Volume 10 , Issue 2

Pioneer Lewis A. Salter - Carmen, OK

Does anyone out there remember Lewis A. Salter, one of the owners of the Headlight newspaper, in Carmen, Oklahoma? Salter can be identified with this region since 1893, when he played an active part in the opening of the Cherokee Strip. This and more information comes from A Standard History of Oklahoma, pg. 1551, Vol. 4, by Joseph Thoburn.

Lewis A. Salter was one who made the "RUN" for land in the Cherokee Strip, September 16, 1893. Lewis Salter located his claim on a tract of land a half mile South of the town of Alva, Oklahoma Territory, where he lived for seven years, then moved to Augusta, Oklahoma to established the Headlight newspaper. A year later Salter moved the newspaper plant to Carmen< Oklahoma and continued the Headlight newspaper.

Lewis Salter was born January 7, 1858, on a farm in Calhoun County, Michigan, the son of Melville J. and Sarah E. (Hinkle) Salter. Melville J. Salter was born in 1838 in old New York State and came to Michigan with his parents in early life.

His father was David N. Salter, all his life a farmer, reared to the same industry. He attended the public schools, though they offered little in the way of educational training beyond the limited knowledge of the "Three R's," and when he was still in his teens he left home and in 1852 made a trip with a party by wagon to the the gold fields of California where he remained for a few years, experiencing only indifferent success as a prospector, before he returned to Michigan, making the long trip by way of the Isthmus of Panama.

Until 1871 Melville Salter remained in Michigan. His years in the West wrought in him a kind of discontent of his early home, and he went to Kansas, then undeveloped to any extent, and bought land in Neosho county. He was active in the development of Southeastern Kansas, and was for a number of years president of the Settler' Protective Association. Melville was a republican, in 1874 and was elected to the office of Lieutenant Governor of Kansas, his re-election following in 1876.

The year 1877 brought his resignation, for he had been appointed registrar of the United Sates Land Office at Independence, Kansas, which he accepted and filled until 1884, when he resigned following a change in national politics at Washington. Returning to his Kansas home he went into the merchandise business and for some years was successfully occupied. He died at Pawnee, Kansas, in 1896, when he was only 58 years old. He had been a valuable citizen of his adopted commonwealth from the first, and was a lifelong member of the Baptist Church.

Melville Salter was married in Marshall, Michigan, in 1857, to Sarah E. Hinkle, the daughter of Jeremiah and Rebecca (Allison) Hinkle. Sarah Hinkle was born in Pennsylvania on January 8, 1834, and she died at Carmen, Oklahoma, at the home of her son, on May 5, 1909. Like her husband, she had long been a member of the Baptist church. They were the parents of three children, all living in 1916:

Lewis A.;

Albert Lincoln, was born on November 7, 1860. he married Emma Davis in 1881, and they had seven children: Ralph, Edna, Gertrude, Albert, Raymond, Chester and Emma Louise. The second child, Edna, died young.

William, was born in 1865, married Cora Snyder in 1885, and they had one child: Florence.

Lewis A. Salter went from Michigan to Kansas with his parents in 1871. He was educated mainly in the Kansas schools and the Kansas State Agricultural College in Manhattan, finishing there in the class of 1879. In 1882 he opened a hardware and agricultural implement store in Argonia, Kansas, where he remained until 1893, studying law in his spare hours. In 1887 he was admitted to practice at Wellington, Kansas, and in 1893 he went to Oklahoma, in time for the opening of the Cherokee Strip in the autumn, September 16, 1893.

In 1900 he established the Headlight in Augusta, Oklahoma, but that town proved a failure, and Mr. Salter moved the plant bodily to Carmen, Oklahoma, which gave splendid promise for the future. In 1916 he was still one of the owners of the paper, but he devoted himself mainly to the practice of law.

Mr. Salter had been a republican all his life, and the Headlight under his management was a strong and influential voice of the party, as well as being the pioneer paper of Alfalfa county, Oklahoma. He was a justice of the peace for two years in Carmen and in 1916 was filling the office of city attorney in Carmen.

Lewis Salter had been a veteran of the Spanish-American war. He enlisted on July 20, 1898, at Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and was mustered out on February 20, 1899, at Albany, Georgia. He went in as a private in Company M, First Territorial Regiment, recruited from Oklahoma Territory, Indian Territory, Arizona and New Mexico. He was appointed Quartermaster's Sergeant on the organization of the company and served in that post until the end of the war.

On September 1, 1880, Lewis A. Salter was married at Silver Lake, Kansas, to Susan M. Kinsey, daughter of Oliver and Teresa Ann (White) Kinsey. Susan Kinsey was born March 4, 1860, in Ohio and was educated in the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan, Kansas. It was there she met her husband. Susan Salter was a woman of culture and brains, elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887, being the first woman ever elected to the office of Mayor in the United States. Susan had always been active in social, club circles, and in 1916 was a leader in Carmen.

Lewis and Susan Salter had seven sons, two daughters:

Clarence E., was born June 3, 1881;

Frank Argonia, was born February 13, 1883, in Argonia, Kansas. He was editor and manager of the Headlight. He married Edythe Kelley in 1911 and they had one child, Winifred;

Winfred A, was born on November 20, 1885. He was a linotype operator in Oklahoma City;

Melva O., born March 1887, was married in 1913 to William C. Harris, and in 1916 lived in Detroit, Michigan. They had one child, Madora Harris;

Bertha Elizabeth, born in March, 1889, was educated at the Oklahoma State University and the Kansas State Agricultural college;

Lewis S., born on March 20, 1891, was a teacher of music in the University of Oklahoma at Norman;

Leslie E., born on May 10, 1895;

William E., born on May 10, 1897. The fourth born son, died in infancy.

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