Lawrence P. Millspaugh. Recognizing the fact that in the field of journalism there is plenty of room for men of energy and brains, Mr. Millspaugh has chosen for his calling the newspaper business with what degree of success is shown in his present well edited newspaper, the Amorita Herald, and the excellent business which he enjoys. Brought up in the Middle West, when ready to enter upon his own career he realized the opportunities of Oklahoma, and has had no reason to regret his choice of location there in 1911, since he has steadily risen in his vocation and in the confidence of those among whom he has made his home.

He represents a substantial old family of Indiana. Peter Millspaugh, his grandfather, was born in Fayette County, Indiana, March 18, 1842, and died near Matthews, Indiana, March 21, 1888. He was a carpenter by trade. In 1862 he moved to Grant County, Indiana, and on the 29th of December of that year he married Miss Essenior Reeder, a young lady of many amiable qualities. She had the distinction of being a first cousin of Bishop Milton Wright, the father of the renowned Wright brothers of aeroplane fame. She was born May 29, 1846, and died April 29, 1875.

William Harvey Millspaugh, father of the Oklahoma editor, was born September 24, 1864, near Matthews, Grant County, Indiana, where he resided a greater share of his life and followed the same occupation as his father. At various times he has also been a merchant and contractor, but is now engaged in farming in the vicinity of Green Forest, Arkansas. In November, 1882, he married Miss Catheryn Dickerson, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Houston Dickerson, well to do farmers of Grant County near Fairmount. There were two children to this union, a son and a daughter, the son dying in infancy. The daughter Lulu was born July 27, 1885, and the mother died in March of the following year. William H. Millspaugh was married June 7, 1890, at the parsonage of Rev. Mr. White, a Methodist minister of Upland, Indiana, to Miss Mary Martha Danford, a young school teacher of Matthews, Indiana, and a daughter of Joshua J. and Sarah E. Danford.

Joshua J. Danford, maternal grandfather of Lawrence P. Millspaugh, was born July 26, 1840, near Sharon, Ohio, where in early life he received the Masonic degrees. His parents were prosperous farmers. His early ambitions were for politics and the law, but he never realized them to the extent of becoming a lawyer. While on a visit to relatives in Hopkinton, Iowa, he met and married Miss Sarah Evelyn Hill on October 23, 1865. Her parents were Harrison and Martha Hill, of the State of Maine. Soon after their marriage they returned to Ohio, where they remained until 1868, and then went out to Kansas and settled on a farm near Oentralia. Of their seven children, Mary Martha, mother of Lawrence Millspaugh, was born near Centralia, Kansas, July 21, 1870, and lived at home until the death of her father on December 25, 1879. Her father was buried near Eufaula, Oklahoma, then an unsettled territory, where Mr. Danford had been prospecting and met his death through exposure. The widowed mother later returned to her old home at Matthews, Indiana, where she met and married Noah Lyon.

After their marriage William H. Millspaugh and wife returned to Matthews, Indiana, where he resumed the trade which in early life he had learned from his father. Mary Martha Danford before her marriage received a good education and for three years taught in the schools of Grant County. On April 1.’!, 1891, their first child was born and was given the name Lawrence Peter Millspaugh. Soon afterward the parents moved to Noble County, Ohio, and on a farm there, April 26, 1893, their second child was born, Rhoda L., who is now the wife of Fred W. Hankey, a mail carrier at Amorita, Oklahoma. Soon after the birth of their daughter the parents returned to Matthews, Indiana, where the father became interested in the oil and gas business. A third child was born at Matthews February 17, 1896, Frances Marian, who is now the wife of William Mattingly, a mechanic of Harrison, Arkansas. In the spring of 1898 W. H. Millspaugh embarked in the mercantile business in Fowlcrton, Indiana, and was a prosperous merchant there for a number of years. The fourth child, Sarah Phyllis, was born July 14, 1899; the fifth child, Leah Ruth, was born September 11, 1901; the sixth, Boyd D., was born January 18, 1905; and the seventh, Gwendolyn, was born September 4, 1908, while the parents lived at Fowlerton. After the death of their seventh child in March, 1909, the parents determined to come to Oklahoma, and in May of that year the father and oldest son, Lawrence, arrived at Amorita, followed by the remaining members of the family a few weeks later. During their residence in Amorita the eighth child was born, Gertrude Viola, April 26, 1911. In October, 1913, the Millspaugh family moved to Harrison, Arkansas, where W. H. Millspaugh entered the real estate and insurance business. Their ninth child, another daughter, was born February 14, 1914, and bears the name Mary Magdalene. The two oldest children continue to reside in Amorita, Oklahoma, where they had married a year prior to the removal of the family to Arkansas.

As already stated Lawrence Peter Millspaugh was born at Matthews, Indiana, April 13, 1891, and was six years old when his parents moved to Fowlerton, Indiana. His early education came from the public schools there, and he graduated with honor from both the grammar and high schools. While attending high school he spent his leisure hours working as an apprentice in the printing office at Fowlerton, and thus learned enough of the trade to settle in his mind the desire and determination to stick to that vocation. After his graduation from the high school in 1907 he spent two years as a journeyman printer and reaped a wide range of experience in the different printing offices of Northern Indiana.

On coming with his parents to Oklahoma in the spring of 1909 he resumed work as a printer, but soon determined to become the editor and publisher of a paper of his own. Accordingly he took charge of the Ingersoll Review at Ingersoll in Alfalfa County in the spring of 1910, and in that fall purchased the plant and moved it to Amorita, establishing the Amorita Herald. Mr. Millspaugh is publishing a bright, newsy, enterprising paper, and has built up an excellent circulation in Alfalfa County. Its columns have always been open to the boosting of movements launched for the welfare of the community and its people, and as a molder of public opinion it is justly considered an organ of no mean ability or influence. As its subscription has grown under Mr. Millspaugh’s energetic efforts, it has become a desirable advertising medium, and is now being generously supported by the merchants and professional men, who recognize it as a force for advancement and progress.

On November 2, 1912, Mr. Millspaugh married Miss Edna Muryle Barrett, a daughter of Lawson and Minnie Barrett of near Amorita. Mr. Barrett is a prosperous farmer and stockman of Northern Alfalfa County. Mrs. Millspaugh was born near Haven, Kansas, August 19, 1895. To their marriage have been born two children: Albert Maurice, October 5, 1913, and Dorothy Madaline, December 1, 1914.

Mr. Millspaugh is one of the prominent Masons of his home town. He is secretary of the Amorita Commercial Club and gives his time and energies freely to the welfare of Amorita and the county.