Percy C. Simons

Percy C. Simons (1870-1962)

Near as we can tell Mitchell DeClerck’s roots in Enid, Oklahoma can be traced back to September 16, 1893, when Charles Parker came to Enid on the train for the Land Run of 1893. Also known as the Cherokee Strip Land Run, the Land Run of 1893 marked the opening to settlement of the Cherokee Outlet in what would become the state of Oklahoma. The run began at noon on September 16, 1893, with more than 100,000 participants hoping to claim land.

But another of our first two partners also arrived in Oklahoma on that day: Percy C. Simons. The following extract from an article by Enid lawyer and historian Garry Brown entitled “Enid Attorneys Helped Shape Our History” tells of our beginning: The following extract from an article by Enid lawyer and historian Garry Brown entitled “Enid Attorneys Helped Shape Our History” tells of our beginning:

Parker & Simons Law Firm

Another pioneer Enid attorney, Charles Parker, rode the train in from Caldwell (Kansas) the day of the land run with the intent of establishing a law practice in Enid. He was one of the few original land run lawyers that would stay and build a practice in Enid. At statehood in 1907 he was selected to serve on the first Bar Examination Board for the State of Oklahoma and served on that board for a number of years. Parker was also appointed special referee by the Supreme Court to settle several County seat disputes including the infamous Creek County dispute between Sapulpa and Bristow.

Parker was joined in law practice in 1906 by P. C. Simons, who had just completed a term as Oklahoma Territorial Attorney General. The Parker & Simons firm represented many of Enid’s early day business men, including H. H. Champlin. Their firm grew in stature and was the only Enid firm listed in the prestigious Hubbell’s Law Directory in 1918, the year of Parker’s death. After Parker’s death, P. C. Simons invited a young attorney, recently moved from Anadarko, by the name of Louie McKnight to join him in practice. Later Earl Mitchell was added as partner and from that partnership sprang two of Enid’s most distinguished law firms, Mitchell & DeClerck and McKnight & Gasaway.
Available on http://www.enidhistory.org/
at http://www.brownlaw-ok.com/enidhistory/articles/attorneys.pdf

Percy C. Simons

The earliest reported case we can find involving one of our partner's occurred in 1898 and dealt with farmer Ray's Will litigated by Percy C. Simons when he was in Grant County before he became the Attorney General of Oklahoma Territory. The following extract from an opinion rendered in 1902 by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma Territory tells of the hazards of early day life in the Oklahoma Territory and how our lawyers have helped folks for parts of three centuries including farmer Ray’s heirs:

John M. Ray was a farmer living on a homestead claim in Grant County. On June 4, 1898, he was sitting outside of his house, in company with a young man by the name of Elmer M. Thompson. While sitting there, engaged in conversation, a rabbit ran along by the side of a corncrib which was located a short distance from the house.

Thompson remarked that the rabbit would be a good shot, and then went into the house and got the gun, and when he returned he walked out a few steps from the house, and fired. The bullet struck a stone and glanced, accidentally striking Ray in the breast, and went clear through his body. A physician was called, and stated to Ray, after examining him that he (Ray) was in a critical condition, and if he had anything to say, or any request to make, he had better say it before the wound was dressed. Ray replied that he had a request to make, and asked the physician to call in two young men (one of whom was the young man who accidentally shot him), and he then told these gentlemen that he desired Mr. and Mrs. Hawks to have all of his property after his debts were paid, and that he also desired them to have his claim if they could prove up on it and hold it.

This statement was made on the same day he was shot, and he died from the effects of this gunshot wound some four days later. On June 30, 1898, this request was reduced to writing, and was afterwards admitted to probate as the nuncupative will of the deceased, and the property all awarded by the probate court to Mr. and Mrs. Hawks. From this order Marshall Ray, the surviving brother of the deceased, appealed to the district court, and the judgment was there affirmed, and Ray then appealed to this court.

The appellant makes the point against the judgment that the written will is not the same as the spoken words; that the spoken words willed everything to Mr. and Mrs. Hawks, while the written will gives everything to Mr. Hawks. The other side, however, contends that this is immaterial, because the probate court, and the district court, too, ordered the property distributed pursuant to the spoken words; and other questions are raised and discussed, but after examining our own statute we deem it unnecessary to pass upon any of them….

