USA > Idaho > History of Idaho, the gem of the mountains, Volume III > Part 94
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Mr. Osika was united in marriage to Miss Edith Bellon, a daughter of August and Mary Ann (Nickerson) Bellon and a native of Salina, Utah. They are parents of two children, Ruth and Deenece. The family is well known in the social circles of Burley and Mr. Osika is regarded as one of the representative business men of the city.
CAPTAIN DANIEL TIMOTHY MURPHY.
Captain Daniel Timothy Murphy, who surveyed and laid out the townsite of Dubois and has been prominently connected with the development and up- building of the town and county throughout the intervening years, was born in Ontario, Canada, March 16, 1881, his parents being Eugene and Margaret (Riordan) Murphy. He attended the schools of Woodstock, Ontario, to the age of fifteen years and then removed to the Mesaba iron range of Minnesota, settling at Hibbing and later at Virginia, Minnesota, where he was employed along mercantile lines by his brothers for a period of two years. He afterward engaged in railway business and at different times was manager of construction for three different railroads in that state, including
CAPTAIN DANIEL T. MURPHY
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the Duluth, Rainy Lake & Winnipeg Railroad. He was in Minnesota from 1898 until 1910 and then returned to Canada, where he became assistant general manager for the Canadian Northern Railroad at Winnipeg, Manitoba, there remaining until 1912.
Captain Murphy afterward engaged in the land business in western Canada from 1912 until 1914 and in the latter year removed to Idaho. Here he surveyed and established the townsite of Dubois and still holds a portion of the land. He is also the owner of several ranches and he has other important and extensive business interests, being a partner in the Dubois Hardware & Implement Company and the owner of the Dubois Engineering & Construction Company.
In June, 1909, Captain Murphy was married at London, Ontario, to Miss Mabel Mary Lyons. Captain Murphy has always been interested in the welfare and develop- ment of Idaho since becoming a resident of this state and has served as surveyor of Clark county. During the war he served with the naval consulting board on scientific research for two months prior to America's entrance into the World war and for four months subsequent to that time, particularly in connection with submarine detection and artillery. He was chairman of the Clark County Defense Council for the first year of its existence and until his enlistment in the army. Following America's declaration of war he joined the United States Engineers and served with the rank of lieutenant and of captain during the continuation of hostilities. His wife was chairman of the Ladies' Council of Defense in Clark county and she is also actively engaged in the management of several enterprises. Captain Murphy is a member of the American Association of Engineers and also a member of the American Legion. His life has been one of intense and well directed activity, characterized by consecutive progress, while each forward step has brought him a broader outlook and wider opportunities that he has readily and successfully utilized.
NICHOLAS JOHN BROWN.
Nicholas John Brown, who is engaged in farming on the Boise bench, came to Boise in 1878 and has therefore been a resident of Idaho for more than forty years. He was born in Sweden, October 24, 1847, and when a lad of but fourteen years became an apprenticed seaman. He sailed the seas for several years on waters adja- cent to Sweden and later became a sailor on the Great Lakes of North America. He was nineteen years of age when he crossed the Atlantic to the United States in 1866 and for two or three years he sailed on the lakes, after which he removed to the northwest and for many years gave his attention to mining pursuits in Montana, Wyoming and Colorado and finally came to Idaho. Here he was also engaged in mining for a number of years but eventually turned his attention to other interests and for the past twenty years has lived on a good eighty-acre farm two and a half miles south of Boise. This is a desirable property on which he is engaged in the raising of alfalfa and cattle, and the careful management of his business affairs is bringing to him substantial success. His farm was covered with sagebrush when it came into his possession and not a furrow had been turned upon the place, but with persistent purpose he has carried forward the work of improvement and he has a perpetual water right, which cost him five thousand dollars. His land, thus well irrigated, returns to him splendid crops.
After coming to the new world Mr. Brown took out his American citizenship papers. In politics he has maintained an independent course, voting for the man whom he regards as best qualified for office. Fraternally he is an Elk and his relig- ious faith is that of the Lutheran church. A man of high principles and manly traits of character, he is everywhere respected and esteemed for his sterling qualities.
CHARLES R. HANAN.
