PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL
RECORD OF OKLAHOMA

G. L. FERREIRA

The ancestry of the FERREIRA family is Portuguese, the maternal family, NUNES, also coming from that country. The maternal grandfather, Major NUNES, was assigned to military duty in the Madeira Islands, as a trusted officer of the Portuguese army. Major NUNES with his family, prior to the Civil War, located on a farm north of Jacksonville, Ill. He was accidentally killed by a hand car while crossing a railroad bridge. His wife, Clara NUNES, still makes her home on the farm near Jacksonville, Ill, and is now ninety years old. 

The paternal grandfather, Angelo FERREIRA, was born in Funchal, the capital of the islands, and was a powder maker by occupation. He met an untimely death, being accidentally killed by an explosion of gun powder. During their residence in Madeira, the family fell under the displeasure of the more conservative element of the Catholic Church, and were vigorously persecuted for their liberal and advanced views. Seeking an asylum where liberty of thought and speech were not only permitted but encouraged, the grandmother FERREIRA brought her little family to the United States, and settled in Springfield, Ill. Her son, Henry Angelo, the father of our subject, was then quite young, but he was an industrious lad, and worked his way to the front as a builder.  Subsequently he located on a farm purchased by himself north of Springfield, and engaged in agricultural pursuits until the breaking out of the Civil war. As a soldier in the Twenty ninth Illinois Infantry, he served with courage and distinction until the cessation of hostilities. After the war he continued cultivating the same farm until the spring of 1888, when he moved to Kingman county, Kans. He made the run April 22, 1889, and secured a claim on section 28, township 16, range 5, where the family still resides.

G. L. FERREIRA was born January 11, 1867, in Springfield, Ill, and was reared on his father’s farm, and educated in the public schools.  When fifteen years of age he began to be self-supporting, and earned a fair competence for himself by working for the surrounding farmers.  Desiring larger prospects than offered by his present occupation, he went, in 1888, to Nashville, Kingman county, Kansas, to await the opening of the Oklahoma strip. With others of an equally aspiring nature, he made the run on the famous 22nd of April, 1889, and located on a claim ten miles east and two miles south of Kingfisher, where he has since conducted a feed and sale stable, and extensively engaged in buying horses and mules.

In Downs, Kingfisher county, Okla., Mr. FERREIRA was united in marriage with Mary RECTOR, of Champaign county, Ill., and a daughter of Frank RECTOR, a native of Kentucky, Frank RECTOR came to Oklahoma in 1889 and is now living in Enid. He served during the Civil war in a Kentucky regiment. Mr. FERREIRA has been  prominently identified with the undertakings of the Republican party, and has for several years been a member of the central committee, in fact he was one of it’s organizers.  In 1900 he was elected councilman from the third ward, and during the term of his service has given general satisfaction. During his residence in Kingfisher, he has substantially impressed his merit and personality upon the community, and is regarded as one of it’s most enterprising, broad-minded and helpful citizens.

Portrait and Biographical Record of Oklahoma (Chicago: Chapman Publishing Co., 1901), 1083.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Connie Welch <lostdove@geocities.com>, April 1999.