst was one of a family of four daughters. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Bopst are: Roy and William O., both of whom live at home with their mother; Ella, wife of Jack Shaw of Bartlesville; and Jennie, wife of Morris K. Webber, of Bartlesville.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

HENRY E. ASP

A distinguished member of the Oklahoma bar, Mr. Asp is engaged in the practice of his profession in Oklahoma City, where he is the head of the representative law firm of Asp, Snyder, Owen & Lybrand, with offices in Suite Nos. 608-14 Terminal Building. He established his residence in Oklahoma in the year following the creation of the territorial government, and is thus to be designated as one of the pioneer lawyers of both the territory and the state. Further than this his high sense of civic loyalty and stewardship has made him a constructive force in connection with governmental affairs and general industrial progress in Oklahoma, where he has given earnest co-operation in movements and enterprises projected for the general good of the commonwealth and its people, especially valuable having been his influence in conserving a due portion of the public domain for the promotion and support of education. He was a prominent member of the state constitutional convention and has been a leader in the councils of the republican party in Oklahoma during the entire period of his residence within its borders.
Henry E. Asp was born at New Boston, Mercer County, Illinois, on the 1st of January, 1856, and is a son of John A. and Christina Asp, both natives of Sweden and sterling representatives of that valuable Scandinavian element that has proved a benignant power in connection with the development and upbuilding of many of the states in the western portion of our great national domain. The mother of Mr. Asp died in 1857, when he was an infant of one year, and his father's life was sacrificed in the Civil war, so that virtually he has no remembrance of either of his parents. He was a child at the time of his father's removal from Illinois to Iowa, and at the inception of the Civil war his father, John August Asp, enlisted in an Iowa Regiment of Engineers, with which he proceeded to the front and with which governmental records show him to have been a faithful and valiant soldier. He participated in the siege of Vicksburg, in which city he died shortly after it had capitulated. His vocation after coming to the United States was that of a blacksmith, and his loyalty to the land of his adoption was shown with all of significance when he laid down his life in defense of the nation's integrity.
In 1866 Mr. Asp was taken by his guardian from Iowa to Illinois, and thus he was reared to adult age in his native state. He began to assist in the work of the farm when a mere boy and remained with his guardian until he had attained to the age of sixteen years. In the meanwhile his privileges and educational advantages had been of meager order and he has referred to this period of his career as being one of hard work and hard knocks. Alert mentality and ambitious purpose were not, however, to be denied their legitimate functions, and to such determined and valiant souls success comes as a natural prerogative. At the age of sixteen years Mr. Asp initiated an apprenticeship to a trade and later he was enabled to complete a one year's course in a business college. In the meanwhile he had formulated definite plans for his future career, and in consonance with his ambitious purpose he began the study of law under the preceptor ship of a prominent attorney at Winfield, Kansas. When but seventeen years of age he tried his first case and he has been engaged in active practice since that time, though he was not formally admitted to the bar until he had attained to his legal majority, this distinction having been granted him in 1878, at Winfield, Kansas. In that city he formed, in 1883, a law partnership with William P. Hackney, under the firm name of Hackney & Asp, and they continued in active general practice at Winfield until 1890, when, a short time after the creation of Oklahoma Territory, they removed to Guthrie, the territorial capital, where their effective professional alliance continued until 1892, when impaired health compelled the retirement of Mr. Hackney from the firm. Mr. Asp then formed a professional alliance with James R. Cottingham, under the title of Asp & Cottingham, and this partnership continued, at Guthrie, until 1907, when it was dissolved, this being the year in which Oklahoma was admitted to statehood. Close application and onerous professional responsibilities had made severe inroads on the physical health of Mr. Asp, and after his retirement from the firm he passed one year on a farm, for the purpose of recuperating his energies. He then resumed the practice of his profession at Guthrie, where he remained until 1912, when he removed to Oklahoma City, where, on the 1st of April of that year, he became a member of the present and prominent law firm of Asp, Snyder, Owen & Lybrand, which controls a very large and important law business. Mr. Asp has appeared in much important litigation in both the territorial and state courts and is known as a careful, steadfast and resourceful trial lawyer and well fortified counselor, as well as one who insistently maintains the highest appreciation of professional ethics and of the dignity and responsibility of his chosen vocation. From 1889 until 1907 Mr. Asp had charge, of the law department for Oklahoma of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company, and he resigned this position in the latter year, when his law partner, Mr. Cottingham, was appointed Oklahoma solicitor for this company. While a resident of Guthrie he served several months as assistant United States district attorney, a position which he resigned to give his undivided attention to his private law business.
Mr. Asp represented the Twenty-fifth District of Oklahoma as a delegate to the state, constitutional convention, in 1906, and was assigned to membership on the judiciary committee and the legal advisory committee. He prepared personally, and with remarkable ability and circumspection, the draft of a complete state constitution, and this he presented to the convention. He and his supporters made such a, vigorous championship of the measure and so earnestly urged its adoption in its entirety that they became known under the facetious cognomen of the '' Twelve Apostles.'' Mr. Asp had much to do with the framing of the constitution that was finally adopted as the basis for claims to statehood and he loyally supported the cause of Oklahoma until the desired end had been gained and it had become one of the integral commonwealths of the nation.
Of his unremitting and zealous efforts in securing to the new state the full benefits from the school lands high commendation was given by Hon. John R. Williams, secretary of the state school commission, in as article that was published in the Daily Oklahoman of April 26, 1914, and the following extracts from the article are eminently worthy of reproduction in this connection:
"In the early part of the year 1893, and after three great openings of lands to homestead settlement with reservations for public schools only, it was found by a few public-spirited citizens, notably Hon. Henry E. Asp and Dr. David R. Boyd, the latter then president of the State University of Oklahoma, that soon the public domain would be exhausted and that we would have no lands reserved for donation to the future state for higher education and public buildings. A bill providing for the opening of the Cherokee Outlet was then pending before Congress. Asp and Boyd appeared in Washington and endeavored to secure an amendment to the bill, reserving Section 13 in each township for higher educational purposes and Section 33 in each township for public-building purposes, but, owing to stern opposition, failed to secure its adoption by the committee on territories. Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut, the then chairman of the committee, was in sympathy with the purpose of these men and, sharing their disappointment, conceived and suggested another plan whereby the result might be wrought, and with his own hands drafted an amendment to the bill, which authorized the president of the United States, after making in his proclamation reservations of sections 16 and 36 for public schools, 'to make such other reservation of lands for public purposes, as he may deem wise and desirable.' This act was approved by President Harrison on the last day of his term, March 3, 1893.
"Upon the inauguration of President Cleveland Mr. Asp and Dr. Boyd interceded with him along the lines of securing additional reservations of land for higher educational and public-building purposes. The result was that, on August 19, 1893, President Cleveland issued his proclamation opening the six-million acre strip to homestead settlement, reserving Section 13 in each township, where not otherwise disposed of, for university, agricultural-college and normal-school purposes; also Section 33 in each township, where not otherwise reserved, for public buildings. These two reservations were made subject to the approval of congress, and were approved by that body May 4, 1894."
For his effective interposition in the above connection the State of Oklahoma must owe to Mr. -Asp a perpetual debt of gratitude and commendation, and in many other ways has he manifested his deep and abiding interest in all that touches the present and future welfare of the state of his adoption.
In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Asp has completed the circle of the York Rite and received also the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in Oklahoma Consistory No. 1, Valley of Guthrie. He is also a member of the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He and his wife are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church and in the capital city their attractive home is at 416 West Thirteenth Street.
In the year 1880 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Asp to Miss Nellie M. Powers, daughter of Nathan M. and Ellen M. Powers, of Winfield, Kansas. They have no children save an adopted son.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

