OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Oklahoma Historical Society was organized at a meeting of the Territorial Press Association in Kingfisher, May 27, 1893, and was inaugurated as an adjunct to that body under the title, "Historical Society of the Oklahoma Press Association."

W. P. Campbell, at that time connected with the register of deeds office at Kingfisher, undertook the prosecution of the work. J. B. Campbell, a brother, now a member of the State legislature, was register. He offered room in the register's office for storage. Effort was made to collect and preserve copies of every publication in the commonwealth, including the Indian Territory so that a file could always be found for future generations and incidentally to collect and preserve all other matters of a historic, relic or curious interest.

During the legislature of 1895, a similar, society was organized by the faculty and students of the University at Norman. Custodian Campbell co-operated with the new organization, an appropriation was secured, and the collection was taken to Norman where it remained until completion of the Carnegie building at Oklahoma City, which institution sought and obtained through a special act removal of headquarters to the present location in the Carnegie building.

It was made the trustee of the State in caring for valuable documents by the Territorial Legislature of 1895, which provided in the session laws of that year that it should be the duty of the society to collect books, maps and other papers and materials illustrative of the history of Oklahoma in particular and the west generally; to procure from the early settlers narratives of events relative to the early settlement of Oklahoma and to the early explorations. Indian occupancy and overland travel in the State and the west; and to collect documents of a varied nature such as to facilitate the investigation of historical, scientific, social, educational and literary subjects.

The newspaper feature has always been zealously maintained, so that there are now about six thousand bound volumes of these and kindred publications, and practically every publication, small and great, daily, weekly, monthly, etc., may be found on file as issued. Other features, however, have not been neglected, there being about twenty-five thousand titles covering every range of historic interest, the entire collection aggregating something like fourteen tons in weight.

On removal of the collection to Norman, Mr. Campbell was retired, and W. T. Little became custodian, retaining the place until it was brought to Oklahoma City, January 1, 1901. Sidney Clarke was given charge and was succeeded at the end of the year by Mrs. Marion Rock. June 1, 1904, Mr. Campbell was induced to again take charge of the work, and has remained with it since that date. Miss Edith Rose Kneen has been assistant for the last four years. The society is controlled by a board chosen at annual meetings of the members and is maintained by membership fees and State appropriations.

Sig. 18

H. B. No. 363-Support and maintenance (two years).

$ 356.50
5,500.00

1

OKLAHOMA IN THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR

The outbreak of the Spanish-American war in 1898 found thousands of young men in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma eager to enlist in the military service. Under the first call for volunteers, two troops of cavalry were authorized, one in each territory. Under the second call Oklahoma was to raise a battalion of four companies which became a part of the First Regiment of Territorial Volunteers, the other two battalions being raised in Arizona and New Mexico. A number of young men in both Indian Territory and Oklahoma enlisted in the volunteer service from adjoining states.

The First Regiment of United State Volunteer Cavalry, since become famous as Roosevelt's Rough Riders' had in its consist several Oklahoma volunteers. A part of the regiment saw active service in Cuba, at Las Guasimas, El Caney and San Juan Hill.

The Oklahoma troop was commanded by Captain Robert B. Huston of Guthrie. An attorney by profession, he took great interest in military affairs and held the rank of lieutenant colonel in the first militia regiment organized in Oklahoma. In the battle of San Juan Hill, he was in command of his battalion after Major Brodie was wounded. After the close of the war with Spain, he was re-commissioned in the United States Volunteers for service in the Philippines where he died in 1900.

Captain Allyn K. Capron, who organized and commanded the Indian Territory troop was born in 1870. His father was an officer in the regular army and he chose to follow the same profession. He enlisted in the regular army as a private and won his, commission by promotion from the ranks, and was first lieutenant in the First Regular Cavalry, stationed at Fort Reno, at the outbreak of the war. He was killed in the battle of San Juan Hill. Captains Huston and Capron were both regarded as fine officers and held the respect of their men.

Oklahoma was a young commonwealth when the bugle sounded the call to war, but the pulses of many Oklahoma school boys were quickened by its notes. Among those who heard and answered the call was Roy Cashion of Hennessey, who had been graduated from the public schools of that town only the year before. Though but eighteen years old, he volunteered under the first call, and was enrolled and mustered into the service as a private in the First Regiment of United States Volunteer Cavalry. With that command he went from the rendezvous at San Antonio, Texas, to Tampa, Florida, and thence to the southern coast of Cuba with the army under General Shafter. Beneath the tropical July sun on the charge up San Juan Hill, young Cashion was stricken with a Mauser bullet from the rifle of a Spanish sharp shooter-the first Oklahoma school boy to give his life for his country on a foreign soil.

Buried by his comrades where he fell, the markings of his grave were lost for a time, and his father made a second trip to Cuba before it was found and identified. After the removal and re-interment of his body in the sun-kissed soil of his prairie homeland, the people

of the community raised a subscription, which was afterwards supplemented by a legislative appropriation for the purpose of erecting a monument to his memory.

The First Regiment of United States Volunteer Cavalry on the first call received a contingent of eighty men from Oklahoma. The officers commissioned for this troop and the men mustered in were as follows: