A.B. Hurd ¹

Charles A. HURD

Charles A. HURD, the present county clerk of Pushmataha County, and a resident of Antlers, is of old Southern family antecedents, and has been identified with that section of Oklahoma for the past fifteen years. Mr. Hurd is a white man, but is married into one of the most prominent Indian families of the old Choctaw Nation, his wife having been a McCurtain.

Three brothers in the McCurtain family have held the office of governor of the Choctaw Nation. These were Edmund, Jackson and Green. During the administration of the latter the Choctaw Nation became an integral part of the State of Oklahoma and the Choctaw government was deprived of the laws under which it had operated, and thus the administration of Green McCurtain is of particular significance in Oklahoma history. The administration of Jackson McCurtain began in the romance period of Choctaw history, but his activities grew historically real before his death in 1885, for it was during his administration that the present capitol of the nation was erected, and also the Choctaw Female Seminary, both situated at Tuskahoma.

Jackson McCurtain possessed about one-fourth Caucasian blood, enough to give him a conception of the modern, progressive government of the white man. His wife also had about the same degree of Caucasian blood, and while they spoke the Choctaw language, they taught their children English and never permitted them to learn Choctaw during the period of childhood. This is an apt illustration of the progressive spirit of the intellectual Indian of earlier years who had visions of the passing of the tribal form of government. Jackson McCurtain lived near Tuskahoma and dealt extensively in live stock. He was born in Mississippi and came to Indian Territory at the time of the migration of his tribe. Near Tuskahoma he built an elegant home, the lumber for which was hauled from Stringtown, then the nearest railroad point. This home was burned in late years, but his widow, who yet lives in Tuskahoma, built another home that is more modern. Governor McCurtain was a good business man and made profitable investments. After his death his widow received some $30,000 in cash from his coal investments.

The blood of the McCurtains is fast being put into the white race in Oklahoma, for new generations of the family are getting still higher conceptions of American citizenship. Lucinda F. McCurtain, a daughter of Jackson McCurtain, is the present wife of Mr. Charles A.. Hurd. In performing his public and private duties Mr. Hurd is seeking to forward the work of good citizenship and profitable industry, and at the same time he cherishes the interesting activities of Jackson McCurtain and the interesting period in which he lived.

Charles A. Hurd was born in Benton county, Arkansas, in 1878, a son of A. B. and Mary (REED) HURD. His father, who is still living at the age of sixty-eight, was born in Tennessee, but settled with his parents in Benton county, Arkansas, sixty-five years ago. The mother of Mr. Hurd died in 1894. Two other of their sons are S. W. and J. C. Hurd, now engaged in the oil business at Nowata, while a third, B. C. Hurd, is a teacher at Nowata. The daughter, Mrs. J. R. HITCH, is the wife of a farmer in Benton county, Arkansas, and another, Miss Belle Hurd, lives with her father at Nowata.

Educated in the public schools of Arkansas and the Pea Ridge Normal College, Mr. Charles A. Hurd is a man of practical affairs and his activities have been confined largely to agriculture and stock raising. In 1900 he started his independent business career at Tuskahoma, where in 1903 he married Miss McCurtain. After statehood came he was the first assessor of his home township, and was the second county clerk of Pushmataha County after statehood, having been elected to that office in 1912 and reelected in 1914. Mr. Hurd is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, the Modern Woodmen of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has some valuable land holdings in Pushmataha County.

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A.B. married Mary Reed. (Mary Reed died in 1894 in Benton Co., AR ¹.)