History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume II, Part 2

Author: Hawley, James Henry, 1847-1929, ed
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1024


USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume II > Part 2


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SAMUEL W. DENNIS.


Samuel W. Dennis is a well known representative of journalism in Idaho, being a member of the firm of Dennis & Snyder, publishers of the Idaho Falls Times. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in January, 1867, a son of O. H. and Ardella (Fogleman) Dennis, the former a native of Indiana, while the latter was born in North Carolina. Her parents made the journey across the country to the Hoosier state by team and in the midst of the wilderness hewed out a farm, experiencing all of the hardships of pioneer life and spending their remaining days in that. locality. It was the father of O. H. Dennis who huilt the second cahin on White river, near Indianapolis. He had journeyed across the country by team from Pennsylvania and there in the midst of a large tract of heavily timbered land he too developed a farm and made his home thereon. He was a direct descendant of William Henry Harrison. O. H. Dennis like- wise followed agricultural pursuits hut at the time of the Civil war put aside all busi- ness and personal considerations and enlisted as a member of Company H, Seventy- ninth Indiana Infantry. He served under two enlistments, for on one occasion he was obliged to return home on account of sickness. He later reenlisted and served until he was injured at Lookout Mountain in the battle above the clouds. He then returned to his home in Plainfield, Indiana, where he spent his remaining days, his death occurring in August, 1904. He had for several years survived his wife, who passed away in 1900.


Samuel W. Dennis was reared and educated in Indianapolis and Plainfield, Indiana, a suburb of the capital city. He there learned the printer's trade and in February, 1890, he sought the opportunities of the west, making his way to Eagle Rock in the territory of Idaho, which town afterward became Idaho Falls. There he established the Idaho Falls Times and still has one of the old presses as a relic of his first print- ing venture. He continued the publication of the paper for two years but at the end of that time suffered losses that caused him to direct his efforts into other channels. He filed on land, securing a quarter section a mile from the city, and has since greatly developed and improved this property, which was a tract of sagebrush when it came into his possession, the brush growing to such a height that a horse would be hidden in passing through it. Mr. Dennis continued the development and operation of his farm until 1915, when he rented the ranch and returned to Idaho Falls, where he entered into partnership with W. S. Snyder in the purchase of the paper which he had some years before established. The firm of Dennis & Snyder has since continued the publication of the Idaho Falls Times and have made it a most attractive journal,


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devoted to local interests and to the dissemination of general news. Moreover, Mr. Dennis is the owner of one of the finest and best improved ranches in this county.


On the 25th of April, 1896, Mr. Dennis was married to Miss Sarah F. Smith, a native of Macedon, New York, and they have become the parents of eleven children. Samuel J., who has recently been discharged from the United States navy, enlisted in April, 1917, and the government put him through an electrical school at Mare island. He afterward entered the Westinghouse Electrical School at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from which school he hopes to graduate. Harrison is attending the University of Washington at Seattle, to which city he went to enter the naval training school, but the plan for instruction of that character fell through and he entered upon a five year law course. The other children of the family are Burr, Joseph, Betsey, William and Charles, twins, John, Thomas, Dossie and Seth.


Mr. Dennis has devoted considerable time to political activity and has been a member of the state democratic central committee for the past four years. His opinions carry weight in the councils of his party in Idaho and he has done not a little to shape public thought and action along political lines. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained high rank, being now a member of the Mystic Shrine. He stands for progress and improvement in all that has to do with the public life of the community and has made his paper the champion of every plan and measure for the general good. At the same time he is a most enterprising and progressive business man and is now the owner of a modern newspaper plant and a fine ranch, on which he makes a specialty of raising Duroc-Jersey and Poland China hogs.


LUCIEN P. McCALLA, M. D.


