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ALGER MELTON
Vol. 3, p. 1071-1072
Book has photo

He whose name initiates this article has been engaged in the
successful practice of his profession at Chickasha, the judicial
center of Brady County, since 1899, and is consistently to be
designated as one of the pioneer lawyers of this section of the
state, where he has appeared in much important litigation in the
various courts, has gained high prestige in his profession and has
been specially prominent and influential in public affairs,
especially in the councils of the democratic party, the Oklahoma
State Central Committee of which he is serving as chairman at the
time of this writing, this preferment having been conferred upon him
in the spring of 1915. Mr. MELTON is a member of the representative
law firm of Bond, Melton & Melton, which controls a large and
important practice and maintains its offices at 409-11 First National
Bank Building, in the City of Chickasha.

At Jefferson, the county seat of Marion County, Texas, Alger Melton
was born on the 10th of October, 1874, and he is a son of Washington
P. and Lucy (TRAMMELL) Melton. Washington P. Melton, a scion of a
sterling old Southern family, was born and reared in the state of
Alabama and though he was a mere boy at the inception of the Civil
war his youthful loyalty did not long permit him to remain
unresponsive to the call of the Confederacy for volunteers to defend
its cause, and when but sixteen years he enlisted in an Alabama
regiment, with which he served as a faithful and valiant young
soldier of the Confederacy during the entire period of the war,
though during the last two years he was detailed to special service
as a courier with the command of Gen. Robert E. LEE, the
distinguished and loved commander in chief of the gallant troops of
the South. Mr. Melton was with General Lee's weary and jaded army at
the time of the final surrender at Appomattox.

After the close of the war Washington P. Melton continued his
residence in his native state until 1869, when he immigrated to
Texas, where he encountered his full quota of experience in frontier
life and where he eventually became a prominent and successful
representative of the live-stock industry, with which he continued
his active identification until about the year 1900, when he retired
from the active labors that has so long marked his career. He was a
man of superior intellectual power and much business ability, was a
stalwart in the camp of the democratic party and perpetuated the more
pleasing memories of his youthful military career by retaining
affiliation with the United Confederate Veterans. He died April 16,
1915, while visiting his sons, at Chickasha, Oklahoma, and his age at
the time of his demise was seventy years. His loved and devoted wife
passed to eternal rest in 1905.

Alger Melton is indebted to the schools of his native state for his
early educational discipline and there he prepared himself for his
chosen profession by taking a special course in law and by study
under private preceptors. In 1899 he was admitted to the bar of the
Lone Star State but he came forthwith to Oklahoma Territory and
established his residence in the ambitious little village of
Chickasha, the present judicial center of Grady County. For a year
thereafter he was the incumbent of clerk and general assistant in the
office of the law firm of Davidson & Riddle, and he then, in 1900,
entered into a partnership alliance with Reford BOND, under the firm
name of Bond & Melton. This professional association has been
continued during the intervening years and in 1909, Mr. Melton's
younger brother, Adrian, was admitted to the firm, the title of which
has since been Bond, Melton & Melton. In point of consecutive years
of practice, as well as in the volume and importance of its law
business, this well known firm now takes unmistakable precedence over
all others in Grady County, and Mr. Melton has long been known as a
trial lawyer of special versatility and resourcefulness and as a
counselor thoroughly fortified in the science of jurisprudence, of
which he has continued a close and appreciative student, the
extensive law library of the firm being one of the best in this part
of the state.

In 1900, at the time of the incorporation of Chickasha as a city,
Mr. Melton was elected city attorney, and as such he was largely
instrumental in framing the basic ordinances and incidental laws of
the new municipality.

Mr. Melton has been a dominating force in connection with the
councils and campaign maneuvers of the democratic party in Oklahoma
and incidental to the primary election in 1914 he had charge of the
campaign of the Hon. Mr. Williams, the present governor of the state.
His special facility and discrimination in the directing and
controlling of political forces led to his election to the office of
chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee of Oklahoma in
1915.

Mr. Melton is actively identified with the Oklahoma State Bar
Association and the Grady County Bar Association, of which latter
organization he was elected president for the current year of 1914-
15. He was the second incumbent of the office of exalted ruled of
Chickasha Lodge, No. 755, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of
which he is a charter member, and he is a charter member also, as
well as a director, of the Chickasha Country Club. His attractive and
modern residence, owned by him, is at the corner of Twentieth and
Georgia Streets.

In the year 1909 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Melton to Miss
Cora HAMILTON, daughter of M. A. Hamilton, a representative citizen
of Chickasha, and the one child of this union is a daughter, Ruth.

Transcibed by Jacque Hopkins Wolski, November 25, 1998.