JOSEPH CARL GREGG

One of the active members of the present city government of Tulsa, Joseph C. Gregg has been the leading factor in supplying that city with wholesome and clean amusement, and at different times has been proprietor of perhaps half a dozen theaters in the city. He is still in the business, and one of the beet known citizens of Tulsa.
Joseph Carl Gregg was born at Nashville, Washington County, Illinois, April 24, 1881, a son of Park E. and Lou (Anderson) Gregg. Both parents were born in Indiana and are still living, and all their six children are alive, Joseph C. being the second in order of birth. His father was for a number of years a contractor and builder at Oakland City, Indiana, moving next to Nashville, Washington County. Illinois, where he was in the grocery trade, and continued the grocery business at Belton, Missouri. He finally removed out to Los Angeles, California, continued merchandising for a time, and in 1907 located at Guthrie, Oklahoma. After spending four years in that city he returned to Los Angeles and is now living retired. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in politics a democrat.
Joseph C. Gregg was educated in the public schools of Missouri and Los Angeles, California. His first work for wages was driving a milk wagon in Los Angeles. In 1906 he came to Guthrie, Oklahoma, and for a time was identified with the restaurant business. In 1907 he became special agent for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company at Guthrie, and continued in the railway service until 1910. In that year he took up the general theater and moving picture business at Enid, and opened the Wonderland Theater, which he conducted for about two years. Since then Mr. Gregg has been in Tulsa, and at different times has opened the Wonderland, the Yale, the Palace, the Orpheum and the Lyric theaters. All these he has since sold except the Lyric, which he still manages.
In April, 1914, Mr. Gregg was elected city commissioner of finance and revenue, and is giving much of his time and attention to this department of the city's government. He is a democrat in politics, affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Tulsa Lodge No. 946, B. P. O. E., and with the Loyal Order of Moose. In 1909 Mr. Gregg married Cora Coleman. She was born in Marietta, Kansas. Their two children are: Ralph and Margaret.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

