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CHARLES M. THACKER
Vol. 3, p. 1035-1037
Book has photo

Mr. Justice Charles M. Thacker, of the Supreme Court of this state,
was born (on January 17, 1866) and raised on his father's farm in the
northeastern part of Brunswick County, Virginia.

Being born and raised in the aftermath of the Civil war in a land
that had been devastated by its ravages, his early educational
advantages were very poor; but a devoted mother gave him much
instruction at home; after he was seven years old he attended each
year for more or less of the school period either a public or a
private school until he was past nineteen years of age, excepting one
such period when he served a relative as a clerk in a wood-yard in
Petersburg, Virginia, and another such period when he served another
relative as clerk in a country store in Rowanta, Virginia. During his
boyhood he did the usual farm work that fell to a lot of farmers'
boys in that country. At the age of nineteen he feared tuberculosis
of the lungs in Virginia and was also unable to see his way there
clear to accumulate sufficient means to enable him to marry and
support a family; and, in this state of mind, he felt the call of the
west, with its promise of health and wealth, so strongly that he
persuaded his parents to consent to his migration to Texas to work
out his own destiny among strangers. Accordingly, in October, 1885,
with $75.00 furnished him by his father, he went to Texas, stopping
at Ennis, where, for a small salary, he served as scribe and man of
all work to a somewhat talented old gentleman (who was engaged in
looking up "lost titles" to Texas lands and in the culture of
flowers, fruits, trees, shrubs, etc., for sale) for the period of one
year. At the expiration of this time the illusion of wealth and a
speedy return to Virginia, where he would marry and live happily
every after, had vanished, and he took up the study of bookkeeping in
the belief that he would be content to work as such for the usual
salary paid for such service all the balance of his life.
After completing a couple of courses in such studies, he saw and
embraced an opportunity to study law and pay his way by office work
for his preceptors. On June 20, 1888, after a little more than a year
of study, and while still residing at Ennis, he was admitted to the
bar by the District Court at Dallas, Texas, where he soon thereafter
took a position as bookkeeper with a concern he at once found to be
in failing condition and that could not pay his first month's salary.
About September 1, 1888, with just five dollars loaned him by a
friend and a few old and discarded books given him by a firm of
kindly disposed lawyers in Dallas, he commenced the practice of law,
and made sufficient money to pay actual expenses, at Garland, Texas;
but, having there-to-fore impaired his health by over study, he soon
conceived the idea that it was necessary for him to find a higher
altitude and a dryer climate, and in the following spring he sought a
location in Northwest Texas. On April 29, 1889, after some visits to
other places, he reached Mangum, in Greer County, then under the de
facto jurisdiction of Texas, but which became a part of Oklahoma as a
result of a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States on
March 16, 1896, that the same was no part of Texas. Upon his arrival
at Mangum he had just 50 cents left and, being among strangers as
well as in a depressing state of health, a few sympathetic and kindly
words from County Judge J. M. BERRYMAN induced him to locate there,
although the place was merely a frontier village in a newly and
sparsely settled country without means of a livelihood visible to so
young and inexperienced a lawyer and although the general aspect of
the country then seemed to him desolate and uninviting.

At first he taught a little class in bookkeeping to help pay living
expenses, which did not exceed $15.00 or $20.00 per month; but in
August, 1889, he was appointed to the then vacated office of county
attorney from which he derived an income barely sufficient to meet
his meager needs. He did not want the office longer than for a
remnant of the term for which he was appointed; and, as he did not
seek re-election, his first law partner, John W. CRAIG, took the same
without opposition.

In 1891 and until February 8, 1892, while holding himself out as a
lawyer, he edited the Mangum Star, a weekly newspaper, as a much
needed additional means of support. On February 8, 1892, a vacancy
had occurred in the office of county judge of Greer County and he was
appointed to fill out the remnant of the term; and he served in this
office and by virtue thereof as chairman of the County Commissioners
Court and also as county superintendent of public instruction' but
this office too barely afforded him the means of support and, having
gotten the reward in popular favor that comes from satisfactory
service in such a position, he was not a candidate to succeed himself.

In these early days of the settlement of Greer County the fees of
the two offices mentioned were insignificant and the salaries were
small and paid in county warrants that were practically worthless
because of the dispute as to the rightful jurisdiction of Texas over
the county, so that the financial rewards for public service were
almost negligible.

In 1898, the second year after the transition of his county from
Texas to Oklahoma, he was elected to the Oklahoma Territorial
Legislature from the big thirteenth district composed of Greer, Roger
Mills, Washita, Custer, Day, D (which he named "Dewey" through a
legislative Act), Woodward, and Beaver Counties, in those counties
existed prior to the admission of Oklahoma to Statehood on November
16, 1907; and, after serving in the Assembly of 1899, where he was on
many important committees and chairman of the Committee of Private
Corporations and Corporate Law, he voluntarily retired at the
expiration of his term to serve his county as its county attorney.

In the meantime the country had settled and developed and when, in
1890, he was elected county attorney his county was a well settled
and prosperous community.

He served as county attorney until Statehood, a period of nearly
seven years, by virtue of successive elections and during
approximately the same period, by the appointment of Governor Jenkins
in the first instance and Governor Ferguson later, he served the
territory as a member of the territorial board of education for
Normal schools, voluntarily resigning upon the coming of Statehood.

