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JEAN P. DAY
Vol. 5, p. 1818

Few of the vital and progressive cities of Oklahoma have forged so
rapidly, and substantially to the front rank as has McAlester, the
metropolis and judicial center of Pittsburg County and the center
also of one of the finest coal-producing districts in the state. The
elements of stability have been in distinct evidence in this splendid
advancement and the city is vigorous and prosperous - the stage of
large and important commercial and industrial activities and the home
of an enterprising and progressive element of citizenship. He whose
name initiates this paragraph has secure prestige as one of the able
and successful representatives of the legal profession in Pittsburg
County and is in control of a substantial and important law business
in the City of McAlester, so that he is well entitled to recognition
in this publication, as one of the representative members of the bar
of this section of the state.

Mr. Day was born in Webster County, Mississippi, on the 31st of
January 1874, and is a son of Jonathan J. and Amanda R. (Pollan) Day
both of whom were born and reared in Mississippi, where the
respective families were founded in an early day. In 1889 Jonathan J.
Day came with his family to what is now the State of Oklahoma and
became a pioneer settler when the original section of the old Indian
Territory was thrown open for such settlement, though Oklahoma
Territory was not formally created until the following year. He
entered claim to a, homestead in what is now Oklahoma County, where
lie instituted the reclamation of a farm and where lie and his wife
continued to reside until 1903, when they removed to Pittsburg County
and established their home in the thriving little City of Hartshorne,
where Mrs. Day was summoned to the life eternal in 1914, at the age
of sixty-six years. The death of Mr. Day occurred November 13, 1915,
he having celebrated his seventieth birthday anniversary in that
year. He had the energy and good judgment, to profit fully by the
advantages afforded to him in Oklahoma and became one of the sterling
and honored pioneers of the state to whose civic and industrial
development and upbuilding he contributed his quota, practically his
entire active career having been marked by close and effective
identification with the great basic industry of agriculture.

He was aligned as an unswerving advocate of the principles of the
Democratic Party and during the climacteric period of the Civil war
he represented his native state as one of its gallant soldiers who
went forth in defense of the cause of the Confederacy. Jonathan J.
and Amanda R. (Pollan) Day became the parents of only two children,
and the elder is Jean P., whose name introduces this article; Allie
is now the wife of Robert M. Boardman and they maintain their home at
Decatur, Illinois.

Jean P. Day acquired his early education in his native state and was
a lad of fifteen years at the time of the family removal to the wilds
of the newly organized Territory of Oklahoma. into which he recalls
that he rode in dignified state by the side of his father and,
mounted on the back of a gray mule which claimed the "dejected havior
of the visage" that is common to the animals of this type. Mr. Day
found ample demand upon his time and services in connection with the
reclamation and other work of the pioneer farm in Oklahoma County,
but was not denied opportunities for the proper supplementing of his
education. He attended the old Central Normal School of Oklahoma
Territory, at Edmond, where he fortified himself admirably for
successful work in the pedagogic profession. For several years he was
an efficient and popular teacher in the public schools of Oklahoma,
and his services in this line included his effective work as
principal of the Emerson School in Oklahoma City.

In preparation for the vocation of his choice, Mr. Day began the
study of law under the able preceptorship of Hon. Henry H. Howard, of
Oklahoma City, and in 1899 lie was admitted to the territorial bar.
He initiated the practice of his profession at Poteau, Indian
Territory, a place that is now the judicial center of LeFlore County,
Oklahoma, and there he remained ten years, within which decade he
developed a good practice and gained a place as one of the leading
members of the bar of that section. In 1909 Mr. Day was appointed to
aid in the revision of the code of laws of the recently organized
State of Oklahoma, and the result of that revision is the well known
Harris-Day Code of Oklahoma Law, issued in 1910. During the time that
he was engaged in this important work Mr. Day maintained his
residence at Guthrie, the former territorial capital and in 1910 he
removed to the rapidly growing City of McAlester, where he has since
continued in the successful general practice of his profession and
where lie has appeared in much important litigation and as attorney
and counselor for many representative corporations and individually
influential citizens.

The democratic party has found Mr. Day as one of its resourceful and
unfailing supporters in Oklahoma and though he has been influential
in the party councils and campaign activities under both the
territorial and state regimes he has not been ambitious for public
office, but recently he was elevated to the supreme court bench and
his friends, both democrats and republicans, joined in a banquet
celebrating this honor. Mr. Day was a delegate to the Democratic
National Convention in 1908. He has received the thirty-second degree
of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the Masonic fraternity and
is affiliated also -with the Benevolent & Protective Order or Elks.
He is a prominent member of the Pittsburg County Bar Association and
holds membership also in the Oklahoma State Bar Association.

The year 1900 recorded the marriage of Mr. Day to Miss Aubie Oates,
of Paris, Texas, and they have one child. Doris, who was born in 1901.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916).