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BENJAMIN A. MCFARLAND
Vol. 3, p. 1153-1154

In the important domain of operations in the handling of high-grade
securities, the underwriting of insurance and the specializing in
mortgages on farm and city realty, the firm of MCFARLAND & BERNBROCK
holds recognized precedence and controls a large and substantial
business in the city of Tulsa, with offices at 13 West Third Street.
As senior member of this firm, the reputation of which constitutes
its best business asset, and as one of the progressive, loyal and
popular citizens of Tulsa County Mr. MCFARLAND properly finds
representation in this history of his adopted state.

Benjamin A. MCFARLAND was born at Portsmouth, a fine little city
that is situated on the Ohio River and is the metropolis and judicial
center of Scioto County, Ohio. The date of his nativity was January
30, 1868, and his is a son of John J. and Fannie (STANTON) MCFARLAND,
the former of whom was born at Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, on
the 21st of December, 1825, and the latter of whom was born in the
city of Baltimore, Maryland, on the 6th of March, 1828, their
marriage having been solemnized at Portsmouth, Ohio, in the year
1848. Mrs. Fannie (STANTON) MCFARLAND was summoned to eternal rest on
the 23rd of December 1879.

John J. MCFARLAND became prominently identified with the iron
industry in Scioto County, Ohio, as a mechanic in various shops in
Portsmouth and as a builder of barges for use in transportation
service on the Ohio River. He retired from active business affairs in
1885 and passed the closing period of his life in the city of Topeka,
Kansas, where his death occurred on the 18th of April 1892. As a
young man he served as chief of the fire department in Portsmouth,
where he was for many years a valued member of the board of
education, and his high standing in the community is significantly
indicated by the fact that from 1878 to 1884 he held the office of
mayor of the city of Portsmouth. He was inflexible in his support of
the cause of the Republican Party, and his sterling character and
unqualified popularity bought to him official preferment of notable
order, notwithstanding the city of Portsmouth claimed a large,
democratic majority in its normal manifest of political complexion.

Benjamin A. MCFARLAND continued his studies in the public schools of
his native city until he had completed the curriculum of the high
school and supplemented this discipline by a course of study in the
Ohio Business College in the city of Cincinnati. In 1885, when
seventeen years of age, Mr. MCFARLAND came to the west and
established his residence in the city of Topeka, Kansas, where he
assumed a position in the auditor's department of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, where he continued his clerical and
executive services about three years. He then became cashier in the
office of the Shurmer-Tigle Company, engaged in the wholesale oil
business in Topeka, and with this concern he continued to be
identified about three years, in the meanwhile having been advanced
to the position of manager of the business of the company in the city
of St Joseph, Missouri. Later he was assigned to a similar position
at Sioux City, Iowa, where remained one year.

In 1889 Mr. MCFARLAND was one of the ambitious young men who "made
the run" into the Hennessey district of Indian Territory at the time
when that section was thrown open to settlement, shortly antecedent
to its becoming a part of the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma.
He later went to Kansas City, Missouri, but in 1900 he identified
himself once more with what is now the State of Oklahoma, by becoming
one of those who filed claim on town lots in the present City of
Hobart, Kiowa County, when that section of the Kiowa Indian
reservation was opened for settlement. He eventually perfected his
title to this real estate in the ambitious town and in the meanwhile
assumed the position of clerk in the office of Judge Harris FINLEY,
who was the first judge of the Probate Court of Kiowa County, the
judge being the father-in-law of Mr. MCFARLAND, and the latter having
charge of the preparing and issuing of all deeds to the properties of
the town site of Hobart. Later, HON. THOMAS D. FERGUSON, governor of
a territory, appointed him clerk of Kiowa County, and after serving
fourteen months in this office he engaged in the abstract business at
Hobart, the county seat. Later he sold this business, which he has
effectually developed and the entire records of which he had made
authoritative, and he then removed to Vinita, the county seat of
Craig County, where he became cashier of the newly organized Cherokee
National Bank. This responsible position he retained from 1905 until
1912, in which latter year he disposed of his stock in the bank and
established himself in an independent business as a public
accountant, a line of enterprise with which he had previously been
identified at Hobart, where he had similarly established himself in
1904. He had served in the same capacity also during his incumbency
of the position of cashier of the bank at Vinita, and in 1912 he
removed to the City of Tulsa, where he has since continued his
activities and become recognized as one of the alert, reliable and
progressive business men of the community. He still serves as a
public accountant, a field in which he is a recognized expert, and as
a member of the firm of MCFARLAND & BERNBROCK, in which his valued
coadjutor is L. S. BERNBROCK, he has been a potent force in the
upbuilding of a large and important enterprise in the lines of
insurance and loans and the handling of high-grade bonds and other
approved securities. Mr. MCFARLAND has been concerned with each
successive land opening in Oklahoma, and in this connection he was
among the first to file claim to town lots in the present thriving
city of Enid, in 1903. He has deep appreciation of the advantages and
manifold natural resources of the state of his adoption and through
his various business activities has contributed to the development
and progress of this vigorous young commonwealth.

In politics Mr. MCFARLAND accords staunch allegiance to the
republican party, and in the time-honored Masonic fraternity he has
received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish
Rite, in Indian Consistory, at McAlester, this state; his ancient-
craft affiliation is with Vinita Lodge, No. 5, Ancient Free and
Accepted Masons, at Vinita, Craig County.

On the 17th of August, 1892, was solemnized the marriage of Mr.
MCFARLAND to Miss Maude FINLEY, who was born at Foxburg, Butler
County, Pennsylvania, in which historic old commonwealth were born
also her parents, Judge Harris FINLEY and Priscilla (KIRBS) FINLEY,
her father having been one of the territorial pioneers at Hobart,
Kiowa County, Oklahoma, and having served as the first judge of the
Probate Court of that county, as has been noted in a preceding
paragraph. As a young woman of nineteen years Mrs. MCFARLAND became
one of those who "made the run" at the opening of the Cheyenne and
Arapahoe [sic]country at Oklahoma, where she filed claim to a
homestead of 160 acres, to which she eventually perfected title. Mr.
and Mrs. MCFARLAND have 3 children, -Marian Estelle, George C. and
Lynden.

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Donald E. Conley, 29 October, 1998.