Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 18, No. 2
June, 1940
NECROLOGY
Adolphus Edward Perry
(1867-1939)
written by Wm. H. Murray
A. Edward Perry, the son
of Edward Perry and Theotiste Melanie
Brouillet Perry, was born in Montreal,
Canada, July 23, 1867, and died in Denver,
Colorado, July 29, 1939; he was buried at
Rush Springs, Oklahoma.
His father, Edward Perry, was in
charge of construction of the M. K. & T.
Railroad through the Indian Territory for
his brother-in-law, John Scullin, of St.
Louis. He brought his family to Denison,
Texas, while the road was constructing,
camping in the Indian Territory.
Ed was one of a family of eight boys
and one girl, Sophrenie Melanie. His early
years were spent in Denison, where he
attended school afterwards going to
Montreal, Canada, to the Jesuits where he
finished the regulation course of studies.
He then went on the road as a "drummer" for
several years. Many of his vacations were
spent in the Indian Territory at the home of
the late Governor Johnston, and on the
ranches of the Colberts and the Loves. Thus
Ed. grew to manhood with a knowledge and
love of the old Indian Territory.
Robert L. Owen was a great friend of
the family, he and Will Perry having married
Daisy and Fanny, the only daughters of
Captain G. B. Hester of Boggy Depot.
In 1888 Ed. his brother, H. T. V.
Perry, and John Hodges opened a large store
in Atoka, Oklahoma.
During these early years he formed
the enduring ties of friendship with
Governor Green McCurtain, Bill Durant, Peter
Hudson. Governor Bird (Chickasaw), Captain
Charles LeFlore and many other prominent
men.
In 1889 and 1890, Ed. and H. T. V.
made the move to the town of Cottonwood,
afterwards known as Coalgate, where they
opened a general merchandise store and coal
mines. A year later Ed. decided to continue
his education and enrolled in Holy Cross
College, Worchester, Mass.
He resumed his work in Coalgate in
1895 and on July 27, 1896, was married at
Boggy Depot to Carrie LeFlore, daughter of
Colonel Forbis LeFlore and Anne Mary LeFlore
nee Maurer.
Ed. Perry and H. T. V. Perry of Perry
Brothers were the first mine operators to
sign the union scale.
My first acquaintance with Ed. Perry,
known in political parlance as "Dynamite
Ed." (to say the least, he was dynamic) was
more than 40 years ago. At the meeting of
the Constitutional Convention in Guthrie, he
spent most of his time at my room and
office. My confidence in him was such that I
was not afraid of betrayal of a secret. The
year of statehood he was vice-chairman, and
was made manager, and his Republican
associates insisted that he knew "something
on Murray," because of his close connection
during the Convention, and Perry's character
is expressed in his reply: "I know nothing
unconscionable, and if I did, I wouldn't
tell you as it would be a betrayal of a
friend." He and I had up to the time of his
death a steadfast, unbroken friendship, and
I am delighted when requested to write this
observation, and only wish I had more space
than The Chronicles can allow.
Perry engaged in many enterprises,
among which was manager of the Concho Gravel
and Sand Company, dealing with the state.
Never was there one whisper of dishonest
course in his many deals with the state
under several Governors of the State. He was
always ready "to bid."
I may observe that Perry's influence
in the carving of counties was more potent
than the delegate, as he got the county
seat.
"An
Oklahoman Abroad" from Sturm's Oklahoma
Magazine (Jan. Feb 1911), A Selected
EditionBy Carrie LeFlore Perry
Edited
by Amanda L. Paige
Biography
Carrie LeFlore Perry was born
about 1874 at Boggy Depot, Choctaw
Nation, the daughter of Forbis LeFlore
(Choctaw) and his third wife, Anne Marie
Maurer, whose father, like Forbis
LeFlore's, was born in France. LeFlore,
a well-known and respected leader in the
Choctaw Nation, served as superintendent
of Choctaw schools, as a tribal judge,
and as a representative for the Choctaw
Nation in Washington. Marie LeFlore,
according to family tradition, was the
granddaughter of one of Napoleon's
bodyguards. Carrie, the youngest child
of their marriage, grew up in a
cosmopolitan, Catholic household in
which French was often spoken.
Carrie LeFlore was educated in
the convent schools of the Sisters of the
Sacred Heart, which were considered
premier schools for well-bred young
ladies. She first attended the Sacred
Heart mission school in the Potawatomie
reservation in Oklahoma Territory and
later graduated from Maryville College in
St. Louis.
In 1896, she married Adolphus
Edward Perry, a Canadian-born
entrepreneur, who was set on making his
fortune in Indian Territory. As an
intermarried white citizen of the Choctaw
Nation, Perry could thereafter conduct
business as any native Choctaw could. But
as a permitted resident in the Choctaw
Nation, he had already established himself
in the business community by the time they
married. Born in 1867, Perry had moved
with his family at age twelve to Denison,
Texas, where he obtained his early
education, which was continued under the
Jesuits at Montreal. He began his career
as a "drummer," spending his vacations in
the Indian Territory, where he made
friends among influential people such as
Douglas Johnston and the Colbert and Love
families of the Chickasaw Nation; Robbert
L. Owen of the Cherokee Nation; and
Choctaws such as Green McCurtain, Peter
Hudson, and Charles LeFlore, Carrie's half
brother. In 1888 he moved to Atoka,
Choctaw Nation, where he entered the
general mercantile trade with his brother.
