James E. Bentley. Since he entered the Indian service six years ago James E. Bentley has been one of the most devoted and loyal friends of the Indians and their interests. He is known as a hard worker and does well whatever he undertakes, and at the same time is a man of quiet manner, very pleasant in his relationship with both the white men and Indians, and is performing a very useful service as field clerk in the Indian service in Okmulgee and Okfuskee counties.

He was born near New Douglas in Bond County, Illinois, December 28, 1880, a son of Lafayette and Margaret E. (Jett) Bentley. In March, 1881, when he was about three months old his parents moved to Barton County in Southwest Missouri, and they lived on a farm there for about fourteen years, and in 1895 returned to their present homo near Reno, Illinois, in the same locality where they were born. In the family were three sons and two daughters.

It was on farms in Missouri and Illinois that James E. Bentley spent the first twenty-one years of his life. His education came from the local schools in those two states, with the advantages of two years in the high school at Reno, Illinois, and a business college course at Valparaiso, Indiana. Mr. Bentley has had a very thorough business training and spent seven years in an abstract and real estate office in Chicago before he came to the Choctaw Nation of Indian Territory in August, 1909. Locating at Talahina, for a year he was in a law office there, and in 1910 entered the Indian service, receiving a regular Civil service appointment in March, 1911. He has been located at Okmulgee since July, 1915, and is giving a careful and very successful administration of his duties as field clerk.

In the meantime Mr. Bentley carried on law studies by himself and was admitted to the bar in June, 1913 He is a well qualified lawyer. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church. In 1906 he married Josephine Packer, who was born in Michigan, but was reared in Indiana. Her father is James L. Packer. To their marriage have been born two children, Robert and Eunice