Charles R. Hanan, founder and owner of the National Creditors Association of Boise, with offices in the Sonna block, was born in Spokane county, Washington, May 19, 1885. His father, Archie W. Hanan, was born at Albany, Oregon, in 1861 and passed away in Pendleton, that state. in 1913, having devoted his life to the occupation of farming. He married Eudora Jeannette Keech who was born in Boise, Idaho, March Vol. III-48
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11, 1870. She is still living and is now a professional nurse in Seattle. She was married when but thirteen years of age and was only fifteen years of age at the birth of her son Charles. Her father was Henry P. Keech, who lived in Boise for a time before removing to Oregon. He was born, however, in the state of New York and was a ship carpenter by trade.
Charles R. Hanan was reared and educated in the state of Washington and in 1909 came to Boise, where he has since heen engaged in business, mainly concentrat. ing his efforts and attention upon real estate and insurance. Since 1917 he has been the owner of the National Creditors Association, with offices in the Sonna block. He organized this concern in 1917 and it has since been one of the leading collection agencies of Boise.
On the 18th of August, 1910, in Boise, Mr. Hanan was married to Miss Neoma A. Ruhl, who was born in Texas and is an adopted daughter of John A. and Emily (Persons) Ruhl, formerly of Boise but now residents of Hill city, Camas county. Mr. Ruhl was born in Pennsylvania, while his wife's birth occurred in New York in 1863. and they were married in Clay county, Kansas, in 1882, coming to Idaho in 1903.
Mr. and Mrs. Hanan are members of the American Yeomen and he is also con- nected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World, while his wife is a member of the Daughters of Rebekah. He is now deputy in the Yeoman lodge and is a past foreman of that order. His political support is given to the republican party, but the honors and emoluments of office have never had at- · traction for him. He has recently purchased a neighboring tract on the Boise bench and erected on it a handsome modern bungalow which he and his wife now occupy, it being one of the pleasing suburhan homes of the locality. Mr. Hanan for several years past has been engaged in the raising of pure bred Ancona chickens, and having removed to the bench, where he has much space, he intends to broaden his activities along this líne, making this not merely a side issue but an important branch of his business activities.
WARREN G. SWENDSEN.
Warren G. Swendsen, recently retired from the position of state engineer of Idaho, is now commissioner of reclamation, to which office he was appointed by Governor D. W. Davis in the spring of 1919. He was born upon a ranch in the Cache valley of Cache county, Utah, July 26, 1878, his parents being Lewis P. and Ellen M. (Gibbs) Swendsen. On the paternal side he is of Danish lineage and on the maternal side comes of English and Welsh ancestry. The father was born on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic sea, a possession of Denmark. When a child he was brought to the United States by relatives. His parents, however, died in Denmark. He spent most of his mature life in Utah and Idaho, where he devoted his attention to the occupation of farming. He was married in Utah to Miss Ellen M. Gibbs, who survives, but the father passed away in Utah several years ago, having returned to that state from Idaho.
Warren G. Swendsen was reared and educated in Utah, completing a course in the Utah Agricultural College at Logan in 1903, while later he completed a course in civil and hydraulic engineering. He at once entered the United States reclamation service and was thus employed until 1906, his duties taking him to Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. From 1906 until 1909 he was in the employ of the Telluride Power Com- pany, with headquarters at Provo, Utah. He served in the capacity of hydro-electric engineer. In 1909 he established himself in business in Boise as a civil engineer and in 1916 also opened an office in Pocatello, Idaho. Since 1909 he has continuously fol- lowed his profession in Idaho, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Montana, California, Nevada and Louisiana and within this period has been identified with various important cor- porations as a civil engineer. During recent years, or since 1915, he has been in charge of practically all of the engineering work of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. He was appointed to the position of state engineer of Idaho on the 12th of March, 1919. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and also of the National Geographic Society.
In Boise on the 13th of July, 1912, Mr. Swendsen was married to Miss Birdie Tay- lor, a native of Seward, Nebraska, but at the time of her marriage a resident of Boise. They are well known in the capital city, where they have many friends. Mr. Swendsen is a prominent Mason, having attained the Knights Templar degree of the York Rite,
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and taken the degree known as the Red Cross of Constantine, while with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine he has also crossed the sands of the desert. He is likewise an Elk. He turns to fishing for recreation and greatly enjoys a period in the open with rod and reel, but he never allows anything to interfere with the faithful performance of his professional and official duties, and through the development of his native powers he has become recognized as a civil engineer of marked capability.
