USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume III > Part 76
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IRA L. AIKEN.
Ira L. Aiken, engaged in farming near Meridian, was born in Burt county, Nebraska, February 14, 1869, a son of William and Clarissa (Lucas) Aiken. The father, a native of Ohio, born May 4, 1840, removed to Illinois with his parents when hut a young lad and there his stepfather engaged in farming until his death in 1867. The family home was later established in Nebraska and once more attention was concentrated upon the work of tilling the soil. In 1877 William Aiken made his way to the northwest, going to Washington and settling near the present site of Clarkston. There he homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of wild land, which he cleared and improved, residing thereon until 1882, when he sold that property and came to Idaho, settling in Ada county. Here he took up a timber culture claim of one hundred and sixty acres, and the farm upon which his son Ira now resides, seven miles northwest of Meridian, is eighty acres of the original tract. William Aiken sold the other eighty acres and is now living retired at Boise, where his wife passed away in 1907. As the family traveled westward across the plains they had no actual encounters with the Indians but manifested the utmost diligence in order to avoid the red men and thus escape their murderous intent.
Ira L. Aiken was but eight years of age when his parents left Nehraska and went to Washington. He was reared upon his father's farm and acquired a public school education. When he was twenty years of age he began farming on his own account as a renter on the Boise river, but after two years he took up his abode where he now resides and has since concentrated his efforts and attention upon the further cultivation and development of this place. He follows general farming, producing such crops as are best adapted to soil and climate, also raises some stock and until a recent date was quite extensively engaged in stock raising, and at the same time he carries on dairying in a limited way.
On the 1st of January, 1896, Mr. Aiken was married to Miss Ada Rambo, a native of Iowa and a daughter of James and Florilla (Taylor) Rambo. The mother is now deceased, while the father lives in Alaska. Mr. and Mrs. Aiken have four children: Lelia M., who is the wife of Clarence Walt, farming near her father's place, and by whom she has two children; Vernon, who is the second of the family and is now attending school at the age of fifteen years; and Laura M. and Arlie A., also under the parental roof.
Almost forty years have come and gone since the Aiken family arrived in Idaho and through this period Ira L. Aiken has not only been an interested witness of the changes which have occurred but has born his part in bringing about the growth and progress of his section of the state, contributing particularly to its agricultural development.
HEZEKIAH LINCOLN GRAY.
Hezekiah Lincoln Gray, a well known citizen living near Boise, where for years he has been actively engaged in ranching and dairying, having one of the most success- ful dairies in that neighborhood, is a native of Oregon, born in Eugene, March 21, 1866, and is the only son of Leander and Mary Virginia (Collins) Gray. The father was born in Adams county, Illinois, March 28, 1846, and spent the greater part of his life in that state, Arkansas and the west. For the past ten years he has made his home with our subject. The mother, who was a native of Virginia, died in 1902. The parents were married in Colorado in 1865 and our subject is the only child horn of that union, but he has four half-brothers and four half-sisters.
Hezekiah Lincoln Gray was reared on the hills of Lane county, Oregon, where his
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parents had taken up their abode. In his early youth he worked in the woods and about sawmills, and drove an ox team for several years in logging camps. He was always handy with tools and acquired a knowledge of carpenter work in his early manhood. It is very probable that he acquired his bent in this direction from his mother, who was a woman of rare skill in the handling of tools and the making of household furni- ture. In those pioneer days in Oregon, when practically every piece of furniture, tool, and article of wearing apparel was home made, Mrs. Gray did all such work for her home. She was a practical cabinetmaker and made the chairs, tables and bedsteads for her home; sheared the sheep and spun the resultant wool into clothes for the family on a loom made by herself. She was a good rifle shot and could kill a bear or a deer with the skill of a marksman. She made her own spinning wheel and on it she spun the wool into yarn which she had sheared from the sheep.
With the foregoing as inherited qualities, it is little wonder that Mr. Gray soon learned how to use a hammer and saw, and how to plan and construct. He never served an apprenticeship but just followed his natural bent and became a fine mechanic. At the age of twenty-one he went to Illinois on a visit to relatives, and he spent fifteen years between the states of Illinois and Missouri, engaged at various occupations, a portion of the time being devoted to farming, carpentering and grain dealing. In the spring of 1904, Mr. Gray returned to the northwest and has since lived either in or near Boise. For a period of ten years after coming to Boise, he was an active contractor and builder, erecting scores of store buildings, residences and churches in Boise. In 1911 he bought his present ranch home, near Perkins, and the family moved to it from Boise.in 1914, and here they have been living ever since. While he still does some contracting, Mr. Gray devotes the greater part of his time to his ranch and dairy busi- ness, which he makes a special feature of his work, and for this purpose he keeps an excellent strain of dairy cows, which in 1919 yielded him three thousand four hun- dred dollars.
