USA > Oregon > Multnomah County > Portland > History of Portland, Oregon : with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent citizens and pioneers > Part 54
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540
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
After his defeat Mr. Mitchell resumed the practice of his profession, and although earnestly urged by party friends again to permit the use of his nanie as a candidate for the United States Senate, at the regular session of the Legislature, in January, 1885, he peremptorily declined to do so. The Legislature, however, after balloting through the whole session adjourned without making an election. The Governor of the State thereupon called a special session of the Legislature to meet in November, 1885. Senator Mitchell at that time was in Portland, and although not personally desirous to he a candidate, and steadily refusing to permit the use of his name until within three or four days before the election, he was on the 19th of November again elected to the United States Senate, receiving on the second ballot in joint convention thie votes of three-fourths of all the Republicans and one half of all the Democrats of the Legislature, having on this ballot a majority of twenty-one votes. He was at this time elected to succeed Hon. James H. Slater, and took his seat December 17, 1885, when he was assigned to duty on the following committees: Railroads, Transportation Routes to the Sea-boards, Claims, Mines and Mining, Post-offices and Post-roads, and special committee to superintend the construction of a national library. After a year's service he was made chairman of the committee on Transportation Routes to the Sea- boards, and in March, 1889, was made chairman of the committee on Railroads. He is still representing Oregon at the National Capital, his term of service in the Senate not expiring until March 3, 1891.
Mr. Mitchell is a man of remarkable energy and untiring industry, and throughout liis public career has been distinguished for keen discrimination and quick grasp of great and intricate questions. Without intending to make comparison with the able senators who have represented Oregon, at Washington, it is not too much to say that none have more fully met all the demands made upon their time and energies than Senator Mitchell. The request of the humblest of his constituents has always received at his hands his careful, considerate personal attention, while no lahor or sacrifice however great, has for a moment deterred him from undertaking whatever was in his power to do for the best interests of the State. He is well equipped by nature, training and experience for high public station. He is a successful lawyer of acknowledged ability in every branch of a most difficult profession; is a forcible speaker, and possesses the tact, sonnd judgment and eminently practical views, without which the most brilliantly endowed nien often prove such lamentable failures. Whole-souled, generous and sympathetic in nature and true as steel in his friendship he has surrounded himself with a host of friends whose loyalty he as warmly recipro- cates. Indeed it can be said that no man in public or private life in Oregon ever had a more devoted personal following than Senator Mitchell. His unswerving adherence to the principles of the republican party and his fidelity to his friends are distinguish- ing traits in his character.
Personally Senator Mitchell is a man of striking presence and one who would arrest attention in any gathering of men. He is an interesting conversationalist; has a direct, forceful way of talking, while his ready grasp of any subject discussed would mark him as a man of no common mold of mind. He is a man of polished address and of naturally courteous manner-one who would win respectful recognition any- where and easily gain the good will and confidence of his fellows. O. F. V.
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BIOGRAPHICAL ..
T CHAYER, WILLIAM WALLACE. The typical Western man is popularly conceived as a man of liberal ideas, of generous and hospitable instincts, imbued with a spirit of adventurous enterprise, and withal hardy and courageous. He is not punctilions in minor questions of etiquette or inclined to make inch of mere forms and ceremonies. He is a friend to his friends, a man of sterling integrity and of firmness of character developed by habits of self-reliance. Such men are the State builders whose names and deeds are a part of the history of the newer States of the American Commonwealth. Every western community contains individuals approach- ing more or less near this ideal type.
Throughout Oregon, genial and democratic "Governor" Thayer, as he is familiarly called, is recognized as an example of the typical western man. Personally known as he is in every section of the State, his friends are almost as numerous as his acquaintances. Although it has frequently become his duty during the course of his public career to oppose men and measures which seemed to him not in accord with the best interests of the State, and when such occasions have transpired his firm and decisive course show him a man earnest of purpose and unwavering in matters of judgment, he has nevertheless maintained the respect, nay, the affections of the citizens, so that even those who have experienced his opposition have recognized his purity and unselfishness of motive.