CLEM L. COX.
Clem L. Cox, a rancher living in the vicinity of Boise, was born in Poweshiek county, Iowa, January 19, 1872, and is a son of Christopher and Mary (Rosecrans) Cox. The father is now deceased while the mother resides in Nebraska, to which state the family removed in 1888.
Clem L. Cox was a youth of nineteen years at the time he became a resident of Nebraska, where he afterward followed farming for an extended period. He was mar- ried at Clear Lake, South Dakota, November 11, 1903, to Miss Zaidee Murphy, whose hirth occurred in that state January 28, 1888, her parents being John G. and Esther (Edge) Murphy. Mr. and Mrs. Cox began their domestic life in Nebraska, where they lived until 1912 and then came to Idaho, where they have since made their home. They have become the parents of three children: Mary Ethel, who was born July 4, 1905; William Albert, whose birth occurred May 30, 1910; and Margaret Esther, whose natal day was November 29, 1911.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Cox are members of the Methodist church. He is fond of hunt- ing and fishing and his hobby is photography, in which he has developed a high de- gree of skill, particularly in scenic or outdoor photography, in which he indulges himself purely for pleasure with no thought of profit or gain. On his hunting and his touring trips he has invariably carried his camera, in the operation of which he is an expert, as his work plainly shows. He possesses a large morocco-bound album con- taining a collection of his photographs, made largely in California, and thus he has with him always a visual reminder of the pleasures that he has had and the beauties that he has seen. At Boise he gives his attention to his valuable little ranch property, on which he resides, and in addition he has two other ranches in Ada county much larger than his home place and from which he derives a substantial annual income.
SERAPHIN DE CLOEDT.
Seraphin De Cloedt, a native of Belgium, became one of the early residents of Boise and Ada county. He was born in that little country whose tragic history has so recently awakened the sympathy of the entire world. He crossed the Atlantic to Quebec, Can- ada, when twenty-two years of age and soon afterward came to the United States. For three or four years he was a resident of Colorado and then removed to Boise, Idaho, where he took up his abode about 1885. Here he secured a one hundred and sixty-acre homestead on the bench west of Boise, about a mile north of the Cole school. He located on this property and improved it and as the years passed, owing to his cultivation and the natural rise in property values due to the rapid settlement of the district, the land is today worth from three hundred to four hundred dollars per acre. It has since been converted into what is known as Ash Park and has many nice homes upon it, each surrounded by five or ten-acre tracts of ground.
It was after taking up his ahode upon the homestead that Mr. De Cloedt was united in marriage to Miss Maria Theresa Coran, a young lady of Belgium, who was born near the birthplace of her husband. Mr. and Mrs. De Cloedt resided for many years upon the old homestead and four of their children were born there. These are: Alice Marie, now the wife of Albert De Witte, living south of Meridian; and Cora, Edgar L. and Oscar D., who are residing on a ranch five miles west of Boise near the Valley View school. The father finally sold the homestead west of Boise and afterward took up his abode upon a ranch near the Valley View school, where his children now make their home. His first wife, the mother of his four eldest children, died in 1904. He later married again and there were two children of that marriage, Laurina and George, aged respectively fourteen and twelve years.
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The De Cloedt family are of the Roman Catholic faith. Mr. De Cloedt has often visited Belgium and his children have also seen the land of his birth. In fact they have remained there some times for long periods and were partially educated in Belgium but are all native American citizens, their interest centering in the land of their birth. The eldest son, Edgar De Cloedt, was at Camp Lewis when the armistice was signed.
HON. CLARENCE VAN DEUSEN.
On the roster of public officials of Idaho appears the name of Clarence Van Deusen, who in 1916 was elected to the position of state auditor. He has made his home in Boise since 1910 and for two years previous to that date had resided in Idaho, coming to this state from Massachusetts, although he is a native of Ohio. His birth occurred in Cleveland, Ohio, January 30, 1869, and in the paternal line he is of Holland Dutch descent, his ancestors having come from Holland about two hundred and seventy years ago, or in 1648, at which time they made settlement in western Massachusetts.
