Henry Turner Miller. Early in 1889, before the
original opening of Oklahoma Territory, Henry T. Miller, now a well
known business man of Oklahoma City, had brought in a pioneer
printing and newspaper plant from his former home in Kansas and had
established it at Purcell, Indian Territory. There he began the
publication of The Territorial Topic, which had the distinction of
being the third newspaper ever printed in the old Chickasaw Nation.
That was the
beginning of Mr. Miller’s influential career as an Oklahoma
journalist and citizen. The Territorial Topic espoused and was an
ardent supporter of the interests of the intermarried disfranchised
citizens of the Chickasaw Nation, and for this fact, and also because
it was an excellent medium of news, the paper attained a wide and
influential circulation. By its championship of the cause of
intermarried citizens, it became a power for the development of the
old Chickasaw country. Mr. Miller quickly took his place as an
individual factor in the life of the nation, attending all the Indian
and political conventions, and in a few years he took up and argued
valiantly for the cause of single statehood.
While his first
location was at Purcell, he is also a real Oklahoma eighty-niner,
having made the run at the opening on April 22d from Purcell and
securing a claim adjoining the Townsite of Norman. In 1894 he removed
his newspaper plant from Purcell to Norman and it was subsequently
merged with The Democrat under the name Democrat-Topic. His original
claim has since been platted and is now a part of the Town of Norman.
In 1890, while still
a resident of Purcell, Mr. Miller issued the call for the first
meeting of newspaper men of the Oklahoma
and Indian territories, and as a result of this call the First
Territorial Joint Press Association was organized April 30, 1890. Mr.
Miller was chosen president, and that honor is not least among the
gratifying distinctions he has gained during his residence in
Oklahoma. He was also secretary of the first commercial club ever
organized in the old Indian Territory, the organization being
effected at Purcell. Since 1900, when he located in Oklahoma City,
Mr. Miller has given his time and attention to the real estate and
insurance business.
Henry Turner Miller
was born December 17, 1800, on a farm in Howard County, Missouri, and
belongs to a family of fine old pioneer stock in that section of
Central Missouri. His parents were John and Mildred Elizabeth
(Boulware) Miller. His father was born in Virginia in 1813, and the
grandparents were natives of the same state. In 1831, at
the age of eighteen, he went out to Missouri, then a frontier state,
and took charge of the plantation of his uncle, John Miller, in
Howard County. This uncle gained distinction as governor of Missouri
from 1826 to 1832. Mr. Miller ’s father continued a resident of
Howard County where he prospered as a farmer and breeder of blooded
stock until his death on April 2, 1870. Prior to the war he had owned
a large number of slaves, and conducted a real plantation in the
Missouri River Valley. He was an ardent southern sympathizer, and in
many ways took an active part in public affairs. He was married in
1842 to Miss Mildred Elizabeth Boulware, daughter of William
Boulware, a native of Virginia. She was born in 1827 and died in
1872. The Oklahoma newspaper man was the youngest of their eight
children, five sons and three daughters. The others are briefly
mentioned as follows: Ernest, who was born in 1844 and died in 1848;
William Lindsey, who was born April 21, 1846, was under General
Shelby and in General Price’s Confederate army during the war and is
now a farmer in Cass County, Missouri; Downing, who was born in 1848,
died in 1907; Rose Catherine, born in 1850 and died in 1910;
Junietta, born in 1852 and died in 1914; Jackson, who died in
infancy; Fannie Emily, who was born in 1857 and is the widow of J. W.
Woolery of Kansas City, Missouri.
Henry Turner Miller
spent his early youth on his father ’s largo farm in Howard County,
Missouri, and as was the custom of the old and well-to-do families of
that section, a private tutor was engaged for the instruction of the
children of the household. He also attended a very noted institution
of education in that state, Pritchett’s Institute at Glasgow,
Missouri. When twenty years of age, Mr. Miller began the study of
telegraphy, and from 1880 to 1884 was in active service in charge of
different stations along the Missouri Pacific Railway in Missouri and
in Kansas.
It was in 1885 that
he entered the newspaper field as the founder and publisher of the
Bee at East Lynne, Missouri. He edited and owned this paper for two
years, and in 1887 he removed the plant to the new Town of Stockton,
Kansas, where he established the Rooks County Democrat. After
conducting this paper a year or so he removed the same plant to
Purcell, and began his influential connection with affairs in old
Indian Territory and Oklahoma.
On August 17, 1893,
Mr. Miller married Miss Frances Electa Graham. She was born November
24, 1864, at Bancroft, Missouri, the oldest daughter of Robert M. and
Marilis (Froman) Graham, both of whom were pioneer Missourians. Her
father was the first democratic sheriff of Livingston County,
Missouri, after the reconstruction period following the war. The
Grahams deserve special mention for their pioneer settlement in Old
Indian Territory, and it was in 1883 that the father brought his
family to the Indian country. He continued to follow his business as
a farmer and cattle man until his death at Norman in 1909. Mrs.
Graham died in 1907. A brief record of their seven children, three
sons and four daughters, is as follows: Isaac, now a merchant at
Noble, Oklahoma; George F., a farmer in McClain County; Mollie, wife
of E. B. Johnson, a well known banker of Norman; Callie M., a teacher
in the United States Indian service; Harriet, who is also a teacher
in the same service; Robert, who was burned to death in a prairie
fire in 1884; and Mrs. Miller.
To the marriage of
Mr. and Mrs. Miller have been born six children, four sons and two
daughters, namely: Robert Lee, who was born July 2, 1894, Richard
Bland born May 11, 1896; Mildred Elizabeth Boulware, born July 26,"
1898; Frances Emily, born July 18, 1900;
Henry Turner, Jr., born June 9, 1903; and
June Pleasant, born September 2, 1905.