William Wallace Thayer is a native of the Empire State, having been born at Lima, Livingston county, New York, on the 15th day of July, 1827. His father was a man of influence in Western New York, and is well remembered in the vicinity of his home, for his vigor and uprightness of character and as having taken an active part in local political affairs. Besides the subject of this sketch, he had several other sons, the eldest of whom, Judge A. J. Thayer, came to Oregon at an early day and died in July, 1873, while Judge of the Supreme Court of this State. The children received the usual education of the times and circumstances of Western New York at that period, consisting chiefly of spelling book and "Rule of Three" exercises in the winter at the neighborhood school. As the community increased in population, and farm products could be converted into money with greater facility, the family became prosperous and acquired some little property, and were enabled to live in comfort. The eldest son, Andrew J. Thayer, above mentioned, studied law and was admitted to practice, and his example was emulated by his young brother, William or "Wall," as he was usually called. The latter evinced at an early age an aptitude for his books and indulged in an extensive course of reading, particularly in works of history, biography and travel.
Devoting himself to his preparation for his adopted profession, he shaped his reading accordingly, and especially in constitutional history and the elementary principles of the common law, his study laid the foundation for the broad knowledge of the law that distinguished him in later years. He attended a few lectures at Rochester, New York, in the winter of 1851, although most of his legal study was done in the office of a local practitioner at Tonawanda, New York. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, in March, 1851, at Rochester, and at once began to practice at Tonawanda. He was married there November 11, 1852, to Miss Samantha C. Vincent, having already gained a foothold in his profession, and to the congenial union thus formed no doubt his success in after years has been largely due. One son has been born to them, Charles Thayer, at present a lawyer and banker at Tillamook, Oregon.
542
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
Desiring a wider field for his energies, young Thayer determined to remove from Tonawanda, and at first went to Buffalo, N. Y., where he practiced his profession for a short time, but probably owing to the example and invitation of his elder brother, he sold ont his possessions in the spring of 1862, and as many a man of enterprise had done before, pushed out overland to Oregon. He joined his brother at Corvallis, Oregon, and for a time they were in partnership, but later lie removed to Lewiston, Idaho. Here he was elected a member of the Territorial Legislature and served one term. Again in 1866, he was elected District Attorney of the Third Judicial District of the Territory. He did not complete his term in the latter office, for in 1867, he resigned and removed to Portland, where he has since made his home.
On returning to Oregon he was in the prime of life and the full maturity of his powers. He was just forty years of age, and his varied experience, together with his habit of constant and unremitting study of his cases, thoroughly prepared him to compete with the best legal talent of the State. His abilities were at once recog- mized and his practice speedily assumed large proportions. He was always a staunch supporter of the Democratic party, though tolerant and little inclined to carry partisanslip to excess in local affairs.
In 1878, he was nominated by his party for the office of Governor of the State, and such was his popularity that he was elected over his opponent, although the remainder of his ticket was defeated. He was inangurated September 11, 1878, and served the full term of four years.
During this period the abilities of Governor Thayer had ample scope for their exercise, and he did not rest until the public service had been thoroughly reorganized, abuses corrected, reforms instituted and improvements effected in all of the State institutions. The penitentiary system was changed, so that instead of a source of heavy expense to the State, and an aid to the utter demoralization of the convicts therein, it was made self-supporting, and a credit to the State in a humanitarian as well as in a financial sense. Through his influence the asylum for the insane, the asylum for the blind and the school funds were put on a inore satisfactory basis. It was during his term that the judiciary system was altered and a statute enacted, providing for the electing of the judges of the Supreme and Cirenit Courts in separate classes, instead of the original arrangement by which the Circuit Judges sat as Judges of the Supreme Court, and in appointing the new Judges to serve until their successors were elected and qualified. In making appointments to office liis fairness and liberality were illustrated by his appointment of men irrespective of their political affiliations aud wholly upon their merits and with a view to the public weal. Important legislation regarding the State swamp lands and tide lands was had during his administration, and as a member of the Board of Commissioners for the sale of school lands, Governor Thayer had occasiou to construe and apply these statutes. In this as well as in all other matters his aim was to deal justly by both State and people and while he endeavored to act in all cases for the best interests of the State lie allowed no shallow desire for popularity to influence him in his decisions. The peculiar characteristics of his administration was its economy. He applied to the public service true business principles and he made use of the same unostentatious and upright methods that mark his private life.
