USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II > Part 87
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Louis L. Lane was educated in the common schools of Harrisburg, Linn county, Oregon, and later moved to Springfield, Linn county, where he remained until he was eighteen years of age, when the family home was established in Tygh Valley, and there they resided for two years. With the exception of a nine years' sojourn in Lassen county, California, Louis L. Lane has spent his life in Oregon and has con- tributed largely to the upbuilding of the state. Belonging to a family of wagon makers, he learned the trade and also the trades of wheelwright and blacksmith from his father. In 1891 he removed to The Dalles, where he established a wagon and blacksmith shop and was not long in building up a reputation as a master in his line. Many stages, coaches and wagons which were built by him were prize winners at the fairs and expositions held in this section of the country and added much to the
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reputation of Oregon as an industrial center. Mr. Lane continued in that line of busi- ness until 1906, when he became associated with F. M. Sexton under the firm style of Lane & Sexton, in the conduct of a mercantile enterprise. Their store is the largest of its kind in central Oregon. It is situated at the corner of Second and Jefferson streets and is one hundred by one hundred feet, having a floor space of ten thousand square feet. They carry a full line of shelf hardware, automobile accessories and similar goods. They also have another building fifty by one hundred feet, which is devoted to wagon building, plumbing and tinners' work and to general blacksmith work, while still another building houses a full line of farm implements, tools and other equipment to meet the farm needs. The trade of the firm covers all central Oregon and extends into the river counties of Washington. In addition to his commercial interests Mr. Lane has a farm comprising two hundred and eighty acres, forty of which are planted to fruit and this is a most productive tract of land.
In 1884 Mr. Lane was married to Miss Hattie E. Miller, a native of Pennsylvania and a daughter of a Civil war veteran who was killed in battle. Mr. and Mrs. Lane have one child, Gladys, who is now Mrs. Murray Carter and she has an infant son, the pride of his grandparents.
Fraternally Mr. Lane is connected with the F. and A. M., the Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World. In politics he is not a partisan but is always deeply interested in the welfare of town, county and state. While he has never sought nor desired political preferment, he is an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, keenly interested in every plan for civic advancement. No list of the sterling merchants and representative citizens of Oregon is complete with- out the name of Louis L. Lane, nor has his attention been confined wholly to business. He recognizes that varied interests must constitute an even balance in life and each year he and his wife take a holiday, traveling around for rest and entertainment and thus gaining that broad and liberal culture and experience which only travel brings.
WHITNEY LYON BOISE.
For a third of a century Whitney Lyon Boise has been an active member of the Portland bar and he has also contributed much to the development of the state through the promotion of mortgage interests and is now chairman of the board of directors of the State of Oregon Land Settlement Commission. Various other corporate interests have felt the stimulus of his cooperation and have benefited by his judgment and advice. He thoroughly knows the west and its opportunities, for he has been a life- long resident of Oregon, his birth having occurred at Salem on the 6th of November, 1862, his parents being Reuben Patrick and Ellen Frances (Lyon) Boise. At the usual age he became a pupil in the public schools of Ellendale, Polk county, Oregon, and afterward continued his studies in La Creole Academy at Dallas, Oregon, while later he became a student in the Willamette University at Salem and then attended the University of Oregon. He completed his course in 1880, winning the Bachelor of Science degree, and thus by liberal educational training was well qualified to take up specific preparation for law practice. He became a law student in the office and under the direction of Judge R. P. Boise of Salem and likewise studied with Judge Raleigh Stott of Portland as his preceptor. In 1885 he was admitted to the bar at Salem and opened a law office in Portland, where.he has since continued, becoming a member of the firm of Stott, Boise & Stott, his partners being Judge R. and Sam Stott. A change in the partnership occurred three years later, when J. B. Waldo and Seneca Smith were admitted to the firm under the style of Stott, Waldo, Smith, Stott & Boise, a relation that was maintained until 1891, when the original title was resumed. In 1896 Sam Stott retired and George C. Stout entered the firm, the style becoming Stott, Boise & Stout. Mr. Boise remained in his partnership connection until 1900 and since that time has practiced alone. He is an able lawyer, possessing compre- hensive knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence, and at all times his deductions are sound, his reasoning is logical and his arguments clear and cogent. Aside from his active work as a member of the bar Mr. Boise has become identified with various important business interests. He is now a director in the Hesse-Martin Iron Works, a director of the W. B. Glafke Company, wholesale commission merchants, a director in the Caravan Motor Company and a director of the Pacific Chemical Company. He is likewise chairman of the board of directors of the State of Oregon Land Settlement
