Bio of William H. Royce (r200) - Latimer County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Ginger McCall 11 Sep 2003 Return to Latimer County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/latimer/latimer.html ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== William H. Royce Transcribed by G McCall from: A HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA By Luther B. Hill, A. B., With the Assistance of Local Authorities, Volume II, Illustrated, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago / New York, 1909, Page 312-313 WILLIAM H. ROYCE. Conspicuous among the merchants of Wilburton and important as one of the material builders of the town is William H. Royce, who has been identified with both the mining interests and the commercial affairs of the place and has been numbered among the citizens of both the town and county since 1894. The firm of W. H. Royce and Sons was founded about ten years ago and is composed of the father and his several sons, dealers in groceries and meats, and theirs is the chief concern of its character in Wilburton. The capital which established this business was dug from the ground by its proprietors as actual and practical miners, and their success as merchants has been even more marked than as miners, as measured by the usual standard of values. The building in which the business is conducted is a two-story brick, and there also the county maintains its offices and the government its post office. This building was erected by the firm in 1904, and the county commissioners’ office is another of the structures which mark Mr. Royce as one of the real builders of the county seat of Latimer county. In 1909, the firm of W. H. Royce and Sons built their third brick block in Wilburton. William H. Royce was born in Campbell county, Kentucky, December 15, 1845, and is a representative of a prominent old family from Ohio, where his grandfather, the Rev. T. D. Royce, was a noted evangelist in the early days. He became the father of Henry, Thomas, John P., Joseph, Elizabeth, wife of J. G. Moore, and Sarah, widow of Abe Facemire, of Indianapolis, Indiana. John P. Royce, the father of William H., was born in Ohio in 1822, but moved from there to Kentucky in his early life. He married Amy Lemastres, a daughter of a Virginia settler of French descent. Mr. and Mrs. Royce moved from Kentucky to Jefferson county, Indiana, during the childhood of their son William, and were farming people there. The wife and mother died in 1865, at the age of thirty-nine years, and the husband passed away in 1899. The children of their union were: William H., mentioned below; Andrew, of Danville, Illinois; H. Frank, of Perryville, Indiana; John W., of Udall, Kansas; James B., of Terre Haute, Indiana; Samuel B., also of Perryville; and Charles E., of Foster, Indiana. The youth of William H. Royce was passed at farm work, and the educational advantages which came to him were from the common schools. During the first year of the Civil war he enlisted in Company E., Seventh Indiana Infantry, and participated in the second battle of Bull Run and in Antietam or Sharpsburg, which was fought in September of 1862. He was discharged for disability after several months’ service, and in the following year he rejoined the army, this time entering Company K, One Hundred and Fortieth Indiana Infantry, which was attached to the Army of the Tennessee, Twenty-third Corps. He was in the battle of Nashville, where the Confederate General Hood was defeated and his army rendered helpless and scattered, and after this, the command to which Mr. Royce belonged was shipped from Clinton, Tennessee, to Washington, and thence down the coast to Fort Fisher, where it took part in the fighting with General Johnston’s forces from that time until the latter’s surrender in April, 1865. After the war had ended Mr. Royce as mustered out of the service at Indianapolis and he returned to this father’s home and to the work of the farm. But after a year or so he decided to become a coal miner, and going to Peoria, Illinois, he did his first permanent work as a miner there and was connected with that district for fourteen years. He then spent about one year at farming in Nebraska. From there he went to the mining region of Mahaska county, Iowa, and worked in the mines about thirteen years. From that point he went to Lake Charles, Louisiana, for one year and was then attracted to the field in Indian Territory, in 1894, locating at Coalgate where he worked in the mines four years and in 1898 he cast his lot with the community and people of Wilburton, Latimer county. On the 4th of November, 1874, in Peoria, Illinois, Mr. Royce was married to Miss Catherine Wiley, a daughter of Henry Wiley, and their children are: Henry W., John, William, George, Amy E., wife of Dr. P. S. Coleman of Wilburton, and Catherine and Isabel. In their political affiliations Mr. Royce and his sons are Republicans, and it is the pardonable boast of the father that his household gives a greater voting strength to the Republican ticket than the average family in the state. In their business relations they are always courteous and straightforward, and in their social relations sympathetic and liberal. A commendable strain of public spirit courses through their veins, and their liberality toward the public good has come to be proverbial. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Latimer County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/latimer/latimer.html