Dr. Lucien P. McCalla, physician and surgeon of Boise, was born in Alcorn county, Mississippi, August 23, 1865, his parents being James Moore and Anne Eliza (Irion) McCalla. The father, a native of South Carolina, was graduated from the University of Virginia, and later completed the courses both in medicine and in law at the same university. Ill health, however, largely prevented his active practice of either profes- sion and influenced him to devote his attention more largely to interests that would keep him out-of-doors. He therefore took up stock raising and the last days of his life were spent in the vicinity of Corinth, Mississippi, where he passed away in 1878, at the age of sixty-six years. He was not only well versed in the professions of law and of medicine but was also a distinguished linquist. He exerted, too, a strongly marked influence over political thought and action in the south but would never con- sent to become a candidate for office, although frequently urged to enter the race for congressional honors. At the time of growing disquiet in the south over the subject of secession he strongly opposed the attitude of the southern states and was most earnest in his advocacy of the Union cause and heartily approved of the vigorous policies of President Lincoln, of whom he was a most ardent admirer. This made for a certain degree of unpopularity with him among his friends and neighbors, but he never faltered in a course which he believed to be right. His wife was greatly loved for ber many acts of kindness and benevolence during that trying period. Born in western Tennessee, her last days were spent in Texas, where she passed away in 1888, at the age of sixty-eight years.


Dr. McCalla was the tenth in order of birth in a family that numbered seven sons and four daughters, most of whom reached adult age. After attending the public schools of his native state he spent two years as a student in Tulane University of New Orleans and, having determined upon the practice of medicine as a life work, he then began preparation for the profession in the medical department of Washington Univer- sity at St. Louis. Upon his graduation in 1888 he received his professional degree and at once entered upon active practice in central Texas, where he remained for five years. At later periods he did post-graduate work in the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, which he attended for two years, and in leading medical universities of England, Austria and Germany. On leaving central Texas he removed to Trinidad, Colorado, where he spent two years in active practice, while through an equal period he followed his profession in Salt Lake City.


In April, 1898, Dr. McCalla became a resident of Boise, where he has since prac- ticed, and he readily became recognized as one of the eminent surgeons of the north- west, displaying marked ability in that branch of professional activity. He has always


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kept abreast with the trend of modern scientific thought and investigation and has greatly broadened his knowledge through the interchange of ideas in the Ada County Medical Society, the Idaho State Medical Society, the Southern Medical Society and the American Medical Association. Of the second and third mentioned he has been honored with the presidency and for six years he was a member of the Idaho state board of medical examiners, while for thirteen years he served on the pension exam- ining board for Ada county and was also chosen president thereof.


Dr. McCalla was married August 23, 1894, in Taylor, Texas, to Miss Cecelia McDonald, who was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of the late Michael McDonald. Dr. and Mrs. McCalla have a son, Randolph, who spent two years at Harvard and was graduated from the Georgetown University of the District of Columbia and the medical department of Columbia University; and a daughter, Eileen, who attended St. Theresa Academy in Boise and was graduated from the Georgetown convent, Washington, D. C., and later studied music in New York, being an exceptional harpist and vocalist. The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church and fraternally the Doctor is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. His political allegiance has always been given to the republican party, with ready recognition of the duties and obligations as well as the privileges of citizenship. Public honors and emoluments, however, have had no attraction for him, as he has ever felt that there is no higher service which an individual can render mankind than through the capable and conscientious practice of medicine and surgery, and in his professional work he has ever held to the highest ideals.


HOSEA B. EASTMAN.


Before Idaho was organized as a territory Hosea B. Eastman took up his abode within its borders and for many years he remained a most active and prominent factor in the upbuilding of the capital city. Every phase of pioneer life is familiar to him. All of the hardships and privations occasioned by remoteness from the advantages of the older civilization of the east, also the Indian fighting in an effort to plant the seeds of civilization on the western frontier and in fact every form of activity that led at length to the establishment of the great empire of the northwest, are to him not a matter of hearsay or of history but a matter of actual experience. He came to be one of the most forceful factors in the financial and commercial development of Boise, where he took up his abode in 1863, and just as his ancestors aided in the es- tablishment of civilization upon the Atlantic coast, he has borne his full share in the work of development upon the Pacific coast.


