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MICHAEL CONLAN
Vol. 3, p. 1044-1045

There are few men whose careers connect them more closely and
intimately with both the old and the new conditions of Oklahoma than
Michael Conlan, who is now living retired and looking after his
extensive property interests in Oklahoma City. His home is at 230 1/2
West Ninth Street. For thirty years Mr. Conlan has had his home and
business interests in Indian Territory and new Oklahoma, and prior to
that as a boy he had many exciting experiences as a river-man, miner,
and as a venturesome youth in many districts of the Far West. Equal
interest attaches to Mrs. Conlan, who is one of the prominent society
leaders of Oklahoma City. She is a member of the noted COLBERT and
FOLSOM families, whose names are so significant in Indian Territory
history.

Born at Black River Falls, Jackson County, Wisconsin, September 9,
1860, Michael Conlan had as fundamental traits a love of adventure
and a tendency to independent enterprise, largely inherited from his
father, who had been a pioneer in the woods and along the rivers of
the northern states and particularly in Wisconsin. He finished his
education in the public schools of Black River Falls in 1874, and
soon afterward found employment with the Eau Claire Lumber Company at
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with whom he remained three years, most of the
time being spent on steamboats on the Mississippi River. In the fall
of 1878, at the age of eighteen, he made a trip out to Leadville,
Colorado, and was there during the height of the gold mining
excitement and in that region until the fall of 1881. The year of
1881-81 he spent in the Coeur D'Alene region of Idaho and also in
some of the newly opened mining districts of Arizona and New Mexico.

Returning to Wisconsin in the fall of 1882, he visited his parents,
and in the spring of the next year was again following the river as a
Mississippi boatman. In the spring of 1885 Mr. Conlan arrived at Fort
Smith, Arkansas, which was then the metropolis and chief business
center of all the Indian Territory country. His experience as a
steamboat man proved valuable and he began operating boats on the
Arkansas River engaged in hauling logs and lumber from the forests of
Indian Territory. He was one of the most extensive operators in the
lumber districts of Eastern Oklahoma until 1893. In the meantime he
had acquired a farm on the Washita River.

From 1893 to 1905 Mr. Conlan's home was at Atoka, Indian Territory.
For ten years of that time he was chief deputy United States marshal,
and his experiences in that official capacity and also in his private
business affairs if written out in detail would fill a book. In 1905
he removed to his farm on the Washita River, having his home at
Lindsay, and remained in that vicinity until he sold his property in
1909. In that year he came to Oklahoma City, and has since employed
his energies in looking after his local real estate and also his
lands in Atoka and Carter counties.

He is a man of broad interests, a genial companion, and has a wealth
of incidents which he relates in entertaining style. He has traveled
extensively, and during 1910 he and his wife and daughter Lottie,
spent a number of months in Europe, visiting Italy, Germany,
Switzerland, France, England, Ireland, and Spain. Mr. and Mrs. Conlan
had previously visited Europe in 1904. In politics he had allied
himself with the republican party and in 1892 he helped organize that
party in Indian Territory, and for twelve years served as secretary
of the Territorial Committee. For two terms he filled the office of
mayor at Atoka, and while in that city was a director, stockholder
and vice president of the Atoka National Bank and at one time was
vice president of the Lindsay National Bank. He is a member of the
Presbyterian Church, is a past master of Oklahoma Lodge No. 4, A. F.
& A. M., at Atoka, is past high priest of Atoka Chapter No.2, R. A.
M., and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, affiliated
with McAlester Consistory No. 2 He also belong to Atoka Camp of the
Woodmen of the World.

Michael Conlan is a son of Michael and Ann (WILLIAMSON) Conlan. His
grandfather, Thomas Conlan emigrated in the early days from Kildare,
Ireland, to Prescott, Canada, was a riverman and also a farmer. The
maternal grandfather, Robert Williamson, came from Cork, Ireland, and
also settled at Prescott, Canada, where he died. In his younger years
he was a sailor, and later a farmer. Michael Conlan, Sr., was born in
1815 in Kildare, Ireland, and was brought to Canada in 1826. He early
became identified with the steamboat traffic on the St. Lawrence
River and the Great Lakes, and in 1846 moved to one of the pioneer
districts of Wisconsin Territory, where he was for a time engaged in
the lumber business and later followed farming near Black River Falls
until his death in 1888. In politics he was a democrat and was a
member of the Catholic Church. His wife, Ann Williamson, was born in
Cork, Ireland, in 1825 and died at Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in
1904. Their children were: Ellen, who died in 1895 at Eau Claire,
Wisconsin, married John BISHOP, also deceased, who was a riverman and
later was engaged in the packing business; Mary, who died unmarried
at Eau Claire in 1895; and Michael, Jr.