VERIS E. Mclnnis

It is not unusual for one to meet, in a community as full of men restless to reach still higher successes, whether in business, or political or professional life, as Oklahoma City undoubtedly is, men who have worked their way to position and independence over the hard and tedious self-made road. In this class is found Veris E. McInnis, a lawyer of standing at the Oklahoma bar, and a man who has worked his way up through a collegiate and university training, over the rough paths that must be traveled by the young practitioner, to a place of recognition in his chosen profession.
Mr. McInnis was born at Monticello, Mississippi, in 1880, and is a son of William F. and Caroline (O'Mara) McInnis. The American ancestors of the family were David M. and Rachel Rebecca McInnis, who were married in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1780, and in 1814 emigrated to the United States in a company of 118 persons, which landed in Virginia, but later formed a small colony in North Carolina. There Mr. and Mrs. McInnis reared a family of eleven children. The grandfather of Veris E. McInnis was a Mississippi planter prior to the war between the South and the North, and when hostilities broke out offered his services to the Confederacy, was accepted, and served bravely and faithfully as an officer throughout the war, in which several of his sons, uncles of Veris E. McInnis, were also engaged.
William F. McInnis was born in Mississippi, there grew to manhood, and early turned his attention to mercantile pursuits. He was a man of good business talents, and until 1890 continued to be actively engaged at Monticello, being also prominent in public affairs and for some time serving as postmaster and superintendent of schools. In 1890 Mr. McInnis went to McKinley, Texas, where he spent five years in business, and in 1895 went to Sherman, Texas, there carrying on successful activities until his death, August 14, 1910. Mrs. McInnis, also a native of Mississippi, still survives the father.
While attending the public schools of Texas, Veris E. McInnis formed the decision that his would be a professional career, and that his training there or should come about through his own efforts. Accordingly he learned stenography and shorthand, applying himself so earnestly to learning these vocations that when he was still a lad of fifteen years he was doing stenographic work, with the receipts for which he was al le to take the literary course at Austin College, Sherman, Texas. He was graduated there from in 1899 with the degree of Bachelor of Sciences. Mr. McInnis pursued his law course at the University of Texas Law School, Austin, Texas, being graduated from that institution with his degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1902, and while there acted in the capacity of stenographer for the law department of the university.
Being admitted to the bar at the time of his graduation, Mr. McInnis entered upon the practice of his profession at Sherman, in partnership with A. L. Beaty, which firm subsequently became Smith & Beaty and later Smith & Wall. Mr. McInnis left Texas in 1906, in the employ of the Frisco Railroad Company, and until the close of the year 1907 held the position of traveling claim agent of the law and claim department in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. On January 1, 1908, Mr. McInnis located permanently at Oklahoma City, in charge of the personal injury claims of the Frisco lines in Oklahoma, but in 1909 gave up this office to devote himself to his regular practice which he has continued successfully to the present time. Mr. McInnis maintains offices at No. 232 American National Bank Building. He practices in all the courts and has been successfully connected with several cases that have attracted attention and have given him prestige in his calling.
Mr. Mclnnis is a member of the Kappa Alpha (Southern) fraternity and of the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club. His religious faith is that of the Presbyterian Church, and he attends with the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church of Oklahoma City. Mr. McInnis is unmarried and resides at No. 1214 North Broadway Street, Oklahoma City.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

