BIOGRAPHY
OF EDWARD EVERETT TRACY
{Written by Dale and Judy Tracy, March 1999; revised May,
2002}
Edward
Everett Tracy
was the fourth child born to the marriage of Nepthali and Nancy Caroline
Swindle Tracy (being the second marriage of Nepthali’s).
E.E.
(named for Edward Everett, a famous orator and statesman who had died
the year in which E.E. was born) was born August 8, 1865, a short
distance up Cedar Creek from Cedar Creek Landing on the Tennessee River
in Perry County, Tennessee.
E.E.’s
grandfather, John Tracy, was one of the earliest settlers of
Perry
County
and established a water mill at the confluence of Cedar Creek and the
Tennessee River
in 1818. E.E. lived his early years on Cedar Creek and in 1874, when
E.E. was nine years old, Nepthali moved with his family to Henderson
County, Tennessee, where E.E. grew to adulthood.
Nepthali’s
family lived about ten miles west of
Lexington,
Tennessee
on a farm, where he went to several schools and later taught at two
schools. One of the schools where he taught was Sand Ridge.
His father, Nepthali had a small
holding of land on Cedar Creek and perhaps raised some crops. Nepthali
was a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln and received his education much as
Lincoln
did; around the family fireplace.
Nepthali’s
father, John was not an advocate of education, as he could neither read
nor write and thought his sons could get by the same way.
Nepthali
was a lawyer and a Perry County Judge for a period of time.
E.E.’s
mother, Nancy was a remarkable woman.
She
was educated, wrote poetry and drew illustrations. She always encouraged
her children and her nieces and nephews to develop their writing skills
and penmanship.
Several
letters in existence indicate that she was a learned woman and placed a
high value on education.
She
always encouraged her nieces and nephews to write letters to her as well
as to her children, for the practice of grammar and penmanship. Her
influence upon her children must have been extraordinary as all her sons
became lawyers,
educators
or doctors
Of Nancy and
Nepthali’s four sons, E.E. and Daniel Webster were lawyers; Dr. James
Nepthali was a medical doctor ; and John Bell was a school teacher.
(the author’s family are
descendants of John Bell).
E.E. attended college at Swindoll College
at Corsicana, Missouri. This
was a small college instituted by one of his uncles; James Swindle.
E.E. obtained his law degree
about the time of his marriage.
All four of
the sons were at one time settled in Roger Mills
County, Oklahoma
Territory; but only three remained as Dr. James N. returned to practice
in Memphis, Tennessee.
One of the two daughters, Mariah
Jane married W.L.C. “Cass” Coffman of Henderson County and has many
descendants there today. The
other daughter Melissa Jessamine married a lawyer, David Cary and they
lived in Pampa, Texas.
Nepthali died in November, 1878 and E.E.’s mother, Nancy, died in
December 1885. Both parents are
buried in the Waller-Douglas Cemetery, two miles north of Juno, Tennessee.
E.E. married
Flora Young at her parent’s home in Perry County, Tennessee in 1890.
Flora’s family had given the
newlyweds an undivided ¼ interest in some land in Perry County,
Tennessee. In October 1890, they
deeded this ¼ interest to B. Barham in satisfaction of a loan that E.E.
had taken from Barham. Soon
afterward, they moved with Flora’s relatives to
Clarendon,
Texas, where they resided until
April 19, 1892 when the Cheyenne-Arapaho Lands were opened for
settlement.
E.E. and
Flora and their little girl, Julie Myrtle Hester Tracy (born June 22,
1891 in Clarendon,
TX) loaded their belongings and
headed to the new frontier.
Flora and
E.E. arrived a few days before the run, assembled with other runners on
the east side of the Texas Panhandle, on the Oklahoma Territory/Texas
line, in anticipation of a great race to stake a claim of 160 acres.
After staking a claim, the
homesteader had to live on the land, make improvements and till the land
for a period of five years in order to freely receive the claim.
On the morning of April 19, 1892,
it was misty, foggy and some say a dusting of snow on the ground.
The U.S. Cavalry from Ft. Elliott
patrolled the line to prevent the “Sooners” from crossing the line ahead
of the others. At noon, with everyone on their fastest means of
transportation; either horseback, or in wagons, assembled on the line
and waited for the gunshot. This
marked the beginning of the third land run into
Oklahoma
Territory.
Because of E.E.’s limited
finances, he could not afford a horse to ride but left his team of
horses and wagon with Flora and the baby to bring at her leisure behind
the runners. E.E. was
twenty-seven years of age, six foot, seven inches tall and quite
athletic. He had run track while
attending college. He took off
on foot to run some twenty miles east to the newly plotted town of
Cheyenne, which was to be the county seat of
county “F”. (The name of the county would be voted Roger Mills later
that year by the people). E.
E. filed on a residential town lot located between the Court House and
the Baptist
Church.
A year later, in April of 1893, he bought a
relinquishment and that September the family moved into a half-dugout on
a 160 acre piece of land. This
land was located on the NE1/4 Sec 35-14-23.
This was one and one-half mile southwest of present day Strong City
and in the year 2002, this land is owned by Jim Orgain.
E.E. made homestead application
(#10638) from Kingfisher,
Oklahoma
September 15, 1900 and received final certificate #3437.
This application was approved
October 16, 1901 and received the land patent November 16, 1901.