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Commission, under the supervision of the bureau of farm lands. It was Mr. Boise who was instrumental in securing the passage of the act through the Oregon legislature in 1919. This commission is making a most close and scientific study of agriculture. Broad-minded men had years before reached the conclusion that the development of farming interests in the state was of the utmost importance. The Portland Chamber of Commerce and the Oregon Agricultural College united their efforts in a constructive plan that was later tied into the soldier settlement idea and given official sanction by the Oregon state legislature in January, 1919. The Oregon Land Settlement Commis- sion was then created with an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars to start opera- tions. This system is based on a plan of easy payment for the financing of the complete farm home business unit. The principle of farm management, as applied by the state agricultural colleges for many years, to renovate broken down farm enterprises, is simply expanded to cover the design and installation of new farms, typical of the district in which they are located. The Oregon Land Settlement Com- mission was determined to find a way to avoid all paternalistic or state colony methods and to view the question from a broad commercial aspect. The commission first con- sidered all phases of marketing, of crop rotation, of fertilization, of good roads and transportation, of proper live stock breeding, of proper home conditions, of record keeping and all other important details of this great industry in an endeavor to get down to a solid foundation. The commission recognized that the matter of finance was largely the trouble with the business of agriculture and that to finance the busi- ness it must necessarily be organized on some practical plan of farm management. The great problem of the commission therefore was to design a typical farm business unit that could be handled by a man of average intelligence, producing the revenue that would pay for the business and for the home, over a reasonable period of years; then to construct the unit, equip it with live stock and machinery and turn it over to the purchaser as a going concern. After much study the commission put its ideas into practical form by securing a sixty-two acre tract of land, cut out of the corner of an old farm of much larger proportions and located on the Southern Pacific electrification to Corvallis, two and a half miles south of Independence. There are three main fields so designed that a rotation of crops can be conducted, pasturage for a small amount of live stock is provided and a few acres were reserved for the farmstead, the orchard and berry patch. The buildings are all of substantial construction, with every detail carefully thought out, and every dollar expended that was necessary to make it com- plete, yet not a dollar was spent that could be saved. The home was made attractive with hot and cold running water, inside toilet and shower bath, and the other con- veniences of the city residence. The place was provided with necessary tools and farm- ing equipment and the chicken house and hog house were designed for cleanliness and comfort. The question of saving every possible step in doing the chores was also taken into consideration and the home was given every facility for the housewife effectively to handle her work. It was found that the establishment of such a farm home business unit required the outlay of ten thousand dollars. If one desires a farm of larger pro- portions, it can be developed along equally commendable lines with increased capital- ization. In a word the commission has reached the root of all matters. Production is the chief source of the wealth of a country and its people. Seventy per cent of the production in America comes from the farm and the Oregon Land Settlement Commis- sion is showing the way to stabilize the business of agriculture through land settlement on a well organized plan of farm management, similar to that applied for years by the farm management department of the various state agricultural colleges. Throughout the period of his residence in Portland Mr. Boise has been interested in those projects which have had to do with the development and upbuilding of city and state. He was a member of the committee sent by the management of the Lewis and Clark Exposition to Washington to secure a congressional appropriation for the exposition and aided in successfully accomplishing the mission. He was the organizer of the East Side Civic Improvement Clubs and was elected the first president of the United East Side Improve- ment Associations, consisting of thirty civic organizations, which have exerted a con- trolling influence in municipal affairs in that quarter of the city. His military activities have been confined to membership with Company K of the old Oregon militia and four years' connection with the Oregon National Guard, following its organization.