Mr. Eastman is a native of Whitefield, New Hampshire. He was born in the year 1835 and is descended from a family that was founded on American soil in early colonial days, when this country was still numbered among the possessions of Great Britain. His grandfather, Ebenezer Eastman, was numbered among the colonial troops that fought for the independence of the nation. Following the surrender of Lord Cornwallis he returned to his home and devoted his attention to the occupation of farming. Among his children was Caleb Eastman, father of Hosea B. Eastman.


The last named spent his youthful days upon a New England farm and attended the public schools of the neighborhood, but the opportunities of the west attracted him when he was a young man and in 1862, he crossed the continent, taking up his abode in Idaho, although the territory was not yet created. The following year, however, Idaho came into existence and at that time embraced the greater part of the states of Montana and Wyoming. It was on the 21st of October, 1862, that Mr. Eastman, ac- companied by his brother, Benjamin Manson, sailed from New York city and at Aspin- wall they started across the Isthmus of Panama and thence made their way up the Pacific coast to California. For a brief period they were connected with ranching in that state and in 1862, with a thirty mule pack train, started for Canyon City, Oregon. A few months later Hosea B. Eastman was at Silver City, Idaho, where he gave his attention to mining for a number of years, mining and milling some of the first gold quartz ever sold in the state. The journey to Idaho had been made with a company of adventurous miners, who traveled on snowshoes from Canyon City, Oregon, to Auburn. While en route they lost their way and for several days Mr. Eastman had no food save bacon rinds that had been retained to rub on the bottoms of the snow- shoes to keep them free from packed snow. At Silver City the brothers, H. B. and


HOSEA B. EASTMAN


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B. M. Eastman, owned and conducted the old Idaho Hotel for a number of years and on disposing of that property came to Boise, where they purchased the old-time Over- land Hotel, long one of the best known hostelries of the west.


Before coming to Boise, however, Mr. Eastman had taken part in various fights with the Indians and on one occasion, at the time of the South. Mountain fight, he was wounded. He felt that the bullet should be removed, but there was no one to undertake this task. He insisted that a hospital steward, who knew nothing of surgery, should do it. The man at first refused, but Mr. Eastman insisted, placed himself on a small table and without any anaesthetic permitted the crude probing by means of which the bullet was finally extracted. He and four companions had stood out against a band of more than three hundred Indians. It was in such ways that the courage and valor of Mr. Eastman and other heroic pioneers was continually manifest.


Removing to Boise, Mr. Eastman became a prominent factor in the development and upbuilding of the city, with which he has been connected in many ways and through many years. He took up his abode in the city when it was a small and inconsequential village. He aided its advancement in every possible way and as the years passed be- came a dominant figure in its business circles, connected with many commercial and financial enterprises which have had to do with the upbuilding of the capital and the establishment of its high civic standards. He became the president of the Pacific Na- tional Bank of Boise and was also one of the organizers of the Boise City National Bank. When the old Overland Hotel, which was long a popular hostelry under the management of Mr. Eastman, was torn down heerected upon that site the Overland office building, one of the fine structures of the city, and remained president of the company owning the building for an extended period. He was the general manager of the Boise Artesian Hot and Cold Water Company and installed the first water system in the old Overland Hotel. It was this company that also built the great Natatorium on Warm Springs avenue in Boise. He became a prominent factor in the ownership and conduct of an extensive hardware business conducted under the name of the Eastman & Teller Hardware Company, of which he was vice president and a mem- ber of the board of directors until the business was sold on the 1st of August, 1912.


While a resident of Silver City, Mr. Eastman was married in 1872 to Miss Mary Ann, Blackinger, who shared with him in all of the privations and hardships incident to the struggles of the early days and also lived to enjoy the fruits of their later pros- perity. To them were born two sons. Frank M., who was born May 30, 1878, attended the Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, and afterward completed the full literary course in Yale University, where he won the Bachelor's degree. He passed away May 5, 1912. The younger son, Ben Sherman Eastman, was born in Boise and, like his brother, attended the Phillips Academy at Andover, while later he entered Yale and completed the scientific course in that institution, being graduated as a member of the class of 1902, on which occasion the Bachelor of Philosophy degree was bestowed upon him.


