History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume II, Part 82

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

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and Dwight. Since that time the father has made his home in California and the mother is also living. While a resident of Idaho Mr. Henry was a most prominent and active factor in the development and upbuilding of this section of the state. He put up the first lawful fence in the country and was one of the original builders of the Anderson canals. He homesteaded and engaged in ranching for nine years prior to his withdrawal from the furniture business and his activities along these various lines constituted an important element in the substantial development of the section in which he made his home.

John W. Henry attended the public schools of Idaho Falls and his business training was received under the direction of his father, for when his textbooks were put aside he entered the store. He has since been very active in the business and not a little of the continued success of the firm is attributable to his efforts. They carry a large line of house furnishings, in fact have the largest stock in their part of the state. John W. Henry erected their present building in 1901. It is a two story and basement structure forty-four by one hundred and twenty-seven feet, and they occupy the entire building besides renting other space for storage. Something of the volume of their trade is indicated in the fact that they now have sixteen employes.

In November, 1904, Mr. Henry was united in marriage to Miss Lottie Ward, and they have become the parents of a son, Darold John, who was born February 12, 1911. Mr. Henry is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen of America. In Masonry he has taken the degrees of the blue lodge, chapter and commandery and he is also a member of the Mystic Shrine. His wife has membership in the Baptist church and they are both highly esteemed people, occupying an enviable position in social circles. In politics Mr. Henry is a democrat but not an office seeker, his attention and energy being concentrated upon his business affairs. He is bending his energies largely to organization, to constructive effort and administrative direction. He possesses tireless energy, keen perception, honesty of purpose and a genius for devising the right thing at the right time, joined to everyday common sense.

GEORGE O. BUHN.

George O. Buhn, who since 1910 has been identified with commercial inter- ests in Boise as owner of a well appointed jewelry store, dates his active con- nection with the jewelry trade from 1900, when he opened a store in Redlands, California. At a later period he was engaged in the same line of business in Washington and thence removed to Idaho, where for almost a decade he has figured as one of the wide-awake and enterprising merchants of the capital city. He was born in Prescott, Wisconsin, October 3, 1880, a son of George O. and Julia M. (Johnston) Buhn, both of whom were natives of Christiania, Norway. They were married, however, in the United States. The father is still living at the age of sixty-seven years-a retired blacksmith who is now visiting his son in Boise, but the mother passed away in 1907. George O. Buhn, Jr., has a brother, Edward H., who is also a jeweler. conducting business at Portland, Oregon. The only sister is Mrs. Cora C. MacMillan, of Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania.

In early boyhood George O. Buhn went from Wisconsin to Illinois and learned the jewelry business in the Bradley Polytechnic Institute of Peoria between the ages of seventeen and twenty years. He served a three years' apprenticeship to the trade and he has never sought to change his occupation, finding in the jewelry business a congenial and profitable pursuit. With his removal to the west he located in Redlands, California, where he established and conducted a store for five years. He afterward spent a similar period in the state of Wash-

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ington. For two years prior to 1910 he was proprietor of a jewelry store in Bellingham. Previous to and also during that period he was the owner of jewelry stores at Sedro Woolley and at Blaine, Washington, conducting all three establishments at the same time. In 1910 he removed from the state of Wash- ington to Idaho, taking up his abode in Boise, where he established his present store, which he has since conducted with profit, carrying a large and attractive line of goods for which he finds a ready sale.

On the 24th of February, 1911, Mr. Buhn was married to Miss Mina M. Clark, of Boise, a cultured and highly educated business woman. She is a native of Burr Oak, Iowa. Mr. Buhn is a Mason of high degree and he and his wife belong to the Order of the Eastern Star. He has become a Knight Templar in the York Rite and a Consistory Mason in the Scottish Rite and is also a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. He is a past master of Oriental Lodge, No. 60, A. F. & A. M .; a past high priest of Boise Chapter, No. 3, R. A. M., and generalissimo of Idaho Commandery, No. 1, K. T. He likewise belongs to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His chief recreation comes from hunting and fishing. In politics he maintains an independent course, voting for the candidate whom he regards as best qualified for office without considering party ties. He has an interesting military record, having formerly belonged to Company G of the Seventh Regiment of the California National Guard, and he is the proud pos- sessor of two sharpshooter medals which were won in rifle contests during his young manhood in California. He belongs to both the Idaho State Jewelers' Association and the National Jewelers' Association.

