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JOHN A. SPIVY
Vol. 3, p. 1273-1274

Clerk of the County and district courts of Jefferson County, John A.
Spivy has been a factor in the political life of this section of
Oklahoma since statehood. He is almost to the manner born in local
polities, since some of his earliest experiences in his native State
of Texas were in connection with public offices. Mr. Spivy has also
been a farmer, and is one of the men justly appreciated and
influential in Jefferson County.

John A. Spivy was born in Weatherford, Parker County, Texas,
September 8, 1867. The Spivy family came originally out of Ireland,
locating in this country probably before the Revolution, became
pioneer settlers in Mississippi, and from that state removed to
Tennessee. Mr. Spivy's father, H. W. Spivy, was born in Hardeman
County, Tennessee, in 1834, and died at Weatherford, Texas, in March,
1887. When a young man he moved from Tennessee to North Texas as a
pioneer, and was one of the early group of settlers who made the
community of Weatherford on of prominence. He was married at
Weatherford, reared his family there, and was a merchant until 1876,
when elected clerk of the District Court, an office he held ten
years. In religious matters he belonged to what is called the
hardshell branch of the Baptist Church. H.W. Spivy married Allie
SHOFNER, who was born in Tennessee in 1840 and died at Weatherford,
Texas, in 1873. Their children were: Mary, wife of R. A. SULLIVAN, an
Arkansas farmer; John A.; J.B., a farmer at Nocona, Texas; H. W., a
farmer at Carnegie, Oklahoma; and Annie, wife of F. S. BIGGS, and
lives at Weatherford, Texas.

John A. Spivy grew up at Weatherford, attended the public schools
there, and graduated from the high school with the class of 1886. For
six years he was employed in the office of the district clerk at
Weatherford, part of the time under his father, and on resigning
those duties became a Parker County farmer. In 1900 he removed from
Parker to Montague County, Texas, and kept his interests there until
1908. Mr. Spivy established his home at Ryan in Jefferson County,
Oklahoma, in 1908, and was a farmer until his election as clerk of
the District Court in 1912. He was elected to the office in 1912 and
re-elected in 1914, after the act went into effect consolidating the
offices of clerk of the District Court and of the County Court, he
was re-elected. Though a large part of his active career has been
given to the details of the district clerk's office either in Texas
or Oklahoma, he has also filled other public responsibilities, and
among them he was deputy sheriff of Montague County, Texas, four
years, and at the beginning of Oklahoma statehood he was elected the
first justice of the peace of Brown Township, while living at Oscar
near Ryan. He filled that office two years, and for two years was
treasurer of the Brown Township board.

Mr. Spivy is a member of the Baptist Church and fraternally
affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. In March 1889, at
Weatherford, Texas, he married Miss Ethel MCCUNE, daughter of R. A.
McCune, now deceased, who was a Weatherford farmer. Mr. and Mrs.
Spivy have five children. Mary, married W. A. PATTERSON, a painter at
Waurika; John W. is employed as an automobile repairer at Waurika;
Eva is a sophomore in Waurika High School; Lanham, named for a former
governor of Texas whose home was at Weatherford, is attending the
Waurika public schools; and Joe Bailey, the youngest of the family,
was also named for a famous Texan.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, January 23, 1999.