Zachariah Taylor Preston, who is successfully engaged in farming a mile north of Ramona in Washington County, was born on Grand River, twenty-five miles east of Vinita, Craig County, Oklahoma, on the 23d of January, 1883. His father, Charles Henry Preston, was a native of Virginia and on coming to the Indian Territory settled near Grove. He was a surgeon and served in the Confederate army during the Civil war. He practiced medicine and surgery in the Indian Territory and in the state of Oklahoma until fifteen years prior to his death, passing away at the home of his son, Z. T. Preston, in 1917, at the notable old age of one hundred and three years. He never used a cane and could read ordinary print without the aid of glasses to the end of his life. He possessed notable physical endurance, was never ill and, in fact, was around the house until within fifteen minutes of his demise when he laid down upon his bed and passed away without the least suffering. “The weary wheels of life at length stood still” and as one falling into a peaceful sleep death came to him. His wife, who in her maidenhood was Martha Elizabeth LaMar, was a native of Illinois and was brought to the Indian Territory by her parents during her childhood days. She was of Cherokee extraction and is now living in Ramona, at the age of fifty-eight years with her son, George Floyd Lane, who was born of her second marriage.
Z. T. Preston, whose name introduces this review, pursued his education at Hickory Grove in Craig County about eight miles south of Fairland and when nineteen years of age he began farming on his own account. For three years he devoted his attention to the tilling of the soil on a farm near his birthplace and after-ward removed to Washington County, where he cultivated a farm of eighty acres, which he owned, two and a half miles south of Oglesby. In 1903 he removed to the farm of eighty acres which belongs to his son, Herman J. D. Preston, and his daughter, Goldie Agnes Preston. This farm is situated a mile north of Ramona and is an eighty-acre tract, splendidly improved and developed. He has an unusually fine country home and all modern buildings on the place and there is no accessory or convenience of the model farm of the twentieth century that is not found here. Mr. Preston rents his own farm, located near Oglesby. He is thoroughly progressive and modern in all of his methods, carrying on his work according to the most advanced scientific principles, practicing the rotation of crops, doing all work systematically and producing results which are most gratifying. He carries on general farming and in addition raises fine hogs, of which he has every reason to be proud. He has one sow which had a litter of seventeen pigs. The farm which is now the family home is situated on the state highway and the-splendid appearance of the place is due entirely to the efforts of Mr. Preston, for he made all of the improvements on the property.
In 1902 Mr. Preston was united in marriage, at Miami, to Miss Perilina Chadwell, a daughter of Andy J. and Sarah Alice (Williams) Chadwell of Missouri, who came to the Indian Territory a quarter of a century ago. Her father is still living but the mother has passed away. Mr. and Mrs. Preston have become parents of the following named: Goldie Agnes, Herman J. D., Maudres, Sarah Alice, Everett Leon, Martha Lane, Mary Magdelene and Estilaine Levon. The family is widely known in their section of the state and they have many warm friends. Mr. Preston is a man of most progressive spirit, constantly advancing toward higher standards in all that he undertakes and his labors are proving a most potent force in the agricultural development of Washington County.