In politics Mr. Boise has ever been a republican and has done most effective and earnest work in various campaigns. He was a member of the local committee from 1890 until 1894 and from 1892 until 1894 of the state central committee, during which period he acted as its chairman. He was made chairman of the republican county
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committee of Multnomah county in 1904, thus serving for two years, and he was a member of the executive board of Portland under Mayor Williams from 1903 until 1905. It was his influence with the state legislators that secured the enactment of the bill providing for the Oregon Land Settlement Commission.
Ou the 3d of July, 1900, Mr. Boise was married to Miss Louise H. Hawthorne, a daughter of Dr. J. C. Hawthorne, a prominent Portland physician, who for twenty years had charge of the hospital for the insane in this city and who was one of the largest owners of east side property in Portland. Mrs. Boise belongs to St. David's Episcopal church. Mr. Boise is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, also of the Meadow Lake Club and the Arlington Club and is appreciative of the social amenities of life. During the war period he took active part in connection with the bond and Red Cross drives. It would be impossible to measure the extent of his influence until many of the activities with which he is now connected have reached their full fruition in the development and upbuilding of the state. Opportunity has ever been to him a call to action. Moreover, he is constantly and closely studying conditions which affect the general welfare and his aid and influence are ever on the side of progress, reform and improvement, nor is he content at any time to choose the second best. His ideals are always of the highest and along most practical lines he strives for their achieve- ment.
REV. WALTER TAYLOR SUMNER, D. D.
Rev. Walter Taylor Sumner, Episcopal bishop of Oregon and a resident of Portland, was born in Manchester, New Hampshire, December 5, 1873, his parents being Charles Davenport and Rintha (Thompson) Sumner. Liberal educational opportunities were accorded him which he eagerly improved, winning his Bachelor of Science degree upon graduation from Dartmouth College in 1898, after which he entered the Western Theolog- ical Seminary at Chicago and was graduated therefrom in 1904. The degree of D. D. was first conferred upon him by Northwestern University in 1912, by Dartmouth Col- lege in 1913 and by the Western Theological Seminary in 1915. He was made a deacon in 1903 and a priest of the Protestant Episcopal church in 1904. He served as secretary to the bishop of Chicago from 1903 until 1906 and was pastor of St. George's church of that city from 1904 until 1906. He became dean of the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul and was superintendent of city missions of the Episcopal church at Chicago from 1906 until 1915. On the 6th of January of the latter year he was consecrated Bishop of Oregon. He is a broad-minded man whose high purposes are manifest not only in the conduct of the church's affairs and the extension of its work but in various connec- tions with those interests which are working for the betterment of social and civic conditions. While in Chicago he was a member of the board of education of that city from 1909 until 1915 and was the originator as well as chairman of the Chicago Municipal Vice Commission, seeking to present remedies which would check the vice of the city. He was also the first vice president and a member of the executive com- mittee of the Juvenile Protective Association, was chairman of the general advisory and west side advisory committees of the United Charities of Chicago and was president of the Wendell Phillips Social Settlement for colored people. He likewise belonged to the Men's Institute of Chicago; was secretary of the Church Association in the Interests of Labor; was a trustee of the Church Home for Aged Persons; chairman of the Diocesan Social Service Commission and one of the trustees of the Tribune Lodging House for Unemployed Men. He served on the joint committee which had in charge the work in connection with the payment of prisoners, the consideration of the ques- tion of loan sharks and child labor. He was on the advisory committee of the Citizens' Health Association, the Chicago Children's Benefit League, the Illinois Industrial Home for Girls and was state representative of Illinois at the International Prison Confer- ence. He also was made a member of the advisory council of the Boy Scouts of America; was one of the directors of the Forward Movement Home for Boys; a member of the advisory board and chaplain of the Three Arts Club of Chicago; was chaplain of the First Illinois Cavalry of the Illinois National Guard until 1915; and thus into many fields extended his labors, carefully studying the economic conditions, the sociolog- ical and civic problems which affect every individual and constitute forces of detri- ment or benefit to the public welfare. He stands among those progressive men of the ministry who have long since passed beyond the point where the conduct of church
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services constitutes ministerial activity. The scope of his labors has indeed been most comprehensive and his efforts at all times resultant.
In Chicago, on the 1st of January, 1918, Bishop Sumner was united in marriage to Miss Myrtle Mitchell, of Negaunee, Michigan. He belongs to the University Club of Chicago and also to the University Club of Portland. It would be tautological in this connection to enter into any series of statements showing him to be a man of broad scholarly attainments, for this has been shadowed forth between the lines of this review. He is not only a student of theology but of life, his being that type of practical Chris- tianity which recognizes the force of environment, of training and of influence and which recognizes as well the fact that the seed of good if not active lies dormant in every individual and may burst forth into being in the sunshine of proper conditions.
HON. A. M. LA FOLLETTE.
Those forces which have contributed most to the development, improvement and benefit of the state of Oregon have received impetus from the labors of Hon. A. M. La Follette, whose life record has been a credit and honor to the state which has hon- ored him. For many years he has been a member of the state senate of Oregon, his long retention in this office indicating the value of his services as a legislator and his public-spirited devotion to the general good. He has done much to shape public thought and opinion and is leaving the impress of his individuality upon the history of the state. He also occupies a prominent position as a horticulturist, conducting his operations along that line on a most extensive scale and being known as the "peach king of Oregon."
Mr. La Follette is a native of Indiana. He was born in Crawfordsville, Decem- ber 19, 1844, and moved to Calaveras county, California, in 1853, with his parents, David H. and Cynthia Ann (Railsback) La Follette, who crossed the plains in 1852, first locating in Nevada. In 1859 they removed to Oregon. While residing in Cali- fornia the father engaged in mining at Volcano, in Amador county. On coming to Oregon the family located at Dallas, where they remained for a year, and then moved to the district near Salem, where they spent the winter, going in the spring of the following year to the Mission Bottom section, taking up their abode upon a tract of three hundred and ten acres of land, which is now the property of the subject of this review. The land was originally owned by the mission fathers, who settled thereon about 1833, and many signs of their occupancy are still unearthed when cultivating the soil. A monument will no doubt be erected on the site in the near future to preserve the memory of the early occupants. David H. La Follette devoted his life to farming and passed away at McMinnville at the age of eighty-three years, his wife's demise occurring at Mission Bottom when she was sixty-four years of age. They became the parents of seven children: A. M., of this review; Mrs. Irene Tilden, who resides in Humboldt county, California; Susan, who married a Mr. Reale of Stockton, California; Ollie, who became the wife of H. W. Scott of Cherry Grove, Oregon; Brant, deceased; Emma, the deceased wife of Simon Wall of Gaston, Oregon; and Mary, who has also passed away.
In the public schools of California A. M. La Follette pursued his education, com- pleting his studies at Willamette University of Salem, Oregon. On starting out in life independently he took up the occupation of farming, which he has successfully fol- lowed along the most progressive and scientific lines, specializing in the raising of fruit. He has thirty acres in loganberries, cherries, peaches and apples, and was the first man in the state to cultivate loganberries for commercial purposes. He has been particularly successful in the raising of peaches, growing forty-one varieties of that fruit, fifteen of his peaches weighing sixteen pounds and one ounce. In 1919 he shipped eighteen thousand boxes of peaches and is known as the "peach king of Oregon." At the State Fair in 1898 he received all five premiums for produce grown on the farm, the prizes being a Studebaker buggy with rubber tires; a registered cow and a registered Jersey bull; a disc harrow; and a garden cultivator. He is interested in all modern developments along agricultural and horticultural lines and has equipped his farm with the most approved labor-saving machinery, for he believes in scientific methods and keeps abreast of the times in every way. His labors have always been constructive and intelligently carried forward and have re- sulted in placing him in the front rank of progressive farmers.
HON. A. M. LA FOLLETTE
Vol. 11- 44
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On the 2d of November, 1865, Mr. La Follette was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Townsend, a native of Oregon, who passed away in 1917 at their town home in Salem. She was the eldest in a family of eight children, the others being: Jose- phine, the wife of William Reeves of Independence, Oregon; Melinda, who married John Wickham of Ione, Oregon; Marion, a resident of Portland; La Fayette, a promi- nent farmer and stockman residing at Mission Bottom; Amanda, the wife of G. Lake of Salem; Ann, also a resident of Salem; and Minnie, who married John Dimmick of Hubbard, Oregon. Mrs. La Follette became the mother of the following children: Joseph W. of Salem, who married Anna McGhie, a native of California, by whom he has two children, Susie and Gladys; Marion, who met an accidental death as the result of a gunshot wound; Perry L., who wedded Phoebe Hughes, a native of New York, and has two children, Merle and Earl; Clyde M., who is representing Yamhill county in the state legislature and who married Luella Nash, a native of Minnesota, by whom he has six children, Marie, Violet, Clarence, Alexander, Thelma and Doro- thy; Ina E., who attended the La Fayette Seminary and a business college and is now presiding over her father's home; Charles Roy, who married Mary Kavanaugh, a native of California, and has five children, Charles Roy, Carl, Pearl, Margaret and Lewis; Elva M., who married Britt Aspenwall, by whom she has one child, Marion, their home being at Mission Bottom; and Grace M.
In politics Mr. La Follette is a republican and in 1887 he was called to public office, being elected a member of the house of representatives, where he served a two- year term, and in 1903 he was reelected, serving through the special session after the regular term of two years. In 1915 he was chosen a member of the state senate and subsequent re-elections have continued him in office, his present term expiring in 1923. No better testimonial as to his worth and ability could be given than the fact that he has so long been retained in the state legislature, where his career has been a most creditable one. He carefully studies the problems which come up for settle- ment and gives his earnest support to all bills which he believes will prove beneficial to the commonwealth. He regards a man in public office as a servant of the people and is using his influence to carry out the will of his constituents, never using his talents unworthily nor supporting a dishonorable cause. He is one of the most active and influential members of the state senate and through his efforts has suc- ceeded in promoting much beneficial and constructive legislation. He is interested in all that has to do with public progress, whether in relation to community, state or nation, and his aid and influence are always on the side of advancement and im- provement. He is always loyal to any cause which he espouses and faithful to every duty and in every relation of life he measures up to the highest standards of man- hood and citizenship. He is a second cousin of Senator Robert La Follette of Wis- consin and on the 15th of August, 1919, he attended a reunion of the La Follette family at Crawfordsville, Indiana, where over five hundred members of the family were assembled. He has in his possession a photograph of the gathering, which he prizes very highly.
WILLIAM S. FERGUSON.
William F. Ferguson, who throughout his life has successfully engaged in farming and is now living at Athena, was born near Holden, Johnson county, Missouri, July 1, 1867, a son of James M. and Mary M. (Marquis) Ferguson. The father was born on the 4th of April, 1844, in Missouri, and the mother was a native of Lawrence, Kansas. The boyhood of James M. Ferguson was spent in Missouri, in which state his marriage later took place. In 1862 James M. Ferguson enlisted in the Union army, in Company E, Twelfth Kansas Volunteer Infantry, under command of General Steel, and he was active in many of the important battles of the war throughout Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas. In 1865 he was mustered out in Missouri. He then went to Kansas, where he was married in December of the same year, and he engaged in farming for some time. Mr. and Mrs. Ferguson later removed to Bates county, Missouri, where they farmed until 1878, when they came west, arriving in Umatilla county on the 8th of August, that year. They settled four miles from where Adams now stands, this location being at that time a wild open prairie. It was all stock country and Pendleton was the trading point. James M. Ferguson obtained some land on the Northern Pacific branch, squatters rights, which he improved, later sold and removed to near Adams,
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