From many states and nations came the pioneer white settlers of Indian Territory, and the majority of them, except the missionaries, were from the old South. It is probably true that nine-tenths of the white men who have become intermarried citizens were originally Southerners, notwithstanding a goodly admixture of those of Northern parentage. Indian Territory was a melting pot of its own in the creation of a new citizenship as regards white men.
The case of John F. Moyer, a prominent live stock dealer and rancher at and near Antlers, is an illustration of the manner in which speech, habits and customs of other regions were either abandoned or thrown into the pot to form parts of the ingredients of the new race of Indian Territory. Mr. Moyer's parents were English people and natives of Canada. They came to the United States in an early period and settled in Michigan, where Abram Moyer engaged in the lumber business. Later they lived in Southwest Missouri. John Moyer at the age of seventeen went to Little Rock, Arkansas, where for two years he was engaged in a shingle mill.
At nineteen he entered the Indian Territory, lost himself in a measure from the outside world, and for nearly thirty-five years has been an integral part of the life of this interesting region. Very necessary to this region was the blood of such ancestors as were his, since the form of civilization and manner of progress would not have been properly balanced under Southern influence alone. The formative period of Indian Territory history was that in which Mr. Moyer figured. It was the period in which ideals of other regions were thrown to the winds that swept through the timbered mountain valleys, and in which customs of other times and places were forgotten. Brain and brawn and some measure of education were the prime factors, and that man counted for most who had ability to accomplish something.
It was rather by accident that John Moyer became a citizen of Indian Territory. River excursions from Little Rock to Fort Smith were frequent in the early '80s and of particular interest because Fort Smith was then regarded as a frontier community. Into that town came all manner of Indians and all manner of white men from the Indian Territory. It was the seat of the United States Court for Indian Territory, the court being presided over by Judge Parker.
The excursion steamer that brought Moyer to Fort Smith left him there, and he had not meant that it should be so. While viewing the interesting sights of the town he talked with a man who had driven there in a wagon from Savannah, Indian Territory, a place situated in the coal mining region. The man said he was looking for some one to make the return journey with him. Here was a chance for adventure, and Moyer seized it. Having fifty dollars in money, he bought some overalls and a cotton shirt, and the following day the journey to Savannah began. Having had no experience in mining he remained but a few days at Savannah and then set out for Stringtown where he had heard the lumber industry was developing. He knew that business. At Stringtown he worked at a mill owned by Sam Scratch, but remained only a short time when he went to Atoka, and found employment there for two years. While at Atoka he attended Sunday school in the pioneer Baptist Church that Doctor Murrow had erected and that venerable missionary was his Sunday school teacher.
At that time Colonel Nelson, a fullblood Choctaw and a preacher of the Methodist faith, was running a store at a post-office called Nelson in what is now Pushmataha County. Nelson needed a clerk in his store and Moyer was employed. He crossed the mountain country and at Nelson settled in a community that was inhabited almost exclusively by fullbloods. He soon learned enough of the Choctaw language to trade with the Indians and remained there until the Town of Antlers was platted. Colonel Nelson moved his store to Antlers and Moyer came with him. Later he engaged in the mercantile business on his own account.
As a pioneer of the Town of Antlers Mr. Moyer assisted in the organization of the Antlers National Bank and has been a director of that institution ever since. Associated with him in the organization were Captain La Seureur, W. P. Cochran, S. J. Newcomb, William Fletcher and Miss Octavia La Seureur. Eight miles northeast of Antlers, at the foot of the mountain, Mr. Moyer has his fine ranch, and he raises and deals extensively in cattle and horses and grows feed and puts up large quantities of hay. His own allotments as an intermarried citizen were selected in the Chickasaw country and are in what is now Carter County.
Meantime, in 1886, Mr. Moyer married Mary Jane Ellis. She was of Chickasaw and Choctaw blood. The marriage ceremony was performed at the home of Colonel Nelson and by Colonel Nelson in his magisterial capacity. To this marriage were born four children, and the only one now living is Grover S., aged sixteen. Mrs. Moyer died in 1902. Two years later he married Daisy Tucker. Their two children are Mary Ruth, aged ten, and Lucile, aged seven. Mr. Moyer has three brothers and one sister: James, W. R. and R. A. Moyer, all of whom live at Moyer Spur in Pushmataha County, the first two being in the livestock business and the last in the drug business; and Mrs. Mary Esther Nichols, widow of a railroad man and living at Harrison, Arkansas. Abram Moyer, the father of these children, was for many years a successful lumberman, came into Indian Territory to engage in that industry about 1884, and now lives retired at Antlers. Mr. John F. Moyer is a member of the Christian Church, is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Knights of the Maccabees, and is an active member of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

