USA > Colorado > History of Colorado; Volume IV > Part 40
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In politics Dr. Hopkins maintains an independent course but stands for that which is progressive in citizenship and loyally adheres to all plans and measures for the general good. His religious faith is that of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal church. He holds to the highest professional ideals and standards and has put forth every possible effort to make his service of greatest worth in the world, realizing fully the responsibilities and obligations that devolve upon the physician and surgeon. Few men have given so much time to study, investigation and research and his broad learning places him in the front rank of the eminent members of the pro- fession in Colorado.
HON. CHARLES E. CROSSWHITE.
Many are the interests which Hon. Charles E. Crosswhite represents in his district and state, and it must be conceded that in whatever line Mr. Crosswhite has been active he has been successful. Foremost with him have always been his agri- cultural interests, along which line he has become a leader, being now owner of a very valuable property. However, he is also connected with transportation and mer- cantile companies and, moreover, has large dairy interests thus augmenting his income from many lines. This, however. does not yet exhaust the variety of duties which he has taken upon his shoulders, for Mr. Crosswhite is also an able and energetic repre- sentative of his district in the Colorado state legislature.
Charles E. Crosswhite was born in Gentry county, Missouri, a son of Alexander . D. and Lucy (Wright) Crosswhite, natives of Virginia and Kentucky respectively. The father was at different periods in various walks of life, being not only a successful teacher and lawyer but having also taken up mercantile and farming lines with good financial results. C. E. Crosswhite is a high school graduate and subsequently attended the Central Christian College at Albany, Missouri. The year 1896 marked his arrival In Colorado and more specifically in Cherry, Douglas county, where he secured a position with D. R. Williams, who was engaged in the dairy, creamery and mercan- tile business. It took Mr. Crosswhite but a few months to demonstrate to his employer his ability and in 1897 Mr. Williams gave to the energetic young man complete man- agement of the creamery and cheese factory. Thus Mr. Crosswhite became an expert cheese maker and his enterprise along that line may be estimated from the fact that he was the first to introduce the Babcock test in Douglas county.
In 1901 Mr. Crosswhite married Miss Annie B. Williams, a daughter of D. R. and Alvera O. (Pond) Williams, natives of Massachusetts. Her father was numbered among the early pioneers of Douglas county, of which he became a large landowner and one of the leading citizens. In many ways he promoted progress and develop- ment, giving valuable aid to movements which had for their purpose material as well as moral or intellectual growth. For three terms he efficiently served as county com- missioner and it was he who owned and operated the first cheese factory in the state of Colorado, known as Factory No. 1. In 1909 Mr. and Mrs. Crosswhite removed to Oklahoma and there they made their home until 1912 in Custer county. There he was not only prominently connected with agricultural interests, giving particular
HON. CHARLES E. CROSSWHITE
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attention to cattle and hogs, but also served as township trustee in 1912. The return to Colorado was made in 1913 and he now owns a valuable ranch of seven hundred and sixty acres near Cherry, Colorado. This is in a high state of cultivation, suitable buildings to shelter stock and produce having been erected and everything about the place denoting progressive and energetic management. Moreover, Mr. Crosswhite was the organizer and is a director of the University Hill Dairy & Produce Company of Boulder county and in this connection maintains a dairy of fifty head of milch cows, the enterprise being operated in a most up-to-date and sanitary manner. It is a modern milk distributing business, and being conducted on sound principles, a sub- stantial income is derived from this enterprise. Moreover, Mr. Crosswhite is president of the Cherry Creek Mercantile & Transportation Company, which operates motor trucks between Cherry and Denver.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Crosswhite are highly respected and esteemed in their com- munity. They have become the parents of eight children, William L., Hazel L., Percy R., Lucy E., David E., Edna M., Edgar W. and Thomas F. The children have been reared in the atmosphere of a refined Christian home and the best educational oppor- tunities have been provided for them.
