James Brooks Ayres Robertson (March 15, 1871 – March 7, 1938), sometimes called J. B. A. Robertson, was an American lawyer, judge and the fourth governor of Oklahoma. Robertson was appointed by the state's first governor, Charles N. Haskell, to serve as a district judge. Passing a bar exam at the age of 21, Robertson became one of the most resourceful trial lawyers and legal counselors in the Oklahoma and Indian territories, before statehood. His gubernatorial term was marked by Oklahoma's ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment, for Prohibition, and the Nineteenth Amendment, for women's suffrage, to the United States Constitution, the Tulsa Race Massacre, and scandals. He also served as Grand Sire (now known as Sovereign Grand Master) of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows from 1915 to 1916 Robertson died in 1938 from cancer and is buried in Chandler, Oklahoma. Early life James Brooks Ayres Robertson the Third was born in Keokuk County, Iowa, on March 15, 1871, to a father of the same name from Pennsylvania and mother Clara Robertson (birth name unknown) from Ohio. His paternal grandfather had the same name. In the early 1850s, both of Robertson's parents moved to Iowa, where Robertson's father served as a volunteer soldier in the Union army during the American Civil War. Robertson's Iowa upbringing would instill in him firm progressive attitudes. The fifth child born to a family of six sons and five daughters, Robertson was educated in the Iowa public school system. Robertson became a licensed teacher when he was 16. While teaching, he was privately studying law and the legal system, and he passed the Iowa bar exam in 1892 at the age of 21. The following year, Robertson moved to Chandler in Oklahoma Territory. Chandler was newly established by European Americans via the Land Run on September 28, 1891, and the county seat of Lincoln County was developing. Seizing the opportunity, Robertson set up teaching and practicing law in the fledgling city. He won him the office of county attorney, the chief legal officer of the county. While in Chandler, Robertson met Olive Stubblefield, whom he married in 1898. They had two children: Olive Frances and a boy James Brooks Ayres Robertson IV (referred to as James Brooks Ayers Robertson Jr.), named after his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Robertson became known as one of the most resourceful trial lawyers and legal