Thomas P. Shaddock. From his activities and responsibilities as one of the progressive farmers of Kiowa County, Thomas P. Shaddock was called by vote of his fellow citizens to the office of county assessor in 1912. and is now in his second term of service in that important office, and one of the most efficient, genial and capable members of the little coterie of men who handle the business of the county at the Hobart Courthouse.

The Shaddock family to which he belongs originated in Ireland, but his first ancestors emigrated and settled in New York State before the colonies were welded into one nation by the War of the Revolution. Thomas P. Shaddock was born at Camden, in Ouachita County, Arkansas, April 14, 1868. His father, James Shaddock, born in Alabama in 1832, removed from that state to Camden before the Civil war, was a farmer and stock man and died in Arkansas in 1882. In 1861 he had enlisted in the Confederate army and was in many of the campaigns under General Price in the Mississippi Valley, and continued in service until mustered out at Marshall, Texas, in I860. He was once taken a prisoner of war. but was subsequently exchanged. His church was the Primitive Baptist. James Shaddock married Emeline Seal, who was born in Alabama in 1840 and died at Camden, Arkansas, in 1880. Thomas P. was the oldest of their five children; James R. is now living with his brother at Hobart; Augusta died near Hobart as the wife of J. W. Porter, whose home is a farm northwest of Hobart; Luey is the wife of C. Y. Gorman, a farmer seven miles southeast of Hobart; and Benjamin is a carpenter and builder at Longview, Texas.

The death of both his parents when he was but fourteen years of age threw Thomas P. Shaddock, the oldest of the children, upon his own responsibilities, and he soon afterward went to live with his uncle, Richard Ira Shaddock, in Harrison County of Eastern Texas, and remained with him until reaching his majority. In the meantime he attended the local schools of Harrison County, and at the age of twenty-one started out as an independent farmer in that section of the Lone Star State. He continued his activities as a farmer there until October, 1904, when he removed to Hobart, Oklahoma, and was among the early settlers, having lived in Kiowa County since three years before statehood. He soon came to be known as a farmer of excellent judgment and growing prosperity, and was also very popular among all classes of citizens. His farm was near Hobart, but since his first election to the office of county assessor in 1912 he has given practically all his attention to his duties at the courthouse. On November 6, 1914, he was re-elected for another term of two years, and at that election received every vote in his home precinct.

Mr. Shaddock is a member of the Primitive Baptist Church and one of its deacons. In politics he is a democrat. On December 20, 1890, in Harrison County, Texas, Mr. Shaddock married Miss Martha C. Koon, daughter of J. J. Koon, who was a farmer there and is now deceased. Six children were born to their union: Prudence V., wife of N. D. Thurman, a dairyman and farmer at Oklahoma City; John Perry, who is attending business college at Oklahoma City; Mary J., a student in the Hobart High School; James I., in the grammar school; William Benjamin also in school; and one, a son, that died in infancy.