Mr. Gray has been three times married. By his first wife a son survives, Raymond Gray, who served in France during the World war, spending a year in that country before he was twenty. Prior to his overseas service he was on the Mexican border. He is married and holds a good position with the Overland National Bank of Boise. By his second wife, a daughter survives, Carrie Frances, aged nine. Mr. Gray married his present wife on January 1, 1914. She was Miss Rose Wilson, and was born in Missouri, March 17. 1885. Mr. Gray is a member of the Baptist church and interested in all its good works. He supports the democratic party and has held some minor offices such as constable, school director and deputy sheriff. He has never tasted intoxicating liquors ner used tobacco. He is a past grand of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
PRESTON B. ELLSWORTH.
Preston B. Ellsworth, engaged in farming at Lewisville, was born May 6, 1887, upon the place which he now owns. He is a son of Edmund and Ellen C. (Blair) Ellsworth, who are mentioned elsewhere in this work. He was reared in Jefferson county and pur- sued his education in the public schools and in Ricks Academy at Rexburg, Idaho. When not busy with his textbooks he gave his attention to the pleasures of the playground or such duties as were assigned him by parental authority in connection with the develop- ment of the home farm. He remained with his parents until twenty-three years of age. He had previously purchased the old home place of sixty acres when but nineteen years of age and throughout the intervening period has concentrated his efforts and atten- tìon upon the further development and improvement of the property. He has also bought more land from time to time until his holdings also comprise a ranch of one hundred and sixty acres on Camas creek in Jefferson county, where he runs cattle. The homestead is supplied with good buildings and every modern facility to promote the work of the fields and the farm constitutes one of the attractive features in the landscape. In partnership with his brothers. Mr. Ellsworth also owns business property at Rigby, where they built the Ellsworth flats, and in addition he owns still other town property. He has made judicious investments in real estate and derives therefrom a substantial income. Moreover, by reason of his progressive methods, he is classed with the representative farmers of Jefferson county.
In August, 1910, Mr. Ellsworth was married to Miss Edna Walker, daughter of Don C. and Anna T. (Boyce) Walker, who were pioneers of Jefferson county, arriving
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in 1884. Her father is now conducting a farm between Lewisville and Rigby. Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth are the parents of five children: Preston B., Marjorie, Edna, Stephen and George.
In addition to his other interests Mr. Ellsworth is a director of the Jefferson State Bank at Menan. Politically he is a democrat and his religious helief is that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those who know him-and he has a wide acquaintance-speak of him in terms of warm regard, realizing that his aid and influence are ever given on the side of right, progress and improvement.
NATHAN SCOTT.
Nathan Scott, who resides on a highly improved and compact ten-acre ranch, four miles west of Boise, on the Meridian road, came to Ada county, Idaho, in 1904 from McPherson county, Kansas, where he had been engaged in farming for the preceding twenty-five years. He first settled on a forty-acre ranch, one mile west of the Maple Grove school but in 1918 sold that place for eight thousand dollars. In January, 1919, he purchased his present home and the ten-acre ranch on which it is located, four miles west of Boise and one mile north of the Maple' Grove school. It is one of the best improved ten-acre ranches near Boise and in 1913 Mr. Scott erected a handsome modern bungalow with all conveniences, where he and his family now reside.
Mr. Scott was born in what is now known as West Virginia, September 27, 1852, a son of James Scott, a blacksmith and farmer, who served one term in the West Virginia 'state senate after the close of the Civil war. James Scott and his wife, who was Rachel Curry before marriage, were also born in West Virginia, and there they died at a good old age. Nathan Scott was reared on his father's farm in West Virginia and attended the schools of that state, after which he taught several terms of school there. At the age of twenty-four, in 1876, he removed to McPherson county, Kansas, where he taught for one term and where he was engaged in farming until 1904, when he came to Idaho, and has since successfully followed farming, becoming one of the prominent men in the Boise district.
