Hon. Wilson A. Chase. By election to the House in 1912 and to the Senate in 1914, Wilson A. Chase has been identified with the work of Oklahoman legislation through both the Fourth and Fifth Legislatures, and has brought to that service a skillful ability and broad experience in the law and a thorough knowledge of Eastern Oklahoma affairs acquired by more than fifteen years of residence. In the Senate he is from the Thirty-third District, his home being at Nowata.

Wilson A. Chase was born near Elija, Georgia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, October 17, 1868, a son of W. D. and Adeline (Spruel) Chase. His father was a machinist and a miller. The paternal grandfather was a native of Rhode Island. The Spruel ancestors were among the first settlers in the Oglethorpe Colony in Georgia, and Mrs. Adeline Chase’ male relatives living and old enough to fight during the Civil war were all either killed or died in the army. W. D. Chase died in 190l! and his wife in 1913. W. D. Chase, not long after the birth of his son, Wilson, had brought the family to Arkansas, locating at Elizabeth in 1874, and working as a pioneer millwright.

Senator Chase was educated in the common schools of Arkansas, attended the high school at Salem, and later studied law in the office of Capt. M. N. Dyer, at Mountain Home, Arkansas. he was admitted to the bar March 15, 1893, and opening an office in Mountain Home had an unusually trying experience in “watchful waiting.” During the first six months of his legal career only one man called at his office on business. In December, 1893, he moved to Hardy, Arkansas, and remained there in practice five years. During that time he served as special assistant prosecuting attorney, and later at Evening Shade was special judge of the District Court of the Sixteenth Judicial District of Arkansas. In 1898 Senator Chase removed to Nowata in Indian Territory. There he soon built up a successful practice as a lawyer, has been in several legal partnerships, and became a factor in the development of the oil resources in Northeastern Oklahoma, and was formerly president of the Legal Oil & Gas Company, and vice president of the Chatahoochee Oil Company. Soon after locating at Nowata Senator Chase was appointed city attorney and later for one year was mayor.

In 1912 he was elected a member of the Legislature from Nowata County, serving one term, and in 1914 the district embracing Rogers and Nowata counties sent him to the Senate. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on rules and procedure and a member of the committees on judiciary No. 1, ways and means, private corporations, oil and gas, Federal relations, drugs and pure food and private corporations. In the Fifth Legislature he was particularly interested in the adoption of a measure providing free text books for the public schools and was author of that measure. Ins interest and activity also extended to administration measures providing for the abolition of state boards and the concentration of state duties. He favored good roads legislation and the working of convicts on the public roads.

Senator Chase has six brothers and three sisters. The oldest, Mrs. Minnie Hammond, lives at Elizabeth, Arkansas; L. A. and Sanford are millwrights at Elizabeth; Mrs. Doxie Stockard lives at Wild Cherry, Arkansas; Dr. J. B. is a practicing physician at Cerro Gordo. Arkansas; W. I., is a lawyer at Stillwell, Oklahoma; Elmer is postmaster at Westville, Oklahoma; Mrs. W. M. Davis is wife of a wholesale grocer at Burley, Idaho; R. H. lives at Wewoka and is a member of the State Senate and seat mate with Wilson Chase.

Senator Wilson Chase was married in 1897 at Evening Shade, Arkansas, to Iola Price, daughter of William Hampton Price. They are the parents of seven children: Mary Dyer, aged seventeen; Pauline, aged fifteen; Price, aged thirteen; Ruth, aged ten; Wilson A., Jr., aged eight; Dean Atwood, aged five; and Katherine, aged three. Senator Chase is a past grand in the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, also a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Oklahoma State Bar Association.