Clarence Van Deusen was but three months old when he went to Massachusetts with his mother to live with her parents. She, too, was of Holland Dutch lineage. He spent forty years in Massachusetts. His boyhood, youth and early manhood were passed at Westfield, that state, a place which is a great whip manufacturing center, making about ninety-eight per cent of the total production of whips in the entire country. His grandfather, Merritt Van Deusen, together with three of his brothers of Westfield, were the largest manufacturers of whips in the United States. Clarence Van Deusen attended the public schools of Westfield to the age of eleven years, when ill health forced him to put aside his textbooks and soon afterward he secured a posi- tion as a clerk in the Westfield postoffice. He was there employed from 1881 until 1884 and through the succeeding six years occupied a position in the First National Bank of Westfield, acting as clerk and as bookkeeper. From 1890 until 1901 he oc- cupied the position of bookkeeper with various concerns of Westfield and of Spring. field, Massachusetts, and in 1901 he started upon his career as an expert accountant and as a scientific designer of modern bookkeeping methods in Springfield. His at- tention has since been given to this profession.
Seeking the opportunities of the west, Mr. Van Deusen came to Idaho in 190S and spent two years at Gooding. On the 31st of October, 1910, he arrived in Boise, where he has since made his home, following his profession independently until the fall of 1916, when he was elected state auditor on the democratic ticket. He had been a candidate for the same position in 1914 on the progressive ticket but was defeated, although he ran seven thousand votes ahead of the rest of the ticket. In 1916 he was elected by a good majority. He took the office on the 1st of January, 1917, and conducted its affairs on a strictly business basis, employing the most thoroughly up-to-date bookkeeping methods, of which he has been a promoter for several years. He has been the first accountant ever chosen to occupy this position and the work which he did in this connection was highly satisfactory to the public. He was recognized as an ex- pert in his line and splendidly qualified to undertake the important duties of the office.
CAPTAIN HOWARD J. BRACE.
Captain Howard J. Brace, director of insurance for the state of Idaho, was appointed to this position by Governor D. W. Davis on the 18th of October, 1919, as the successor of W. R. Hyatt, and is making a creditable record in the discharge of his duties in this position. Captain Brace was born near the city of Detroit, Michigan, July 1, 1892, and is the only living son of Cyrus F. Brace, who is now engaged in the. oil business in Texas. The mother, who bore the maiden name of Anna McCracken, passed away in 1909. When Howard J. Brace was but six years of age his parents removed to Colorado and there his father engaged in mining pursuits for many years. The son was reared and educated in that state and in his youthful days worked in the mines near Leadville. He was also engaged in various other pursuits in connection with public work. In 1911 he came to Idaho, being then a youth of only nineteen years, and yet already he had spent several years in earning his own living. For a period of five years he resided at Idaho Falls, where he engaged in
CAPTAIN HOWARD J. BRACE
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the fire insurance business. In.1916 he enlisted as a private in the Second Idaho Infantry for service on the Mexican border and spent a number of months there, during which time he was advanced to the rank of sergeant major. When the United States entered the war with Germany he was at Idaho Falls but subject to call as a member of the Second Idaho Regiment. He at once went as a volunteer to the Presidio at San Francisco and there pursued the officers' training course, upon the completion of which he was commissioned first lieutenant of United States Infantry. He was steadily in military service from 1916 until May 22, 1919, and during the last seventeen months of that period was on duty in France, where he was promoted to the rank of captain. He took part in a number of the major military operations, including the Champagne-Marne defensive from the 15th to the 18th of July, 1918; the second battle of the Marne, from the 8th of July until the 13th of August; the St. Mihiel offensive, from the 12th to the 17th of September; and the Meuse-Argonne offensive, from the 26th of September until the 11th of November, 1918.
Upon receiving his final discharge at Camp Lewis, Captain Brace came to Boise as chief clerk in the Idaho state highways department and served as such until October 18, 1919, when he was appointed to his present position as director of insurance for the state of Idaho by Governor D. W. Davis. He enjoys the distinction of being the youngest state official in Idaho and the youngest insurance commissioner in the United States.