FRED MCDANIEL

The appointment of Fred McDaniel as postmaster of Bartlesville on February 13, 1913, was a well deserved honor bestowed upon one of the native sons of the old Cherokee Nation and for many years one of the most public spirited and successful of Bartlesville's business men. Fred McDaniel has been actively identified with the life of Bartlesville since the beginning of that city's marvelous growth and prosperity.
Fred McDaniel was born near Fort Gibson in the old Cherokee Nation, April 14, 1872, a son of Walter and Jane (Vann) McDaniel. His father was of Scotch-Irish ancestry but with an important intermingling of Cherokee blood, while the mother was of pure Cherokee stock. Fred was their only child, and about a year after his birth his mother died and his father married again, but died when he was six years old. Both the children of the second marriage are also deceased.
Fred McDaniel spent his childhood largely in the home of an aunt near Tahlequah, and finished his education in the Cherokee Orphan Asylum near Pryor Creek in 1888. For a man who has reached commendable distinction in later years he overcame many disadvantages and hardships as a boy. He worked on farms and in stores and at any legitimate occupation until 1894, and in that year became deputy district clerk at Claremore. In 1897, on leaving that office, he found employment in a store at Talala under the direction of Chief Rogers, and early in 1900 located at Bartlesville. His first year in that city was in the employ of George B. Keeler in the merchandise business, and he has since brought the scope of his activities and has been prominent as a real estate man, in insurance fields, also in the oil and gas industry and in political life. He established at Bartlesville the Red Cross Pharmacy, and has been connected with the First National Bank, the Bartlesville Foundry and Machine Works and the Bartlesville Dewey Interurban Company. As a real estate man he opened McDaniel Addition comprising eighty acres in Southern Bartlesville.
While successful as a business man Mr. McDaniel has also been a man of leadership in local politics. In 1903 he was elected mayor of Bartlesville and served four consecutive one-year terms, and in 1908 was re-elected for two years, but served only 1 1/2 years before the inauguration of the commission form of government. As a former Cherokee citizen he was selected as a member of the commission, with E. L. Cookson and W. W. Hastings as associates, which during 1906-07 wound up the affairs of the Cherokee government as one of the steps preparatory to statehood. In the democratic party he has served as chairman of the County Campaign Committee and is one of the most influential democrats in Northeastern Oklahoma. He assumed the duties of his office as postmaster at Bartlesville on March 16, 1915. The Bartlesville office is a first class office.
Mr. McDaniel is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine, and also affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His first wife was Miss Ella Musgrove, and his one child, Frederick William, comes from that union. In November, 1908, he married Miss Rosanna Harnage, a native of the Cherokee Nation, and a son was born by the second marriage, F. Maser McDaniel, born in 1909.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

