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JOHN W. ERVIN
Vol. 3, p. 1308-1309

President of the Phenix Mortgage Company, with offices at 412-414-
416-418 Bawn Building, Oklahoma City, controls a substantial and
representative enterprise in this important field and is known as an
authority on real estate values throughout Oklahoma, the while no man
has higher reputation for reliability, circumspection and
straightforward methods in the extending of financial fortification
to those who are carrying forward industrial and commercial
enterprises of important order. He gives his attention largely to the
handling of high-grade farm mortgages, has been a resident of
Oklahoma during its entire period of statehood, and commands the
confidence and good will of all who know him. As a loyal and
progressive citizen and representative business man of the capital
city and metropolis of the state of his adoption he is specially
eligible for recognition in this publication.

John Witherspoon Ervin was born in Washington, Mason County,
Kentucky, on the 21st of May, 1882, and is a scion of a sterling
family that was founded in America very early in the colonial era of
out nations history, the original progenitors in the New Would,
having been two brothers, Hugh and John Ervin, who left their native
Ireland in 1632 and immigrated to the wilds of America. They first
located at Kingstree, Williamsburg County, South Carolina, in which
colony John remained, the older brother, Hugh, having soon removed to
Mississippi, where he numbered himself among the early pioneer
settlers of that now prosperous commonwealth. John Ervin, who
continued his residence in South Carolina until his death, was an
ancestor of his whose name introduces this article, and who bears the
full patronymic of his grandfather, John Witherspoon Ervin, who was a
man of high intellectual attainments, who became a prominent figure
in educational work in his native State of South Carolina, and who
has for many years connected in an editorial capacity with leading
newspapers and other publications in the city of Charleston.

John W. Ervin, subject of the review, is a son of Rev. Erasmus E.
and Mary (Guthrie) Ervin, the former of whom was born in South
Carolina and the latter in Tennessee. The father became a
representative clergyman of the Presbyterian Church and thus the
family had a somewhat itinerant life during the childhood and youth
of the son. When John W. was about one year old the family removed
from his birthplace to Paint Lick, Kentucky; when he was five years
of age removal was made to Shelby County, North Carolina; two years
later found the family established at Faunsdale, Alabama; the
following year his father became pastor of the Presbyterian Church at
Pisgah, Kentucky, where young Ervin was reared to the age of fifteen
years and where he received the advantages of a well conducted
private school, besides having been signally favored in having during
his entire youth the environment and influences of a home of signal
culture and of high ideals. When he was fifteen years of age the
family removed to DeFuniak Springs, Florida, and there he completed a
effective course in the Florida State Normal School. At this juncture
may be interpolated the statement that when by sixteen years of age
the father of Mr. Ervin ran away from home to manifest his loyalty to
the cause of the Confederacy, by enlisting for service in the Civil
war and that he continued in active service as a youthful soldier
until the close of the long internecine conflict between the states
of the North and the South.

Leaving school at the age of nineteen years Mr. Ervin was thereafter
identified with the mercantile business at DeFuniak Springs for a
period of four years, at the expiration of which he engaged in the
same line of enterprise at Darlington, South Carolina, where he
remained until December, 1906, when at the age of twenty-four years,
he came to Oklahoma Territory and established his residence at
Norman, where for the following six months he was associated with one
of his cousins in the mercantile business. In July, 1907, a year that
marked the admission of Oklahoma as one of the sovereign states of
the Union, he removed to Chickasha, Grady County, where after having
devoted a year to the fraternal insurance business, he engaged in the
real estate business. He thus became prominently identified with the
early development and progress of that now thriving little city,
where he was associated with Hard Butler in the purchase, platting
and sale of Steele's Addition to the city, this enterprise having
been conducted under the firm name of J. W. Ervin & Co.

In November, 1909, Mr. Ervin accepted the position of manager of the
city loan department of the Oklahoma Mortgage Company, and thus
removed to Oklahoma City, the headquarters of this corporation. He
continued in tenure of this position until March, 1914, when he
resigned. After passing about six months on a farm in this vicinity
he returned to Oklahoma City and established his present business
enterprise, the rapid extension of which has attested his ability as
a progressive young business man and his inviolable place in popular
confidence and good will. Concerning him the following pertinent
statements have been made: "Among all the mortgage-loan firms in the
State there is not a man who stands higher in efficiency and
knowledge of values, men and conditions in Oklahoma than does Mr.
Ervin; nor is there a young man in any business calling in the State
who more fully enjoys the confidence and approval of those who know
him," As a citizen Mr. Ervin is essentially loyal and public
spirited, his political allegiance being given to the democratic
party, and both he and his wife holding membership in the
Presbyterian Church, their pleasant home being at 2107 West Sixteenth
Street.

At Chickasha, on the 2nd of June, 1909, was solemnized the marriage
of Mr. Ervin to Miss Jeanette Bennett. A daughter of James M. and
Jennie Woods (Shepherd) Bennett, the former a native of Mississippi
and the latter of Virginia. Mr. and Mrs. Ervin have three children ---
Eleanor, who was born August 7, 1910; Gordon Ellerbe, who was born
December 10, 1912; and John Witherspoon, Jr., who was born May 10,
1915.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, October 5, 1998.