History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume III, Part 60

Author: Hawley, James Henry, 1847-1929, ed
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 926

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to promote the efficiency of his plant and give to the public a service that will result in the continuous growth of bis patronage.

Mr. Mckay belongs to the Loyal Order of Moose and is also a member of the Emmett Commercial Club. He is fond of hunting and when leisure permits turns to the chase for recreation and pleasure.

BURT CAMP.

The business interests of Boise are of varied nature, each legitimate and successful enterprise contributing to the upbuilding and development of the city. Burt Camp, whose name introduces this review, is sole proprietor of the Boise Broom Factory at No. 413 Thatcher street and is thus controlling one of the valuable productive interests of the capital. He was born upon a farm in Jasper county, Iowa, June 7, 1873, and is a son of Clarence D. and Permelia (Warner) Camp, both of whom are now living in San Diego, California.

Their son Burt was but an infant when the parents left Iowa and removed to Geneva, Nebraska, where be continued to make his home for thirty-one years. During that time he was married on the 26th of June, 1893, to Miss Martha Alice Epley, who was born at Batavia, Iowa, August 30, 1875, a daughter of George W. Epley, a veteran of the Union army of the Civil war, now residing at the Boise Soldiers Home. Her mother bore the maiden name of Julia Ann McIntyre and passed away in 1914. The father has reached the age of seventy-six years.

Mr. Camp of this review began learning the broom making business in 1888 and spent three years in learning the trade. He then purchased a broom factory at Geneva,. Nebraska, and has since conducted business on his own account, operating his factory at Geneva for sixteen years, after which he went to Paonia, Colorado, where he spent four years in the same business and in 1907 came to Boise, where he has since owned a broom making plant. For thirty-two years he has been a broom manufacturer and he has the only factory of the kind in Idaho. It is a well equipped establishment, supplied with good machinery, and the thorough workmanship of the place results in turning out an excellent product.

Mr. and Mrs. Camp have become the parents of two children, Harold and Hazel. The former is married and is employed in the First National Bank of Boise. The parents and their two children are all members of the Methodist church and Mr. Camp is likewise identified with the Modern Woodmen and the Royal Neighbors, Mrs. Camp being also a member of the latter and likewise of the Woman's Relief Corps. Their activities have to do with those things which touch the general interests of society and work for public welfare, and in Boise, where they have now made their home for a number of years, they have gained many warm friends.

CHARLES B. LITTLE.

For many years Charles B. Little has been connected with important business in- terests in Boise, of which city he has been a resident for thirty years, or since 1889. His field of labor has been in the contracting and building line and for fifteen years he has been superintendent of construction of the Boise public schools, thus doing very im- portant work in the development of the city and particularly in improving school facilities. He removed to Boise from Pueblo, Colorado.

Mr. Little was born in Sparta, Illinois, August 29, 1866, the youngest of five children, three sons and two daughters, in the family of Robert B. and Emily (Taylor) Little. The father met a tragic death, being murdered and robbed by a highwayman at Sparta, Illinois, September 27, 1877, when our subject was but eleven years old. The criminal who committed this capital offense was never captured. Mrs. Little died many years later in Salina, Kansas, in 1900. Robert B. Little was a native of South Carolina, while his wife was born in Tennessee. He was reared in Princeton, Indiana, and in 1855, at Sparta, Illinois, wedded Emily Taylor. Of their five children four are living, there being two sisters, Mrs. J. F. Miller and Mrs. R. D. Addison, who are residents of Boise, while the only brother of our subject is J. Frank Little, who makes his home in Los Angeles, California.