Mr. Crosswhite is a democrat by political persuasion and in 1914 was elected to the twenty-first general assembly of Colorado and not only took good care of the interests of his constituents but also gave careful attention to all those measures which were of general benefit to the state, giving his endorsement to bills which he considered of value to the greatest number. He was not only active in committee rooms but upon the floor of the house in order to secure the best advantages for his district and his term of office was identified with a number of improvements which resulted through his legislative activity. Fraternally he is a Mason and stands high in the esteem of his brethren of the craft. Mr. and Mrs. Crosswhite have a large circle of friends in their neighborhood and are esteemed as people of high accomplish- ments who have qualities of heart and character which endear them to all who come in contact with them.
JOHN H. McKAY, M. D.
Dr. John H. Mckay is one of the well known physicians and surgeons of Denver and is conducting a private sanitarium for the treatment of nervous diseases. He was born in Madison, Mississippi, January 8, 1868, and is a son of John H. and Katherine (Mathews) Mckay. The mother was born in Mississippi and belonged to a prominent southern family. The father was a native of Kentucky but became a well known and prominent physician and surgeon of Mississippi, where he engaged in the practice of his profession for many years, living at Madison and at Carrollton. During the Civil war he espoused the cause of the Confederacy and enlisted for service in the southern army, becoming a surgeon with the rank of major. He remained at the front during the entire period of hostilities. After the war was over he removed to Memphis, Tennessee, where he continued in the practice of his profession up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1897. For a long period he has survived his wife, who passed away in Madison, Mississippi, in 1882. They had a family of four children, of whom only two are living, the sister being Mrs. T. H. Boswell, of Memphis, Tennessee.
Dr. Mckay was the youngest of the family and in his youthful days he attended the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College, from which he was graduated in 1888. He then entered Tulane University and completed a course in medicine with the class of 1890. He located for practice in Durant, Mississippi, where he successfully followed his profession until 1897, when failing health required him to give up his work there and remove to the west. He devoted two years to recovering his health, following a thorough system which he marked out and by so doing he regained his strength and resumed his practice in Memphis, Tennessee, where he resided for another period of five years. In 1904, however, he returned to Denver, for during his sojourn in this state he had come to acknowledge the lure of the west. He bought property at No. 2839 Colfax avenue, where he established a sanitarium for the treat- ment of nervous diseases, of which he has made a specialty for the past fifteen years. He has twenty-five rooms for patients in this institution and every convenience for their care and comfort. He also enjoys a large outside practice and is one of the representative and highly respected physicians and surgeons of Colorado. He belongs to the Denver City and County Medical Society, the Colorado State Medical Society
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and the American Medical Association and thus he keeps in close touch with the trend of modern scientific thought, research and investigation.
On the 22d of December, 1891, Dr. Mckay was united in marriage to Miss Beulah Handy, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Handy, representatives of an old southern family. They now have one child, Elizabeth Mckay, who was horn in Escatawpa, Mississippi, in 1900, and is now attending the Wolcott School in Denver as a member of the class of 1918.
In politics Dr. Mckay is a democrat. He and his wife hold membership in the South Broadway Christian church and they are well known socially. In his pro- fession Dr. Mckay has attained high rank. He is most conscientious and faithful in the performance of his professional duties and is constantly studying to make his service of greater benefit and worth to his fellowmen. His developed powers have brought him prominently to the front in the treatment of nervous diseases, so that his opinions along this line are largely accepted as authority not only by the general public but by the profession as well.
J. W. HIGBY.
While almost four years have passed since J. W. Higby was called to his final rest, Colorado is still benefiting by business interests which he instituted and for many years he was regarded as one of the most forceful, resourceful and progressive men of his section of the state. He possessed unfaltering enterprise, keen sagacity, laudable ambition and high principles of business integrity. Born in Illinois on the 17th of February, 1854, he spent his youthful days upon the home farm with his father and after his schooldays were over began farming on his own account, following that pursuit in Illinois and in Iowa until 1888, when he removed to Eastonville, Colorado.