WARREN A. LINDSEY.

Warren A. Lindsey, lawyer and government land expert whose practice is largely before the United States land office in Boise, is also identified with the commercial interests of the city as proprietor of a paint store at 709 Bannock street. He was born in Centerburg, Knox county, Ohio, July 29, 1846, and is the only living child of the Rev. Ebenezer and Maria (Houk) Lindsey, the former a minister of the Methodist church. The father was born in Richland county, Ohio, and the mother's birth occurred in Knox county of the same state. He was a son of John and Ella Lindsey, the former a native of Scotland, while the latter was born in Denmark. The great-grandfather of Warren A. Lindsey in the paternal line came to America from Scotland at the time of the Revolutionary war and served with the French troops who were giving aid to the colonies. Throughout the in- tervening period down to the present representatives of the family have ever been loyal and devoted citizens of the republic, contributing to the progress and im- provement of the various communities in which they have lived. The Rev. Ebenezer Lindsey spent his entire life in Ohio as a minister of the Methodist faith and did much to further the moral development of the state.

Warren A. Lindsey was reared in Knox, Defiance and Williams counties of Ohio, as the family removed from place to place according to the itinerant custom of the Methodist ministry at that time. His early education was acquired in the public schools and he afterward attended Oberlin College. During the Civil war he served in the quartermaster's department, though but a boy in years, and it was after the close of hostilities that he pursued his college course, covering three years. He cast his first presidential vote for Grant and Colfax at Rome City, Noble county, Indiana, in the year 1868.

It was in 1869 that Mr. Lindsey became proprietor of a drug store at Brim- field, Noble county, Indiana, and he remained in the drug business at Bloomington, Illinois, from 1869 until 1871. In the latter year he established a drug store in Licking county, Ohio, where he remained until 1878. He then made his way west- ward to Kansas, where he lived until 1899, occupying a clerkship in the govern- ment land office at Kirwin, that state, for twenty-one years. He likewise became proprietor of a drug store at Kirwin, which was conducted by his younger brother. In 1899 Mr. Lindsey of this review removed to Boise. He had previously studied law at Kirwin and was admitted to the Kansas bar in 1893. Since establishing his home in Boise he has practiced his profession largely before the United States land

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office and is recognized as an expert in land matters. He makes a specialty of practice of this class and he has been accorded a large clientage of this character. He is likewise proprietor of a paint store at 709 Bannock street and his commercial interests are also proving to him a source of gratifying income.

Mr. Lindsey is married and has three children. In politics he is a republican, having continuously supported the party since age conferred upon him the right of franchise, or for a period of more than a half century. He has throughout his entire life manifested a loyalty and public-spirited devotion to the cause of his country.

V. D. HANNAH.

The thoroughness which has characterized the life work of V. D. Hannah, his comprehensive study of everything bearing upon farming and stock raising, his lauda- ble ambition and his indefatigable energy have brought him to a point not of second- ary prominence but of actual leadership as a farmer and stock raiser in the country. He has been honored with many positions which are tangible evidences of the prom- inence to which he has attained and it is said that he has won more prizes for stock and farm products than any other resident of Idaho. He is still active in the man- agement of important agricultural interests, although he has now passed the seventy- seventh milestone on life's journey. He was born in Ohio county, Indiana, June 15, 1842, and is a son of William and Meribah (Baricklow) Hannah, both of whom were natives of Pennsylvania. When a small boy the father removed to Indiana, where he engaged in farming until his death in 1879. His widow survived him for a decade, passing away in Indiana in 1889.

It was in the common schools of the Hoosier state that V. D. Hannah acquired his. early education, which was supplemented by study in Moores Hill College and two winter courses at the Greencastle Agricultural College, now known as the famous Purdue University, where he specialized in scientific methods of growing corn and raising hogs. These courses, however, were given in the crudest imaginable manner as compared with the advanced work of the agricultural colleges of the present day. When his school training was completed Mr. Hannah took up farming in connection with his father and was thus engaged until 1862, when his patriotic spirit dominated every other interest in his life and he joined the Second Indiana Light Artillery. He carries a Minie ball in his abdomen as a memento of his service at Pea Ridge, where General Curtis with a force of but twelve thousand men defeated Generals Price and Van Dorn, who had a combined strength of twenty-five thousand Conferedate troops. Following the close of the war Mr. Hannah received an honorable discharge on the 7th of July, 1865.

