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To his resources, initiative and courageous faith may be accredited such enterprises as the Oklahoma Life Insurance Company, the Columbia Bank and Trust Company and the Threadgill Hotel, while civic development derived encouragement from his able and disinterested support until his death, which occurred on the 14th of May, 1915. John Threadgill was born in Wadesboro, the county seat of Anson County, North Carolina, September 18, 1847, and is a son of James and Eliza (PAUL) Threadgill, natives of the same town and state. The family was founded in America by four brothers, Thomas, Randall, William and John Threadgill, who in 1770 emigrated from England and located in North Carolina, where all married and reared families. It is from the family of Thomas that Doctor Threadgill descends. This ancestor was a full colonel in the Revolutionary army and was a conspicuous figure at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina. The father of Doctor Threadgill was a wealthy planter and slave owner of the South prior to the Civil war, and his family consisted on eleven children, of whom John was the fourth in order of birth. As he grew to manhood, John Threadgill was educated in the home schools, and after some preparation entered the medical department of the University of Alabama, at Mobile, from which he was graduated with the class of 1874. Previous to this time however, when not quite sixteen years of age, he enlisted in the Fourteenth North Carolina Infantry, Confederate army, in September 1863, and served until he was captured by the Federal troops nears Petersburg, April 3, 1865. He was paroled from Hart's Island, New York, June 17, 1865, being one of the first Confederate prisoners sent to that prison. According to the record he was one of the youngest Confederate soldiers at the time of his death. Leaving his native state in September 1870, Doctor Threadgill located in Washington County, Texas, where he practiced medicine until 1875, then moving to Williamson County, and in 1880 retired from the practice to engage in the banking business at Taylor, Texas. He became vice president there of the First National Bank and its active manager, the president of the institution being a resident of Chicago. Selling out his banking interests in 1895, Doctor Threadgill moved to Norman, Oklahoma, having obtained a contract from the Territory of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory to care for the insane of the two territories. Here he built the Oklahoma Sanitarium for the Insane and conducted it until 1901, when he sold out to others and moved to Oklahoma City to become of its live wires in the development of the magic city. One of his first moves was to organize the Oklahoma Life Insurance Company, serving as its president until its complete organization, when he disposed of his interests. He then organized and became president of the Columbia Bank and Trust Company of Oklahoma City, in 1902, from which position he subsequently resigned after the first year and sold his stock before it was consolidated with the State National Bank. In 1904 he built the Threadgill Hotel, at the corner of Second and Broadway, now the Bristol, and owned it until 1913, when he exchanged it for Texas lands, upon some of which have been developed oil prospects. After building the Threadgill Hotel, Doctor Threadgill practically retired from active operations. Doctor Threadgill was a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of all the kindred orders. He was also a Pythian Knight and an Odd Fellow. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Oklahoma City, as is also Mrs. Threadgill. On January 28, 1872, Doctor Threadgill was married in Washington County, Texas, to Miss Elizabeth GUITON, who lived only one year after their marriage. In Williamson County, Texas, he was married to Miss Sue GAULT, December 1, 1875, and she died June 6, 1891, having been the mother of one daughter, who is now Mrs. W. T. SALMON, of Oklahoma City. At Memphis, Tennessee, January 6, 1892, Doctor Threadgill was married to Miss Frances Fidelia FALWELL, who was born September 22, 1867, daughter of Samuel and Zarsko Zelo (MESSICK) Falwell. Two children were born to this union: Mary Frances, September 27, 1892; and John Falwell, April 15, 1894. Both children still are unmarried and reside with their mother. To his last marriage, Doctor Threadgill owes much of his success and happiness in life, for Mrs. Threadgill is not only a capable member of the household and a congenial companion, but a woman of remarkable character and breadth of thought along lines of endeavor especially appreciated by civic and philanthropic students. While the doctor was busy in his business enterprises, his estimable and cultured wife has been one of the most active civic worker in the West. Mrs. Threadgill, after having the advantages of the public schools of her native city, Memphis, Tennessee, graduated from the Peabody Normal School, at Nashville, in 1881, with the degree of L.I. Earlier, she had also graduated from a business college at Memphis, hence, when she elected to give life to active public service, she had all the preparation qualifying her for the noble work to which she was determined to devote her career. Immediately after her graduation at Nashville, Mrs. Threadgill became a teacher in schools and colleges of Memphis, in which work she continued until 1891 when she moved to Taylor, Texas, also to teach until she and the doctor were married. When they located at Oklahoma City, Mrs. Threadgill was at once recognized as an admirable leader among the women of the state striving to better civic conditions. She was elected president of the Territorial Federation of Women's Clubs in 1906 and also of the state body in 1907-8, was State Federation president from 1908 to 1910 and from 1910 to 1912 was treasurer of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. When the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention was in session after statehood came, in 1907, Mrs. Threadgill was active in the advocacy of those measures so dear to the hearts of the clubwomen of the state, including compulsory education and child labor provisions. Mrs. Threadgill also descends from a historic family of Colonial days and distinction. Her grandfather, Samuel Falwell, was born in Rappahannock County, Virginia, and her father, also named Samuel, was a soldier during the Mexican war of 1847-8. On her mother's side the family comes down through a line of STEPHENS folk in which are listed the names of Emanuel and Thaddeus Stephens, of Lincoln's cabinet, and traces back to one of three brothers who came from the north of England and settled in Maryland, in 1711. If a community and a state may be proud of such citizens as Doctor Threadgill, they may be equally proud of his home associations and of the magnificent character of such a helpmate as he was so fortunate to secure in the person of his distinguished wife. Through the interest Mrs. Threadgill has had in the educational work she was instrumental in having established by the State Federation of Women's Clubs, a loan fund to be used in aiding young girls to obtain higher educations (sic). Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, December 27, 1999.