CHARLES B. LITTLE

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Charles B. Little was reared in Sparta, Illinois, and there went to school. Having completed his primary education, he early had to take up life's arduous duties, entering upon planing mill work at the age of fourteen in Sparta. At the age of sixteen years he went to Salina, Kansas, and in that city and vicinity spent three years. He learned the carpenter's trade there and also became quite proficient as a millwright. All told he was for nearly four years in Kansas, at the end of which period he proceeded west- ward to Pueblo, Colorado, where for three and a half years he was quite successful as a contractor and builder. Perceiving the opportunities presented in the young city of Boise, he came here in 1890 and has since remained. For more than twenty years he was one of the leading builders and contractors, his work being represented by a num- ber of the foremost buildings of the city. He was superintendent of construction of the Idaho building and was the contractor who completed both the Federal building and the Empire building after the original contractors had foregone their contract. Among other prominent structures he built the First Presbyterian church, St. Michael's cathedral, the Congregational church, St. Luke's Hospital, St. Margaret's school. the Boise City National Bank building and over one hundred residences. He also built eight of the Boise public school buildings, including the wings to the high school, and also the Falk building and the Mode building. For fifteen years he has been super- intendent of construction of the Boise public schools and has discharged his official duties in this connection with great foresight and ability, his vast experience thoroughly fitting him for this position. Conscientious in the discharge of his duties, he has par- ticularly seen to it that all the school buildings have been properly and substantially constructed and, moreover, that they represent a commensurate return for the money expended. In that way the work of Mr. Little has been of immense value to the city. He has prospered since he came here and now owns much valuable property in Boise, all of which is rented. He has a handsome home on the north side, a double brick apartment at Nos. 1014-16 North Eighth street, which he built in 1907.

On September 30, 1896, Mr. Little was married in Boise to Miss Lauretta Morse, a native of this city, where she was reared, her father, Charles W. Morse, having come here in 1863 during the pioneer epoch. Here he remained for the rest of his life, being numbered among the honored residents of Boise. His native state was Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Little have three children, Delbert, Errol and Edna, aged respectively twenty-two, twenty and seventeen years. Delbert Little is assistant observer in the United States weather bureau at Portland, Errol is a student in the Y. M. C. A. automobile school in Portland, and Edna is now attending the Boise high school.

The family are highly respected and both Mr. and Mrs. Little have many friends in the capital city, all of whom speak of them in terms of high regard. He is a member of the First Presbyterian church, to the work of which he is sincerely devoted, and he belongs to the Boise Chamber of Commerce, taking an active interest in its projects for the development and upbuilding of the city and state. He finds recreation in motor- ing and trout fishing. The career of Mr. Little has been honorable in every respect and is particularly worthy of emulation as he has made his way in the world independently and without help ever since he was a boy of fourteen years.

EMIL AUGUST STUNZ.

Emil August Stunz is a farmer residing on the Boise bench, where he has lived since 1916, previous to which time he had carried on agricultural pursuits for a con- siderable period in Long valley. He is a native of Germany, born March 12, 1866. His mother died when he was a little child and subsequently his father married the mother of the lady who is now the wife of Emil A. Stunz, who was then a lad of thirteen years, while his future wife was a little maiden of eleven summers. When Mr. Stunz was sixteen years of age he left Germany for America, crossing the Atlantic in 1882. He landed at New York on the 11th of August and afterward spent a few months in New Jersey. He also resided for a few months on an orange ranch in Florida and for three and a half years made his home in Labette county, Kansas, where he engaged In farm work. He had learned the shoemaker's trade in Germany, but since coming to the new world has always followed agricultural pursuits.

From Kansas Mr. Stunz returned to New Jersey and in 1888 went from that state to Philadelphia, where' he enlisted in the United States army, spending two years and five months in military duty connected with the cavalry. For a year or more he was

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at Jefferson barracks, St. Louis, and later was transferred to the Hospital Corps, while in 1890 he was sent to Boise barracks as a representative of the Hospital Corps. Later, while with that branch of the service, he was sent to the Pine Ridge agency of South Dakota, where General Nelson A. Miles had his headquarters just after the battle of Wounded Knee, in which the American forces met the Sioux Indians. This occurred in 1890 or in 1891. Mr. Stunz was sent to the agency to assist in caring for the wounded and spent a portion of one winter there. He was then returned to the Boise barracks and upon application was granted a discharge from the army in 1891.

Immediately afterward he took up his abode in Long valley, Idaho, becoming one of the pioneer homesteaders of that district. He continued to engage in ranching there until 1916, in which year he removed to the Boise bench just south of Boise, becoming the owner and occupant of a splendidly improved farm of thirty-two acres of fine land, for which he paid ten thousand, five hundred dollars. He still, however, owns large ranch interests in Long valley, having over five hundred acres there. He removed to the Boise bench for the purpose of being near the city in order that he might give his children the advantages of training in the Boise high school.