Such in brief is the life history of Hosea B. Eastman, a man whom to know is to esteem and honor. For much more than half a century he has resIded in Boise and there is no phase of development and progress in the northwest with which he is not thoroughly familiar. At all times he has borne his share in the work of development and improvement and has met the changing conditions, ready for any emergency and for any opportunity. There are no esoteric phases in his entire career, nothing sinister and nothing to conceal. He has been straightforward in all of his business relations, has stood loyally by his honest convictions and in the development of his business affairs has employed constructive methods that have made his efforts a feature in the upbuilding and progress of the community as well as a factor in the promotion of his own fortunes.


GUY Q. SUNDBERG.


Guy Q. Sundberg, now a deputy examiner in the state department of finance, to which he was appointed on March 1, 1920, by Commissioner C. B. Walker, was formerly deputy county clerk, recorder and auditor of Madison county and makes his home at Rexburg. He was born at Pleasant Grove, Utah, March 13, 1894, bis parents being An- drew F. and Hannah M. (Broberg) Sundberg, who were natives of Sweden. They came to America with their respective parents in childhood, crossing the Atlantic about 1865.


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The Sundberg family settled first in Chicago, where they lived for a number of years. The father was a carpenter by trade and followed that business in Chicago in the em- ploy of the McCormick Company for a considerable period. He afterward went to Utah and settled at Pleasant Grove after a short residence in Salt Lake. He pur- chased property at Pleasant Grove, where he has since worl ed at his trade, thus being actively identified with building operations in that locality. His wife is also living.


Guy Q. Sundberg was reared and educated in Pleasant Grove, Utah, where he attended high school, and later he became a student in Ricks Academy at Rexburg, Idaho. He then took up bookkeeping and clerical work and for six months was con- nected with the railway mail service. After finishing his education he remained in Rexburg and on the 18th of September, 1917, he joined the United States army. On the 6th of July, 1918, he was sent to France, whence he returned on the 28th of April, 1919. His service was of a most active character, for he was in the St. Mihiel, Ypres- Lys and Argonne offensives, but while he had several narrow escapes he was never injured, although on one occasion his field glasses were smashed by a piece of shell. The glasses were hanging against his stomach, showing how narrow was his escape. Twice the pack on his back was pierced by enemy bullets, so that he had several close calls. He was cited for cool and courageous conduct under heavy shell fire. At the beginning of his service he was made mess sergeant, later became platoon sergeant, subsequently first sergeant, and during the last three months of his military experi- ence was battalion sergeant major. He was mustered out May 13, 1919, at Camp Lewis, Washington. He then returned to Rexburg and on the 15th of May was appointed deputy county clerk, recorder and auditor.


On the 21st of June, 1917, Mr. Sundberg was married to Miss Wanda Ovard and one child was born to them just before Mr. Sundberg' sailed for France-Guy W., whose birth occurred May 15, 1918. He was the first child born in Madison county whose father was a soldier in the World war.


In religious faith Mr. Sundberg is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His political endorsement is given the republican party. He is a progressive and energetic young man, alert and enterprising, and in civic office is making 'the same excellent record which distinguished him as a soldier in some of the fiercest struggles of the great World war.


HON. WILLIAM McKENDREE MORGAN.


Hon. William McKendree Morgan, who in January, 1919, became chief justice of the supreme court of the state of Idaho, was born in Adams county, Illinois, December 2, 1869, a son of John Milton and Mary (Gooding) Morgan. The father, a farmer by occupation, is now living retired in Los Angeles, California, at the age of eighty-two years. He was born in Kentucky, June 15, 1837, and is a veteran of the Civil war. His wife was born at Warsaw, Illinois, May 12, 1840, and their marriage was cele- brated on the 22d of August, 1862. Mrs. Morgan's ancestors had also been residents of Kentucky, so that in hoth the paternal and maternal lines the Judge is descended from old families of that state. His mother passed away in 1907, survived by her husband, a daughter and two sons. The daughter, Belle, is now the wife of Jobn Russell; of Van Nuys, California. The sons, William M. and Albert L., have both become members of the bar, the latter practicing at Moscow, Idaho. He is five years the junior of Judge Morgan, who is a stalwart democrat, while the younger brother is equally strong in his advocacy of republican principles. The brothers were law part- ners until January 1, 1915, when the older brother was elected to the supreme bench. But although closely associated in their professional and social interests. they held to extremely opposite political views and during campaigns each worked earnestly to support the principles in which he had avowed his belief, making many campaign addresses throughout the state.