At that date Mr. Higby secured employment with the Russell-Gates Mercantile Com- pany as a clerk and after six months became one of the partners in the business and for twelve years remained the vice president of the corporation, which at that time operated twelve stores in El Paso, Elbert and Douglas counties. Successful as he was along mercantile lines, this constituted but one phase of his activities. In 1888 he homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and also preempted a similar amount of land and secured a timber claim of like size near Calhan, Colorado. His wife occu- pied the claim for six years in order to prove up on the property, while Mr. Higby remained at Eastonville to conduct the interests of the Russell-Gates Mercantile Company. He remained an active factor in the conduct and successful management of that business until 1900, when he sold his interests and removed to Monument, where he established a mercantile house and, contrary to the predictions of all of his friends, he made of it a notable success. He closely studied the wishes and interests of his patrons, as well as the market, ever recognizing the fact that satisfied customers are the best advertisement. He held to the highest standards in the personnel of the house, in the line of goods carried, in the treatment of his customers, and his business showed a rapid and substantial growth. Centering his efforts in a way upon Monument and the district surrounding, he purchased in 1902 sixteen hundred and forty acres of woodland near Monument and erected thereon a number of sawmills, which he utilized in furnishing fifty thousand railroad ties for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company. He also cut all of the tree tops into cordwood, shipping hundreds of carloads of cordwood into Fort Logan and Denver. Ranching interests also claimed his attention to a still greater degree and in 1910 he purchased the Greenland ranch of sixteen thousand, two hundred and eighty acres at Greenland, Colorado, and up to the time of his death in February, 1915, he spent most of his time upon the ranch, leaving his mercantile interests in charge of competent and trusted employes. The ranch has a capacity of twenty-five hundred head of cattle, with a thousand acres under cultivation and two thousand acres of hay land. After pur- chasing this property Mr. Higby sold a two-fifths interest in the ranch to one of his closest friends, C. C. Henning, of Colorado Springs. The ranch at present is under the management of two of his sons, Louis and Carl, who carry on the business under the name of the J. W. Higby Ranch.
In 1882 Mr. Higby was united in marriage to Miss Marie Emily Briley, of Garden Grove, Iowa, a daughter of Stephen H. and Jane (Hyatt) Briley, the former a min- ister of the United Brethren church. Mr. Higby on his deathbed desired it to be known that to his wife he owed his success in life, saying that any man with a wife
J. W. HIGBY President of the Greenland Land & Cattle Company
MRS. J. W. HIGBY
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like his could not do otherwise than win success, for she at all times was the guiding spirit of his life, encouraging and assisting him when there were trials and diffi- culties to be met. Her cooperation and her encouragement were strong elements in his advancement, as he claimed. In other words, theirs was largely an ideal com- panionship. Each shared in the interests, the ambitions and the projects of the other and their deepest concern was for the welfare and happiness of their six children. Olive May, their eldest, became the wife of James Killin, a ranchman residing near Monument, and they have one child, James Lewis. Louis R. married Jennie Lake, of Colorado Springs, and resides upon the home ranch. Carl M. wedded Dorothy Hulbert. of Logansport, Indiana, hy whom he has three children, Marie E., Carl R. and John W., and they, too, reside upon the home ranch. William Eugene wedded Blanche David, of Marionville, Missouri, by whom he has two children, William D. and James E., and in his business connections is well known as the manager of the Monnment store. Kate is the wife of Fred Noe, living on a ranch near Greenland, and they have five children, William F., Carl F., Charles L., Campbell and Catharine. Jack B., who was manager of the mercantile business at Greenland and died of influenza in the early winter of 1918, married Gladys Johnstone, of Greenland, and had one son, Ladns Jack. The Highy estate comprises three-fifths of an interest in the ranch of sixteen thonsand, two hundred and eighty acres and the mercantile enter- prises at Greenland and Monument. The business is largely under the management of the children, all of whom are graduates of the East Denver high school, and the daughters are also graduates of the Manual Training school at Denver, Olive grad- uating from the State Teachers' College at Greeley, while the boys pursued a busi- ness course at the Modern School of Business in Denver. The family is one of which the mother has every reason to be proud, for her training and teaching have devel- oped men of high moral principles, none of her sons having ever tasted intoxicants or tobacco, and her daughters are proving to be most efficient in modern scientific honsekeeping. Their course reflects credit upon an untarnished family name, and indicates the wisdom of the training given by the parents. Mr. Higby counted no personal effort or sacrifice on his part too great if it would promote the welfare and happiness of his wife and children. In the career of such a man the broadest spirit of the new twentieth century found expression. The philosopher Emerson once said: "An institution is but the lengthened shadow of a man." Judged by this standard, measured by his extensive ranching and commercial interests, Mr. Higby was a great man who owed his success to intense industry and not to special ability. An analyza- tion of the records of most successful men will indicate that their advancement is due to that quality of intense industry. However, his life was never self-centered. While he attempted important things and accomplished what he attempted, his success never represented another's losses, but was built up through constructive effort. He was a dependable man in any relation and any emergency-one in whom to have confidence. His easy dignity, his frankness and cordiality of address, with a total absence of anything sinister or anything to conceal, indicated him to be a man ready to meet any obligation of life with the confidence and conrage that come of conscious per- sonal ability, right conception of things and an habitnal regard for what is best in the exercise of human activity.
