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WILLIAM S. BAILEY
Vol. 3, p. 1223

President of the Guaranty Abstract & Title Company of Tulsa, William
S. BAILEY is a lawyer by profession, was for a number of years
successfully identified with his profession in the City of Chicago,
finally retiring on account of ill health to Illinois farm, and
thence came to Tulsa while that city was enjoying its rapid growth as
the metropolis of the oil district of Eastern Oklahoma, and has made
himself a factor of large influence and activity in local business
affairs.

William S. Bailey was born in that interesting and historic
community of Indiana known as New Harmony, Posey County, where his
father had a farm that originally belonged to the old communistic
church sect of the Quakers known as the Rappists. William S. Bailey
was born March 12, 1871, a son of Larkin and Martha (FITZGERALD)
Bailey. Both his parents were born in Virginia. The grandfather came
to Indiana in 1824 and bought a section of land in Posey County,
paying $1.25 per acre, and this property is still under the family
name. He was one of the early settlers in Posey County, and lived
there until his death. He was a member of the Methodist Church. His
wife died when William S. was two years of age, in 1873, at the age
of thirty-six. The father then married Matilda GRAHAM, who proved an
affectionate and devoted mother to her husbands's first children and
who lived until 1910. Larkin Bailey and his first wife had six
children of whom William S. was the fifth.

Mr. Bailey grew up in old Posey County, was educated in the public
schools at New Harmony, and afterwards entered the Northwester
University at Chicago, where he took the classical and scientific
course, graduating in 1885, and finished the work of the law
department in 1888. During the following year he continued post-
graduate studies in the literary courses, and then was admitted to
the Illinois bar and was successfully identified with the Chicago bar
up to 1900. During 1891-92-93 he served as first assistant
corporation counsel of Chicago under the administration of the elder
Carter H. HARRISON. In 1900, on account of ill health, Mr. Bailey
gave up his profession and left the city and located on a farm near
Peoria. His attention was directed to the management of his country
property until 1907 when he came to the Southwest located at Tulsa.
Here he organized the Security Abstract Company, and was president of
that concern. Subsequently his company took over the Guaranty
Abstract & Title Company, of which he became president, and in March,
1915, absorbed the business of the Fidelity Abstract Company. These
three companies were all merged or consolidated under the one
business title of the Guaranty Abstract & Title Company. Mr. Bailey
is president and has developed this business to large and successful
proportions.

He is a member of the Chicago Bar Association, the Illinois State
Bar Association, and the American Bar Association, and fraternally is
identified with the Delta Lodge No. 425, A. F. & A. M. at Tulsa, with
Guthrie Consistory of the thirty-second degree Scottish Rite, and
with Akdar Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of Tulsa
Lodge No. 946, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Politically
Mr. Bailey has always acted with the democratic party. On November
20, 1893, Mr. Bailey married Minnie G. HOLTON, who was born in New
Harmony, Posey County, Indiana. They are the parents of two sons and
one daughter: William S., Jr., now a student in the University of
Oklahoma, Larkin and Eugenia.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Paul Grose, February 19, 1999.