BENJAMIN NELSON WOODSON

Probably few of the men of Oklahoma who have been so uniformly successful in varied lines of activity have found the time to so generously devote to the welfare of their communities than has Benjamin Nelson Woodson, who at various times in his career has been lawyer, jurist, legislator, agriculturist, prominent politician and able journalist, and who. at this time, is editor and proprietor of the Walters New Era, at Walters. Mr. Woodson was born at Houstonville, Lincoln County, Kentucky, February 25, 1850, and is a son of James P. and Mary (Ison) Woodson.
James P. Woodson was born in Rockingham County, North Carolina, in 1818, and was seventeen years of age when he went to Casey County, Kentucky. Later he moved to Lincoln County, in the same state, and in 1854 went to Honey Grove, Texas, where he passed the rest of his life, dying in 1892. He was a hardware merchant during the greater part of his life and through good business ability and steady industry accumulated a satisfying competence. In early life a whig, with the organization of the republican party he gave it his support, and his religious views were those of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was a lifelong member. He was a Mason. During the Civil war he joined the Confederate army, but saw no active service. Mr. Woodson married Miss Mary Ison, who was born in Garrett County, Kentucky, in 1819, and she died at Honey Grove, Fannin County, Texas, in 1891. Eleven children were born to them, namely: Martha Ann, Bettie and Jennie, who are all deceased; Emma, who married James Boone, a retired contractor and builder of Fort Worth, Texas; Virginia, widow of the late George Daley, a druggist, residing in California; Benjamin Nelson, of this notice; James, deceased, who at the time of his demise was holding a position in the state auditor's office, at Austin, Texas; Lorena, who is the widow of Joseph Kendell, an educator and at the time of his death the state superintendent of the State Normal at Denton, Texas, Mrs. Kendell being now a resident of Dallas, Texas; John T., who is a merchant of Childress County, Texas; Robert, who is a merchant of Era, Colorado; and William, who died in infancy.
Benjamin Nelson Woodson belongs to a family which originated in England and came to the Virginia Colony in 1620. He received his preliminary education in the public school at Honey Grove, Fannin County, Texas, and was subsequently graduated from Pritchett College, Glasgow, Missouri, in 1875, receiving the degree of proficiency. Later he entered the law department of the University of the City of New York, where he was graduated in 1876, at which time Ulysses S. Grant, Junior, was sworn in, although a graduate of Columbia University. Returning to Honey Grove, Texas, Mr. Woodson engaged in the practice of law, and was elected state's attorney for Fannin County, an office which he retained for two terms. On April 22, 1889, he removed to Oklahoma City and engaged in the practice of his profession, remaining there for five years with a full measure of success. He was the representative of Texas on the famous committee of fourteen that was selected at a mass meeting in Oklahoma City to survey and lay off the city into lots and blocks, streets and alleys, and took an active part in all the public affairs of the city until he left for Kay County. He was chairman of the committee that settled the contest on the Gault 80 of the 'city. In 1893 he went to the Cherokee Strip, where he was appointed county judge by Governor Renfrew, a capacity in which he acted to the end of the term and lived there for seven years, and in 1901 came to Kiowa County, Oklahoma, where he opened an office for the practice of his profession in Hobart. While there he was honored by election to the last Territorial Senate, the twelfth session, in which he represented Kiowa and Washita counties, in 1904. After five years in Kiowa County, Mr. Woodson removed to a ranch and proved up a homestead in the south end of Greer County, which afterwards became Jackson County, this property being situated nine miles from Altus. He was there elected county judge in 1911 and served as such two years, and January 1, 1913, came to Walters and purchased the Walters New Era, a democratic organ which had been founded in 1901 by J. A. Stockton. The success which has been attained by Mr. Woodson in his journalistic work would seem to prove, as claimed by many, that editors, like poets, are born, not made. The qualities which make a successful journalist are inbred and no amount of study can supply the lack of a keenness of observation, acute perceptions of the tastes of the public, and accurate judgment on matters treated in various newspaper departments. While it has a respectable foreign list, the New Era circulates principally in Cotton and the neighboring counties, and is the democratic organ of Cotton County, as well as the official city paper of Walters. The commodious and well equipped offices are located on Broadway, and are fitted with all appliances and machinery to be found in the modern newspaper and printing office,
A stalwart democrat from the time of attaining his majority, Mr. Woodson was secretary of the first democratic organization ever established in Oklahoma, at Oklahoma City. He was likewise chairman of the county central and territorial central' .committees there, has helped to organize the party in five different counties in Oklahoma, and has been very active in all state and county conventions. He is both a forcible writer and eloquent speaker, and his voice and pen are always at the service of his party, as they are also at the command of movements which promise advancement and progress in the affairs of his city, county and state. Mr. Woodson has long been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is at present superintendent of the Sunday school. His various fraternal connections include membership in the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World. Of recent years he has disposed of all his farming interests, and now devotes himself unreservedly to his journalistic duties and his political activities.
Mr. Woodson was married in May, 1880, at Glasgow, Missouri, to Miss Nellie Cockrell, who was born at Glasgow, Missouri, daughter of the late Maj. H. Clay Cockrell, who was a major of reserves in the Union army during the Civil war. Mrs. Woodson, a graduate of Pritchette College and of the Southwestern Conservatory of Music, has been prominent in club, religious, charitable and social work, and is at present secretary of the Oklahoma L. T. L. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Woodson: Lalla is the wife of John Keithley, a banker and agriculturist of O 'Fallon, Missouri. Marion Marle, a graduate of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, at Stillwater, Oklahoma, is now a commercial salesman, with Lexington, Kentucky, as his home. He was for a number of years at the head of the demonstration department of agriculture of the State of Oklahoma, and as such in charge of the exhibits of the state in the Dry Farming Congress in the Lethbridge Exhibition, in Canada, in 1912. Benjamin Nelson, Jr., is manager for the Emerson-Brantingham Implement Company at Kansas City, Missouri. James Clay graduated May 28, 1915, from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Oklahoma with the degree of Bachelor of Science. Genelle attended the Agricultural and Mechanical College, Stillwater, Oklahoma, and is now a teacher in the Walters public schools, and John Mortimer will graduate from that institution with the class of 1917.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