In 1894 Mr. Conlan was married at Atoka to Miss Czarina COLBERT. She
was born near Colbert Station in Indian Territory and as a member of
a prominent family was given a liberal education. She attended
private schools, a convent at Denison, Texas, was a student in the
Baird College for Girls at Clinton, Missouri, and finished her
education in 1889 in the Mary Baldwin Seminary at Staunton, Virginia.
Mrs. Conlan is one of the prominent women of Oklahoma. She is active
in the First Presbyterian Church of Oklahoma City, and is president
of the Presbyterian Society of the District of Oklahoma. She is a
past matron of Lodge No. 1 of the Order of Eastern Star at Atoka. By
reason of her fathers service she is vice president of the United
Daughters of the Confederacy of Oklahoma and is president of the
local chapter of that order in Oklahoma City. She is secretary and
treasurer of the Drama Study Circle of Oklahoma City, and is a member
of the New Century Club, one of the largest woman organizations of
the city, and is parliamentarian of the Oklahoma Eighty-Niners
Association. Mr. and Mrs. Conlan have one daughter, Lottie, who is
now a sophomore at the State University at Norman.

Mrs. Conlan's father was James Allen Colbert, who was born in
Mississippi in 1830 and who died near Colbert, Indian Territory, in
1874. When eighteen year of age in 1848 he accompanied his mother and
other members of the family to Indian Territory. James A. Colbert was
a quarter-blood Chickasaw and a man of much prominence in the
Chickasaw Nation. He was at one time national secretary of the Nation
when the capital was at Tishomingo and during the Civil war he was a
first lieutenant under Gen. Douglas A. Cooper and served four years
in the Confederate army. He afterwards became owner of extensive
ranch and farm lands and was one of the leading stock raiser of his
section of Indian Territory. He was also affiliated with the Masonic
fraternity.

Mrs. Conlan's grandfather, Martin Colbert, was born in Mississippi
in 1782 and died in that state in 1832. He had a very prominent part
among the Chickasaws of Mississippi and was member of the committee
sent from that state to ascertain if the proposed country west of the
Mississippi was suitable as a reservation for the Chickasaws and
Choctaws. One of his parents was a fullblood Chickasaw. Martin
Colbert owned an extensive plantation and had many slaves in
Mississippi, and also conducted a store.

James A. Colbert, father of Mrs. Conlan, married Athenius FULSOM.
She was born in 1835 near old Doaksville, Indian Territory, and was a
quarter-blood Choctaw. The Folsoms were of English descent, and the
ancestors settled in Massachusetts during the seventeenth century,
one branch subsequently removing to South Carolina where they
intermarried with the Choctaw, and from there became pioneers in
Mississippi. Mrs. Conlan's maternal grandfather was Israel Folsom,
who was born in Mississippi in 1803 and died near Caddo, Oklahoma, in
1871. His mother was a fullblood Choctaw Indian. Israel Folsom
distinguished himself in may ways among the Choctaw people. He was a
regularly ordained minister of the Presbyterian church, and also
owned extensive ranches and farm lands in old Indian Territory. For
eighteen years he represented the Choctaw Nation as a delegate at
Washington. He also performed an important service in translating the
Lords Prayer and a number of hymns and several books of the Bible
into the Choctaw language.

Mrs. Conlan's mother is still living at Ardmore. Oklahoma, with her
son Walter. Her children were: Dave, who was a stockman and large
land owner, and died at Colbert; Henrietta, who died in 1910 at
Wynnewood, married Ray JENNINGS, who is a farmer at Wynnewood; Albert
Pike, who died in young manhood; Charles, who is a ranchman and
farmer at old Fort Washita; Walter, a farmer and cattleman at
Ardmore; Lovica, wife of Hiram MCBRIDE, a farmer at Artesia, New
Mexico; Mrs. Conlan; and Ben, who is a farmer and raises blooded
stock on his ranch near Tishomingo.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, December 11, 1998.