When Judge Morgan was but nine months old his parents, in 1870, removed to Crawford county, Kansas, locating on a farm near the present site of Pittsburg, that state, although the city had not then come into existence. In 1881 the family removed to Bourbon county, Kansas, and the Judge spent his early life upon Kansas farms. His preliminary education was acquired in the country schools and later he attended the Kansas Normal College at Fort Scott. In 1890, when twenty years of age, he'set out to win a fortune in the far west. Making his way to Idaho, be located at Moscow


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and secured employment on ranches in that vicinity. During the winter of 1890-91 he took up the study of law and on the 9th of October, 1894, was admitted to the bar. In the meantime he had been called to the office of deputy sheriff of Latah county, serving in that position from the 1st of January, 1893, until 1895, when he began practice and has since given his attention to his legal work. At various times, how- ever, he has been called upon for important public service. He was from 1897 until 1899 a member of the Idaho legislature and in 1906 was elected mayor of Moscow for a two years' term. In 1911 he was again called upon for legislative work and as a democrat was the minority leader in the house until 1913. In 1897 he was appointed private secretary to Henry Heitfeld, United States senator, and continued in that posi- tion for five years or until 1902, spending most of the period in Washington, D. C. While thus engaged he pursued a course in the law department of Georgetown Univer- sity of the District of Columbia and in 1899 the degree of Master of Laws was con- ferred upon him. That he has won prominence and distinguished honors at the bar is indicated in the fact that in 1914 he was elected a justice of the Idaho supreme court and by natural rotation hecame chief justice on the 1st of January, 1919. He is a member of the American Bar Association and is recognized as one of the eminent attorneys and jurists of the northwest.


On the 22d of July, 1895, Judge Morgan was married to Miss Emma May Fried- line, then a resident of Moscow, Idaho, and they have two daughters, Pearl and Grace. The former is a senior in the Idaho State University, while the latter is attending high school. The second child of the family was a son, Arthur Percival, who died at the age of seventeen months.


Fraterually Judge Morgan is connected with Moscow Lodge, No. 249, B. P. O. E., of which he is a past exalted ruler, and he likewise belongs to the Woodmen of the World. Such interests, however, have always been subsidiary to his law practice and his important public service. He wears his honors with becoming modesty, but his position is established by the consensus of public opinion, which accords him high rank as a representative of the Idaho hench and bar.


MISS BERTHA L. ATKIN.


Miss Bertha L. Atkin, of Pocatello, superintendent of schools, was born in Pe- toskey, Michigan, in 1884. Her parents, who were natives of the state of New York, have both passed away. Their family numbered thirteen children, ten of whom are yet living: Edith I., now a teacher of mathematics in the Normal University of Normal, Illinois; Albert S .; Ina E .; Louis H .; Bertha L .; Charles W .; Mabel G., deceased; Leon R .; Walter K .; Arthur William; and Marjorie E.


Miss Atkin of this review pursued her early education in the public schools of her native city and passed through consecutive grades to her graduation from the high school. She then taught in the country schools for two years, after which she became a pupil in the normal school at Ypsilanti, Michigan, and then devoted three years to teaching in Petoskey. Hearing of the greater possibilities of the west and especially of Idaho, she came to this state in order to fulfill her ambition and desire for greater things. She arrived in Pocatello in 1909 and immediately began teaching in the graded schools of this city. At the expiration of five years, or in 1914, she was elected to the office of district superintendent of schools of the state of Idaho. Upon election she filled out the unexpired term of her predecessor and was returned to office in 1916. She had as an assistant Miss Della Cooper, who has heen a teacher in Bannock and Oneida counties and is a graduate of the Agricultural College of Utah at Logan. She is a representative of one of the old and distinguished families of Idaho, her father having been for two terms sheriff of Bannock county and a well known pioneer settler.




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