Texas History and Genealogy - presented by Genealogy Trails

The bar of the State of Oklahoma claims as one of its leading representatives in Woodward County the well known attorney whose name initiates this paragraph and whose large and important law business extends not only into the various courts of Oklahoma but also into those of the Panhandle of Texas, is wide ramification affording ample voucher for his distinctive ability in his profession and the high estimate placed upon him as a lawyer and citizen.

Mr. Swindall was born at College Mound, Kaufman County, Texas, on the 13th of February, 1876, and is a son of Jonathan W. and Mary E. (STANDLEY) Swindall. His father was born in the City of Macon, Georgia, on the 11th of April, 1831, a son of Andrew and Panina (WARD) Swindall, both natives of Virginia and representatives of families that immigrated to America from England in the Colonial days and that settled in the historic Old Dominion.

In 1859, when abut twenty-eight years of age, Jonathan W. Swindall removed from Georgia to Texas, but in 1861 he returned to his old home in Georgia, where he remained until the close of the Civil War. He had received excellent educational advantages and after the termination of the great conflict between the states of the North and the South he engaged in teaching school in Louisiana. There he remained until 1872, when he returned to Texas, in which state he continued his labors as a successful and popular representative of the pedagogic profession for nearly a quarter of a century, his retirement from this vocation having occurred in 1895, when he established his home on a farm in Kaufman County, that state. In 1886 he became superintendent of the first high school established at Terrell, Texas, and the total period of his service as a teacher comprised forty-five years. He and his wife still reside on their fine homestead farm, their marriage having been solemnized November 5, 1857. Mrs.. Swindall was born near the City of Rome, Georgia, on the 9th of November 1836, and is a daughter of Jonathan and Mary (MADDUX) Standley, who likewise were natives of Georgia, where they passed their entire lives.

Mrs. Swindall was graduated in Andrews Female College, at Cuthbert, Georgia, and her husband acquired his higher education in the famous old University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. They became the parents of four sons and four daughters: Lula F. was born December 25, 1859; Edith A., February 23, 1862; Annie A. February 18, 1865; Standley M., December 12, 1868; Frederick Ward was born December 18, 1870, and died April 20, 1900; Mary Maddux was born June 26, 1873; and died October 18, 1891; William and Charles, twins; were born February 13, 1876, and the death of the former occurred July 20, 1877, the latter being the immediate subject of this review.

On the homestead farm of his father, in Kaufman County, Texas, Charles Swindall was reared to manhood and in 1895 he was graduated in the high school in the City of Terrell, that county. In the same year he entered Vanderbilt University, in the City of Nashville, Tennessee, and in the law department of this admirable institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1897 and with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. During his senior year he was vice president of the Philomathian Literary Society of the university.

In the year of his graduation Mr. Swindall came to Oklahoma Territory, and in August of that year he arrived at Woodward with the portentous cash capital of $6. He was forthwith admitted to the territorial bar and gallantly opened an office and prepared to serve his strenuous professional novitiate. During the first six months he supplemented the somewhat precarious income derived from his budding law practice by serving as bookkeeper in a newspaper office. On the 1st of April, 1898, he was appointed county attorney of the adjoining County of Day, and at the ensuing popular election he was chosen the regular incumbent of this office, of which he continued in tenure three years and in which he not only gained secure vantage-place as one of the representative lawyers of Western Oklahoma. He continues a close and appreciate student and his law library is the largest and best private collection of its kind in this section of the state.

Mr. Swindall is a staunch and effective advocate of the principles and policies of the Republican Party and is a representative of Woodward County as a member of the Republican State Central Committee. He has completed the circle of York Rite Masonry and has received also the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, besides being affiliated with the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He was the third to be elected worshipful master of Woodward Lodge, No. 189, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and in his home city he is identified also with the organizations of the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Modern Woodmen of America. Mr. Swindall is a member of the Woodward County Bar Association, and in the district of Western Oklahoma he is retained as attorney for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Company. He was unanimously selected as a delegate in 1916 to the Republican National Convention at Chicago.

On the 31st of January, 1911, at Guthrie, this state, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Swindall to Miss Emma E. ENDRES, who was born at Macomb, McDonough County, Illinois, on the 19th of September, 1886, the marriage ceremony, at the former territorial capital City of Oklahoma, having been performed by Judge Jesse J. Dunn, chief justice of the Supreme Court of the state. Mrs. Swindall is a daughter of Conrad and Martha Endres, who maintain their home in the City of Wichita, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Swindall have no children.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The American Historical Society, 1916).Vol. 5, p. 1906-1907 [Transcribed and submitted by Kimmy Sue T]