Ray v. Wiley, 11 Okla. 720, 69 P. 809 (Okla. Terr. 1902)

ATTORNEY GENERAL WILL STEP DOWN AND OUT FIRST OF APRIL
Mr. Simons Will Go Back to Enid and Resume the Practice of Law
Commission Did Not Expire Until 1907.

Guthrie, Okla., Jan. 22. [1906] — Governor Frantz tonight announced the appointment of W. O. Cromwell of Enid, former populist leader, to be attorney general, beginning April 1, to succeed P. C. Simons, who today resigned. Governor Frantz also appointed U. C. Guss, president of the Guthrie National bank, delegate to the insurance reform conference in Chicago on February.

Percy C. Simons, attorney general of Oklahoma being appointed nearly three years ago by Governor Tom Ferguson, today tendered his resignation to Governor Frank Frantz, and will locate in Enid in the practice of law. His commission does not expire until 1907, but he says he believes it the desire of Governor Frantz to surround himself with persons in some of the territorial offices who are closely identified with him personally and with his policies politically.

Found at http://files.usgwarchives.net/ok/garfield/newspapers/news1906.txt

Mr. Simons appeared many times before the United States Supreme Court in over half a century. We think one of his first appearances was representing the Oklahoma Territory in New v. Oklahoma, 195 U.S. 252 in 1904 and one of his last appearances was over 50 years later in Garber v. Crews, 324 U.S. 200 in 1945.

On January 23, 1906, The Oklahoman described how Mr. Simons, resigned his position as Attorney General of the Oklahoma Territory early in 1906 to come to Enid to join Charles Parker in the practice law:

OBITUARY
PERCY CONSTANCE SIMONS
1870-1962

We also thank lawyer Stephen Jones now of Enid, Oklahoma for this obituary of Simons that appeared in The Oklahoma Chronicles in 1963 which confirms Mitchell DeClerck’s Oklahoma roots in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1893. Simons first came to Oklahoma Territory during that 1893 Land Run and established his law practice in Pond Creek, Oklahoma, just north of Enid, with A. M. Mackey later joining Parker's firm in Enid after Simons' term as Attorney General of Oklahoma Territory.

One of Oklahoma's pioneer lawyers and a territorial attorney general, Percy C. Simons of Enid died in his home [July] 8, 1962. Mr. Simons was born in Hamburg, Fremont County, Iowa on Christmas Day 1870. His parents moved to Sidney, Iowa, and later to Caldwell, Kansas. He was educated in the public schools of both cities. In 1890 he graduated from the University of Kansas law school and practiced law in Sidney, Iowa and Caldwell and Wellington, Kansas. He made the run into the Cherokee Outlet in 1893, but was unable to find a claim that suited him, so he waited until one that interested him was relinquished. Such a claim developed south of Renfrow in Grant County. Simons acquired it and proved his title while still maintaining his law office north across the state line In Caldwell, Kansas. He later moved to Pond Creek in Grant County, then the county seat, and practiced law with Judge A. M. Mackey until January, 1904.

Simons was appointed the Attorney General for the Territory of Oklahoma by Governor Thompson Benton Ferguson on February 1, 1904. He succeeded Judge J. C. Robberts of Kingfisher who had resigned. Simons was reappointed March 17, 1905 by Governor Ferguson for a term to expire in 1907. Under the laws of the Territory the attorney general was required to appear for the Territory and prosecute and defend all actions and proceedings, civil or criminal in the territorial Supreme Court in which the Territory was an interested party. He was authorized to give legal opinions to the Governor, other territorial officials, the Legislature and to prosecute any official bond or breach thereof and to prepare officials contracts and other drafts which the Territory might require. The respect with which Governor Ferguson held Mr. Simons is demonstrated by a letter the Governor wrote to his close friend. Dennis Flynn, following the appointment of Simons. Wrote Ferguson: “I appointed (as attorney general) as good a lawyer, in my judgment, as there is in the territory, one upon whose integrity, and ability and friendship I can rely.”