JAMES PURSE.
James Purse, who follows ranching near Aurora, dates his residence in Colorado from 1881 and after earnest efforts to gain a sfart in the business world he is now numbered among the substantial farmers of the county. He is a native son of the Emerald isle, his birth having occurred in Belfast, Ireland, on the 28th of October, 1852, his parents being John and Jane (Lemon) Purse. At the usual age he began his education in the public schools of his native country and in 1875, when a young man of twenty-three years, he bade adieu to friends and native land and sailed for the new world. He made his way at once to Chicago, Illinois, where he spent six months, after which he removed to Henry county, Illinois, where he resided for six years. He was there engaged in farming and during that period took out his citizen- ship papers, giving his full allegiance to the land of his adoption. He continued his residence in the Mississippi valley until 1881, when he made his way westward to Denver. For more than a decade he remained in that city, working in various ways, but in 1892 rented one hundred and sixty acres of land, which he continued to culti- vate for fifteen years. On the expiration of that period he purchased a farm in Adams
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county and has since carried on general agricultural pursuits. His land is carefully and systematically cultivated and his energy has enabled him to overcome hardships and difficulties and work his way steadily upward to success.
In Atkinson, Illinois, Mr. Purse was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Irvine, a daughter of John and Sarah Irvine and a native of Ireland. They have become the parents of two children: Fred, who married Jennie L. Pedersen and has four children, Irvine, Bertrand, Bertha and Melvina; and Clara, who became the wife of Walter Duggan and has two children, Raymond and Timothy.
In his political views Mr. Purse is a republican and fraternally is connected with the Woodmen of the World. His long residence in this section has made him widely known and his enterprise and the many substantial traits of his character have gained him classification with the representative residents of Adams county.
GEORGE E. BERMONT.
George E. Bermont, engaged in merchandising at Lafayette, was born in Franklin county, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1866, a son of George and Clara (Gilbert) Bermont, who were likewise natives of the Keystone state. The father there passed away, but the mother is still living. They reared a family of six children and all yet survive.
George E. Bermont spent his youthful days in his native state and is indebted to its public school system for his educational privileges. He continued there until about seventeen years of age, when he removed westward to Carroll county, Illinois, where he resided for four years, during which period he was employed as a farm hand. The opportunities of the far west, however, attracted him and he made his way to Colorado, settling in Boulder county. Throughout the intervening period he has been identified with commercial interests, establishing a business at Lafayette, where he handles all kinds of merchandise and machinery. He has built up a large and gratify- ing trade and has an extensive stock, being thus ready to meet the demands of his customers at all times. He has otherwise been closely and prominently identified with the business development of the community, for during eight years he was president of the First National Bank of Lafayette and he is the owner of valuable property, including a brick store building and a residence in the town.