FRANK P. HOPWOOD

There is an interesting chapter of Oklahoma history that should be written in all essential details,-a chapter relating to the call of opportunity in Oklahoma to young men of the North and East, and the response of these young men to the call, with due reference to their activities after establishing residence in the vital new commonwealth. The decade preceding 1915 was marked by the immigration of the young men from older states of the Union. Every community has one or more of this class. Most of them have made investments and become a very part personally of the community life. Out of colleges and universities many of them have come, and nearly all have brought experience in business or the professions. The adaptation of their ideas to those of the community and the reforms and advances they have quietly but surely instituted have done much to conserve civic and material progress of stable order. These men are vigorous and refreshing, and commercial and industrial activities have responded to their touch. They are creating better conditions and giving to Oklahoma a staunch and distinctively individual type of citizenship that can be claimed by no other state. The political economist could here find subject matter for a volume as interesting as any that has ever been written on the subject. The coming of these men has tended to energizing the progressive activities on the part of young men who have been reared to a greater or less extent in this section of the country. The activities of the two elements have made a harmonious blend that is interesting to contemplate.
A vigorous and popular representative of the class of new-comers in Oklahoma is Frank P. Hopwood, who is engaged in the real-estate, loan and insurance business at Atoka, judicial center of the county of the same name. He is a native of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and is a son of Hon. Robert F. Hopwood, who represents the Twenty-third district of Pennsylvania in the United States Congress. Frank P. Hopwood settled at Atoka, Oklahoma, in 1911. He made investments in land and purchased the oldest insurance business in the old town of Atoka. To this he added a farm-loan business, and in the three lines of enterprise he has extended his business activities over the entire county, as well as into parts of adjoining counties. He and his brother Samuel are the owners of valuable farm lands that they are improving and which they are devoting to diversified agriculture and the growing of live stock.
Mr. Hopwood was born in the year 1884. His father has for many years been a prominent lawyer and political leader in his section of the old Keystone State. He bears the reputation of being a leader in the movement for clean politics, and in 1914 he was nominated for Congress without opposition, on an agreement that there was to be no fighting and no illegitimate promise-making in the campaign. He had been defeated for Congress in 1884, because he refused to subscribe to a system involving money considerations and the making of undue campaign promises. The Hopwood family was founded in Pennsylvania prior to the opening of the nineteenth century. In 1769 the original progenitor laid out in Pennsylvania the Town of Woodstock, the name of which was subsequently changed to Hopwood. This pioneer settler removed to Pennsylvania from Stratford County, Virginia, where the original representatives of the name settled upon coming to the American colonies. Rice G. Hopwood was county attorney of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 1837. John Miller, an ancestor of Frank P. Hopwood on the maternal side, was likewise a pioneer in Pennsylvania, where he settled about the same time as did the first Hopwood in that commonwealth. Jacob Miller, of a later generation, became one of the leading figures in political affairs in the southwestern part of Pennsylvania.
The parents of Mr. Hopwood still reside at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and concerning their other children the following brief data may consistently be entered: Samuel C. is associated with his brother, Frank P., in the various business activities which they control from their headquarters in the thriving Town of Atoka, Oklahoma; Mrs. Jasper T. Shepler still resides at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where her husband is a representative business man; Miss Edith remains at the parental home; Mrs. David W. Kaine is the wife of a business man at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in which place Robert F., Jr., the youngest of the children, remains at the parental home.
The early education of Frank P. Hopwood was acquired in the public schools of Pennsylvania, and this discipline was supplemented by his attending the Pennsylvania Military College at Chester. After leaving school he engaged in civil engineering work, in the employ of the H. C. Frick Coke Company. In 1904 ho assisted in the building of an electric, interurban railway from Honessen to Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania. The next year he became assistant engineer for the South Fayette Coke Company, and while in the employ of this corporation he superintended the construction of two coke plants. Later he became associated with the Ramage & Gates Contracting Company, and in this connection he had charge of the construction of more than 100 coke ovens for the Elkins Syndicate of West Virginia. He next became superintendent of the plant of the Whyle Coke Company, and for this company he supervised the construction of an entirely new plant. Later he entered the employ of the Whitney-Kemmerer Company, of New York, which corporation he represented one year in Cincinnati and one year in Pittsburgh. Upon severing this association he came to Oklahoma, in 1911, as previously noted. He and his brother are associated in the ownership of 1,000 acres of fine black land on Boggy Bottoms, and are bringing to bear the most approved modern methods in the improving of this property. Mr. Hopwood was the first treasurer of the Atoka Club, a commercial organization with which ho continues to be actively identified, and in his native city in Pennsylvania he is still enrolled as a member of the Uniontown Country Club. He is affiliated with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and both he and his wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
In 1913 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hopwood to Miss Lucy Lankford, whose father was a pioneer physician of Atoka, he being now engaged in the practice of his profession in the City of San Antonio, Texas: his brother, J. D. Lankford, served as state bank commissioner of Oklahoma under the administrations of Governors Cruce and Williams.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