Mr. Scott was married in West Virginia, May 20, 1874, to Kittie E. Calfee, who died in McPherson county, Kansas, leaving three children: James C. Scott, who is division superintendent of schools in the Philippine Islands; Robert L. Scott, a mail carrier, of Boise; and Lottie M. Scott, of Boise, a stenographer. On May 17, 1901, Mr. Scott married Mrs. Rose F. Smith, widow of William Smith, who died some years before. Mrs. Scott, who bore the maiden name of Rose F. Lamb, was born in Kansas, February 22, 1867, a daughter of Thomas E. and Helen (Blair) Lamb. By her former husband, she has two sons, namely: Arthur H. Smith and Walter E. Smith, both of Ada county. By his second marriage, Mr. Scott has one son, Nathan Scott, Jr., aged twelve years.
Mr. and Mrs. Scott are earnest members of the Christian church and warmly inter- ested in all its good works, as they are in all matters calculated to advance the welfare of the community where they make their home. Mr. Scott is a supporter of the republican party and while living in McPherson county, Kansas, he served as town- ship trustee and for several years since coming to Idaho he has been a member of the Maple Grove school board. In season he devotes considerable time to hunting and fishing, being an expert at both.
J. W. HUDSON.
J. W. Hudson, who resides in a splendid old comfortable country home, pervaded by an air of neatness, thrift and hospitality, his farm being situated in the vicinity of Meridian, was born in Henry county, Missouri, but was reared and educated in Bates county that state. His father, William P. Hudson, became a farmer of Bates county and was a representative resident of the community. He wedded Martha Irwin, a native of Indiana, and both have now passed away.
J. W. Hudson remained a resident of Missouri until 1878, when he made his way northwest to Idaho. He had started for Oregon by mule team, traveling by the northern route. On the 16th of July, 1878, he arrived in the Boise basin and was so pleased with the appearance of the country that he decided not to proceed farther. Later he engaged
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in freighting from Boise to Kelton, Utah, spending nearly three years in that way. He afterward returned to Missouri, where he again resided for two years and then once more started westward with Kansas as his destination. For six years he lived in the Sunflower state and then returned to Idaho, where he settled on his present farm four and one-quarter miles northwest of Meridian, taking up his ahode on this property on the 1st of August, 1890. He secured a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and also a timber culture claim of one hundred and sixty acres, his land being at that time covered with the growth of wild sagebrush. He cleared the land and planted trees, setting out silver maple, which were about two feet high at the time of planting. These trees are now two and a half feet through at the trunk and have attained a height of sixty feet, constituting a beautiful feature in the landscape. The life of activity and enterprise which Mr. Hudson has led is indicated in the fact that his property today is one of the valuable farms of this section of the state. He has one of the finest barns of Ada county, thirty-two by forty-eight feet, with a capacity of thirty-five tons of hay and ten feeding stalls. He owns twenty-two head of Hereford cattle, all registered but two, and keeps these cattle for breeding purposes. He also raises horses for his own use and has a fine registered Percheron mare and colt. His home is a commodious and comfortable residence and everything about the place indicates the progress and enterprise of the owner. 1
On the 9th of February, 1871, in Bates county, Missouri, Mr. Hudson was married to Miss Annie S. Pfost, who had removed to that county with her parents in 1854, her father, Jacob Pfost, being a farmer there. Her mother, whose maiden name was Melissa Koontz, was a native of Virginia. Mrs. Hudson has a hrother, A. F. Pfost, who is living near Nampa, and a sister, Mrs. Mattie E. Chester, who is also located near Nampa. To Mr. and Mrs. Hudson have been born four children. Leoti L. is the wife of J. J. Rambo and the mother of four children: Evert D., aged twenty-six years; Daisy, Luella B. and Wayne, all at home. Melissa M. is the wife of I. P. Cleek and the mother of three children: Earl A., aged twenty-three; Elvin, twenty-one; and Warren, eighteen. William J., forty-two years of age, is married to Lorena Jones and is the father of seven children: Ella A., Bertha, Edgar, Wesley, Neal, Glenn and Cleaty. Franklin C., twenty-three years of age, married Etta Needle, who died leaving one child, Billy Louise. She died before the child was two hours old but named the baby before her death. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson feel the keenest interest in their grandchildren, finding great delight in having them at their home. For about forty years they have been residents of the northwest and Mr. Hudson has been an active factor in the reclama- tion of the wild land of Ada county and its transformation into productive fields and farms.