As an aggressive and competent attorney general, in the two years he represented the Territory, he lost only one case. His work load was heavy for in his first year in office he appeared for the Territory in thirty six criminal cases before the Supreme Court. Before the United States Supreme Court he successfully argued that the conviction of John T. New, who had been convicted in Washita County for the murder of his brother-in-law and given a life sentence, should be sustained. Undoubtedly his most important case as attorney general was against the American Bonding Company of Baltimore in which he argued that the company should be compelled to reimburse the territory for the defunct Capital National Bank of Guthrie. The surety company had executed a bond for $250,000 to protect the territorial funds on deposit in the bank and had refused to pay the bond. Before the Supreme Court. Simon's position was sustained and the Company paid the bond. He also recovered $18,000 of the Territory's funds which had been deposited with the bank shortly before its collapse.

Attorney General Simons gained much notice for his vigorous prosecution of illegal practitioners of medicine in the Territory. Quick to catch flaws in the laws passed by the Territorial Legislature, he asked that the revenue laws be amended and that the oil inspection law and the board of health legislation be amended so that they would have greater strength.

Although Simon's term did not expire until 1907, he submitted his resignation to Governor Frantz shortly after the latter was inaugurated in January 1906 in order that Frantz might appoint as attorney general someone of his own choosing. Simons was succeeded April 1, 1906 by W. O. Cromwell of Enid. Simons himself went to Enid, which he called a “splendid and thriving city,” to enter into the practice of law with C. H. Parker.

Joe Glasser, one of Simon's colleagues at the bar, has called the late Attorney General, “A complete advocate, one who studied not only his side of the case, but his opponent's side as well.” Among his colleagues Simons was regarded as a giant of a lawyer and possessed of a keen intellect. His office hours were seldom less than ten hours a day and often included Saturday and Sunday as well. As an outstanding lawyer he was retained as local counsel by many large eastern corporations that had great capital invested in Oklahoma, including the New York Gas Company, American Investment Company, Prudential Insurance Company, Pillsbury Mills, U. S. Fidelity and Guaranty, Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, Sears Roebuck, the Maryland Gas Company and the Travelers Insurance Company. He had many prominent Oklahoma clients including Judge M. C. Garber, whom he represented before the United States Supreme Court in Crews vs. Garber, the George E. Failing Company, Eason Oil Company, Enid Elevator Corporation, Oklahoma Natural Gas, W. B. Johnston Grain Company, Continental Grain Company, and banks in Enid, Meno, Hunter and other Northwestern Oklahoma cities. His legal associates included C. H. Parker. E. B. Mitchell, L. E. McKnight, Joe Neal and R. W. Simons.

A life long Republican, Simons was active in the affairs of his party and was a delegate to numerous state conventions and was a delegate to the 1916 Republican National Convention.

Mr. Simon's first wife was Lillian Williamson of Caldwell, Kansas, whom he married on December 27, 1892. Some years after her death, he married Miss Dorothy Ballard on November 12, 1953. Mr. Simon's son, R. W. Simons, was killed in an automobile accident in 1961; Simon's daughter Mrs. R. W. Tripett, now resides in Bartlesville. Former Attorney General Simons was buried July 10, 1962 in the Enid Cemetery.

Mr. Justice Jackson of the United States Supreme Court himself once a county seat lawyer wrote: “The county seat lawyer who always gave to each the best there was in him has been an American institution. Such a man understands the structure of society and how its groups interlock and interact because he lives in a community small enough that he can keep it all in view. He sees how this society lives and, works under the law and adjusts its conflicts by its procedures. He knows how disordered and hopelessly unstable it would be without law. He knows that the only true civil liberties are those which some lawyer respected by his neighbors will stand up to defend. The county seat lawyer was as American as a hooked rug, a pine chest or maple sugar.”

P. C. Simons of Enid, Oklahoma, was truly this kind of county seat lawyer.

Stephen Jones
Norman, Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Chronicles, Volume 41, Page 225

Mr. Simons is buried in the Enid Cemetery, Enid, Oklahoma.

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Percy C. Simons (1870-1962)

﻿​Percy C. Simons

Percy C. Simons