William N. Talley. Greater historic interest pertains to the vigorous young commonwealth of Oklahoma by reason of the fact that there are to be found many sterling young men who are proving themselves valuable factors in the industrial and general business activities of a state which they can claim as the place of their nativity and who have the distinction also of claiming a strain of Indian blood, theirs being a matter of just pride in thus being descended from the Indians whose dominion was the first in this now strong and opulent young commonwealth of the Union. He whose name initiates this paragraph is a descendant in the natural line of pure Chickasaw Indian ancestry, his maternal grandfather, a man of strong and worthy character, having been a full-blood Chickasaw.

Mr. Talley has been a resident of what is now the State of Oklahoma from the time of his nativity, has been actively identified with agricultural pursuits, is a skilled mechanic and is at the present time an employe in the shops of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad at Chickasha, Brady County. In what is now the City of Davis, Murray County, Oklahoma, William N. Talley was born in the year 1885, and he is a son of William and Agnes (Chigley) Talley. His father was born and reared in South Carolina, was a scion of a sterling old family of the fair Southland, and when the Civil war was precipitated he promptly tendered his services in defense of the Confederate cause, having been a valiant soldier in a South Carolina regiment during the entire period of the great conflict. Within a short time after the close of the war he came to Indian Territory, where he married and where he eventually became a most prosperous agriculturist and stock-grower and the owner of a valuable landed estate, in what is now Murray County, Oklahoma. On his well improved homestead farm he continued his residence until his death, in December, 1916, at which time he was of venerable age. His wife, who preceded him to the life eternal, was a daughter of Nelson Chigley, who still resides at Davis, Murray County, and who has attained to the patriarchal age of eighty-nine years, in 1915. This venerable citizen, a full-blood Chickasaw Indian, came with other members of his tribe upon their exodus from Mississippi to their assigned reservation in the Indian Territory, many years ago.

William N. Talley acquired his early education principally at the Harley Institute, at Tishomingo, S. M. White having been at the time the superintendent of the institution, and thereafter he was for two years a student in Hargoe College, at Ardmore. For several years thereafter he was actively identified with the great basic industry of agriculture, and he now has profitable employment in the mechanical department of the Chickasha shops of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, as previously stated in this article. He and his wife, who have no children, having a pleasant home at 209 North Tenth Street in the City of Chickasha.

On the 16th of September, 1914, Mr. Talley wedded Miss Myrta Further, who was born and reared in Garvin County, where her parents still maintain their residence in the town of Wynne Wood.