JOSEPH DEGEN.
Joseph Degen is a well known and honored pioneer settler of Idaho, who makes his home with his daughters, Mrs. Emma Durham and Mrs. Mary Durham, upon a farm in the vicinity of Emmett. For a long period he has heen an interested witness of the growth and development of this state and has ever borne his share in the work of progress and improvement. He has now passed the eighty-eighth milestone on life's journey, his birth having occurred in Germany, October 4, 1831. He first came to the United States in 1864, when thirty-three years of age, but afterward returned to Germany and while there was married. He came again to the new world in 1869, bringing his bride with him, and since then has remained continuously on this side of the water, devoting his entire active life to the occupation of farming. He resided in Missouri and Nebraska before coming to Idaho, the year 1877 witnessing his arrival in this state. Since then he has lived in the vicinity of Emmett, and although he is now eighty-eight years of age, is still an active and vigorous man, in possession of all his faculties.
It was on the 12th of January, 1869, that Mr. Degen was united in marriage to Miss Louise Huba, a native of Germany, the wedding being celebrated while he was on the only visit that he has made back to the fatherland since first coming to America. For more than a third of a century they traveled life's journey happily together but were separated by the death of the wife, who on the 15th of October, 1903, passed away. They were the parents of a family of five children, four of whom are yet living: Katie, who was born August 19, 1871, and is now the wife of Finley Monroe, a well known lawyer
MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH DEGEN
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of Emmett, who is mentioned elsewhere in this work; Mrs. Emma Durham, of Emmett, who was born October 29, 1874; Mrs. Mary Durham, of Emmett, born November 11, 1876; and Lewis A., who was born May 1, 1879, and now lives in Lemhi county, Idaho. All three of the daughters reside either in or near Emmett. The daughter Emma was mar- ried on the 8th of June, 1905, to Hiram L. Durham, and her sister Mary, on the same day, to George D. Durham. In fact theirs was a double wedding ceremony and the two brothers with their wives reside in a beautiful country home on a highly improved ranch property one mile east of Emmett. The brothers were formerly extensively engaged in sheep raising in Oregon, to which state they removed from Iowa. They became prominently connected with the sheep industry and won a very substantial measure of success as the years passed by, gaining financial independence. Removing to Idaho, they wedded the two sisters and theirs is a notable record, for seldom do two families live so happily and harmoniously together as do the two Durham families, and with them resides Mr. Degen. The Durham home east of Emmett embraces seventeen acres of fine lawn, flowers, shrubbery, orchards, vineyard and meadow. Mrs. Mary Durham has a daughter, Emma Louise, who was born February 22, 1909, and is a namesake of her aunt, Mrs. Emma Durham, who has no children.
In the family of Mr. and Mrs. Degen besides the four who are yet living there was also a son, Joseph Degen, Jr., who was the oldest child and was born October 4, 1869, while his death occurred on the 15th of December, 1909. It is a singular coincidence that this son was born on his father's birthday-October 4, while the youngest member of the Degen family, Lewis A., was born on his mother's birthday-the 1st of May, his natal year being 1879, while his mother's birth occurred on the Ist of May, 1852. Lewis A. Degen is married and has one son, Joseph Degen, named in honor of his grandfather and born on the 3d of September, 1903. Such in brief is the history of a most inter- esting pioneer settler of Idaho and his family. For more than four decades he has lived in Idaho, familiar with every phase of the growth and development of the state. Here he has reared a family who are a credit and honor to his name. One of the most attractive homes in Gem county is that of the Durham brothers, with whom Mr. Degen resides, the daughters and their husbands doing everything in their power to add to the comfort and welfare of their venerable father, who, though well advanced in years, retains a keen interest in things of the present and can relate many most interesting incidents of the days of the past.
MRS. IDA BECKMANN.
