Thomas B. Leverett.
Thomas B. Leverett. One of the older white residents of Jefferson County is Thomas B. Leverett, whose home has been in this section of Oklahoma for twenty years, and who after a long and active career as a farmer is now devoting his time and attention to the County Assessor’s office at Waurika. Mr. Leverett has himself had a useful career, and his life is also interesting for the large family which he has around him, comprising a number of enterprising sons and daughters.
Thomas B. Leverett was born in Randolph County, Alabama, June 10, 1855. The Leveretts were early settlers in Alabama, and the family originated in France, His father, J. R. Leverett, who was born in Alabama in 1827, was a Confederate soldier, having served for three years in an Alabama regiment. He was finally taken prisoner, and about the close of the war, in 1865, moved to Grayson County, Texas. He was active as a farmer and stock raiser, and his death occurred at Cleburne, Texas, in 1881. He was a democrat, for many years a deacon in the Baptist church, and also had membership in the Masonic fraternity. He married Mary Sheppard, who was born in Georgia in March, 1835 and died in Wise County. Texas, May 7, 1907. Of this union there were four children, Thomas B. being the oldest. Eula died at the age of eighteen: Mollie is the wife of William Couch, a rancher at Higgins. Texas; and G. M. is connected with a music house at Elk City, Oklahoma.
Thomas B. Leverett secured his early education while living with his parents in Randolph County, Alabama, and at Basin Springs in Grayson County, Texas. His life in the meanwhile was spent on his father’s farm, and he continued to live at home until 1880. He then engaged in farming for himself several years, and for seven years participated in the stirring and active life of the Texas frontier as a cowboy. He then resumed farming in Texas, but in 1895 came into Indian Territory and leased some land near what is now Healdton for three years. From 1898 to 1913 Mr. Leverett farmed and conducted a press at Ryan in Jefferson County. His active work as a farmer was terminated by his election to the office of county assessor, at which time he removed to Waurika and is now on his second term, having been reelected in 1915. The office of assessor is not the only public position of trust he has filled in Oklahoma since he was made township trustee in Blackburn Township of Jefferson County, the township in which Ryan is situated, and served in that capacity from statehood until 1913.
Mr. Leverett is a democrat, a member of the Baptist Church and is affiliated with Ryan Lodge No. 67, American Free and Accepted Masons, with Ryan Camp of the Woodmen of the World, and with the Knights and Ladies of Security.
His marriage occurred in 1880 in Grayson County, Texas, when Miss Mollie Duncan, of Hopkins County, Texas, became his bride. To their marriage have been born nine children: Etta, wife of J. M. Stephens, a hotel proprietor at Custer, Oklahoma; Emma, wife of Eugene Bartholomew, mentioned in a following paragraph; Mamie, wife of F. R. McConnell, a farmer in Jefferson County, Oklahoma; Edgar, who is now serving as county surveyor of Jefferson County and lives at Waurika; Benjamin, a resident of Waurika; Charles, who conducts a barber shop at Muskogee; Gordon, living with his parents; Loraine, who is in the eighth grade and Elmer, in the fourth grade of the public schools at Waurika.
Eugene Bartholomew, who married Miss Emma Leverett and lives at Waurika, was born July 27, 1878, in Burlington, Iowa, attended public schools there until 1886, when his parents removed to Waco, Texas, and he graduated from Baylor University in 1897. Two years were spent as bookkeeper in a grocery house at Waco, after which he held a similar position in Matagorda County, Texas, until 1900, and then for two years occupied a ranch near Chickasha, Oklahoma. In 1902 he moved to Decatur, Wise County, Texas, farmed there one year, spent the next eighteen months in the employ of the light and water department of Clifton, Arizona, and in 1905 entered the grocery business at Ryan, Oklahoma. He sold goods there for three years, farmed for two years, was engaged in public work three years, and since coming to Waurika in 1914 has been employed by the McMann Oil Company. Mr. Bartholomew is a democrat, a member of the Woodmen of the World, and of the Baptist Church. He and his wife have four children : Mary Belle, a junior in the Waurika High School; Dimple, a sophomore in the same school; Elgeva, attending public school; and Mercedes.