EDWIN R. PERRY

As a vigorous and ambitious lawyer, representing the best ideals of the modern legal fraternity, Edwin R. Perry for nearly ten years has had a successful career and one of great promise at Tulsa. The qualities of a fine mind, the endowments of a natural orator and leader among men, and a steady and persevering industry have brought Mr. Perry well to the top of his profession.
He is a native of Canada, born at Granton, Ontario, March 4, 1874, a son of William and Barbara (Legge) Perry. His father was born in Tyrone County in the North of Ireland, and died at the age of seventy-seven years in 1905 in Neepawa, Canada. His mother was born in Canada of Scotch parentage and died in 1903. They had ten children, two of whom died in infancy, while all the others are still living. William Perry, the father, came to Canada at the age of twenty-one, locating in Middlesex County, Ontario, where he became a pioneer and hewed a farm from out the wilderness. He continued as a general farmer until 1891, and then moved out to the frontier, in Manitoba, where he bought a large tract of land and became extensively engaged in the wheat raising. In 1903 after the death of his wife, he retired, and lived in Neepawa until he lost his life as the result of an accident.
Edwin R. Perry, who was the sixth child in the family of the parents, received some training in the public schools of Canada, and then entered the Evanston Academy at Evanston, Illinois, and after preparing for college became a student in the Northwestern University at the same place, where he was graduated in the literary course with the class of 1900. He continued his college career in the law department of Harvard University, where he graduated with the degree of LL.B. in 1903. For the following year Mr. Perry had the exceptional advantages of association with the law firm of Winston, Payne & Strawn, one of the strongest law firms of the City of Chicago, and thus possessed of a very liberal education and after a valuable apprenticeship in practice he located and began his individual career in Coffeyville, Kansas. He continued there in the practice of law until 1906, and then removed to Tulsa, which in that year was just beginning its phenomenal growth. Mr. Perry has since controlled a substantial general practice.
He is a member of several college fraternities, belongs to the Tulsa County Bar Association, the Oklahoma State Bar Association, while his fraternities are Tulsa Lodge No. 71, A. F. & A. M.; Tulsa Chapter, R. A. M.; Trinity Commandery, Knights Templar; Akdar Temple of the Mystic Shrine; Tulsa Lodge No. 946, B. P. O. E. Politically Mr. Perry is a republican. On October 3, 1910, he married Miss Pauline Nelson, who was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania. They have one daughter, Mary Pauline.

"A Standard History of Oklahoma", Volume 3,  1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn

Transcribed by Cathy Ritter

Equipped with a creditably high literary education and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the law department of the University of Oklahoma, Elton B. Hunt entered upon the practice of his profession at Chickasha in 1913, immediately after his graduation, and since that time has become one of the most popular and successful young practitioners of Grady County. As a member of the firm of Hunt & Rosenstein he has participated in a number of important cases in which he has fulfilled the promise of his brilliant college career, and from the time of his entrance into active professional life his advancement has been consistent and steady.

Mr. Hunt was born May 24, 1886, near Lamar, Barton County, Missouri, and is a son of Jacob and Elizabeth E. (Broyles) Hunt. He belongs to families on both sides which trace their ancestry back to colonial times in this country, and members of which participated in the war for American independence. His parents, who are now farming people and reside on their property in Grady County, Oklahoma, are natives of Tennessee. Mr. Hunt has two brothers: Roy B., who is a successful stockman of New Mexico; and Edwin S., a lad of twelve years, who resides with his parents and attends the Grady County public schools. Elton B. Hunt received his graded school education in Henry Kendall College at Muskogee, Oklahoma, following which he enrolled as a student in Northwestern State Normal School at Alva, Oklahoma. He completed the literary course at Park College Academy, Parkville, Missouri, in 1904, and in 1906 entered Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was graduated in 1910 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. By working at odd times he paid his own way through this institution. In 1910 ho entered the law department of the University of Oklahoma, graduating there from with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Mr. Hunt participated in activities that made him one of the foremost students of the university. He was one of the charter members of the Grady County Club at the University of Oklahoma, as well as an officer of the Democratic Club there; he still retains membership in the Sigma Chi, Phi Delta Phi and Delta Cigma Kho college fraternities, and was president of the Young Men's Christian Association of the University of Oklahoma. He was also undergraduate orator on the occasion of the inauguration of President Brooks, was a participant in, four interstate collegiate debates, was a member of the staffs of all the college publications, and a member of the University of Oklahoma's first student council. While in the Colorado College he also participated in interstate oratorical contests.

After leaving college Mr. Hunt associated himself and for 1 1/2 years remained with the law firm of Randolph, Haner & Shirk at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and in 1914 associated himself with C. H. Rosenstein, a classmate, in the practice of law at Chickasha, where the firm now has offices at 310% Chickasha Avenue, being known as Hunt & Rosenstein. This is accounted a strong legal combination and its business has enjoyed a steady increase in volume and importance.

Mr. Hunt holds membership in the Oklahoma State Bar Association, is a member of the Presbyterian Church, and in politics is a democrat. He is unmarried.

Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn