Woods County, Oklahoma Genealogy Trails

Woods County, Oklahoma

Biographies

JUDGE ROBERT A. CAMERON
One of Woods County's most distinguished pioneer citizens was the late Robert Alonzo Cameron, who had homesteaded a claim near Alva at the opening of the Strip in 1893, and who for twenty years was identified with that community as farmer, lawyer, and public official. His long career of varied activities and important achievements came to a peaceful close in his death at Alva, September 24, 1914. In young manhood he had reached the rank of captain in the Union Army, and began his career as a lawyer a few years after the war.
Robert Alonzo Cameron was born June 28, 1842, on a farm in Washington County, Illinois. His parents, Thomas Wesley and Jane (Alexander) Cameron, were natives of Hagerstown, Maryland. His father, who died in Washington County, Illinois, located in that state in 1840. He was a wagon maker by trade and for the greater part of his life followed farming. He was marred in 1822 to Miss Alexander, who also died in Washington County, Illinois. The late Judge Cameron was the youngest of their nine children, four daughters and five sons, brief mention of whom is given as follows: Matthew, now deceased, was born June 5, 1823. John William, born September 17, 1825, was in the service of the Union army with the rank of surgeon until his death at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1863. Hanna Elizabeth, born January 15, 1828, was married October 12. 1848, to Robert G. Seawell, and she died in 1850, while her husband passed away at the Soldiers Home in Leavenworth, Kansas. Jane Ann, born January 5, 1830, was married in 1861 to James Henry, now deceased, and she died in 1912. William James, born December 14, 1834, is now living in his eighty-first year retired at Oklahoma City. Harriet Elvira, born September 5, 1832, died in 1895. Margaret Catherine, born April 30, 1837, is the widow of William White and lives in Los Angeles, California, Thomas Wesley, born March 28, 1839, died in 1896.
Judge Robert A. Cameron received part of his education in the old Ohio College at Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning to be established west of the Alleghany Mountains. After the war he entered the University of Michigan, and was graduated in the law department with the degree LL.B. in 1868. At the beginning of the Civil war he enlisted as a private in Company C of the Eleventh Illinois Infantry, soon received a commission as second lieutenant, and finally commanded his company as captain. His regiment bore the brunt of a number of engagements in the South, and as his promotion shows he possessed many of the best qualifications of the soldier and was a capable leader and popular among his comrades.
After his admission to the bar Judge Cameron took up the practice of law at Carthage, Missouri, and remained in that city until 1884. In the meantime he had represented Jasper County for two terms in the State Legislature, being elected on the republican ticket. In 1884 he went to El Dorado, Kansas, practiced law there a few years, and finally removed to Medicine Lodge, Kansas. He became county attorney of Barber County, held that office four years, and enjoyed an influential position in the professional and public life of his county. From his residence on the Southern Kansas border he followed closely all the details of the successive openings of Oklahoma lands, and in the fall of 1893 joined the thousands of homeseekers at the opening of the Cherokee Strip. He located a claim three miles from Alva and lived upon it several years. In 1897 he was appointed register of the United States land office at Alva, and held that responsible position four years and five months. In 1907 he had the distinction of being the only republican candidate chosen in Woods County in the election of that year. As a result of this election he took up his duties as county judge, and gave a careful and efficient administration of his duties throughout the term.
The late Judge Cameron is remembered as a man of solid qualities and abilities, not only as a lawyer, but as an all around citizen. He possessed an unusual range of scholarly interest, and few men had a more intimate knowledge of Shakespeare and the Bible than Judge Cameron. He had the gift of eloquence and his services as an orator were in demand not only in political campaigns, but on all occasions of popular meetings. He was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, was for many years identified with the Grand Army of the Republic, held at one time the office of post commander, and at the time of his death was a member of the Alva Post, Grand Army of the Republic.
Judge Cameron was married January 19, 1865, at Cincinnati, Ohio, to Miss Frances M. Welch. She was born at Athens Ohio November 19, 1844, a daughter of Judge John and Martha (Starr) Welch. Her father was one of the most distinguished lawyers and jurists of Ohio, and was a contemporary of such distinguished Ohioans as Chase. Giddings, Wade and Corwin. Judge Welch was born October 28. 1805, in Harrison County, Ohio, and died August 20, 1871, at Athens. For fifteen years he sat as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio. In 1850 he was elected to Congress, and in 1852 participated as a delegate in the last national convention of the whig party at Baltimore. In 1856 he was a member of the electoral college during the first campaign of the republican party. He was the recipient of many honors. and one of the universities bestowed upon him the degree LL. D. Judge Welch was twice married, and his marriage to Martha L. Starr occurred in June, 1830. Their four children, two sons and two daughters, wore: Mary, who was born in 1832 and died in 1887: .Johnson Mortimer, born April 20, 1834, and died in 1912; Henry Harrison, born April 20, 1842.and now a retired capitalist living at Los Angeles and Mrs. Cameron, who since the death of her husband keeps her home in Alva.
Judge Cameron and wife were the parents of eight children five sons and three daughters, as follows: Helen Seymore, born January 22, 1866, is now the wife of John Hood Charless, a prominent cattleman at Amarillo, Texas; Robert Welch, born February 22, 1866, is now superintendent of a box-board manufacturing company at Peoria, Illinois; Nell Emerson, born September 13, 1873, died at Carthage, Missouri, October 14, 1876; John Williams, born January 8, 1870, died January 25" 1870; Ralph Bradlock, born June 10, 1875, is now a mining superintendent in Nevada; John Welch, born June 17, J878, is now a prosperous farmer in Woods County, Oklahoma; George Starr, born March 6, 1881; and Ruth, born at El Dorado, Kansas, October 5, 1883.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma Vol. III and was written by Joseph B. Thoburn and is published by the Historical Society in 1916
Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

Jesse James Dunn, son of James McCann and Alta Florina Dunn, nee Lewis, was born October 2, 1867, at Channahon, Will County, Illinois, where his parents were married on November 27, 1866, in an atmosphere still reverberating from the debates between Douglas and Lincoln. In 1868 the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, his father opening a grocery store. One year later they removed to Brooksville, Noxubee County, Mississippi, where for eight years his father operated a large cotton plantation, his early boyhood being spent near the home of Jefferson Davis. In 1877 the family returned to Illinois, locating at El Paso, in Woodford County. The grandfather of Judge Jesse James Dunn was Dr. William Abram Dunn, who married Rachel Powers at Hillsboro in Highland County, Ohio, in 1835. She died at a point about ten miles east of Warsaw, Illinois, in 1850. He subsequently removed to Farmington, Fulton County, Illinois. The children coming to this union were as follows: James McCann, born February 4, 1836 in Ohio, the others being born in Illinois, as follows: Rebecca Ann, February 8, 1838; Jefferson, in 1840; Mary Jane, 1842; Imra, 1844; Almira, 1846, and Johnny, 1849. After the death of his wife, Dr. Dunn removed to St. Louis, Missouri, engaging in the practice of medicine, where, in 1851, he married Grace Taylor. Later returning to Illinois he located at Bloomington, where he died. James McCann Dunn (Judge Dunn's father), in 1857, went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and freighted for Russell & Waddell to the then outpost of the United States Government. In 1858 he returned to Illinois and engaged in business until December 21, 1863, when at Woodburn under the name of Jandes M. Dunn, age 27 years and born in Ohio, he enlisted in the military service of the United States, being assigned to Company A, 97th Regiment Illinois Infantry, and later transferred to Company 11, 37th Regiment Illinois Infantry, and on detached service in the ambulance corps after October 16, 1864. He was honorably discharged August 15, 1865, at New Orleans, Louisiana. His paternal Dunn ancestry were from Anglo-Saxon stock, and that of his maternal grandmother of Welsh extraction. The Dunns came from England to the Colony of Virginia in an early day, settling in the Valley of the Shenandoah, their descendants spreading out into the states carved out of the Northwest Territory. In the fall of 1885, the father, James McCann Dunn, and son, Jesse James Dunn, when the latter was eighteen years of age, went to Garden City, Kansas, and opened a general store. In the spring of 1886 the rest of the family came from El Paso, Illinois, to Garden City, Kansas, and a claim sixteen miles north therefrom (Post Office Terry, Finney County, Kansas), was located. In the fall of 1886 Jesse James Dunn returned to Illinois, and matriculated at the State Normal School at Normal. At the close of the school year he returned to Garden City, Kansas, where the family was located in a new home. Immediately he became associated with the Garden City Business College as an instructor in Bookkeeping and Penmanship. In the early part of 1888, at Voorhees, in Stevens County, Kansas, he was manager of a grocery store for his father. Beginning in 1889, he read law and pursued his legal studies in the law office of George Lynn Miller, Garden City, who later married his oldest sister. Matriculating in the law school of the University of Kansas in 1892, he graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Laws on June 7, 1893. At the opening of the Cherokee Outlet on September 16, 1893, he made the run, settling at Alva and engaging in the practice of law with George Lynn Miller, Esquire, sharing the trials of the pioneers and the prosperity of those who persisted. At Voorhees in 1888 he had become acquainted with the late Sam N. Wood, for whom the county of Woods in Oklahoma Territory at Judge Dunn's instance was named. In the contest between Hugoton and Woodale for the county seat of Stevens County, Kansas, Sam N. Wood was the leading contender for Woodale. For a successful contest for the county seat, it was desirable to secure a railroad for the town, and in that early day Kansas townships frequently issued bonds to provide bonuses with which to subsidize such construction. Judge Dunn became a zealous follower of Sam N. Wood and supporter of Woodale. In the noted murder case of the United States v. C. E. Cook. Orin Cook, Capt. C. E. Frease, Johnnie Jackson, Ed Boudin, John Colbert and five others, tried at the October term, 1889, of the United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas, at Paris, said defendants being charged in several indictments with the murder of John Cross (Sheriff of Stevens County, Kansas), and his possemen, Ted Eaton, Rollo Wilcox and Bill Hubbard, on July 26, 1888, growing out of the county seat controversy between said towns of Hugoton and Woodale, seven of whom were convicted of the crime of murder, and sentenced to death. George R. Peck of Chicago, General Attorney for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, John F. Dillon of New York City, former United States Circuit Judge, and then attorney for the Gould interests, William R. Day, later a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Joseph Frease of Ohio, and W. H. Rossington of Topeka, Kansas, appeared as attorneys for the appellants in the Supreme Court of the United States, and S. B. Bradford, former attorney general of Kansas, and J. C. Hodges of Paris, Texas, were attorneys for said defendants in the trial court. In addition to the four men killed in what was known as the Hay Meadow massacre at a point in what was then called No Man's Land, but now is in Texas County, Oklahoma, Herbert Toney was left at the place of the crime, thought to be dead, but afterwards recovering he was used as a witness by the United States government. Sam Robinson, who was the actual principal in the killing, fled from the state of Kansas to Colorado, where he was soon afterwards arrested for another crime and convicted and sentenced to the Colorado state penitentiary for a term of ten years, where he died in prison, never being tried under the federal indictment for murder. The convictions on appeal were set aside and a new trial ordered, but the case was never again tried. Judge Dunn, immediately after the killing, on horseback from the adjoining county of Stevens had gone into No Man's Land and viewed the scene before the bodies of the parties killed or wounded were removed, and was used as a witness at the trial at Paris, Texas, which lasted more than a month. Sam N. Wood ably and vigorously assisted the United States Attorney's office in the prosecution. In 1894, as a candidate for the nomination of County Attorney of Woods County at the hands of the Populist Party, Judge Dunn failed to secure the nomination by only three votes. His public career began when two years later he secured such nomination and was elected on November 3, 1896, two years later being again nominated, and re-elected on November 8, 1898, serving two terms. After Judge Dunn retired from said office in January, 1901, he resumed the practice of law at Alva, and formed a partnership with Francis Marion Cowgill, a Missourian and former resident of Kansas, under the firm name of Cowgill & Dunn, which continued until the erection of the state. Judge Dunn occupied a place in the front rank of his profession, and was one of the ablest among the pioneers who made the run into the Cherokee Outlet, commonly called the Cherokee Strip. After the Populist organization disintegrated nationally and ceased to function generally as a party, he affiliated with the Democratic Party under the Bryan Leadership, becoming a leader of that party. He also occupied a place of leadership at the Territorial bar. In 1903 he was elected and served as president of the Oklahoma Territory Bar Association. In 1904 he was unanimously elected as chairman of the Territorial Democratic Committee. The Honorable Frank Matthews of Mangum, now of California, a member of the council of the Oklahoma Territory Legislature, having been at the Territorial Democratic Convention in 1904 nominated as its candidate for delegate to Congress, Judge Dunn, as chairman of the Territorial Committee, managed the campaign. Whilst the Democrats did not prevail in that contest, the Republican majority was reduced. As such party leader, he, in line with the plan of the Democratic party organization of Oklahoma Territory for admission of Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory as one state, was actively aggressive. The Enabling Act to that end was passed by the Congress on June 16, 1906. In the campaign to elect delegates to the Constitutional Convention, which was to assemble under the provisions of said Enabling Act, the Democratic party organizations of the two territories with unanimity consolidated and selected Judge Dunn as their campaign manager, which resulted in electing ninety-nine Democrats, one Independent, and twelve Republicans to said Convention, a signal victory. In a great measure it was occasioned by his skill and ability as an organizer and leader. At the election on September 17, 1907, for the adoption of the Constitution proposed for the new state, and election of officers, Judge Dunn was elected as a Justice of the Supreme Court from the Fifth Supreme Court Judicial District, and re-elected on November 8, 1910 for a six-year term to begin in January 1911 and to expire in January, 1917. In 1904 there was strong support in the Democratic party organization for the nomination of Judge Dunn as a delegate to Congress, but he declined to permit the use of his name to that end. On November 6, 1905, Judge Dunn was selected as chairman of a committee to go to Washington, D. C., after Congress convened in December and present to the committees on Territories appropriate resolutions in support of the passage of an Enabling Act for early statehood. As preliminary to the campaign in 1906, Judge Dunn demonstrated great strategy in uniting the former Populist strength with the regular Democrats in support of the Democratic nominees for delegates to the Constitutional Convention. As a rule afterwards this contingent from the former Populist Party remained in the Democratic fold. The Supreme Court at the erection of the State, under the constitution, adopted the "rotation" plan in its selection of the Chief Justice. When the time arrived for such selection in January 1909, Justices Dunn and Kane, under said plan, being equally eligible, it was so arranged that Judge Kane was elected and served for the first year of that biennium and Judge Dunn was elected as Chief Justice on January 11, 1910, and served as such during the latter year of said biennium. Judge Dunn, in July 1913, resigned as a justice of the Supreme Court effective September 1, 1913, to remove to Oakland, California, to engage in the practice of the law. Decisions prepared by him are reported in volumes 20 to 39, inclusive, of the Oklahoma Reports. He was an able and upright judge. His opinions evidenced not only accomplishment in the law but also excellence in style. In 1913 he formed a partnership with Judge John Yule, uncle of Mrs. Dunn, at Oakland to engage in the practice of the law. Later, on March 1, 1914, the firm of Dunn, White and Aiken was formed, which continued in the practice of the law as a marked success until the date of his death. After his death on July 28, 1926, his name was so highly prized that the firm name Dunn, White and Aiken was continued by the remaining members until the dissolution of their partnership on December 31, 1938. The death of Dean Green, of the School of Law of the Kansas University, having occurred on November 3, 1919, unofficial inquiry was made on the part of its board as to whether Judge Dunn would accept the deanship as his successor. Whilst appreciating this unofficial offer coming from his Alma Mater he was so circumstanced by location and professional connection that he did not feel justified in indicating his acceptance. From the time he was 18 years old in 1885, until his admission to the bar, his home was upon the prairie frontier of Western Kansas and Oklahoma, the surroundings consisting of the engaging in ranching and the following of cattle trails and the ranges, or the looking after the details of a country store or the practice of the law, or a printer and publisher of a weekly paper on such frontier. Had Judge Dunn been brought up in an appropriate environment he would probably have been a great actor or journalist. Though a marked success as an attorney at law and a judge, yet he possessed all the attributes, fitness and characteristics to have been an actor comparable to Edwin Booth, or a journalist of highest rank. Waiting for clients by day and by night in his office on the prairies, in addition to his research in the law, he studied the writings of the sages. On July 19, 1915, at the Arkansas-Oklahoma building on Oklahoma Day at the Pan-Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco, California, he ably and eloquently represented the Governor of the state of Oklahoma in delivering an address at the dedication of the cornerstone. He was not only a success on the Pacific Coast as a lawyer, but also as a public speaker and advocate, as in Oklahoma Territory and State, he took front rank. When he was taken by death on July 28, 1926, at the Livermore Sanitorium in Oakland, California, the citizenship of the state of Oklahoma, not having forgotten his public services and fine citizenship, was greatly saddened. He was survived by his wife, Saidee A. Matson, and three children, to-wit: Claud Dunn, oldest child and only son, married but no children, attended the University of California and its law school, admitted to the practice of law, and being now a Referee in the organization of the Industrial Commission of California, address, State Building, Civic Center, Los Angeles, California; second child, Constance, wife of J. M. Rutherford, Goleta (R. F. D. No. 1), California, two children, both boys, Laurie (12) and Bob (9); third child, Dorothea, husband D. G. White (no children), address, 1700 Le Roy Avenue, Berkeley, California. Judge Dunn's brothers and sisters are as follows, to-wit; Mrs. Laura Miller Smith (oldest sister, and whose first husband was George Lynn Miller), Garden City, Kansas; Mrs. Julius Lincoln (Gertrude), 3111 Seminary Avenue, Chicago, Illinois; Mrs. Fred Armour (Jane), 361 Clarkson Street, Denver, Colorado; Fred Scott Dunn, 109 West Tenth Street, Dallas Texas; Mrs. C. C. Herndon (Ethel), 1120 Woodward Boulevard, Tulsa, Oklahoma; now deceased, William Dunn, interred at Brooksville, Mississippi, and Frank Dunn, at Garden City, Kansas. The administration building of the Northwestern State Teachers College at Alva in 1935, nearly a decade after his death, destroyed by fire, when rebuilt, according to resolution adopted by the Legislature, was named and dedicated as "Jesse Dunn Hall." Judge Dunn was one of the founders of an international luncheon organization known as The Loyal Knights of the Round Table or Round Table International, being its first International President. The organization was carefully built of men of character and standing. Established prior to the depression in more cities than at present, it now exists in Birmingham, Alabama; Tucson, Arizona; Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena, Redlands, San Francisco, San Jose, and Stockton, California; Denver, Colorado; Wilmington, Delaware; Washington, D. C; Portland, Maine; Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City; Dayton, Toledo, and Columbus, Ohio; Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Salt Lake City, Utah; Norfolk, Virginia; Seattle, Spokane, and Tacoma, Washington; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Calgary, Canada. This organization having successfully weathered the adversities of the depression now seems to be steadily moving forward, being the only luncheon organization having a literary and legendary background. One of the finest characters known to either territory or the state, as mentioned in the press, he could have been the governor of the state without a difficult effort. From the time he opened his law office in the early days at Alva until he resigned as a member of the Supreme Court, he had been deeply interested in everything that stood for the betterment of his country and community, his moving concern being for the general good. Unselfishly devoted to the interests of the people, he merited their love and confidence He was a lover of the real things in life, a sincere and warm personality with a mind stored with interesting reminiscences unsparing of his energies and unselfish in his devotion. He was a delightful companion, his enemies few and his friends more than legion. A finished speaker whether at a banquet or on other occasions on the forum or the hustings before the multitude, he was inspirational, witty, humorous, entertaining, eloquent and powerful. In communications personally or through the press, including law journals and other periodicals, he was interesting and instructive. Though his body may sleep on the Pacific Shore, his memory is treasured in the state of Oklahoma which he served so well.
(Source: Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 18, No. 1, March 1940)

ANDREW J. HARTER
A prominent place among the agriculturists of Woods County must be accorded Andrew J. Harter, who has accumulated a handsome property by hard labor, prudent economy and business shrewdness, and who is now occupying a well improved farm located 3 ½ miles southwest of Dacoma. Of late years he has also branched out into financial lines, being at this time president of the Bank of Dacoma, and has also been well known in public affairs, having served in a number of offices within the gift of his fellow citizens.
Mr. Harter was born October 21, 1848, on a farm in Carroll County, Indiana, and is a son of Lewis and Catherine (Mayer) Harter, natives of Virginia. His father was born in 1814 and as a young man removed to Carroll County, Indiana, where he parsed the remaining years of his life in agricultural pursuits, dying in 1869 in moderate circumstances. He was a member of the Dunkard Church. Mr. Harter was married three times, his first wife being Catherine Mayer, to whom he was married in 1835 and who died in 1852. They became the parents of four sons and three daughters, namely: John; Martha, deceased; Martin, deceased; Polly; Moses, deceased; Andrew J., of this notice; and Elizabeth. Mr. Harter was again married in 1859 when united with Mary Ann Betts, who died in 1867, having been the mother of five children: Jacob; David, deceased; Nathan; and a son and a daughter, twins, who died in infancy. Mr. Harter was married the third time, in 1868, to Lydia H. Humbert, and they became the parents of one son, who died in infancy.
Andrew J. Harter grew up amid the surroundings of the farm and passed his boyhood days between attending the public schools of Carroll County, Indiana, and assisting his father in the operation of the homestead farm. He received somewhat better educational advantages than the majority of farmers' sons of his day, completing his schooling at Bourbon College, Bourbon, Indiana. His education finished, in 1869, Mr. Harter embarked upon his career as a teacher, and shortly thereafter went to Oregon, where for three years he had various schools. At the end of that period he returned home, and in 1874 engaged in business at Atwood, Indiana, where he became proprietor of a drug store. This business he conducted until 1878, when he went to Kansas and again took up farming on a Government tract in Stafford County, and there resided for seventeen years. He became one of the substantial and influential men of his community and in 1892 was elected a member of the board of county commissioners. Mr. Harter came to Oklahoma in 1895, in which year he purchased a tract of land in Woods County, 3 ½ miles southwest of Dacoma. Here he has developed an excellent property, all now under cultivation, on which he does scientific diversified farming, following modern methods and making his land pay him in full measure for the labor he expends upon it. He has also been successful in his operations as a stock-raiser, particularly of sheep, of which he ships a large number annually. Mr. Harter bears an excellent reputation in business circles, and is honored and respected not only for what he is, but for what he has accomplished in the promotion of the county's growth and the establishing of its material prosperity. In 1908 he became connected with the Dacoma Bank, and since becoming the directing head of this concern has made it one of the sound and substantial financial institutions of Woods County. His operations have been safe and conservative and his depositors' interests have at all times been closely protected.
On March 5, 1874, Mr. Harter was married to Miss Mary Melissa Bowling, who was born May 1, 1855, on a farm in Piqua County, Ohio, a daughter of Thomas and Eliza (Bowman) Bowling. Mr. Bowling was born in 1820 and spent practically all his life in the Middle West in farming pursuits, passing away after a long, active and useful life, in 1913, aged ninety-three years. Mrs. Bowling, who was born in 1837, died in 1883. To Mr. and Mrs. Harter there have been born three sons and three daughters, namely: Mattie Belle, born December 9, 1874; Claude LeRoy, born March 27, 1877, who died January 5, 1894; Thomas Lewis, born June 10, 1879, died July 20, 1890; Edward Ernest, born October 18, 1881; Lula Maude Grace, born October 7, 1884- and Eva Blanche, born October 25, 1888. ["A standard history of Oklahoma", Volume 3, 1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

HUGH SAMUEL JOHNSON
(1882-1942)
Moving westward from Astoria, New York, in the mid-nineteenth century, Samuel Johnston married Elizabeth Mead of Chillicothe, Ohio. While living in Pontiac, Illinois, Johnston, a lawyer, dropped the "t" from his last name in order to distinguish himself from another Johnston practicing law. The Johnsons moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1881, and their first son, Hugh Samuel Johnson, was born a year later on August 5. The family eventually settled in Wichita, Kansas, where Hugh received his elementary education. Samuel Johnson received an appointment as the postmaster for the future town of Alva, about a hundred miles southwest of Wichita. A week before the Cherokee Outlet land opening on September 16, 1893, he loaded lumber and supplies for the town's post office and the family's household goods on a boxcar that was dropped on a railroad siding at the future town site. Eleven-year-old Hugh Johnson was left behind in Wichita to bring the family's mule team, wagon, horse, and surrey overland to Alva. He reached Kiowa, Kansas, eighteen miles northeast of Alva, on the afternoon of September 15. He spent the night sleeping on the railroad station platform among hundreds of homeseekers waiting at Kiowa to make the land run. By noon on September 16 the boy had found a spot on a railroad flat car from which he observed the "great horse race" as the train slowly made its way to Alva. The elder Johnson took the lead in organizing the Alva public school system, and in 1898 the first high school graduating class of two students included sixteen-year-old Hugh Johnson. From 1898 to 1899 he attended the recently opened Northwestern Normal School in Alva. There university president James Ament tutored him to prepare for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. In 1903 Hugh Johnson graduated from West Point as the first cadet from Oklahoma. Hugh Johnson's contact with Oklahoma was limited to short visits after he left for West Point in 1899. In 1916 he served as judge advocate for Gen. John J. Pershing's punitive expedition against Pancho Villa. Before resigning from the army in 1919, he received the Distinguished Service Medal for the successful implementation of the Selective Service Act during World War I. After his military career he joined George Peek in reorganizing the nearly bankrupt Moline Plow Company. In 1932 he worked with Franklin Roosevelt's campaign team. Because of his demonstrated ability and work in drafting the National Industrial Recovery Act, Roosevelt decided to appoint Johnson as the administrator of NRA, before Congress passed the legislation. He was a very controversial figure as NRA administrator, and Roosevelt accepted his resignation on September 25, 1934. Until his death on April 15, 1942, in Washington, D.C., Johnson remained in the public eye as a public speaker, author, and syndicated newspaper columnist. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.
(Source: Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture)

DAVID FRANKLIN MILLER
Prominent among the citizens of Woods County who while engaged actively in the management of large private interests have found time to serve their community in offices of trust and great responsibility is found David Franklin Miller, county treasurer of Woods County, and the possessor of extensive agricultural interests. Mr. Miller is a Hoosier, born on a farm in Starke County, Indiana, September 9, 1871, a son of Jonas R. and Elizabeth (Stutzman) Miller.
Jonas R. Miller was born December 23, 1846, in Pennsylvania, his parents being natives respectively of Ireland and Germany. He was brought up to agricultural pursuits and received his education in the public schools of Pennsylvania, from which state he removed with his parents when he was fifteen years of age, the family locating in Indiana. When ho arrived at man's estate, Jonas R. Miller embarked in agricultural operations on his own account, continuing to reside in Indiana until 1876, in which year he again turned his face toward the West and finally located in Stafford County, Kansas, where he took up a tract of Government land. Industrious and enterprising, he cleared and cultivated a valuable farm, became a successful agriculturist, and in 1894 came to Oklahoma, where he purchased land in Woods County. He still resides here and is known as one of his community's substantial men. On September 15, 1870, Mr. Miller was married in Starke County, Indiana, to Miss Elizabeth Stutzman, who was born in that county, September 13, 1851. They have had five daughters and two sons, as follows: David Franklin, of this notice; Fannie, born June 6, 1873, who died December 23, 1892, in Stafford County, Kansas; Emma E., born May 8, 1875, married November 20, 1892, Willis Baker, and now lives at Seattle, Washington; Alice E., born August 10, 1877, in Stafford County, Kansas, who married in 1895, Charles Strick, and now lives on a farm in Woods County, Oklahoma; Bertha, born in Stafford County, Kansas, July 20, 1880, married George Young in 1903, and is now residing on a farm in Woods County; Manford E., born in Stafford County, Kansas, May 21, 1884, and now living at home; and Ethel, born August 5, 1887, married in 1913, Vernon Sheddy, and resides on a farm in Woods County.
David Franklin Miller received his education in the public schools of Stafford County, Kansas, and at Central Normal School, Great Bend, Kansas. He remained as a farmer of Kansas until 1894, in which year he came to Oklahoma and located on Government land, in Woods County, twenty-eight miles southeast of Alva. This property ho has since brought to a high state of development, it now being one of the really valuable properties of the community. He has erected substantial and architecturally handsome buildings, has installed improvements of the most approved character, and everything on the farm is modern in every respect. He has carried on general farming in all its branches, and has also been successful in his stock-raising ventures.
A democrat in politics, for a number of years Mr. Miller has been interested in public affairs, and because of his well known ability and integrity has been called to office by his fellow citizens. As early as 1897 he became deputy treasurer of Woods County, a position which he held for 2 ½ years at that time, and again in 1907 was appointed to this office, continuing as deputy treasurer until 1912, when he was nominated on the democratic ticket for the office of county treasurer and elected thereto by a handsome majority. He received a majority of 498 in the election of 1914, although Woods is normally a republican county. His services have been eminently satisfactory to the people of his community, and he is considered one of the most popular officials in Woods County. Fraternally, Mr. Miller belongs to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and has numerous friends in the local lodge. He and the members of his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Miller was married September 6, 1893, at St. John, Kansas, to MISS Emma E. Somers, who was born July 6, 1875, at Dayton, Ohio, a daughter of Joseph S. and Minerva (Horner) Somers, the former a native of Switzerland and the latter of Ohio. To Mr. and Mrs. Miller there have been born seven children, as follows: Arthur Roscoe, born January 18, 1895, and now a teacher in the public schools of Woods County; Blanche Esther, born October 10, 1897, who is also a teacher in the public schools; Ellen Grace, who was born April 6, 1899; Ernest Boyd. Born April 2, 1901; a son who died in infancy; Melvin Wayne, born August 1, 1907; and a daughter who died in infancy.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

JOSHUA PORTER REED
One of the pioneers at the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893, Joshua P. Reed has for more than twenty years been identified with business affairs at Alva and has succeeded in building up a large and prosperous business as a wholesale commission merchant. Mr. Reed is a very able business man, and has well established connections and a large following of loyal friends in and about Alva.
He was born May 27, 1857, at Orville, Ohio, son of H. and Amanda (Randolph) Reed. His father was born in Washington County, a noted district in Southwestern Pennsylvania, September 12, 1825, and though reared on a farm took to the life of merchandising at the age of twenty-five at Millersburg, Ohio. He had prominent relations with that community until his death July 20, 1898. For the last twelve years of his life he was one of the county officials of Holmes County. Mr. Reed 'a parents were married in 1855. The mother was a daughter of Thomas and Samantha (Low) Randolph. She was born in 1834 at Bethlehem, Virginia, and her parents were natives of that state and the Randolphs were of the same family that for generations has been of historic prominence in the Old Dominion State. Amanda Randolph Reed died at Millersburg, Ohio, in 1870. Sho was an active member of the Christian Church. There were two children, the first a son and the second a daughter. The daughter, Elma, born April 1, 1860, was married in 1877 to Edward Keister, now a retired railroad man, and they live at Lorain, Ohio. They have one son, Harry R. Keister.
Joshua Porter Reed grew up at Millersburg, and attended the public schools of that little Ohio town. When eighteen years old he was entrusted with handling an engine in a planing mill, and subsequently had charge of an agricultural implement store for his father. In 1883 he removed to Harper, Kansas, and lived there for ten years and was in the bakery business.
In September, 1893, Mr. Reed came into the Cherokee Strip with thousands of other home seekers, and located at Alva. For several years he was employed by a wholesale house at Alva, and in 1899 engaged in the wholesale commission business on his own account. For more than fifteen years he has handled live stock and poultry in large lots, furnishing the market for raisers over a large territory surrounding Alva, and shipping many cars every year to the central markets. In building to this successful business he has made his best contribution to the commercial prosperity of Alva. Though a democrat, Mr. Reed has manifested no signs of desire for office. Ho is a member of the Masonic fraternity.
Mr. Reed was married at Coldwater, Kansas, to Miss Hattie Belle Reiter. She was born April 19, 1869, at Farina, Illinois. To their union have been born two children: Dorothy De Maris, born at Alva, September 8, 1899; and Burnell Dallas, born August 30, 1906, at Alva.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

JAMES D. SCOTT
There are many facts that make the career of James D. Scott, of Alva, notable and interesting. He was one of the first men to reach the site of Alva at the opening of the Cherokee Strip in September, 1893, set up one of the first stores in the town, has been continuously in business from that date, was a member of the first city council, and in many ways has made himself an influential and useful factor in the progress of that community. Prior to his participation in the opening of the Cherokee country, Mr. Scott had lived many years and was already a successful business man. He is one of the fine old Confederate veterans of Oklahoma, and was a hard fighting soldier for the South until the crucial conflict at Gettysburg, where he was severely wounded and spent the rest of the war time in a Federal prison.
James D. Scott was born June 20, 1839, on a farm in De Soto County, Mississippi, a son of Felix D. and Sarah (Mayes) Scott. His father and mother were natives of Kentucky, and the former died January 5, 1853, and the latter in 1848. They had five sons, namely: George Mayes, Joshua, James D., Daniel Gray and Felix. All are now dead except James. Every one of these sons fought during the war between the states, and four of them were on the side of the Confederacy, while Joshua was a member of a Kentucky regiment in the Union army. Few families were more liberally represented in that war than the Scotts.
James D. Scott, though he has always passed for a man of substantial education and keen intelligence, as a boy had little schooling and gained most of his training by self study and observation and practice. At the outbreak of the war he was one of the first to enlist in the Confederate army. He enlisted at Memphis, Tennessee, March 27, 1861, in Company I of the Ninth Mississippi Volunteer Infantry. This regiment was under General Bragg in some of the first campaigns in the western part of the Confederacy. His first enlistment was for one year, after which he re-enlisted and was assigned to Company C of the Forty-second Mississippi Infantry. This regiment was part of the Army of Northern Virginia under the command of General Lee, and he was present at many notable and historic battles. The climax of his military experience was at Gettysburg. His brigade opened the fight on the first day of July, 1863. In the first rush and conflict between the opposing forces his regiment had 242 men killed, and only forty-eight out of the regiment escaped death. Mr. .Scott was one of the seriously wounded, and from Gettysburg was transferred to a Federal prison at Fort Delaware, where he remained nineteen months and seven days. At the close of his services he was a sergeant. Just fifty years after the battle which closed his military career the veterans of both the blue and the gray reassembled in reunion on that battlefield in July, 1913, and Mr. Scott was one of the two old soldiers from Oklahoma represented in the ranks of the former Confederates. He defrayed his own expenses to that reunion, and there were few of the old veterans more vigorous and alert than he.
After the war Mr. Scott was engaged in farming in Kentucky and Arkansas up to 1876. In that year he removed to Abilene, Kansas, a city which had previously been one of the most conspicuous points in the cattle driving industry, and was there engaged variously in mercantile, farming and stock raising business for six years. His next removal was to Reno County, Kansas, where he continued as a farmer until 1893. Then came the opening of the Cherokee Strip and his location at Alva, where he opened one of the first stores in the town. He has been continuously in business since that date, and in 1908 erected the Scott Block, one of the most modern business structures in Northern Oklahoma.
With the organization of Alva as a city, Mr. Scott was honored by being chosen to the first city council, representing the first ward. In 1912 he was one of the presidential electors on the Oklahoma democratic ticket, and in a public way has also served as justice of the peace.
On April 20, 1873, at Marion, Kentucky, Mr. Scott married Miss Martha H. Jackson, daughter of James and Peggy (Mayes) Jackson, who were also natives of Kentucky. Mrs. Scott was born March 28, 1850, in Kentucky. No children have been born to their union. Mr. Scott is a member of the Presbyterian Church, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in Masonry has reached the Knight Templar degree.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

ERSKINE WILLIAM SNODDY
In the law and in the realm of practical affairs the name Snoddy has many distinctive associations with Oklahoma, beginning with the pioneer development of the old territory. Erskine W. Snoddy is a prominent lawyer of Alva, and his father before him was distinguished in the same profession, both in Oklahoma and elsewhere.
Erskine William Snoddy was born March 4, 1871, at Sedalia, Missouri, a son of William W. S. and May M. (Long) Snoddy. His father was born January 25, 1837, in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, of Irish parentage. When twenty years of age he began reading law, and was in practice at Lockhaven, Pennsylvania, until the outbreak of the Civil war. He enlisted in Company C of the 137th Regiment of Pennsylvania Infantry, and on the organization of the company was elected sergeant, and subsequently was advanced to the rank of captain. This company was mustered out of service June 1, 1863. Captain Snoddy at once undertook the organization of a new regiment, which was mustered in as the 207th Pennsylvania Infantry, with him as lieutenant colonel. He continued as one of the commanding officers of the regiment until the close of the war. This regiment saw much hard service, and as captain and colonel he participated in some of the most noteworthy engagements of the war, including Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, and in all of the important battles in and around Petersburg. He was at Appomattox in April, 1865, when General Grant accepted the surrender of Leo's forces. Following the assassination of President Lincoln his regiment was on provost guard duty at Washington during the trial and execution of the conspirators. Colonel Snoddy was twice seriously wounded during the war.
Having gained distinction as a soldier, Colonel Snoddy then located at Sedalia, Missouri, and was in practice of the law there until 1885. In that year he removed to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and from that point went to participate in the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893. He was one of the successful homestead seekers and located a claim of Government land three miles south of Alva. He continued the practice of law at Alva until his death, which occurred suddenly at Moutrose, Colorado, August 12, 1908. In the year of statehood and the year preceding his death he was the republican nominee for justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.
Colonel Snoddy was married in 1888 to Miss Sillis Long in 1863 at Selin's Grove, Pennsylvania. She was born in Pennsylvania, June 30, 1844. To their marriage were born nine children, five daughters and four sons. One son and three daughters died in infancy, and those who reached maturity were: Claude L., who was born January 25, 1867, and died at Alva, Oklahoma, June 23, 1899; he was a lawyer and journalist, and never married. The second in the family is Erskine W. James Cook, born June 30, 1874, now a farmer and stock man, was married in 1909 to Miss Carrie Gamble, a native of Wallace County, Kansas. Edna May, born in 1877, was married in 1898 to Elmer M. Deeds, and now lives at Los Angeles, California. Beulah C., born in 1881, was married in 1902 to David C. (Pat) Oates, and has two children, Marjorie and William. Pat Oates was a conspicuous character in Oklahoma affairs. He was a pioneer settler and a peace officer of old Woods County, Oklahoma, having served by election as sheriff of the original county for two terms prior to statehood. He was assistant sergeant at arms in the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention in 1907, and in 1908 was appointed a deputy warden of the State Penitentiary at McAlester, and assisted in the work of building and supervising the new state prison until January 19, 1914, when he was killed in a prison outbreak, at which time six other persons lost their lives. Pat Oates was born in Alabama in August, 1871, and was also a veteran of the Spanish-American war, having been sergeant in a company in the First Territorial United States Volunteers.
Erskine W. Snoddy grew up and received his education partly in Missouri and partly in Kansas. He attended a Catholic school at Sedalia, Missouri, and in 1887, at the age of sixteen, began work as a teacher and for four years followed that vocation in Barber County, Kansas. In 1891 he was appointed a United States deputy marshal for the Territory of Oklahoma, and thus came into close touch with affairs during some of the important openings of new territory. It was an office of great hazard and responsibility during the wild and woolly period of Northwestern Oklahoma, and he discharged his duties in that capacity for a period of seven years. In the meantime he had taken up and pursued steadily the study of law under the direction of his father. In 1900, having been admitted to the bar, he began practice at Alva. In 1901 he was appointed referee in bankruptcy for the old Sixth Judicial District, and held that office until Oklahoma became a state in 1907. In 1902 came election as city attorney of Alva, an office which by repeated reelection he has filled to the present time. For many years he has been one of the leaders in the republican party in Northern Oklahoma, and in 1911 was nominated by that party for justice of the Criminal Court of Appeals. Mr. Snoddy is a member of the Masonic Order and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
At Kiowa, Kansas, December 1, 1892, he married Miss Sarah Nicholson, who was born March 4, 1873, at Shawneetown, Illinois, a daughter of Andrew and Martha Nicholson, early settlers of Barber County, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Snoddy have one daughter, Frieda May, who was born November 4, 1895, and completed her education in the Oklahoma Northwestern State Normal School at Alva. On March 2:5, 1915, she married Harold White, a building contractor of Oklahoma City.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

EDWARD SWEENEY
One of the men who made the race for land at the time of the opening of the Cherokee Strip in 1893 is Edward Sweeney, whose farm is located one mile east of the present Town of Dacoma. During the twenty years in which he has resided in this community, he has not alone developed a valuable and productive property and shown himself an intelligent and well-trained agriculturist, but has co-operated with other progressive and public-spirited citizens in advancing the interests of Woods County.
Mr. Sweeney is one of the comparatively few citizens of his part of Oklahoma for whose citizenship this commonwealth is indebted to the New England states. He was born at Bridgeport, Connecticut, July 6, 1855, and is a son of Miles and Margaret (Mahan) Sweeney. His father, a native of Ireland, emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty years, and was married in Connecticut, where, at Bridgeport, he followed his trade of mechanic until his death in 1860. He was the father of five sons and four daughters, namely: James, Ann, Patrick, Bridget, Bernard, Mary, Edward, William and Elizabeth.
The early advantages of Edward Sweeney were not numerous, nor was his education extensive, for he was only five years of age when his father died, the family was large, and the widowed mother was forced to care for her children in the best way she could and the small means she had at hand. He attended the public schools of Bridgeport at intervals, and having inherited some of his father's mechanical skill adopted that calling in his youth. When he was sixteen years of age he decided to face the world on his own account, and accordingly left home and made his way to New York City, where he secured employment, and subsequently visited various other parts of the country, accepting such positions as were given him in the line of his trade. He was married in Ohio, when twenty-four years of age, and having saved some small capital went to Marion County, Ohio, where he began his career as a farmer. After ten years in the Buckeye State, he decided there were better opportunities awaiting in the West, and accordingly went to Kansas, where he located on United States Government land in Comanche County, where he soon became recognized as a substantial and trustworthy citizen and participated in the organization of the county. Mr. Sweeney remained in Comanche County until 1893, being there a member of the first jury impaneled in the county, and at the opening of the Cherokee Strip, in the year mentioned, made the run and was successful in securing a very desirable homestead, a claim one mile east of the present City of Dacoma. Here he at once settled down to make improvements, and at the present time has 240 acres of finely improved land, which he devotes to general farming and the raising of stock. He has made many improvements, including a fine set of substantial buildings, and is using the most modern methods and machinery in his work. As a citizen he has taken an active part in township and county affairs, and in his community he is held in high esteem and regard by those with whom he has come into contact.
Mr. Sweeney was married in 1874 to Miss Alice Keener, a native of Pennsylvania, and they have been the parents of four sons and five daughters: John J., Morris, Rosa, Earl and Pearl, twins, Carrie, James, Ellen and Laura. ["A standard history of Oklahoma", Volume 3, 1916; By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

CHARLES WALTER HOBBIE
Credit for opening the first grocery store at Alva must be given to the late Charles Walter Hobbie, who was a participant in the original opening of Oklahoma in 1889, and permanently identified himself with the state when the Cherokee Strip was opened for settlement in 1893. He was not only a pioneer merchant, but in many useful ways was identified with the early growth and development of the City of Alva. He possessed the solid virtue of integrity, was prospered by years of work and business judgment, and always kept himself in public spirited relations with the community of which he was a part.
Charles Walter Hobbie was born September 28, 1858, at Utica, New York, a son of Uriah and Anne Sophia (Wilcox) Hobbie. His father was born October 26, 1798, and died at Omaha, Nebraska, September 26, 1878, and gave all his active career to mercantile pursuits. The mother was born August 22, 1817, in New York State, and died at Alva, Oklahoma, November 11, 1897. The parents were married October 26, 1842, and they had six children, two daughters and four sons: George, who was born July 8, 1846; Elizabeth Cole, who was born September 23, 1847, and died November 13, 1891; Sarah Louisa, born August 8, 1848, and died February 28, 1884; Henry Clay, who was born August 25, 1849; Francis Wilcox, born March 19, 1854, and died October 8, 1855; and Charles W., the youngest of the children.
His boyhood was spent at Utica, New York, where he obtained his education from the public schools. As a young man he went west and located at Omaha, Nebraska, and for a number of years was actively engaged in merchandising in the western country. He was one of thousands who were attracted to the first opening of Oklahoma Territory in 1889, and was for a brief time located at Guthrie. He then returned to Kansas and continued merchandising at Kiowa until 1893. In September of that year he secured a location at Alva when the town was established, and brought in the first stock of groceries from which he developed the first permanent grocery house of the city, He continued to sell this class of goods to the people of Alva and surrounding country for a number of years, but finally opened an exclusive shoe store and subsequently a drug store. Mr. Hobbie retired from active business in 1900 on account of ill health and his death occurred at Alva August 20, 1902.
Fraternally he was affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In politics he was a republican. From the first he was recognized as a man of broad and public spirit, interested not only in building up his individual concerns, but in doing all he could for the general welfare of the community. For two years he served as mayor of Alva, and was also a member of the first school board and secretary of the Commercial Club.
Mrs. Hobbie is still living in Alva and one of the social leaders of that city. As Miss Gertrude Allen she was married to Mr. Hobbie at Kiowa, Kansas, December 25, 1892. Her parents were Hiram and Harriet (Sweet) Allen. Mrs. Hobbie was born in Springport, Indiana, December 10, 1872. Her family in its different members has always manifested a strong literary and intellectual interest, and her niece, Mabel Potter Daggett, is a well known magazine writer in New York City. Mrs. Hobbie was a charter member of the first woman's club organized at Alva, the Bay View Club, and she has also filled the different offices in the local chapter of the P. E. O. She takes much interest in the Presbyterian Church. There were two children, and the first, a daughter, died in infancy. Mabel Allen, born January 16, 1897, completed her education in the Oklahoma Northwestern Normal School at Alva.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

ROBERT BILLUPS PATTON
Few enterprises have contributed more practical encouragement to grain and general produce raisers of Woods County than the Avard Mercantile Company, a business which since 1904, when it was organized as the Gerlach Mercantile Company, has been the chief commercial factor of this community. The credit for much of this company's success must be given to its secretary, treasurer and acting manager, Robert Billups Patton, whose interests have been identified with it since its inception and whose energies have been devoted unceasingly to its development.
Mr. Patton was born May 6, 1876, at Alvarado, Texas, and is a son of Isaac A. and Salome (Billups) Patton. His father was born in 1846, in Maury County, Tennessee, and received excellent educational advantages in his youth, graduating at the age of twenty-two years from the law school of Center College of Kentucky. At the outbreak of the Civil war he was commissioned a first lieutenant of cavalry, in a Texas regiment, and served with distinction until the close of the conflict, under the flag of the Confederacy. When peace was declared he located at Goliad, Texas, where he engaged in the practice of law for many years, becoming prominent in the courts of Texas. He was also not unknown as an educator in his younger days, and served as principal at several colleges, thus earning the means with which to pursue his legal studies. In 1875 Mr. Patton located at Alvarado, Texas, and there has since been prominent in legal and public life. While Mr. Patton has been successful in politics and has represented his district and county in the Texas Legislature on several occasions, the law has been his life work, a profession by which he has been honored and which has been honored by him. Mr. Patton was married in 1862 at Goliad, Texas, to Miss Salome Billups, a daughter of Robert Billups, who was born in Georgia. Eight children were born to this union, of whom three sons and two daughters are now living: A. B., now vice president and manager of a large mercantile company at Winona, Minnesota; Isaac A., a prominent attorney of Alice, Texas; Robert Billups; Lomie, who is the wife of J. D. Clayton, a merchant of Amarillo, Texas; and Bessie, who is the wife of W. G. Mitchell, a wholesale lumber manufacturer of Alabama.
After attending the public schools of his locality, Robert B. Patton enrolled as a student at Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, and following his graduation therefrom entered the Masonic Institute at Alvarado, where he received his degree of Bachelor of Sciences in 1894. He next attended the Texas State Normal School and was granted a teacher's license, spending the next year in the public schoolrooms, but in 1896 gave up the educator's profession for mercantile lines, in which he has since been engaged without intermission. In 1904 Mr. Patton came to Avard and associated himself with the Gerlach Mercantile Company, which in 1907 was reorganized and incorporated as the Avard Mercantile Company, a concern with a capital of $20, 000. This concern does a business of from $60, 000 to $70, 000 annually, handling and purchasing all that the farmer produces and utilizes. The present officers are John J. Gerlach, president; George Gerlach, vice president, and R. B. Patton, secretary, treasurer and manager, and the concern maintains stores at Woodward and Avard, Oklahoma, and Canadian, Texas. The firm are wholesale and retail dealers in broom corn and grain of all kinds, and of the former have bought and shipped as high as 500 or 600 cars. While this is perhaps their largest line, they also handle hardware, tinware, cutlery, wind mills, water pipe, casing, implements, farm tools, coal, feed, field seeds, queensware, groceries, harness, saddlery, dry goods, gents' furnishings, hats, shoes, furniture, carpets, mattings and oil cloths. The large department store at Avard is stocked with the most up-to-date goods of every character, and is the principal business industry of the city.
Mr. Patton is a director in the State Bank of Avard, and continues to maintain his position as one of the leading business men of the community. He is fraternally connected with the Knights of Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He has also shown an interest in civic affairs, serving acceptably as a member of the town council and the school board and as town treasurer, and at all times taking a foremost part in movements which have made for progress and advancement. With his family, he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On April 5, 1902, at Cleburne, Texas, Mr. Patton was married to Miss Martha E. Poole, daughter of R. L. Poole, of Mississippi.
[A Standard History of Oklahoma , by Joseph B. Thoburn , 1916 -- Transcribed by Cathy Ritter]

Elmer E. Fishbaugh
Of the agriculturists of Oklahoma who have turned their attention to specializing in the breeding of cattle, Elmer E. Fishbaugh is a most progressive representative. His well cultivated property, situated eight miles southwest of Dacoma, is equipped with all modern appliances, improvements and buildings which are to be found on the up-to-date stock farm, and during recent years he has made his name widely known in this part of the state as a successful breeder of Galloway cattle. Mr. Fishbaugh was born on a farm in Auglaize County, Ohio, October 2, 1863, and is a son of Andrew W. and Mary (Galbreath) Fishbaugh.
Andrew W. Fishbaugh was born in Ohio, in 1833, and was reared and educated there and when ready to embark upon his own career chose farming for his life work. He was married in 1862 to Mary Galbreath, who was born in 1840 in Knox County, Ohio, daughter of Robert and Mary (Beeman) Galbreath, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of Maryland. In 1878 Mr. and Mrs. Fishbaugh and their children removed to Harper County, Kansas, where the father settled on a farm, but subsequently moved to Kingman County, in the same state, where Andrew W. Fishbaugh died February .'!, 1890. He was an honest, industrious farmer, making the most of his opportunities and advantages, and with the able assistance of his devoted wife was able to accumulate a modest competence to make comfortable their declining years. They were the parents of two sons and three daughters, namely: Elmer E., of this review; Ezra A., born December 9, 1864, and now an agriculturist of Woodward County, Oklahoma; Elsie E., born August 1, 1866, and now the wife of James Casey, of Kingman, Kansas; Emma, born September 16, 1867", who is the wife of A. C. Shoemaker, of Goltry, Oklahoma; and Rosa, born September 19, 1870, who is the wife of W. N. Cross, of Kingman, Kansas.
Elmer V.. Fishbaugh received his early education in the public schools in the vicinity of his father's farm in Ohio, where he was reared until reaching the age of fifteen years, the family at that time emigrating to the West and locating in Harper County, Kansas. His education was completed at Southwestern Methodist Episcopal College, at Winfield, Kansas, and having shown some ability in the line of mechanical work was thus employed for several years. In 1893 he came to Oklahoma, and in the following years homesteaded land in Woods County, a locality which has since continued to be his home. For some years Mr. Fishbaugh applied himself strictly to general farming operations, but eventually became interested in cattle raising, and after some experimenting decided that the best breed for his use was the Galloway, a medium-sized, hornless, usually black beef cattle, native of Southwestern Scotland and closely resembling the Angus breed. His choice of breed has seemed to indicate his excellent judgment as a stockman, for he has attained an enviable success in his operations and has made a name and reputation for himself as a grower. His present property, consisting of 480 acres, is admirably suifed for the purpose for which it is used, and under Mr. Fishbaugh's direction has been developed into a most valuable and handsome farm. He has always been ready to do his part in assisting in the elevation of agricultural standards, and has always accorded to his adopted community the same staunch rapport which its people have given him as an honorable and successful agriculturist and an eminently useful citizen. Mr. Fishbaugh and the members of his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church.
On December 23, 1900, Mr. Fishbaugh was married to Miss Hilda Cell, who was born May 1, 1882, in Colorado, daughter of Herbert and Jane Cell. The following children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Fishbaugh: Mary, born November 7, 1902; Elsie, born July 27, 1904; Edna, born February 25, 1907; Enid, born April 9, 1909; Elmer, born February 20, 1912; and Carl, born November 25, 1914, who died February 14, 1915.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by a Friend of Free Genealogy]