In 1892 Mr. Bermont was married to Miss Katherine Jones, of Youngstown, Ohio, a daughter of John W. and Katherine (Fletcher) Jones, both of whom have passed away. Mr. Bermont gives his political allegiance to the republican party but is not an office seeker. He has prospered since coming to Colorado and is a self-made man who as the architect of his fortune has builded wisely and well. He and his wife are well known socially in Lafayette and enjoy the hospitality of the best homes of the city.
JONAS BROTHERS.
One of the most attractive commercial and art establishments of Denver is that of the Jonas Brothers, taxidermists and furriers. Few cities of the world have any attraction that appeals to the traveling public from so many different angles as does the great exhibit which their establishment offers. It is a sportsman's paradise to the hunter' or the fisherman and it offers many articles of home adornment to the people who enjoy spending their time at their own fireside. The most fastidious taste in fine furs and rugs can here be gratified and to the child this store is a fairy tale come true. Beautiful fur rugs adorn the floors and the walls are decorated with the finest mounted specimens of game heads, birds and skins. Here taxidermy seems to have reached its highest point. Back of the work of Jonas Brothers is a natural love of animal life, combined with an artist's eye for form and motion and a sculptor's skill in modeling. The three Jonas Brothers closely connected with the development of the Denver business are all enthusiastic naturalists as well as taxidermists, and that their work is continually called for by the leading natural history museums of the country is indicative of the fact that their work approaches most closely to nature, in fact is a faithful reproduction of the habits and many times of the haunts of these animals. Before starting upon their work of mounting any animal they make drawings and plastic sketches of the living animal. The structure is then built up in clay in the chosen attitude, reproducing the entire muscular system of the subject. A mold Vol. IV-22
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is made of the finished model, from which a manikin cast is made of paper. This form is light, strong, durable and prepared moisture-proof to receive the skin, which is put on by pasting and sewing. They have received letters of commendation for their work from curators of museums and prominent sportsmen, throughout the entire country. With the growth of their Denver house they opened a branch establishment in Livingston, Montana, and their growing patronage has brought to them gratifying success.
PELIMON A. BALCOM.
Pelimon A. Balcom is the vice president and general manager of the Radio-Active Chemical Company of Denver and is interested in mining. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 22, 1850, and is a son of Silas and Anne (Van Buskirk) Balcom, the latter of Holland descent. The father was born in Massachusetts and became a prom- inent merchant, making extensive shipments to and from the West Indies. Both he and his wife have passed away. Pelimon A. Balcom is descended from one of the earliest families of England of whom there is authentic record. The name is a place name and the family is one of prominence. Records concerning the Balcoms date back to 1309, as shown by the records of the parish church in Bacombe, County of Sussex, England, and the family tree was planted on American soil at a very early period in the colonization of the new world by Henry Balcom, who came from England in 1620 and died April 29, 1683, in Sudbury, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Haynes, who was born at Sudbury, July 19, 1644. Their marriage was celebrated August 12, 1666, and Elizabeth Balcom passed away November 20, 1715. Their children were all born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, namely: Hannah, who was born March 16, 1668, and died April 21st of the same year; John, who was born October 15, 1669, and died August 28, 1743; Elizabeth, who was born August 16, 1672, and became the wife of Gersham Rice; and Joseph, who was born December 17, 1674, and died Sep- tember 17, 1745. The last named was married at Marlborough, Massachusetts, to Tabitha Newton on the 28th of June, 1711, and they had six children, all born in Sudbury: Joseph, who was born January 13, 1713, and died away from home in 1744; John, who was born March 13, 1715, and died in 1789; Elizabeth, born May 17, 1717; Mary, October 10, 1719; Sibelah, born July 25, 1721; and Micah, who was born March 4, 1723, and died in 1754.
The eldest of that family, Joseph Balcom, married Deborah Boise on the 21st of February, 1733, and they, too, had a family of six children, all of whom were natives of Sudbury, namely: Samuel, born June 16, 1734; Jonas, who was born August 7, 1735, and died September 3, 1810; Silas, born in March, 1737; Henry, who was born August 16, 1740, and died October 28, 1812; Isaac, born in July, 1742; and Tabitha, in July, 1744.
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