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.
=====================================================================

CHARLES O. COPSEY
Vol. 3, p. 1002-1003

For nearly thirty years Mr. COPSEY has been identified with the
lumber business and he is at the present time a stockholder of the E.
C. Robinson Lumber Company, one of the most extensive operating in
the State of Oklahoma, its general offices being in the Wright
Building, St. Louis, Missouri, in which state it maintains yards at
four different places, besides two in Illinois and six in Oklahoma,
Mr. Copsey being the manager of the well equipped yard and office of
the company in the City of Tulsa, the vigorous metropolis and county
seat of Tulsa county, with headquarters at 302 North Main Street. The
other Oklahoma yards of this important corporation are established
respectively at Vinita, Bristow, Osage, Prue, and Inola, with the
main office at Tulsa.

Charles O. Copsey claims the fine old Hoosier State as the place of
his nativity and is a representative of one of its honored pioneer
families. He was born in Oxford Township, Benton County, Indiana, on
the 1st of December, 1861, and is a son of Charles C. and Mary
(GRAHAM) Copsey, both natives of Greene County, Ohio, and both of
whom passed the closing period of their lives in Benton County,
Indiana, where the father died in 1879 and the mother in 1880, the
subject of this review being the youngest in a family of six
children, of whom four are living. Charles C. Copsey was born in the
year 1800 and was a member of one of the earliest pioneer families of
Greene County, Ohio, where he was reared to maturity and where he
continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits until 1857,
when he removed with his family to Indiana, the journey having been
made overland with teams and wagons and he himself having ridden the
entire distance on horseback. He became one of the pioneer
representatives of the agricultural and live-stock industries in
Benton County, Indiana, where he developed a productive farm and
where he and his wife passed the residue of their long and worthy
lives, both having been birthright members and zealous adherents of
the noble religious organization, the Society of Friends, commonly
designated as Quakers, and his political support having been given to
the democratic party.

Reared to manhood under the sturdy and benignant discipline of the
old homestead farm which was the place of his birth, Charles O.
Copsey early learned the lessons of practical industry, the while he
made good use of the advantages afforded in the public schools of the
locality and period. He continued to be associated in the work and
management of the home farm until he had attained to the age of
twenty-four years, and in 1886 he removed to Burlington, the judicial
center of Coffey County, Kansas, a county lying contiguous to the
present State of Oklahoma along the line of the former Indian
Territory. There he became associated with the Coggeshall Lumber
Company, in which he became a stockholder, and this alliance
continued nearly a score of years. In the autumn of 1899 Mr. Copsey
traveled somewhat extensively through the District of the Osage
Nation of Indian Territory, at a time when this section was the
rendezvous of only Indians and cattle herders. He incidentally
visited the Government station maintained at Pawhuska, present county
seat of Osage County, for the distribution of supplies to the
Indians, and at the time of his visit two bands of Indians were
encamped near the station. His interest led him to attend a dance
given by the Indians, though he could not prevail upon any other
white man to accompany him, as all feared the Indians, by whom he
himself was treated with consideration.

In 1903, after disposing of his interest in the lumber business at
Burlington, Kansas, Mr. Copsey came to Indian Territory and
established his residence at Jenks, a village in the present County
of Tulsa. There he was individually engaged in the lumber business,
until 1907, the year which marked the admission of Oklahoma to
statehood, when he sold his business and removed to Tulsa, in which
city he has since been a stockholder of the E. C. Robinson Lumber
Company and manager of its large and prosperous local business. He
has kept in touch with the progressive spirit of the West and is one
of the loyal and public-spirited business men of the city and state
of his adoption. His political allegiance is given to the democratic
party; he is past noble grand of Aurora Lodge, No. 36, Independent
Order of Odd Fellows, at Tulsa, where he is affiliated also with
Silver Plume Lodge, No. 182, Knights of Pythias.

The 24th of February, 1885, recorded the marriage of Mr. Copsey to
Miss Josephine BENNETT, who was born in Montgomery County, Indiana, a
daughter of Edward and Louise Bennett, pioneers of that county, where
Mr. Bennett became a prosperous farmer and where he and his wife
continued to maintain their home until their death. Mr. and Mrs.
Copsey have two sons, both of whom are residents of Tulsa, --Fern
Bennett and Clair O. The older son wedded Miss Wynett MERCER, and the
younger son remains at the parental home.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Dorothy Marie Tenaza, Dec. 12, 1998.