Captain Brace was married on the 20th of November, 1917, to Miss Ruby Keefer, who was born at Idaho Falls, Idaho, a daughter of William W. Keefer, a well known citizen of that place. Fraternally he is a Royal Arch Mason and is a past master of his lodge. His life experiences have been many because of his active military duty on the Mexican border and in some of the most hotly contested sectors of the battle line in France. Such experiences bring to most men a true valuation of life's opportunities, and Captain Brace is proving just as capable and loyal as insurance director of Idaho as he did when occupying the trenches or resolutely pushing his way toward the enemy in the face of galling fire in the Argonne forest.
HOWARD SEBREE.
Howard Sebree, although now nearly eighty-five years of age, still remains an active factor in the world's work through his investments and the supervision which he gives to business interests. He has to some degree put aside the more arduous labors but the influence of his judgment is still felt in business circles. For many years he has been actively identified with the development of the west and since 1888 has made his home in Caldwell. Through the intervening period he has been identified with banking, merchandising and the development of irrigation projects and the worth of his labors can scarcely be overestimated.
Mr. Sebree is a native of Owen county, Kentucky, and is a son of Nimrod B. and Permelia Sebree. His ancestors in the paternal line were Huguenots, who came to America in the early part of the seventeenth century. The mother was descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry, her grandfather coming to the new world in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Mr. and Mrs. Nimrod B. Sebree had a family of thirteen children. eight sons and five daughters, all born in the same house in which their parents had spent their honeymoon and in which they reached the advanced ages of seventy and eighty years respectively.
Howard Sebree acquired a common school education and in the year 1855 started west, going to Indiana and Illinois, where he worked at his trade of blacksmithing, at which he served an apprenticeship during the years 1855 and 1856 in Louisville, Ken- tucky. In 1857 he went to Leavenworth, Kansas, living there during the period when the pro-slavery advocates and the supporters of the free states were struggling for possession of Kansas. He established a blacksmith shop in Leavenworth and continued in business there until 1861. He then went to Denver, Colorado, and later to Black- hawk, that state and was in business in those places until 1867, when he removed to Cheyenne, Wyoming. He had disposed of his business in Blackhawk some time prior to his removal but continued blacksmithing at Denver until he became a resident of Wyoming. In Cheyenne he became an active factor in business circles, carrying on wagon making, agricultural pursuits and freighting. He followed the Union Pacific Railroad on its way toward Salt Lake City and there finally established himself again
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in business in 1872. He had previously visited Salt Lake in 1870 to look over the country and upon deciding to settle there he accepted the agency for various imple- ment houses of the east, his sales covering the territories of Utah, Idaho and Montana. As the years passed he developed his business affairs along progressive and growing lines, leading to a continued success. In the year of his removal to Utah he went not only to Salt Lake but to Ogden and Corinne, although making his home in the capital city.
There he continued until 1888, when he closed out his business interests and soon afterward removed with his family to Caldwell, Idaho. Here he became associated with B. V. White in the organization of the Stock Growers & Traders Bank, which two years later was reorganized into the First National Bank of Caldwell, Mr. Sebree be- coming the president, with Mr. White as vice president. He remained the active head of the institution for about seventeen years, or until 1905, when he sold his interest in the bank. His activities in the development and upbuilding of this section of the state through his business operations have covered a wide scope. Soon after his ar- rival in Caldwell he built what is now known as the Sebree ditch, which supplies water, taken from the Boise river, to thousands of acres of the most fertile land in any section of the west. Even before becoming a resident of Caldwell, Mr. Sebree had become as- sociated with B. F. White and Fred J. Kesiel under different partnership connections in the establishment of a chain of stores, the locations of which followed the Utah Northern Railroad into Montana and the Oregon Short Line into Idaho. At Dillon, Montana, he purchased the land on which the present town stands, divided the tract into lots and started the town. There, in connection with Mr. White, he organized the First National Bank of Dillon and remained interested in the business affairs of the city until 1910, when he closed out his holdings there. He has been more or less active in business circles since that time although he has now almost reached the age of eighty-five. However, he is not leading as strenuous a life as he did in former years, but the soundness of his judgment in business affairs is recognized hy his colleagues and contemporaries. In 1870, at Greeley, Colorado, he built the first irrigation canal in that section, a ditch thirteen miles in length, the work being done at the time the Greeley colony was established there.
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