J. Truman Nixon. Among the business men and capitalists who have been most effectively identified with the upbuilding of the City of Tulsa in the past fourteen years, J. Truman Nixon is one of the leaders, having been a factor in the oil and gas development and also in connection with the banking and general local upbuilding. He is one of the men of wide and successful experience who was attracted to this part of Oklahoma at the beginning of the great development work in the oil and gas fields.

J. Truman Nixon was born near Boothsville, West Virginia, November 6, 1868, a son of S. C. and Virginia L. (Harr) Nixon. His father, S. C. Nixon, was born near the same place, October 19, 1842. His mother, Virginia L. Nixon, deceased (daughter of Richard Harr of Pruntytown, West Virginia), was born July 25, 1849, and died April 25, 1876. His father and mother were married November 8. 1866, and to them were born two children. J. Truman Nixon, born November 6, 1868, and Lovelia May (Nixon) Norman, of New York, born May 24, 1873.

There was a second marriage to Mollie A. Wolcott in February 1878. She died in 1885, without issue. By a third marriage to Barbara McMorran was born Cleon Robert Nixon, on May 22, 1887, now one of Tulsa’s promising young attorneys.

The recorded history of the Nixon family is almost as old as the county records of England, beginning in the County of Oxford in the year of 1273 and at sundry succeeding dates, and in the delightful old book “The History of the Ancient Parish of Leek” this family comes in for very prominent mention. The progenitor of the following line of the Nixon family was Wm. Nixon, who became a Freeman of York in 1416. Then we find a party of them emigrating to Ireland and in that way come in for mention in “O’Hart’s Irish Landed Gentry.” Members of families remaining in England and those in Ireland emigrated to America and we find them recording grants of land as early as May, 1688.

In England and Ireland many of this family served their rulers with distinction as evidenced by many records and bestowal by kings of Coat of Arms and Crests. In America they served with credit and distinction in the War of the Revolution and also 1812 and the Civil war, always for the Union. To the noted American Col. John Nixon, who commanded the Third Battalion of Philadelphia (known as the Silk Stocking Brigade) in General Washington’s army, was assigned the very important post of defense of “Dunks Ferry.” A man of means, he assisted in financing the Revolution, was one of the organizers of the Bank of North America (the young Nation’s first bank) and was its second president and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. He was chosen by the President to proclaim the Declaration of Independence July 8, 1778, to the people of Philadelphia.

Later as pioneers we find them settling in Virginia, then going westward into all the West. This family line is unbroken all of these years. The Crest of Nixon family of Ireland is given with this sketch and is as follows:

Crest on the point of a sword in pile, a cross pattee ppr. Arms.

J. Truman Nixon spent part of his early youth in the State of Ohio, where he attended country schools and May 23, 1887, graduated from the St. Paris High School, the following year was spent at Dennison University at Granville, Ohio. His practical preparation for life consisted in discipline in farm work and as clerk in his father’s store and others at St. Paris, Ohio. In July 1887 he returned to the old homestead in Taylor County, West Virginia, where he built his career to prosperity operating a large stock farm, making a specialty of raising registered Shorthorn cattle and Berkshire hogs, continuing that business until April 15, 1905. He still owns his farm and coal lands in that state and others in Oklahoma,

In the meantime he had become actively associated with the coal, oil and gas business. In 1891 and 1892 he was connected with the Camden coal interests at Monongah, West Virginia. In 1899 he was employed with the South Penn Oil Company’s land department in West Virginia and continued with that firm and other affiliated Standard interests until 1906. From March, 1903, until the beginning of 1905 he had charge of the land department in Indian Territory for Prairie Oil & Gas Company.

During 1905 he was employed by the Virginias Railway Company (Standard Interest) in West Virginia and Virginia in buying lands for that corporation, and bought what is known as “Oney Gap” (Tunnel) for this company. In November, 1905, he and associates sold a large coal area in Barbour County, West Virginia, after which he has confined his efforts to Illinois and Oklahoma oil and gas fields, spending the entire year of 1906 in the Illinois field. He became manager of the land department for the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company at Tulsa, in January, 1907, and now has several prominent associations with local industrial and financial corporations.

Mr. Nixon organized the Tulsa Engineering and Supply Company. He is one of the vice presidents of the Merchants and Planters Bank of Tulsa, a stockholder in the National Bank of Commerce, a stockholder in the Guarantee Abstract & Title Company, sole owner of the Indian records, an abstract business dealing exclusively with work and records of the Department of the Interior which is the only successful office of the kind conducted within the range of our knowledge, furnishing abstracts of all departmental leases and enrollment and allotment records, his business dealing particularly with oil and gas.

Mr. Nixon has studied and has a comprehensive knowledge of the law but never cared for practice before the bar, choosing to act in the capacity of councilor, which coupled with his experience and knowledge of men and affairs makes him a very strong man.

Mr. Nixon is affiliated with the Tulsa Lodge No. 71, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; with Tulsa Chapter No. 52, Royal Arch Masons; with Tulsa Commandery No. 22, Knights Templar; with Trinity Council No. 20, Royal and Select Masters; Akdar Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; and Tulsa Chapter No. 133 Eastern Star. He is also a Knight of Pythias and became a charter member of Black Diamond Lodge No. 72 at Monongah, West Virginia, when it was organized in 1892.

Politically his party affiliations are republican but independent of the party whip and he is a man who has many staunch friends in every walk of life.

Mr. Nixon was married August 18, 1892, to Florence B. Jolliffe. Mrs. Nixon was born near Uniontown, Wetzel County, West Virginia. A daughter of Amos and Mary Jolliffe, another very old English family that can boast of an unbroken line for nearly 500 years. Her forefathers coming to America about 1645. Later we find the male descendants serving in General Washington’s army where they acquitted themselves with credit and distinction. In old England they served their kings well and were remembered by their rulers with favor. Some evidence is Jolliffe Coat of Arms, Argent on a pile Azure, three Dexter Gauntlets of the field; Jolliffe Crest, a cubit arm erect vested and cuffed, the sleeve charged with a pile Argent, the hand grasping a sword (P. P. D.) Motto: Tout que je puis.