It was on the 1st of June. 1892, that Mr. Stunz was married in Boise to the lady previously mentioned, Miss Johanna Wagner, and with whom he had been reared through several years of his boyhood, after the marriage of his father and her mother. In the interval from the time when Mr. Stunz came to the new world, he had kept up a correspondence with this lady, who in May, 1892, left Germany to join him in Long valley, Idaho, and become his bride. Neither has ever returned to Germany since crossing the Atlantic. They now have seven living children. Bertha is the wife of W. W. Russell, of Long valley. Gretchen is a graduate of the Albion State Normal School and is now teaching. Emil August, Jr., twenty years of age, has just graduated from the Boise high school. Agnes is also a high school graduate of 1919 and is now preparing for teaching. Rudolph, aged sixteen, and Minnie, fourteen, are pupils in the high school. Adam, eleven years of age, is attending the Garfield school. One son, Carl, and a daughter, Anna, have departed this life.

In politics Mr. Stunz has maintained an independent course. He has never been a candidate for office and has voted according to the dictates of his judgment. He is a firm believer in education and is giving to his children excellent advantages in that direction. He has never regretted the fact that he cast in his lot with the Americans. He is a believer in the principles and institutions of his adopted country and stands for progressiveness, giving his aid and influence to many projects for the public good. His business affairs have been carefully managed, and enterprise and industry have brought him the prosperity which is now his.

DAVID K. McCONNEL.

As the tide of emigration steadily flowed westward David K. McConnel was for many years identified with the pioneer development of the great region west of the Mississippi. He came to Idaho in 1862 from Iowa and had for a number of years before been connected with that state when it was a frontier region, living in Van Buren and Wayne counties of Iowa from 1849, in which year he journeyed westward in a covered wagon from Ohio. He was born in Guernsey county of the latter state on the 12th of August, 1838, and has therefore passed the eighty-first milestone on life's journey. He was one of a family of eleven sons and one daughter, being the second in order of birth. The parents were William and Nancy (Graham) McConnel, who were also natives of Ohio and in 1849 removed with their family to Iowa.

David K. McConnel was reared upon the home farm and the little temple of learning in which he pursued his education was a log schoolhouse in his native county. He also attended a country school of Iowa. While the father was a farmer, he was also a natural mechanic and handy with tools, and in his youth the son learned the carpenter's trade under the father's direction. He, too, however turned his attention to farming and cattle raising and to those occupations has devoted practically all his life, especially since coming to Idaho. A defect in one ankle rendered it impossible for him to serve during the Civil war and in 1862 he came to the northwest with a wagon train of seventy-two wagons, his own wagon being drawn by oxen. The entire train crossed what is now the state of Idaho and went on to Oregon, disbanding near

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the present site of Baker City. While en route they passed down the Boise valley on the south side of the Boise river, but the capital city had not yet been founded and even the fort was not built until 1863. There were no towns, no houses, no irrigation ditches, no vegetation but sagebrush-nothing to indicate that here would be founded and developed a beautiful metropolitan center, with its trade interests reaching out to a broad territory and supplying every advantage for educational, cultural, social and moral progress. The wagon train forded the Boise river near where the town of Eagle now stands. The river was high and a man by the name of Curtis was drowned. Mr. McConnel first settled, in 1865, near the mouth of Haw creek, where it empties into the Payette river. He took a squatter's right there but did not prove up on the property. In 1881 he took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres near the mouth of the Boise river, on an island between the two streams, and this island became known as McConnel's Island, which name it yet bears. The main irrigation on the island was called McConnel Ditch and is still known as such. Mr. McConnel purchased adjoining lands on the island until he had over five hundred acres and upon the ranch he made his home for twenty-five years, raising there thousands of head of cattle. About fifteen years ago he sold his property there and two years later he and his wife took up their abode in a comfortable home on the Boise Bench, near the Whitney school. Mr. McConnel is now farming ten acres of highly valuable land devoted to fruit and truck raising.

