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WILLIAMS Vol. 3, p. 1047-1048 Efficient service in both constructive and conservative lines has marked the administration of Mr. WILLIAMS in the office of secretary of the Oklahoma department of state school lands, and he is one of the well known and highly honored pioneer citizens of Oklahoma, within whose borders be established his residence thirty years ago and with whose civic and industrial development and progress he has been closely and worthily identified. He has been long and prominently concerned with the cattle industry and has been one of its extensive and successful exponents in Oklahoma, under both the territorial and state regimes. He exploited the cattle business under the conditions of the pioneer days, and had broad experience during the period when the great open ranges were still available, so he remains one of those sturdy sons of the great West who is able to give many interesting reminiscences of the early days. He is now one of the loyal and public-spirited citizens of Oklahoma City, where he maintains his official headquarters in the Mercantile Building. Mr. Williams was born in the State of Texas in the year 1866, and is a son of W. A. and Elizabeth (MURPHY) Williams. W. A. Williams likewise was born and reared in the old Lone Star State, his parents having been early pioneer settlers in Texas and his Father having been an active participant in the war which gained Texas freedom from Mexico and resulted in its organization as an independent republic, a number of years prior to the war which brought about its acquirement by the United States. For the long period of thirty-five years John R. Williams, Sr., was engaged in the banking business in Texas and he was an influential figure also in the social and industrial development of the state, within whose borders he passed virtually his entire life, his death having there occurred, at Greenville, judicial center of Hunt County in 1910, at which time he was widely known as one of the most venerable of the native sons of the Lone Star State, his wife having preceded him to the life eternal. The scenes and incidents of the pioneed [sic] days in Texas are reverted to as the earliest recollections of John R. Williams, whose career is here taken briefly under review. The public schools of his native state afforded to him his early educational advantages, and as a youth he became identified with the great cattle industry which long made Texas the most famous of all states of the Union in this domain of enterprise. In 1885, at the age of nineteen years, Mr. Williams came to Oklahoma Territory and obtained employment on a large cattle ranch in old Greer County. With the exception of an interim of about three years he has here continued to be identified with the cattle industry during the long intervening period, though it has been within his province also to give effective service in the furtherance of the march of development and progress in the territory and the state, to which his loyalty has been ever insistent. In 1897, by Judge KILGORE, he was appointed a United States commissioner, and he continued the efficient incumbent of this office until the close of the year 1899, his headquarters having been jointly at Ryan and Duncan. When the Kiowa and Comanche country was opened for settlement, in 1901, Mr. Williams removed to Kiowa County, and in the following year he was there appointed county treasurer, to fill an unexpired term ending in 1903. After his retirement from this office he engaged in the farm-loan and the abstract business in that county, and there he was a substantial and representative citizen of Hobart at the time of the admission of the state to the Union, in 1907. When Hon. Lee CRUSE was made the candidate for nomination for governor of the state in the primary election of 1910, Mr. Williams was selected as manager of his preliminary campaign for the nomination as candidate on the democratic ticket, and after Governor Cruse had been nominated Mr. Williams showed continued fineness and ability in the maneuvering of political forces and in effecting the election of Governor Cruse, in the autumn of that year. At that time Mr. Williams was chairman of the state campaign committee of his party and from the time of attaining to his legal majority he has been an ardent and uncompromising supporter of the principles and policies of the democratic party. In January, 1911, Governor Cruse appointed Mr. Williams secretary of the state school lands departments, and his term of office terminated in January, 1915. Upon assuming this position Mr. Williams established his residence in Oklahoma City and his administration proved in every respect careful, circumspect and successful. In the Masonic fraternity his affiliations are with the lodge, chapter and commandery bodies of the York Rite and with India Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the City of Oklahoma. At Hobart, Kiowa County, he is an appreciative and popular member of the lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In the year 1901 Mr. Williams wedded Miss Elizabeth DELESDERNIER, daughter of William De Lesdernier, a pioneer of Oklahoma Territory, where he established his residence in 1872, as a representative of the United States Government in the Indian service. He continued in this service until l897, became a successful trader also at Colony, Washita County, and was a resident at Oklahoma City at the time of his death, in 1912. Mr. And Mrs. Williams have three sons, John R., Jr., Allen and William. Typed for OKGenWeb by: Dorothy Marie Tenaza, December 10, 1998.