Information gleaned from the
homestead file shows the witnesses were Charles B. Howerton who lived on
the quarter section adjacent to E.E. and George W. Hutton who also lived
nearby. The land was described as
prairie farming land and the improvements were a house, 14x28 feet, two
dugouts, two wells, a cistern, a fence surrounding the land and two
corrals….total value of $500.00. He named the following witnesses as
ones who could prove his continued residence on the land: Charles
Guernsey, George W. Hutton, Charles B. Howerton and John Caffey.
This was all made before D.W.
Tracy (brother of E.E.) who was the U.S. Court Commissioner in 1900.
E.E. was not able to go to the
land office in person because his family was in ill health.
It was
permissible for a claimant to have a town lot and a quarter section
claim. The only real requirement was your being twenty-one years of age
to receive a free piece of land.
E.E. used his town lot for a residence and perhaps later for his
law office. (This town lot is
where the Baptist Parsonage stands in 2002).
The family lived on the farm.
Ten months after the run, a son,
Henry Talmadge Tracy, was born February 8, 1893.
Henry was the first white child
born in Cheyenne.
At the end of 1893, on Christmas
Eve, tragedy struck the family when Julia Myrtle Hester Tracy, the two
year old daughter of E. E. and Flora died.
It was a dreary rainy day that
they buried their child on the west side of E.E.’s farm in a small
pasture. Later, members of
several neighboring families were buried at this cemetery.
It became known as the
Snakey
Bend Cemetery,
as it was located in what was known as the Snakey Bend of the Washita River.
E.E. took boards from the cow lot and washed them, to make a
coffin for his daughter. He was
devastated by the death of his first born child.
Five years later when a second
daughter was born to the couple, they also named her Julia Myrtle.
E.E.
became one of the early civic leaders of the community.
By political affiliation, E.E.
was a Democrat and elected as County “F” Judge on November 8, 1892 and
re-elected on November 6, 1894. He
was elected as the first County
Superintendent
of Schools in 1896 and served two years.
Later, he again served as
County
Judge from 1907-1913.
He also served as a Justice of
the Peace; retained an individual law practice and at times in
partnership with his brother, D.W. (who later became Beckham County
Judge at Sayre, Oklahoma)
and was a Charter Member of the Masonic Lodge.
He and Flora were also charter members of the Cheyenne First
Baptist
Church
where he served as a Deacon and occasionally as a lay preacher.
While serving as Judge, it is reported and even
drawn in a caricature by Scotty Falconer, that while E.E. sat on the
bench, he would twiddle his thumbs. Someone
once asked him if he always twiddled his thumbs like that.
To this question he replied “No’ and began to twiddle his thumbs
in the opposite direction.
E.E. had
been a teacher in Tennessee. (It
has been reported that at one time he taught his wife).
He also taught in Roger Mils County at the following one-room schools: 1917-1918 at
Kiowa for seven months at $70 a month; 1918-1919 at
Washita
for six months for $75 a month and 1919-1920 at Needmore for six months
at $100 a month. If E.E.
caught students talking in class, he would throw a piece of chalk at
them. One of the activities in
which young men would engage in order to pass the time and to exhibit
their athletic ability was to broad jump from a standing position.
E.E. would jump with bricks in
his hands and as he jumped the inertia of the swinging bricks would
carry him further.
From the 1931 writings of D.W. Tracy (E.E.’s brother)….”Edward E.
Tracy married Flora Young and they have seven children, two of whom died
in their infancy. The five living
are: Henry, Chester, Eddie, Julia and Ruth.
Henry married Helen Seaver and
they have no children. Chester was first married to Muriel Madden,
but divorced her. He married the
second time to Jewel Hanks and they have three children.
Eddie married Olivia Stauber and
they have two children. Julia married Marion Reaves and they have two
children. Ruth married Bryan
Whittington and they have two children. Henry and Helen are school
teachers and they live at Binger, OK. Eddie
lives at Cleveland,
Oklahoma and Chester
in California; Ruth lives at
Oklahoma City; Julia in
New Mexico. Flora
died April 17, 1931 and was buried in the
Oklahoma City
Rose Hill
Cemetery.”
After the
birth of Henry, followed Chester Nepthali, born November 11, 1893;
Edward Bryan born October 14, 1896; then aforementioned Julia Myrtle,
and Flora Ruth born January 21, 1904.
During this time there were also born two sons who died at birth.
Eddie
(Edward Bryan) was the son of E.E. who was most remembered by
Cheyenne residents because he spent the last thirty years of
his life in Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
He “helped out” at the Cheyenne
Star. Klina Casady, editor of Cheyenne Star, wrote in his obituary, “he
was punctuated in his daily activities and was brilliant and proficient
in the use of language as well as knowledgeable in local and world
affairs.” Eddie graduated
from Cheyenne
High School in 1915 and two years later
was in Europe, involved in World War I.
He received the Cross DeGuerre
from the French Government for his activities while in the US Army. This
is the highest military honor given by the French. Because of his
prolonged exposure of bombardment by the German artillery while in the
trenches, he suffered mental distress upon his return to the
US
and was in a mental hospital at
Norman
for a period of time. While there
several of the male college students who were employed at the hospital
would seek his help with their college math assignments. Eddie Bryan is
buried at the
Ft. Gibson
National
Military
Cemetery in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
In the 1926 elections, E.E. was defeated in his race for County Judge.
After this defeat, E.E. attempted
to re-establish his law practice. Business
was poor. Flora had recurring
illnesses centered around diabetes and E.E. suffered mental stress
because of his son, Eddie’s service in WWI.
About 1927, E.E. and Flora moved
to Oklahoma City,
OK where the couple lived until
her death in 1931 and his in 1933. They are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery just northeast of Penn Square
Shopping Mall of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (2002).