Returning to his home with a most creditable military record, Mr. Hannah re- mained in Indiana until 1869, when he started west on the Central Pacific, which took him as far as Kelton, Utah. From that point to Union, Oregon, he rode and walked alternately until his destination was reached in the month of October. For one year he was employed in a store there, after which he removed to Boise, Idaho, and en- gaged in farming on what is now known as the W. B. Carne fruit ranch, in which he purchased an interest. He raised fruit for two years and then disposed of his in- terest in the business and made investment in ten acres in the Arnold addition to Boise. After selling that property he removed to Mann Creek in Washington county, where he engaged in farming and the raising of registered and graded cattle, horses and hogs. He also raised sheep but they were not of registered stock. Actuated at all times by the most progressive spirit, he brought the first pure bred poultry into the state in 1875. In 1900 he sold his ranch in Washington county, together with ten thousand head of sheep, and purchased his present place, consisting of four hundred acres, considered one of the prize ranches of the Boise valley. Here he has continued his farming and the raising of pure bred stock, including shorthorn cattle, Ram- bouillet sheep, Poland China hogs and several fine varieties of turkeys, geese and chickens. It is like attending a fine stock fair to visit his farm and see the splendid animals and poultry that he has produced. He spent the years 1917 and 1918 in the interests of the state, appraising land which was being offered as security for state loans, and proved himself eminently qualified to fill that position. At different periods Mr. Hannah has been called upon to do important service in connection with agri-

V. D. HANNAH

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cultural and horticultural development in the United States. For two terms he served as president of the Agricultural Society of Ohio and Switzerland counties, Indiana, being the first president elected to succeed himself, for previous to this time each county had been entitled to a president for one term only according to the by-laws and regulations. He was a director of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, a director of the Middle District State Board of Horticulture, a member of the Idaho State Board of Horticulture, commissioner of the World's Columbian Exposition for Idaho and chief of the department of agriculture there for this state, president of the Canyon County Fair Association, chief of the department of agriculture at the Trans- Mississippi Exposition, chief of the department of agriculture and horticulture at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition for Idaho and still other positions which indi- cate the high standing that he has as an agriculturist and horticulturist, his opinions · being accepted as authority throughout the length and breadth of the land on many questions relative to both farming and fruit raising. He has ever held to the highest standards. He has a nature that could never be content with mediocrity nor satisfied with the second best. He has followed the most practical and scientific lines in the cultivation of his fields and the development of his herds and flocks and he has taken more prizes for stock and farm products than any other Idaho resident.

In 1869 Mr. Hannah was united in marriage to Miss Mary Hunter, who was born in Ohio county, Indiana, and was a schoolmate of her future husband. They have become parents of eight children: Lloyd N., forty-six years of age, who is farming with his father; Thomas W., deceased; Meribah, the wife of Charles A. Hall, who is in the employ of the Oregon Short Line at Nampa; Mary E., the wife of D. C. Good- loe, a farmer living east of Caldwell; Henry, thirty-six years of age, who married Jessie Bayless, a native of Illinois, and is living at Wilder; Eugene, aged thirty-four, who married Louvilla Miller, a native of Idaho, and spends most of his time in travel as an expert millwright; Cora B., living at home; and Leland M., twenty-nine years of age, also at home.

Mr. Hannah is a man six feet six inches in height and as straight as a soldier. He has recently erected a modern nine-room residence beside the old house which had done service since he located upon his four hundred acre farm. His present fine resi- dence is so located that it commands a splendid view of the surrounding valley and his own farm, with its excellent improvements, its highly cultivated fields, its well kept orchards and its high grade stock constitutes a scene of beauty for all who have interest in agricultural progress. There is no one in Idaho more conversant with its history than Mr. Hannah. He now has in his possession the muzzle-loading gun carried by the Indian, Big Foot, when he was killed by Wheeler.

H. W. ROBINSON.

H. W. Robinson is numbered among those men whose success in previous years now enables them to live retired. He is thus spending the evening of life in a pleas- ant home in Caldwell, Idaho. He has passed the seventy-second milestone on life's journey but is still alert and enterprising, keeping in touch with the leading ques- tions and issues of the day. For a long period he was identified with farming and was also identified with contract work and irrigation projects. A native of Minne- sota, he was born in Goodhue county about twelve miles from Rochester, September 24, 1847, his parents, William S. and Rebecca (Clark) Robinson, being natives of the state of New York. Both passed away in Minnesota, the former in 1892 and the latter in 1895.

H. W. Robinson was educated in the public schools of his native state and at the age of sixteen years he manifested his patriotism by enlisting December 4, 1863, in Company D, Bracketts Minnesota Battalion, and he remained in the service until May, 1866, when he was mustered out. Later he went upon the road as a com- mercial traveler for C. Aultman, of Canton, Ohio, whom he thus represented for ten years. He then entered the employ of Russell & Company of Massillon, Ohio, manufacturers and distributors of threshing machinery, which Mr. Robinson han- dled for them for a period of eight years. He next entered the employ of the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company, with which he continued for six years, when he became connected with Kingman & Company of Peoria, Illinois, handling farm implements of every kind. He traveled out of Des Moines, Iowa, and covered

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northern Minnesota and North Dakota and a part of Manitoba, Canada. He was in the employ of that company when he came to Idaho in 1897. Pleased with the country, he located on twenty acres of raw sagebrush land on the Roswell bench in Canyon county. This land he at once cleared and brought under a high state of cultivation and later he purchased an additional eighteen and a third acres, which he continued to farm until the fall of 1918, when he sold the property and bought a home in Caldwell at 1802 Dearborn street. Here he has since lived retired from active business life, enjoying a well earned rest. He and his sons, who are capable busi- ness men, did a large amount of contract work on the irrigation projects and thus through the period of his residence in Idaho Mr. Rohinson has been active in the further development and upbuilding of the state.

In 1885 Mr. Robinson was married to Miss Anna Maxfield, a native of Man- kato, Minnesota, and they have become the parents of three 'sons. Willard, thirty- one years of age, was educated in California, where he pursued a course in elec- trical engineering. For a year he was then in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. after which he returned to Idaho and for two years was em- ployed by the Idaho Light & Power Company, following which he took charge of the Gem State irrigation district in the capacity of electrical engineer and superin- tendent and has thus been in business for the past six years. In 1912 he married Rachel Smith, of Minnesota, and they are the parents of a daughter, Marianna. Kinsey, twenty-three years of age, the second son of the family, is local manager at Parma, Idaho, of the Idaho Light & Power Company and is a capable young busi- ness man. J. Reid, twenty-one years of age, is still in school.

When Mr. Robinson first settled on the Roswell bench a short distance across the river from Parma there was no bridge at that place and it was necessary to ford the river although the water frequently ran into the wagon bed. The country was wild and undeveloped and it was generally believed that the section never would amount to anything but today it is one of the garden spots of Idaho. There was no depot, it being just a flag station. With the work of development and im- provement Mr. Robinson was closely associated and has contributed to the remark- able results which have been achieved in the reclamation of the district. He and his wife, a lady of pleasing manner and refinement, are held in high esteem and their home is the abode of warm-hearted hospitality which is greatly enjoyed by their many friends. The life experiences of Mr. Robinson are varied, as he has traveled oyer the country in the interests of various commercial concerns and he is a man possessed of that broad and liberal culture which travel brings.

JAMES L. DENMAN.

James L. Denman is the manager of the Ada Realty Company of Boise, where he has made his home since 1912. He still remains active in business, although he has passed the seventy-third milestone on life's journey, his birth having oc- curred in Newark, New Jersey, February 6, 1846. The Denman family has long been established in America. They come of good English stock and were possessors of a coat of arms. The branch that was planted on American soil in colonial days, however, espoused the cause of liberty at the time of the Revolutionary war, being represented by active service with the American troops.