In April, 1909, he was elected mayor of Mangum and served as such
until after the election of his successor in April, 1910, when he
retired without having been a candidate to succeed himself.

He was an unwilling candidate for this office and gave the matter of
his candidacy no attention until on election day he saw his opponent
hauling voters to the polls in a sixteen passenger automobile bus
bearing on each side a streamer with the legend, "Vote for (here the
name) for mayor," whereupon the subject of our sketch in due
appreciation of the "eternal fitness of things" and not to be outdone
in ostentatious exploitation, requistioned a wheelbarrow, upon each
side of which he had painted the legend, "Vote for Chas. M. Thacker
for Mayor," and at once commenced to haul voters to the polls from
nearby places in this stately equipage, while cheering crowds
thronged the streets. The ludicrous comparison of expedients
contributed to make Judge Thacker's majority of the votes cast more
than four to his opponent's one, although he suffered blistered hand
and feet from the strenuous work.

On Match 19, 1913, he was by the Supreme Court appointed from the
state at large to the bench of Supreme Court commission of this state
to fill out the unexpired term of Judge C. B. AMES, and in the
following September was regularly appointed by the court for the
ensuing full term, which expired February 1, 1915. And upon the re-
creation of the commission he was April 1, 1915, by Governor
Williams, with the approval of the court, again appointed from the
state at large to membership upon the commission.

On November 1, 1915, while he was still serving on the commission,
Governor Williams appointed him to the bench of the Supreme Court to
succeed his friend the late lamented Mr. Justice BROWN.

He has continuously resided at Mangum since April 29, 1889, and has
practiced law when not in office excluding him from the same.

In 1893-96 he had for a law partner Judge T. P. CLAY, of Mangum, and
for four years next before entry upon the duties of county attorney
in January 1901, Hon. A. R. GARRETT, of the same place, was his
partner.

As a practicing lawyer and in official service of the people he has
been and is an indefatigable and conscientious worker.

In his candidacies for office the overwhelming majorities by which
he has always been elected sufficiently attest the public approval of
the man and his official services.

The American Genealogical history of Mr. Justice Thacker is somewhat
obscure, while one or more links in his ancestral chain are entirely
unknown; but it seems reasonably certain that the original progenitor
of his branch of the Thacker family in this county was either Edwin
or Henry Thacker, who were probably brothers --- family tradition
indicates Edwin if they are not brothers.

Edwin Thacker lived and died in Middlesex County Virginia, where his
will dated April 2, 1704, and probate May 1, 1704, is still on
record. This will disposed of a large estate, consisting in the main
of lands, slaves, and livestock, and included a bequest to be paid
"out of My money in England and Virginia and out of my tobaccos to be
sent;" and it mentions a brother "Henry." This Edwin Thacker is
probably the "Col. Thacker" of Virginia history whose daughter
married Henry Washington, of Middlesex County, Virginia, who was an
uncle of the Famous "George" and whose son, "Thacker Washington,"
married a daughter of Sir John Peyton. Nothing is known of the Henry
Thacker mentioned except that, in 1690, he married Elizabeth Payne, a
granddaughter of Col. John Walker, who was a member of the Virginia
Council under the "Great Charter or Commissions of Privileges,
Orders, and Laws," of November 13, 1618.

Thirteen of the Virginia Thackers served in the war of the American
Revolution, one of them being Charles Thacker, of Fluvana County,
Virginia, who was an officer and for whom the subject of this sketch
was probably named.

Robert K. Thacker, grandfather of Mr. Justice Thacker, was born and
raised in Greenville County, Virginia, where he owned a medium sized
plantation and some slaves; and family tradition as well as the fact
that there are, and were, comparatively few people of this name in
Virginia, points to the Revolutionary stock and beyond those Thackers
to Edwin or Henry in early colonial days as ancestors; but the line
can not be definitely traced at this time back to Robert K., except
that family tradition says that Henry Washington married into this
branch of the family.

This Robert K. Thacker married Emma GEE, of Brunswich County,
Virginia, whose father was reputed to have been a very large land
owner in that county; and their only son, William J. Thacker, father
of the subject of this sketch, inherited from his mother the 1,900
acre track of land upon which, or a remnant thereof, the subject of
this sketch was born and raised..

William J. Thacker married Allie P. PARHAM, of Brunswick County,
Virginia, who was also a member of an old Virginia family, and of
this union Charles M., of this sketch, was the first born; William
P., the next born, died at the age of twenty years; Robert E., the
third born, still lives on a remnant of the old Virginia homestead;
John H., the fourth born, died at the age of eighteen years; Miss
Emma M., the fifth born, passed her entire life on the old homestead
until in 1900, when she came to live with Charles M. and two younger
brothers at Mangum, Oklahoma, where she died in 1904; Harry Milton,
the sixth born, is serving on the bench of the County Court of Greer
County, Oklahoma; and Thomas Tillman, the seventh born, who is a
linotype operator by vocation and is studying dentistry, has made his
home at Mangum, in this state, most of the time since early in 1899.

Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, November 29, 1998.