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 Cassius M. Barnes - Summit View Cemetery - Guthrie, OK Posted by:  Max and 99
N 35° 53.717 W 097° 24.290
14S E 643964 N 3973509
Republican politician who was the Governor of Oklahoma Territory. Because of the Republican infighting, Governor McKinley declined to reappoint Barnes as Governor in 1901.
Waymark Code: WMFTAB
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 11/27/2012
Views: 4
The final resting place of Cassius M. Barnes is at the south end of Guthrie's Summit View Cemetery. A large upright marker denotes the family name Barnes, while Cassius and his wife each have a small horizontal marker. Between the two is a plaque indicating (she) was the first D.A.R. State Regent.
Text on headstone:
Cassius M.
1845 - 1925
Governor of Oklahoma
1897 - 1907
Mayor of Guthrie
1903 - 05 1907 - 09
Description:
From the Oklahoma Historical Society archives:
A governor of Oklahoma Territory, Cassius M. Barnes, eldest son of Henry and Samantha Barnes, was born in Livingston County, New York, on August 25,1845. In his youth he moved with his family to Michigan, where he grew up on a farm near Albion, in Calhoun County. As a boy Barnes learned telegraphy and worked for Western Union. He was employed in Kansas when the Civil War erupted, and he immediately joined the U.S. Army and served in the Military Telegraph Corps throughout the war. At war's end he was stationed in Arkansas, where he was mustered out of the army in 1866.
After going into business in Little Rock, in 1884 he married Mary Elizabeth Bartlett, daughter of a Little Rock judge. Barnes became active in Republican politics, serving three terms as Little Rock city clerk and in several federal positions. He served as U.S. marshall for the Western District of Arkansas from 1879 to 1889.
In 1889 Barnes came to Oklahoma Territory as receiver for the U.S. Land Office in Guthrie, preparatory to the Land Run of 1889. He kept his office until the 1893 election of Pres. Grover Cleveland's Democratic administration resulted in the ouster of the territory's Republican officeholders. In 1894 Barnes successfully ran for the Oklahoma Territorial House of Representatives, where he served two terms and was selected speaker. As a member of the Republican National Committee he worked diligently for his party and was rewarded for his efforts by Pres. William McKinley, who named him to the Oklahoma Territory governorship in 1897.
Barnes's tenure as governor was marked by political infighting among Republicans over political patronage and by controversy between Republicans, Democrats, and others over statehood. Some favored statehood for Oklahoma Territory, separately from Indian Territory; others favored fusion into one single state. Barnes's programs became a political football in the contest for statehood. These controversies complicated his efforts enact programs for educational funding and for the geographical placement of five major social-service institutions a home for the deaf and mute, a mental hospital, a penitentiary, and two industrial schools. Rather than building state-owned facilities that would have to be maintained with tax money, he resolved the social-service issue by contracting with private companies to provide school textbooks, care for the deaf and the insane, and house convicted criminals.
Because Republican infighting became intense, President McKinley declined to reappoint Barnes as territorial governor in 1901. In order to restore harmony to the party in Oklahoma, on April 15, 1901, Territorial Secretary William M. Jenkins succeeded Cassius Barnes in office.
Barnes remained in Guthrie, practicing law and politics. He served two terms as the city's mayor, from 1903 to 1905 and from 1907 to 1909. After becoming a widower in 1908, he remarried and moved to Kansas and then to New Mexico, where he died on February 18, 1925. Barnes's contributions to Oklahoma Territory's growth and progress lay primarily in the field of social services, where he proved his commitment to education and to the welfare of the less fortunate.
Date of birth: 08/25/1845
Date of death: 02/18/1925
Area of notoriety: Politics
Marker Type: Headstone
Setting: Outdoor
Visiting Hours/Restrictions: Sunrise to Sunset
Fee required?: No
Web site: [Web Link]
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