It was in 1871 that Mr. McConnel was married in Iowa, to which state he returned on business. The lady whom he wedded was Mary Maria Rogers, who was boru in Illinois, April 21, 1846. They are now a venerable couple, aged respectively eighty- one and seventy-four years, and they have traveled life's journey happily together for forty-eight years. Their family numbers five living children, two sons and three daughters. Fred H., the eldest, born in 1875, is a civil engineer residing at Caldwell, Idaho. He is married and has one child, Roger Harmon McConnel, ten years of age. Mervin Gill, the second of the family, born in 1882 and living at Caldwell, is married and has one child, Maurine Genevieve. Mervin G. McConnel, joining the United States army during the World war, was sent to France in April, 1918, and there served with the rank of first lieutenant. Cora J. is the wife of John L. Isenberg, of Caldwell, and the mother of two children: Mrs. Fredda Hathaway, the wife of Del Hathaway, of Caldwell; and Carl Isenberg. The second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David K. Mc- Connel is Mrs. Emma J. Watkins, the wife of J. L. Watkins, of Parma, Idaho, by whom she has six children; Merle, Grace, Roscoe, Everett, Reed and Mary. The third daughter, Margaret B. McConnel, is at home.

From pioneer times to the present Mr. McConnel has been a witness of the growth and development of Idaho, having made his home within its borders for about fifty-eight years. There is no phase of its development with which he is not familiar. He has seen the state when it was a wild reglon of mountain fastnesses, of desert lands and of uncultivated valleys. He has lived to witness remarkable changes as the years have passed and he has borne his full share in relation to Its agricultural development and progress.

JAMES B. BELL.

James B. Bell, residing on a good ranch of one hundred and sixty-six acres nine miles southwest of Emmett, was born on a farm in Mills county, Iowa, September 21. 1867, being a son of James B. and Martha (Wills) Bell. The father was born in Belmont county, Ohio, and served as a lieutenant in the Union army during the Civil war, as did his father, whose name was John H. Bell, and five other sons of the latter were likewise soldiers of the Union army. The six sons of John H. Bell who were numbered among the "boys in blue" were Leander, William H., Henry, Samuel, James B., and John H., Jr., and the record is one seldom equalled-father and six sons serving in the same war. The death of James B. Bell occurred in Iowa when his son and namesake, James B., Jr., the subject of this review, was but two years of age. After her first husband had passed away Mrs. Bell became the wife of W. W. Western, who was an Englishman by birth and who proved not at all the typical stepfather. He was kind and devoted to James B. Bell, who was his only stepchild. Mr. Western had one child by another marriage, Alice Western, Both he and the mother of Mr. Bell of this review have passed away.

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The early life of James B. Bell was spent in Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska, but during the greater part of his youth he resided on a farm near Lincoln, Nebraska. He took up railroad work when eighteen years of age, becoming a locomotive fire- man, and for twenty-one years he was active in railroad service, spending four years as a fireman and seventeen years as a locomotive engineer, acting as passenger engineer through six years of that period. While working in the railroad employ he had his headquarters at Sheridan, Wyoming, from 1892 until 1900 and from 1900 to 1904 at Pocatello, Idaho. From the latter place he removed to Glenns Ferry, Idaho, where he remained until 1907, and from 1908 until 1911 he resided on a ranch near Caldwell which he had previously purchased. From 1911 until 1913 he was em- ployed as locomotive engineer on the Denver & Rio Grande and made his head- quarters at Salt Lake City. In 1914 he purchased and removed to his present ranch property of one hundred and sixty-six acres situated nine miles southwest of Emmett. It is mainly devoted to the raising of live stock and alfalfa. It lies near the slope and in fact a portion of it is on the slope and would be fine orchard land. He now has a ten-acre orchard of bearing peach trees.

At Lincoln, Nebraska, December 1, 1886, Mr. Bell was married to Miss Lillian S. Ward, who was born near Greenwood, Nebraska, March 1, 1870. They have become the parents of five living children: Ethel, now the wife of R. H. Simmons, of Vale, Oregon; Margaret, the wife of Harold McCrosson, living near Emmett; James B., nineteen years of age, at home; Gwendolyn, aged fourteen; and Ruth Louise, aged eight.

Mr. Bell is a Mason and exemplifies in his life the beneficent spirit of the craft. He also belongs to the Order of Locomotive Engineers. In politics he maintains an independent attitude and has never held office save that of member of the school board. He turns for recreation to the shooting of ducks and pheasants and displays much skill in this particular. The major part of his time and attention, however, is concentrated upon the further development and improvement of his ranch, which he has already made a valuable property, equipped with many of the accessories of the model farm of the twentieth century.

