Edward R. Young. The incumbent of one or another official position at Duncan since 1901, Edward R. Young, present sheriff of Stephens County, has established a clean and honorable record for public service as a courageous, faithful and entirely efficient officer. During a long and somewhat diversified career, his activities have led him to invade various and varied occupations, and in each community in which he has resided he has held and merited his fellow-citizens’ respect.

Sheriff Young was born in Coosa County, Alabama, February 15, 1867, and is a son of Harrison B. and Antoinette (Gililand) Young. The Youngs came from England to America prior to the Revolution, settling in Alabama, where the grandfather of Sheriff Young, Bird H. Young, was roared among the Cherokee Indians. He served faithfully as a soldier during the War of 1812, and subsequently was extensively engaged in farming and in the breeding of horses and the raising of gamecocks, and died in Coosa County, Alabama, at the age of eighty-one years, when Sheriff Young was still a small child. Harrison B. Young, the father of Edward R. Young, was born at Cherokee Bluff, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, in 1827, and as a young man removed to Coosa County, where he was married. In 1876 he returned to his native county, where during the remaining years of his life he was engaged in farming and raising stock, and there his death occurred in 1904. Throughout his life he was actively interested in Masonic work, being a Mason for fifty-two years, past master of his lodge and a member of the higher branches of Masonry, and was a popular figure on the lecture platform. Throughout his life he belonged to the Baptist Church, in which he served as deacon and clerk for many years. With six of his brothers he enlisted for service during the war between the North and the South under the flag of the Confederacy, and served four years, first as a member of the Fourteenth Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, and subsequently as a member of the famous cavalry under Gen. Joe Wheeler. Mr. Young married Antoinette Gililand, who was born in Chambers County, Alabama, in 1837, and died in Tallapoosa County, in 1895, and they became the parents of twelve children: Annie, who is the wife of Alonzo Wicker, who for fifteen years has had charge of the same ranch at Waxahachie, Texas; Emma, who married LeRoy Upshaw, a farmer of Waxahachie, Texas; Sallie, who married Allie Russell, a farmer of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, and both are deceased; A. Forest, unmarried, who lives on the old family homestead in Tallapoosa County, Alabama; Mary, deceased, who was the wife of William Little, a merchant of Cherokee, Alabama; Edward R., of this notice; Nettie, who married W. M. Thomas, a well-to-do farmer and stockraiser of the vicinity of Dallas, Texas; W. K., who is a farmer residing in Tallapoosa County, Alabama; Osa, who died of an attack of typhoid fever when twenty-two years of age; Vallie, deceased, who was the wife of Ed Ogletree, a farmer and stockman of Tallapoosa County, Alabama; Grace, who is the wife of Thomas Sanders, a farmer of Tallapoosa County; and Homer G. a stenographer and railroad man of Waco, Texas.

Edward R. Young attended the public schools of Coosa and Tallapoosa counties, Alabama, in the meantime being reared in the agricultural atmosphere of his father’s farms. On January 15, 1885, he removed to Piano, Texas, where he engaged in farming and dealing in horses until 1889, when he returned to Tallapoosa County, Alabama, and remained there two years as a farmer, also serving in the capacity of deputy sheriff. Returning to Texas, he settled in the locality of Waxahatchie, where he carried on farming on his own account for nine years, and at the end of that period, in 1901, took up his residence at Duncan, Oklahoma. At that time he entered business operations as the proprietor of a confectionery and ice cream parlor, but after one year disposed of his interest therein when he was elected city marshal. In this capacity he acted until 1911, and in 1912 and 1913 was employed as a collector for the banks and a hardware store at Duncan. In 1914 he became the candidate of the democratic party for the office of sheriff of Stephens County, to which he was duly elected by a handsome majority in the elections of November of that year, and assumed the duties of his office on January 1, 1915. In the comparatively short time he has been in office he has displayed efficiency, courage and a conscientious appreciation of the responsibilities of his position, fairly winning the commendation of the people of this county. In addition to the duties of the shrievalty, he has also discharged those of deputy United States marshal since 1901. His offices are located in the courthouse. Sheriff Young is well and popularly known in fraternal circles, being an ex-member of the Knights of Pythias, of which he was master-at-arms, and a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles and the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

In 1891, while still a resident of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, Mr. Young was united in marriage with Miss Josie L. Ross, daughter of the late Edward Ross, who was a well-to-do farmer of Tallapoosa County. Five children have been born to this union, namely: Hazel Laverne, who is the wife of Glynn Hess, and resides at Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Mr. Hess is in the oil business; Dunn B., a student of the public schools, in the seventh grade; Antoinette, in the fifth grade; Ready Ross, in the second grade; and Roberta, the baby.