George A. Harbaugh
"That the sterling and popular citizen whose name introduces this paragraph is distinctively one of the representative and influential business men of the thriving little City of Alva, county seat of Woods County, needs no further voucher than the statement that he is here president of the Central State Bank and also of the Alva Roller Mills, which represent two of the most important business enterprises in Woods County.
Mr. Harbaugh was born on the homestead farm of his father in Washington County, Iowa, and the date of his nativity, August 27, 1870, shows that his parents were numbered among the pioneers of that section of the Hawkeye State. He is a son of Eli and Catherine (Engle) Harbaugh, both natives of Ohio, where the former was born in 1825 and the latter in 1827; both were reared and educated in the old Buckeye State and there their marriage was solemnized in the year 1848. The parents of Mr. Harbaugh were early settlers in Washington County, Iowa, where they established their home in 1850, when that section was on the very frontier of civilization, and where the death of the devoted wife and mother occurred in 1872. In his native state Eli Harbaugh learned in his youth the trade of cabinetmaker, and after his removal to Iowa, within about two years after his marriage, he there found demand for his services as a skilled artisan at his trade, the while he was giving close attention to the reclamation of his frontier farm. In 1884 he removed to Barber County, Kansas, where he purchased a farm and here he continued his residence until his death, in 1907, at the venerable age of eighty-two years.
George A. Harbaugh acquired his rudimentary education in the schools of his native county and was a lad of about fourteen years at the time of the family removal to Barber County, Kansas, where he was reared to adult age on the homestead farm and continued his studies in the public schools. He was associated with his father in the work and management of the home farm until 1893, when he became one of the many ambitious young men who participated in the "run" into the newly opened Cherokee Strip or Outlet of Oklahoma Territory. He entered claim to a tract of Government land seven miles distant from the present City of Alva and thus gained the distinction of becoming one of the pioneer settlers of Woods County. He vigorously instituted the improvement of his embryonic farm, to which he eventually perfected his title and upon which he continued his residence five years, in the meanwhile acquiring an entire section of adjacent land and developing one of the extensive stock ranches of the county. He thus aided materially in the initial stages of civic and industrial progress in Woods County, and his energy and circumspection enabled him to achieve definite success and prosperity through his association with the agricultural and live stock industries in the county to which he has continued to pay unswerving loyalty.
In 1898 Mr. Harbaugh removed from his ranch to Alva, where he engaged in the live stock and grain business and became one of the leading representatives of this line of enterprise in this section of the territory. He was a staunch supporter of movements advanced to obtain statehood for the territory and in the meanwhile gained precedence as a steadfast and influential business man and public spirited citizen. In 1900, the year prior to the admission of Oklahoma to the Union, Mr. Harbaugh purchased the controlling interest in the Alva Rolling Mills, of which, as president of the company, he has since maintained the active management. In 1914 this corporation purchased and shipped 3,500,000 bushels of wheat, the enormous shipments having been handled from its chain of thirty elevators, at eligible points in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. The Alva Roller Mills are essentially modern in equipment and facilities, the products find a wide demand and are known for superiority, and the business, as conjoined with the extensive grain trade controlled by the operating company, represents one of the most important industrial enterprises of Northern Oklahoma.
In 1913 Mr. Harbaugh became associated with Henry E. Noble and others in the organization of the Central State Bank of Alva, of which he has since been president and of which Mr. Noble is cashier, individual mention of the latter executive being made on other pages of this volume.
In politics Mr. Harbaugh is aligned as a staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic party, but he is essentially a business man and has manifested no predilection for the honors or emoluments of political office. He is still the owner of one of the large and valuable anded estates in Woods County and is one of the substantial capitalists of the state to which he came as a young man of worthy and ambitious purpose. He is affiliated with Alva Lodge, No. 1184, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and it may consistently be said that in his home county his circle of friends is limited only by that of his acquaintances.
At Alva, on the 1st of November, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Harbaugh to Miss Mary Devin, who was born at Princeton, Gibson County, Indiana, in which state were also born her parents, Alexander N. and Melissa Devin. Mr. and Mrs. Harbaugh have three children, whose names and respective dates of birth are here noted: Paul A., September 7, 1901; Melissa Kathryn, October 8, 1905; and Helen E., February 2, 1912.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by a Friend of Free Genealogy]

John B. Doolin
A resident of Oklahoma since 1899, Mr. Doolin has been one of the vigorous, progressive and public-spirited citizens who have brought to bear dramatic and well directed energy in furthering the civic and material development of this favored commonwealth.
He has been one of the influential figures in the councils and activities of the democratic party contingent in Oklahoma, served as state fish and game warden from 1911 until the 1st of January, 1915, achieved a splendid work in bringing efficiency to this department of the state government, and as a business man he has been specially successful in his operations. He maintains his home at Alva, the judicial center of Woods County, where he is one of the interested principals in the Schaefer-Doolin Mortgage Company, one of the leading concerns of the kind in the state. Since 1906 he has been prominently identified with the affairs of the democratic party in Oklahoma, as a loyal and public-spirited citizen, and his influence in connection with the industrial progress of the vital young commonwealth has of recent years been specially directed in the development of oil and gas producing enterprises, in which line he is classed among the representative independent operators in the state.
Mr. Doolin was born in Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1879, and is a son of John and Alice (Tobin) Doolin, who were early settlers of that section of the state, where the father was a prosperous farmer and merchant at the time of his death, which occurred when he was only thirty-two years of age. His father Was a native of Caldwell County, Missouri. The parents of Mrs. Alice (Tobin) Doolin came from Ireland to America in 1830 and first made settlement in the Dominion of Canada, whence they removed to Missouri in 1874.
John B. Doolin acquired his early education in the public schools of his native county and his discipline included a course in the high school at Cameron, Missouri. Thereafter he was engaged in farming and in the mercantile business in Missouri until 1899, when, at the age of twenty years, he numbered himself among the pioneers of Woods County, Oklahoma. He engaged in the general merchandise business at Alva, and two years later, at the age of twenty-two, he was elected register of deeds of the county, a position of which he remained the incumbent one term. Upon his retirement from- public office he engaged in the farm loan business, and his enterprise, fairness and well formulated policies made the business successful from its initiation. In 1906 he amplified the scope of his operations by entering into a partnership association with John H. Schaefer, and this effective alliance has since continued under the title of the Schaefer-Doolin Mortgage'Company. The company has extended its operations over twelve or more counties in Western Oklahoma and its business in the extending of loans on approved real estate securities is now more extensive than that of any other independent firm or company conducting business in the state west of Oklahoma City.
Well fortified in his opinions concerning governmental and political matters, Mr. Doolin has been an active and effective worker in the ranks of the democratic party during the entire period of statehood in Oklahoma. In 1906 Judge Jesse Dunn, chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Central Committee, appointed Mr. Doolin a member of the committee assigned to the drafting of rules for the primary election of that year in which were to be nominated delegates to the State Constitutional Convention, and the rules formulated by this committee were observed in lieu of a definite primary law. In the first state campaign, that of 1907, Mr. Doolin was selected manager of the campaign of Hon. Lee Cruce, the democratic candidate for governor, and he distinguished himself for his finesse in the maneuvering of the political forces at his command.
In 1908 Mr. Doolin was chosen assistant treasurer of the National Democratic Campaign Committee, and under Governor Haskell, treasurer of the committee, he served in this important capacity at the national headquarters of the party, in the City of Chicago, his work having there been continued after Hon. Herman Ritter, of New York, had succeeded Governor Haskell as treasurer of the committee. In 1910 it again became the privilege and pleasure of Mr. Doolin to render gallant aid to his valued friend, Hon. Lee Cruce, in the latter's second and victorious campaign for Governor of Oklahoma, and as assistant campaign manager he was associated closely with Hon. John R. Williams, of Hobart, in effecting the nomination and election of Governor Cruce. In 1911 Mr. Doolin was appointed state fish and game warden, and of this office he continued the able and valued incumbent until the close of the administration of Governor Cruce. He devoted much thought and time to systematizing and making effective the work of his department and one of the noteworthy achievements of his administration was the establishing of the bird day in Oklahoma—a day set apart for instructing children in the public schools in knowledge and appreciation of the wild birds, and their proper treatment, protection and perpetuation. Two official reports issued by Mr. Doolin are interesting records of outdoor and wild life in Oklahoma, and the same have received special commendation in the representative publications devoted to game and sportsmanship in various parts of the Union, the while similar tributes have been paid by the newspaper press. Under the regime of Mr. Doolin the department of the fish and game warden adopted a policy based on the consistent assumption that fish and game were to be held for the benefit of all citizens of the state rather than for the select coteries of anglers and sportsmen, and every interest of the people in this connection was carefully considered in regulations regarding the propagation, conservation and killing of fish and wild game. Special provisions were made for the study of fish, bird and general wild animals by proper instructions to the pupils of the public schools, and the enthusiastic efforts of Mr. Doolin brought to his department the earnest co-operation of teachers, clergymen and loyal devotees of sports afield and afloat. At the beginning of Warden Doolin's administration his department was one of slight influence and importance, and upon his retirement from office it was one of the most widely known and definitely valued departments of the auxiliary branches of the state government.
In addition to his extensive operations in the mortgage loan business Mr. Doolin has been prominently concerned with the oil industry in Oklahoma since 1912, when he and his associates became actively identified with development work in the Schulter field of Okmulgee County, where they now control some of the best producing properties in the district. Mr. Doolin is a member of the board of directors of the Aetna Building and Loan Association of Topeka, Kansas, this being recognized as one of the largest organizations of the kind in tho United States. He is affiliated with Alva Lodge, No. 1184, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, having been one of the five men who applied for and obtained the charter for this lodge.
On the 3d of July, 1913, Mr. Doolin wedded Miss Lee Museller, daughter of Judge A. R. Muscller, who is one of the advisory editors of this history and concerning whom individual mention is made on other pages of the publication.
[Source: A Standard History of Oklahoma Volume 4 By Joseph Bradfield Thoburn - Submitted by a Friend of Free Genealogy]

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