WILLIAM H. BURNS.

William H. Burns, one of the leading ranchers of Gem county, living eight miles west of Emmett, has a tract of one hundred and thirty acres constituting a well improved farm property. Upon the place is a substantial cement block house of eight rooms, which was erected by Mr. Burns in 1908. He and his family have resided upon this ranch since 1899, when Mr. Burns secured the tract as a homestead.

A native of Missouri, Mr. Burns has lived in Idaho since 1892 and throughout the entire period has remained in the Payette valley, his present ranch property being located in that section of Gem county known as Bramwell, being so named hy the first settlers of the vicinity, who were Mormons.

Mr. Burns was born near Savannah, Missouri, October 14, 1872, and is a son' of Owen and Ann (Biglin) Burns, hoth of whom have passed away. The former was born in Ireland and the latter in Burlington, Vermont, in 1831, her death occurring in 1916, when she had reached the age of eighty-five years. When a small child she went with her parents to Blackbrook, New York, and at the age of sixteen became the wife of Philip McBreen at Clintonville, New York. Six children were born of that marriage, three of whom survive the mother, Tom and George McBreen and Mrs. Sarah Fountain, all of Colorado. In 1861 Mrs. McBreen was left a widow and in 1868 became the wife of Owen Burns at Central City, Colorado. They had four children, of whom two died in infancy, while both William and Frank reside near Emmett. At the time of her death Mrs. Burns had also twenty-six grandchildren, fourteen great-grandchildren and several great-great-grandchildren. She spent almost her entire life upon the frontier and went through the hardships and privations of pioneer experiences. With her first husband she left New York, traveling by boat to Cleveland, Ohio, which at that time contained not more than a half dozen houses. After a brief period spent at Columbus, Ohio, she left that place before the first railroad was built into the city and by towboat proceeded to Cincinnati and thence by boat on the Ohio river to Wheeling, West Virginia, where she lived for several years. She after- ward returned to New York by way of the Ohio river and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

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by canal boat to the lakes and thence to New York, where they were living at the time of the death of her first husband. With her six small children she again started westward, making her way to the copper mining region on Lake Superior. Several years later she started for Central City, Colorado, and from Omaha to Cheyenne the train was guarded by soldiers. They were delayed a half day by buffaloes crossing the railroad. At Cheyenne she engaged passage on the stage for herself and children to Denver. When the stage reached Cheyenne it bore several scalped men and, frightened by this occurrence, Mrs. Burns decided to remain in Wyoming. She went to Laramie and conducted a boarding house for the men working on the Union Pacific and while there became personally acquainted with Bill Nye and Kit Carson, the latter often bringing her large quantities of buffalo meat. At one time the handcar was sent from Cheyenne to Laramie to take her and the children to safety, the Sioux Indians being on the warpath a mile north of Laramie. While at Cheyenne two of her daughters were married. Mrs. Burns afterward traveled by rail and stage to Central City, Colorado, and after her second marriage accompanied her husband, Owen Burns, to Kansas in 1869. They owned and resided on the section of land where the city of Council Grove now stands. Several years later they traveled by wagon through Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Missouri and Texas, and thence returned to Council Grove. Again leaving Kansas, Mrs. Burns became a resident of Colorado, living at Leadville, Georgetown and Silver Plume for ten years and then removing to Ogden and afterward to Park City, Utah. In 1892 she came to the Payette valley, taking a homestead at Bramwell, where she resided until her death.

William H. Burns was but four years of age when he went with his parents to Colorado and was reared at Silver Plume, which at that time was a mining camp. During three years of his youth he worked at the printer's trade in Leadville, Colorado, and in 1890, when eighteen years of age, he accompanied his mother and brother Frank, his mother being then a widow, to Park City, Utah, and with them came to Idaho in 1892, the mother taking up a homestead in Bramwell adjoining the present ranch of her son William on the west. The original Burns homestead is still in the family, being now owned by Frank Burns, the younger brother of William H. Burns. As the years passed on the latter assisted his mother in the development of her property and eventually began ranching on his own account.

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History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume III, Part 60

Author: Hawley, James Henry, 1847-1929, ed Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 926

Author: Hawley, James Henry, 1847-1929, ed
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 926