Stephen Drew - Merchant of Dover

Stephen Howard Drew, the oldest son of Tom Drew and Margaret Walch, was born in August 1874 in New York and would later write that his left leg was deformed due to infantile paralysis. He came out to Kansas with his parents when he was about 4 years old and grew up in the rugged cattle town of Caldwell. He spent most of his work life as a merchant store operator, a career he most likely began in his father's grocery store in Caldwell.

Stephen's father Tom took part in the first Oklahoma Land Rush and staked a claim in Hennessey. Stephen and his brother Alfred, most likely with their father's assistants, established general stores nearby the town of Hennessey. Stephen store was in Dover which is located 10 miles directly south of Hennessey. Alfred’s store was located 12 miles north of Hennessey in Waukomis, Oklahoma. Their proximity most likely helped them to share delivery cost and purchase baulk goods at discount.

Nineteen-year-old Stephen may have already been living in Dover in 1893 when he married 18 year-old Maude Hughes in Enid, Oklahoma, which is located 30 miles north of Dover. Stephen and Maude had three daughters: Edith, born in 1894; Ruth, in 1896; and Grace, in 1899. Ruth died tragically at 11 months of age and was buried in the Dover cemetery. In the 1900 US census, Stephen, 25, and Maude, 26, are listed as operating a general merchandise store in Dover. Their home was free and clear of mortgage; and they were well enough off to support a live-in maid.

Unfortunately, the marriage ended sometime before 1908, the year that Stephen, then 32, married Grace, a 28-year-old previously married woman. That marriage ended by 1920, when in the census of that year Stephen is listed as “divorced” and was living in a boarding house in Dover. By 1930 Stephen, 53, was living with his third wife, Irene, 32. His general store was now referred to as a grocery store.

Dover was first called Red Fork. It was located on the Chisholm Trail, which originally was a freight trail that crossed the Oklahoma Indian Territory, linking Texas and Kansas. A railroad was built along the trail; and a station built at Red Fork to service locomotives. Its name then was changed to Dover Station. In the 1889 Land Rush, Dover Station was part of newly created Kingfisher County and became a “boom” town overnight. However, the nearby Hennessey Station was more successful in attracting business. As a result, Dover’s boom population dissipated over the next several decades.

During Stephen Drew’s life three events in Dover made national news. The first was the Dover train robbery by the “Wild Bunch,” a gang composed of the Doolin Gang and former members of the Dalton Gang. In April 1895 the gang boarded the Rock Island train at Dover and robbed the express car. Around two o’clock that afternoon, a posse caught up with them at a camp near Ames. Tulsa Jack Blake was killed in the shootout. The rest of the gang scattered, never to reunite as a gang.

A second notable robbery occurred in Dover almost thirty-seven years later. In January 1932, the infamous Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd robbed the banks in Paden and Castle on the same day, and robbed the bank in Dover the next day.

But perhaps the most notable event occurred in September 1906. Just south of Dover, heavy rains washed away a bridge one night as the Rock Island train from Texas bound for Kansas came through. All but one car plunged into the Cimarron River. Of the 225 passengers aboard, over 100 lost their lives, making it one of the most deadly train accidents in history.

Stephen's first wife and daughters moved to Wichita, Kansas following the divorce. Maud raise the girls there as a single parent. Edith Drew was living in Wichita with her mother in 1930. Her whereabouts after that date are currently unknown. Her sister Grace Drew was married in Prescott, Arizona, in 1931 to Amos Francis Bumpa; but there's nothing further known about Grace and whether she or Edith had descendents. After 1930 Stephen’s whereabouts are also unknown. He was not buried in the Dover Cemetery so he likely moved on.

Today, Dover is a town of only a few businesses, boarded-up storefronts, and a population of 362, but it did have a spectacular aurora display. The photograph of that display (above) was taken by Dave Ewolt. The photograph of the couple above is believed to be that Stephen Drew and a second wife Grace. It is an excerpt from a previously posted family group photograph courtesy of Cait Hendron, Stephen Drew's 1st cousin three times removed