Mrs. Ida Beckmann, widow of Emil Beckmann, who died eight years ago in Vancouver, Washington, where the Beckmann family then lived, was born in Center- ville, Manitowoc county, Wisconsin. April 9, 1855, and has been a resident of Idaho since 1892, with the exception of the time spent in Washington. Her maiden name was Ida Goeldner, and she is a daughter of Bernard and Caroliue (Hassler) Goeld- ner, natives of Prussia, where they were married, coming to America from that country about 1840 and locating in Manitowoc county, Wisconsin. Some years later they removed to Kansas, where they remained to the end of their lives, their deaths occurring in Sedgwick county, that state. Mrs. Beckmann is the fourth in order of birth in a family of six children, consisting of three sons and three daughters, of whom three are living. They were Gustave, Amelia, William, Ida, Adolph and Minnie. Mrs. Beck- mann is the only daughter now living. Her two brothers, William and Adolph, reside in Sedgwick county, Kansas,
When she had reached the age of fifteen, Mrs. Beckmann accompanied her parents on their removal from Wisconsin to Sedgwick county, Kansas, where she spent ten years of her early womanhood. The next year and a half was spent in Michigan, where she lived with a sister. She then went to Leadville, Colorado, to visit her brothers, who lived in that state at the time, and it was there she met her future husband, Emil Beckmann, and married him March 28, 1883.
Emil Beckmann was born in Germany, November 2, 1851, and was educated in the schools of that country, where he continued to live up to the age of twenty-one. About 1872 he emigrated to America and was engaged at various occupations in different parts of the country. At the time of his marriage he was conducting a hotel in Leadville, Colorado, and continued in that business for some years thereafter. Later he removed to New Castle, Colorado, where he also conducted a hotel, and in 1892 removed to
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Boise, Idaho, where, with the exception of four years spent in Vancouver, Washington, he continued to live. His death occurred in Vancouver eight years ago.
Some time after taking up his residence in Boise, Mr. Beckmann carried on a grocery store but later he bought a ranch near Maple Grove school, and on this place `the family lived for several years. During the period of his residence in Ada county he bought and sold several tracts of land and lived on three different ranches, removing to the place where Mrs. Beckmann now lives in 1909. This holding consists of twenty acres of prime land, for which he paid three hundred dollars an acre, and it is now estimated to be worth upwards of five hundred dollars an acre.
Mr. and Mrs. Beckmann had three children as follows: Florence, horn May 16, 1886, now the wife of John Smeed, of Caldwell; Arthur Martin, born on December 23, 1889; and Carl Edward, born on June 28, 1893. The younger son, Carl Edward, served in the American army during the World war for a period of eighteen months, and at the time the armistice was declared, he was in camp at Jacksonville, Florida.
Mrs. Beckmann's long residence in and about Boise has gained her many friends, the circle of which increases as time goes on. She has always displayed an active and practical interest in the affairs of the community in which she has made her adopted home. and all movements calculated to improve the civic welfare have ever had her earnest and sympathetic support.
ALBERT HIRAM SMITH.
Albert Hiram Smith, a prominent and successful farmer, who for the past ten years has resided in a bungalow of his own in Boise, is the owner of a farm of one hundred and twenty acres of the best land in the Boise valley, about five miles southwest of Boise. He resided on this place from 1903 to 1910 and still owns the farm, where he spends most of his time in the summer, but since 1910 he has maintained a home in Boise mainly for the advantage of having his children within easy distance of the Boise high school.
Mr. Smith is a Coloradoan by birth, born near Platteville, in Weld county, Septem- ber 5, 1863, and is one of a family of six sons and three daughters born to John and Bridget (Green) Smith, both of whom died in Colorado. John Smith, who during his active life followed farming, was a native of the Dominion of Canada, as was his wife and there they were married. On coming to the United States, they went to Wisconsin, where they lived for a time, later removing to Colorado. Mrs. Smith was a granddaughter of Lord Green, an English nobleman. Of the nine children only two sons are living, namely: John William, who lives in Boise, and Albert Hiram, the subject of this sketch.
Albert H. Smith was reared on a ranch near Fort Lupton, Weld county, Colorado, and was educated in the public schools of that place, following which he engaged in farming and has been connected with farming and ranching all his life. On May 6, 1890, he was married in Weld county, Colorado, to Mary E. Hollingsworth, who was born in Knox county, Indiana, December 5, 1869, a daughter of Thornton and Nancy Jane (Garrett) Hollingsworth. both of whom are now deceased. Mr. Hollingsworth was also born in Indiana, the date of his birth being March 31, 1847, and he died at the home of his daughter in Boise, October 27, 1918. His wife was born near Oaktown, Indiana, in 1849, and died in that state when Mrs. Smith was a girl of nine.
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