Hon. George C. Crump. For a number of years actively identified with the bar of Holdenville, Hughes County, George C. Crump is now district judge of Hughes and Okfuskee counties. Judge Crump possesses many of the essential qualifications of the able lawyer, though his knowledge of the law and of men and affairs is based rather on practical experience than on books and theories. He is not to be classified as an armchair lawyer. He is a clear thinker, a patient listener, a sound reasoner, and above everything else his friends and his fellow members of the bar give him credit for possessing in an eminent degree the judicial temperament.

He was born in St. Clair County, Missouri, March 30, 1875, a son of Edward C. and Angeline (Childers) Crump. His father was born in Harlan County, Kentucky, in May, 1831, and his mother was born near Nashville, Tennessee, in 18l!9. The paternal grandfather John E. Crump served for twenty-six consecutive years as district clerk of Harlan County, Kentucky, and afterwards moved to Carroll County, Arkansas, before the war and later to Boone County in the same state, where he died. Edward C. Crump and wife were married in Carroll County, Arkansas, and during the war they moved into Missouri. At the first regular election after the war Edward C. Crump was elected district court clerk of Carroll County, Arkansas, but as he did not return the office was given to his brother G. J. Crump. Edward C. Crump from the close of the war until his death in May, 1905, was a farm renter. His wife closely followed him in death, passing away in August, 1905. Of their twelve children two died young, and seven are now living, and there has been no death to break the circle of the children for the past forty-one years.

Judge Crump lived on the home farm in Southern Missouri until he was fourteen years of age, and then began his course in the university of hard knocks. It was an experience which well fitted him for dealing with men and with material difficulty. He worked for a number of farmers, was also at one time a coal miner, was a railroad worker, and it is related that at one time he walked sixty miles from Hickory County, Missouri, to Qnincy, Illinois, to secure a position.

At the age of twenty-one he began the reading of law with his brother W. J. Crump at Harrison, Arkansas. This brother is now a well known lawyer of Muskogee. Admitted to the bar at Harrison in 1898, Judge Crump practiced at Jasper, Arkansas, from July of that year to February of the following year, and in 1899 came to Muskogee, soon afterward located at Wewoka, and in 1908 established his permanent home at Holdenville in Hughes County. He practiced law steadily until elected district judge in 1914, and began his official duties in that responsible position January 11, 1915.

Judge Crump has had much part in local and state politics as a democrat. He was a delegate to the National Convention at Denver in 1908. In 1907 he established the first newspaper in Seminole County, known as the Wewoka Democrat, which he afterwards turned over to other parties, He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, having membership in the Consistory at McAlester and the Mystic Shrine at Oklahoma City.

On December 30, 1900, Judge Crump married Olive Bernard, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John F. Bernard.

On January 17, 1916, Governor Williams appointed Judge Crump a member of the Supreme Court Commission of Oklahoma. Those who have had occasion to follow the services of Judge Crump as a judge credit him with an almost intuitive knowledge of right and wrong, and he is by all means concerned with getting at the truth of any controversy before him and weighing out full justice to all litigants. He is a hard worker in clearing up his court calendar and in avoiding delays for unimportant technical reasons. His standing as a judge is well indicated by the fact that he has frequently been called outside his own district to preside over the trial of important cases. Judge Crump and family reside in a comfortable home at Holdenville, he also owns property at Muskogee but it is noteworthy that he spends more money on others than on himself.