After a year, the Perrys moved their
business to Cottonwood, which later became
Coalgate, where they continued in the
mercantile trade and began mining coal.
Apparently backed by his father, the
contractor who had overseen construction
of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
Railroad, Perry flourished. Except for a
period after 1891, when he attended Holy
Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts,
Perry remained at Coalgate until he and
Carrie LeFlore married.
For a year
after their marriage, Perry managed a
ranch at Citra, Choctaw Nation, before
returning to Coalgate, where he began to
expand his enterprises. He remained in the
mercantile business, developed his mining
operations, and entered the real estate
business. By 1905 he had amassed enough
capital, influence, and confidence to
offer the government $15 million for the
segregated coal and asphalt lands of the
Choctaw Nation, an offer the Secretary of
the Interior refused.
The wealth amassed by Perry
provided his wife with the life style of a
typical well-to-do woman of the late
Genteel Period. Always referring to
herself as Mrs. A. E. Perry, she
entertained, traveled frequently to St.
Louis, Kansas City, or elsewhere to visit
friends, and, with her mother, spent time
at Lake Michigan to escape the heat of the
summer months. After more than a decade of
marriage, her husband said of her, "She is
the loveliest and sweetest of women. We
are very fond of each other and are
exceedingly congenial. We are almost
always together." And, he said, "She is
very retiring and dislikes notoriety."
By the time he made these
comments, Edward Perry was a well-known
politician, whose own notoriety certainly
eclipsed his wife's. As Oklahoma statehood
approached, he had become active in
Republican politics and had earned the
nickname "Dynamite Ed" as a result of
having tossed lighted sticks of dynamite
from a moving excursion train to call
attention to his political cause. In 1907
he served as chairman of the Oklahoma
Republican Campaign Committee and the
following year ran for chairman of the
Oklahoma Republican Party. He lost but was
rewarded with an appointment as
vice-chairman. In the latter year, perhaps
seeking relief from a difficult political
season, Ed and Carrie Perry went on an
extended tour of Europe. During their
tour, Carrie wrote frequently to her
mother, Anne Marie LeFlore, sometimes
daily.
The Perrys remained in Coalgate
until 1920. After a year in Texas, they
moved to Oklahoma City, where Ed tried the
real estate and oil businesses before
becoming president of the Concho Sand and
Gravel Company, which position he held
until he retired. He had continued to
dabble in politics until 1926, when he
withdrew from the lieutenant governor's
race because the state would not allow him
to appear on the ballot as "Dynamite" Ed
Perry. Throughout this period, Carrie
Perry faded from public view. Ed died
while they were on vacation in Colorado in
1939. She lived on until July 27, 1966,
her life all but obscured from public
view.
Despite her reticence, Carrie
LeFlore Perry apparently had literary
aspirations. As a student at Sacred Heart
Mission, she had published a series of
stories and narratives, for the most part
related to Choctaw history and lore before
Choctaw removal to the West. In 1905, she
became a writer for the newly
established Sturm's Oklahoma
Magazine, publishing a piece on
Choctaw and Chickasaw history. It was the
publisher, O. P. Sturm, who in 1910 and
1911 published her 1908 series of letters
to her mother as "An Oklahoman Abroad."
Her last piece of writing, which appeared
in 1928, was a biographical essay on her
father, Forbis LeFlore.
After Sturm called her an Indian
when he introduced the series of letters
in 1910, he received expressions of
surprise from Easterners "that she could
have manifested such vivacity,
enthusiasm and intelligence as mark her
articles." Sturm answered one
stereotypical view with another,
apparently believing it necessary to
denigrate her Choctaw heritage: "With
her mother the daughter of one of
Napoleon's ‘Old Guard,' and her father
Col. Forbis Le Flore, youngest brother
of the first governor of the Choctaws,
is it any wonder that Mrs. A. E. Perry
should find that she is dominated by the
hot blood of the French, only to be
bewitched now and again by the call of
the wild, and again that she often
arises to the heights of her dignity
through her English ancestors?. . .Like
a large per cent of her people in
Oklahoma, Mrs. Perry's Indian blood is
the smallest of the strains; but her
French blood not only dominates her
physically but intellectually, and both
evidence a high degree of culture." In
reality, much of Carrie LeFlore Perry's
writing is typical of that done by
tribal writers, especially women, of the
Five Civilized Tribes during the closing
years of the nineteenth and early
decades of the twentieth centuries.
Possessed of a romantic, nostalgic,
patriotic attachment to the past, they
set about writing the folklore and
history of their tribes, the subjects of
the largest number of Perry's published
works. Thus "An Oklahoman Abroad" is the
odd work among her writings.
