OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by any other organization or
persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must
obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator.

Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This
material can not be included in any compilation, publication,
collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files
may be printed or copied for personal use only.
=====================================================================

J. R. CHARLTON
Vol. 3, p. 1179-1180
Book has photo

Educator, historian, newspaper man, minister and legist, there is
probably no better known figure in Washington County, Oklahoma, than
J. R. Charlton of Bartlesville. To enumerate and describe the varied
activities of his useful life would be to prepare a sketch which
would transcend the limits of this volume.

J. R. Charlton was born at Salem, Marion County, Illinois, July 21,
1858, and is a son of W. J. and Elizabeth Ann (HUFF) Charlton. His
maternal grandfather was Samuel A. Huff, who moved to Kansas in 1873
and took up government land near Sedan, where he passed the remaining
years of his life. His paternal grandfather, Isaac Bradbury Charlton
was a native of Virginia who went to Tennessee in 1820 and married a
Miss BLACK, following which he moved to Marion County, Illinois, and
located on the farm on which J. R. Charlton was born. There also was
born W. J. Charlton, December 31, 1836, and in that community he was
married to Elizabeth Ann Huff, who was born about six miles distant,
March 28, 1838. They resided o the Charlton homestead until 1877,
when they went to Chautauqua County, Kansas, traveling in true
pioneer style by prairie schooner, and locating at Sedan, where they
resided until about 1900 when they moved four miles north of
Independence, Montgomery County, and there they reside, typical
Kansas farming people. At the age of seventy-eight years Mr. Charlton
is still managing his own farm, doing all his chores, including the
preparing of the wood for his wood fire. On his seventy-eighth
birthday he was pleasantly surporised by his Sunday school class, the
members of which brought their own implements and cut up enough wood
to last him during the following year. He and his faithful wife are
consistent members of the Christian Curch, and have taken an active
part in Sunday school [sic] work and in politics he has been a stanch
and lifelong democrat. They has been the parents of four children: J.
R. of this review; Mrs. Adelia HAYWOOD, who is deceased; Cora, who is
the wife of Oliver BEEMER, of Chattanooga, Oklahoma; and Mamie, the
wife of George UNDERWOOD of Independence, Kansas. J. R. Charlton was
reared on the homestead farm in Illinois, received his early
education in the public schools, and was nineteen years of age when
he came to the West.

J. R. Charlton was reared on the homestead farm in Illinois,
received his early education in the public schools, and was nineteen
years of age when he came to the West. He had graduated from the Odin
(Illinois) High School and had decided upon a career as a teacher,
and when he came to Kansas his parents accompanied him. His first
school was located six miles east of Sedan, Kansas, where he was
teaching in 1878 when he was induced by his uncle, J. D. MCBRAIN, who
married Mr. Charlton's mother's sister, and resided at Sedan Kansas,
where he was a minister of the Christian Church and an attorney, to
come to his office and study law. There he read law during two
summers, teaching school in the winter terms and studying at night
times, and was finally admitted to the bar August 16,1880. He did not
immediately enter practice, for he taught for two years more before
opening an office, when he moved to Elk City, Kansas, and in March
1884, began practice in Montgomery County, Kansas. Thee he continued
until 1906, when he moved to his present home at Bartlesville,
although he had lived within thrity-five miles of this place since
1877.

While in Montgomery County, in 1890, Mr. Charlton was elected county
attorney on the democratic ticket and served in that capacity during
the famous DALTON raid at Coffeyville. It was through he efforts that
Emmett Dalton was sent to the penitentiary, but in later years, he
also assisted in securing his freedom. He was re-elected county
attorney in 1906, and since the close of that term, in 1908, has
applied himself to the practice largely as a criminal character, and
Mr. Charlton is probably one of the most capable and best known
legists in this field in the state, having defended during the last
four years twenty eight persons charged with murder. One of the first
of these cases was that of Nettie BROWN and her step-son, Pete Brown,
charged with the murder of Mrs. Brown's husband in Osage County. Mr.
Charlton obtained a change of venue to Bartlesville, where Pete Brown
turned state's evidence and the prisoner was sent to the penitentiary
for life. Another case, and one of the most famous in the history of
Oklahoma, was that of Mrs. Laura REUTER, who was accused of killing
her husband, was convicted in this county, and was granted a new
trial through the efforts of Mr. Charlton, who, with the assistance
of two other attorneys, finally secured her acquittal.
His professional career has been crowded with interesting incidents,
among which may be mentioned the first law suit in the United States
Commissioners Court at Bartlesville, in 1895,when there being no
building to hold court in, temporary seats were erected in Pecan
Grove. Mr. Charlton won his case over his opponent, W. A. CHASE.

