Thomas B. Reeder. One of the prominent lawyers of Southern Oklahoma is Thomas B. Reeder, since 1907 located in practice at Duncan. Mr. Reeder has been a member of the bar for many years, having entered the profession and practiced for a long time in his native State of Indiana, whence he came to Oklahoma. His chief ambition has always been within the limits of his profession and he ranks high among the learned and skillful attorneys in the Stephens County bar.

Thomas B. Reeder was born December 28, 1858, on ground now included in the City of Kokomo, Howard County, Indiana. His parents were Walter Scott and Martha M. (Rader) Reeder. Concerning the origin of the family in America the account is that three Reeder brothers came from England prior to the Revolution and settled in Pennsylvania. On the maternal side Mr. Reeder is a grandson of James Rader, who was one of the early farmer settlers in Howard County, Indiana, and died there at the age of about fifty-five. He married a Miss Kinser, whose father was a large planter and slave holder in South Carolina. Walter Scott Reeder was born in Indiana in 1832 and died in Clinton County of his native state in 1912. For a number of years he lived in Howard County, moved from there to Madison County in 1873, and still later to Clinton County. He was an old soldier, having served in the Union army from 1862 to 1865 in Company C of the Seventy-fifth Indiana Regiment. While in the army he was taken down with typhoid fever and also injured his leg by a fall. This injury interfered so much with his activities in later years that he abandoned farming and became a millwright, and by these different occupations gained his livelihood and provided for his family. He was reared as a Methodist. His wife, Martha (Rader) Reeder was born in South Carolina in 1837 and died in March, 1915 Their children were: James J., who is Circuit Court clerk at Delphi, Indiana; Thomas B.; Taylor, who died young; Frank, who died at the age of seventeen; Josephine, wife of William Hobbs, a farmer in Clinton County, Indiana; Lulu, a widow who lives in Russellville, Indiana; Nettie, who died at the age of nine years; Walter S., a hardware merchant in Illinois; Mattie, who died at the age of seventeen; John, who died in infancy; and Roxie, who is married and lives on a farm in Russellville, Indiana.

Thomas B. Reeder attended the common schools of Howard and Cass counties, Indiana, and in 1873, graduated from a high school in Madison County of that state. His early experiences in life were of a varied nature, partly farming, partly other work, but he gradually concentrated his attention and ambition upon the law. He studied law in the office of Justice & Lairy at Logansport, Indiana, was admitted to the Indiana bar, and in time had a satisfying practice at Logansport. In 1894 he interrupted his practice to enter the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he remained until graduating LL. B. from the law department on June 25, 1896. He then resumed practice at Logansport and remained a prominent member of the Cass County bar until the fall of 1906. He then sought new fields in the Southwest, and was located at Ardmore, Oklahoma, for a time but in April, 1907, established himself permanently at Duncan, where he has since enjoyed a rising reputation and a large general civil and criminal practice. His offices are in the First National Bank Building.

Mr. Reeder is a democrat, and in the spring of 1909 was elected mayor of Duncan, to which office he gave two years. He is a member of the English Lutheran Church, and is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks at Logansport, Indiana, with the Duncan Lodge of Ben Hur, with Mistletoe Lodge No. 117, Knights of Pythias at Duncan, besides which he is active in the Chamber of Commerce and a member of the County and State Bar associations.

In Carroll County, Indiana, in 1884, Mr. Reeder married Miss Minnie B. Wharton, whose father, John Wharton, was a retired farmer at Camden, Indiana, now deceased, having died at that place on March 12, 1916, at the age of seventy-seven.