James L. Denman is the only living child of Jacob S. and Salina (Lion) Den- man, both of whom have passed away. He was reared upon a farm in Minnesota, the family having removed to that state in 1852, when he was a little lad of but six summers. Following the outbreak of the Civil war he joined the Union army as a private of a Minnesota regiment and valiantly defended the interests of the federal government on the battlefields of the south. When the country no longer needed his military aid he turned his attention to merchandising and for twenty-eight years was upon the road as a traveling salesman, and for ten years was a merchant in the Black Hills of South Dakota. With his arrival in Boise in 1912 he became interested in the real estate business and for three years was associated with Edward Stein. In May, 1918, he and his son-in-law, George A. Jones, purchased the Ada Realty Company, of which Mr. Denman has since been the manager, with Mr. Jones as the secretary.

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The company has promoted and controlled large real estate interests and activities in Boise, resulting in the attainment of gratifying success.

Mr. Denman was married in Minnesota, July 16, 1872, to Miss Emma A. Phelps, who passed away in Boise, May 2, 1917, after forty-five years of happy wedded life. Mr. Denman has but one living child, Charlotte Lozier, now the wife of George A. Jones, and their marriage, celebrated in 1908, was blessed with one child, Georgene Denman Jones, born December 31, 1910.

Mr. Denman is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and maintains pleasant relations with his old military comrades through connection with the Grand Army of the Republic. For six years, while in South Dakota, he was quar- termaster in the Battle Mountain Sanitarium, N. H. D. V. S., with the rank of captain and he has long been deeply interested in anything that concerns the welfare of the "boys in blue." In matters of citizenship he has always been as true and loyal to his country as when he followed the nation's starry banner on the battlefields of the south. His religious faith is indicated by his membership in the First Methodist Episcopal church.

HARRY L. FISHER.

Harry L. Fisher, member of the Boise har since 1907 and a recognized leader in republican ranks in Ada county, was born January 20, 1873, on a farm in Daviess county, Missouri, a son of John and Mary (King) Fisher, who were natives of Ohio and of Pennsylvania respectively. The paternal grandfather, Daniel Fisher, was a soldier of the Union army in the Civil war, going to the front with an Ohio regiment, and the maternal grandfather, Samuel King, who was of Scotch-Irish descent, joined the "boys in blue" of a Pennsylvania regiment. Following the close of the war the latter removed with his family to Missouri, his daughter Mary being then in girlhood. John Fisher spent the period of his minority in the Buck- eye state, where he represented one of the old pioneer families, and soon after the close of the Civil war he became a resident of Missouri, where he followed farm- ing for many years, residing in Daviess county. In 1898 he removed to Idaho, settling on an improved ranch about four miles distant from Boise, and there his wife passed away in 1904. John Fisher is still living at the age of seventy years.

The youthful experiences of Harry L. Fisher to the age of eighteen years were those of the farm-bred boy, his time being passed on the old homestead in Mis- souri. He attended the public schools and afterward entered the Kidder Institute of Kidder, Missouri. In early manhood he took up the profession of teaching, which he followed first in his native state and afterward in Ada county, Idaho, subsequent to his removal to this state in 1891. For a time he worked in the mines at Idaho City, but his inclination was toward a professional career and with this end in view he entered the Leland Stanford University of California, where he pursued a thorough course in law. He was admitted to the Idaho bar in 1896, upon examination before the supreme court, and in the spring of 1898 he entered upon the active work of his profession in Idaho City. Advancement in the law is proverbially slow and yet Mr. Fisher made steady progress, proving his ability in the capable manner in which he prepared and conducted his cases. For two terms he served as prosecuting attorney of Boise county, being elected first in 1902 and again in 1904. In this connection a local paper said: "Mr. Fisher's work as pros- ecuting attorney has heen most thorough and satisfactory. He has made it a practice to attend personally all prosecutions and examinations in the justices' courts, and as a result there has not been one case dismissed because of irregular- ities and informalities in the papers, the while every case prosecuted has resulted in a conviction, with one exception. Again, the fines imposed in these courts dur- ing Mr. Fisher's term have been sufficient to pay all expenses incurred in them, while heretofore they have been a source of great expense to the county. The' costs in the St. Cyr murder case were necessarily heavy, because of the distance traveled by the witnesses, but were materially reduced because of the fact that the county attorney went in person to interview the witnesses, thereby saving the ex- pense of calling many whose testimony would have been immaterial. The St. Cyr murder trial was one of the most interesting and exciting ever tried in the county. There was but one eye-witness to the murder, and soon after the tragedy an effort

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History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume II, Part 82

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

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