Mr. Charlton has been a regular ordained minister of the Christian
Church since 1894. He has preached all over this part of the country,
where he has dedicated over thirty churches, and is now pastor of the
church at Dewey, where he held a meeting in February 1915 and had 123
converts. He was the organizer of the Christian Church at Bartles
Grove or Park, in July, 1897, and had sixty-six members, continuing
to preach here every other Sunday and driving all the way to Caney,
Kansas, until June, 1900, when a church was dedicated here on the
present site of the Masonic Building. When Mr. Charlton came to
Bartlesville, in 1908, he found the Christian Church in Dewey with
but twenty-two members in a small frame building. He set about to
build up this congregation, erected a new church which was dedicated
in May, 1908 and now has the largest congregation in the city,
consisting of 270 members. As a minister he is zealous, sincere, and
energetic, a friend as well as a spiritual advisor to his people and
greatly loved by them.

While his fraternal connections are not numerous he is well known in
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with which he has been
identified as a member since 1890. Mr. Charlton is widely known as a
speaker, not alone on religious subjects, but in the cause of
morality, temperance, good citizenship and helpful living, and his
services are in constant demand at various meetings and celebrations.
He was state evangelist of Kansas in 1897, being selected by the
state organization of the Christian Church, and occupied a prominent
place on the program of the state convention of the Christian Church
held at Oklahoma City, in June, 1915. In 1891, he was invited to
Bartlesville by Col. Jake BARTLES to deliver the Fourth of July
oration, and for three days Mr. Charlton and his wife were
entertained at the Bartles' home. A crowd of 5,000 people from all
over the countryside attended the three-day celebration, twenty
beeves were barbecued, the Indians held their war dances, the park
was lighted by electricity generated in Colonel Bartles' own mill,
and all the festivities of the occasion made an impression on Mr.
Charlton's mind that he will never forget. Incidentally, the United
States marshal "roped in" about fifteen bootleggers, who, in the
absence of a jail, were secured by being tied to trees, much to the
edification of the crowd. Mr. Charlton delivers several lectures
annually before the schools of this and other communities, and
wherever heard is a general favorite with teachers and pupils alike,
by reason of his interesting and instructive talks.

Mr. Charlton has lived a strictly temperate life, and has never
tasted intoxicants or tobacco. His experiences during the early days
were exciting and dangerous when he drove all over the country before
the advent of the railroads. He often collected large sums of money
for the harvester company which he carried on his person, but while
the country was infested with criminals and "bad men" of all
descriptions, to many of whom he had known personally, he never had
any fear of being molested, nor was he. His experience as a newspaper
man was while a resident of Elk City, Kansas, where for six years he
conducted a weekly newspaper, the Elk City Enterprise. There he
secured the most valuable literary training, which was shown in his
able chapter on Caney, written for the "History of Montgomery County,
Kansas," which was published in 1903.

As a voter, Mr. Charlton has always supported the democratic ticket.
His first appearance in a court room was when, at the age of eight
years he went to hear a trial in which the presiding judge was Uncle
Silas BRYAN, the father of William Jennings Bryan. He later visited
Judge Bryan's farm and became a personal friend of his son, William
J., was a member of the Democratic State Central Committee of Kansas
in 1900, and chairman of the Speakers Bureau, and campaigned with Mr.
Bryan for two days when he visited Kansas. Mr. Charlton later
attended the national conventions of the democratic party at St.
Louis in 1904, and Denver in 1908.

On April 3, 1881, Mr. Charlton was married to Miss Hattie May
HUTCHISON, who was born at Indianapolis, Indiana, October 18, 1861, a
daughter of John Hutchison, who came to Kansas and settled near
Lawrence in 1867. Mr. and Mrs. Charlton were married at his farm,
seven miles west of Elk City. They have one son, Roy Earl, born June
3, 1887 at Elk City, now deputy sheriff at Washington County,
Oklahoma and a resident of Bartlesville. He was married January 3,
1908 at Indianapolis, Indiana to Miss Kittie BUTLER.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Jacque Pearce Reynolds November 1, 1998.