GEORGE M. BOND. The first county judge of Jefferson county is George M. Bond. He won the nomination after an interesting contest, by one vote in the primary, and at the election in September, 1907, easily defeated his Republican opponent. Nearly forty years of residence and varied business activity in Indian Territory have fitted Judge Bond perhaps to a greater degree than any other man who might be named for offices where the public welfare is to be impar
tially conserved. As an educator, as former county judge of the Choctaw Nation, as a business man and farmer, he has been identified with southern Oklahoma in a conspicuous manner. Judge Bond is a Democrat by nature and training, his grandfather having voted for Thomas Jefferson and his father for Andrew Jackson.
    Judge Bond in 1871 was on a prospecting trip through the west. While at Fort Smith, Arkansas, he learned that teachers were needed over in the Indian country, and having acquired a liberal education in the east in the schools of Baltimore, he went to Boiling Springs (now Red Oak) and became teacher of a Choctaw school. The vocation thus accidentally adopted continued his principal occupation for fifteen years, during which time he accomplished a great deal for the cause of education that is worth recording. He organized the first teachers' meeting ever held in the Territory. He was also one of the first school examiners of the Territory. The friends of Indian education often called attention to the efficiency of his work, and his influence as an educator extended beyond his own school to the benefit of the entire work of education in the Territory. Being more or less active in politics while a resident of the Choctaw Nation, he finally left the school room to take the office of county judge of Toboxy county. He studied law and was admitted to practice before the national courts. For some years he was active in opening the coal deposits of the Choctaw country, especially in his capacity of prospector. He bought the sites and laid out the towns of Hartshorn and Wilburton. In the latter place, after opening the coal mine and operating it for a time, he sold it to Degnan. Since moving into the Chickasaw country in 1899, Judge Bond has been engaged in farming a body of the choicest land in the Red river valley, almost adjoining Terral.
    George M. Bond was born in Howard county, Maryland, December 2, 1847, being a member of one of the oldest American families. The Bonds came from Scotland in colonial days and settled among the colony founded by Lord Baltimore. His father, George Bond, also a native of Howard county, and who died in Baltimore in 1887, was a man of varied activity, having farmed, kept a hotel in Baltimore, and was active in politics and held office in Howard county. He married a member of one of the oldest families of the state, Miss Rebecca Ridgley, who died in Baltimore in 1891. Her children were: George M.; Wallace, who died in Indian Territory in 1895, having been private secretary of Governor McCurtain of the Choctaw Nation and otherwise active in the affairs of that nation; and Ridgley, now of Kinta, Oklahoma. Judge Bond, having become identified with Indian Territory when twenty-four years of age, has spent practically all his active life in this country, and aside from his school days in Baltimore all the events of his career have occurred here. He has been twice married; first, in old San Bois county, to Miss N. McClure. She died at McAlester in 1891. His second wife was Miss Lula Routon, of McAlester.