He resumed his practice at Portland at the close of liis terin, but lie was the unanimous choice of the delegates to the State convention of his party in 1884 for
Jacobs
543
BIOGRAPHICAL.
the office of Judge of the Supreme Court, and was again triumphantly elected when few of the candidates of that party succeeded. He assumed the duties of that office July 1, 1884, and his term expires July 1, 1890. Since 1888, by virtue of the Constitution, he has been Chief Justice of the Court.
A history of his life would be incomplete without a survey of the more important cases which have come before liim for decision and a discussion of his opinions ren- dered therein. It is not possible here to do more than to state, in general, that while his term has covered the most important period of the legal growth of the State, and as new questions of prime importance become more numerous from term to terin as the volume of business in the State increases, the high estimation which has heretofore been accorded to his legal abilities has not been diminished by his decis- ions on the bench. His untiring industry, coupled with his broad knowledge of principles and cases is manifest, while a certain equity of character and an innate love of justice temper his views of the law in the abstract and often intervenes to soften its asperities in its application to cases. He is little inclined to deny a remedy in a just cause on account of trivial mistakes in procedure, but laying aside niceties of practice so far as can properly be done, his aim is to seek the real point in controversy and do justice between man and man.
Of his private character, his charity, his democratic tastes, his affability and sense of honor little need be said. His success at the bar, in so far as it may be ascribed to any one characteristic more than to his general ability and learning, may perhaps be said to lie in the singular clearness with which he discusses the proper legal remedy to the facts of his case, and as a Judge he is especially marked for his full and fair statement of the case before enunciating the principles of law to be applied thereto.
ONTGOMERY, J. B. This well known citizen, though not among those who M came to Portland at the earliest day of the city's history to lay here the founda- tions of municipal and commercial greatness, is a prominent and representative man of the reinforcement that came when Portland was just beginning her larger growth; and to this reinforcement much of the credit of the city's remarkable progress is due.
James Boyce Montgomery was born at Montgomery's Ferry, on the Susquehanna river, in the State of Pennsylvania, twenty-five miles north of Harrisburg, on the 6th of December, 1832. He went to school until he was sixteen years of age, when he was sent to Philadelphia to learn the typographical art. During several years he worked in the office of the well known Evening Bulletin, of that city, and became an expert printer. By the year 1853, he had shown that there was good stuff in him, when he was tendered an associate editorial position on the Sandusky (Ohio) Daily Register, by Gov. Henry D. Cooke. In this position he displayed so much vigor and ability that he was soon asked to take editorial charge of the Pittsburg Morning Post. This offer he accepted, and soon became one of the proprietors of the paper. The paper was successful under his charge, but Mr. Montgomery saw wider opportunities for activity in the railroad development of Pennsylvania, just then beginning; so he sold out his interest in the paper to Col. James P. Barr, his co-proprietor, who continued its publication with great success till his death many years later. [35]
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544
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
.With two associates, Mr. Montgomery, in 1858, took a contract to build a bridge across the Susquehanna at Linden, Pa., for the Philadelphia & Erie railroad. The contract was completed successfully, some money was made by it, and this work opened the way to other undertakings. In 1859, Mr. Montgomery took a contract to build the Bedford & Hopewell railroad in Pennsylvania, and in 1861, in association with Capt. William Lowthes, he undertook to build the Nesquehoning Valley railroad in the same State; but the breaking out of the great rebellion and the difficulty of obtaining labor caused suspension of the work. Mr. Montgomery completed the road, however, in 1868-69. Meantime he had continued work at intervals as contractor for the Philadelphia & Erie railroad, and, in 1866, became one of its directors; in which position he remained till 1869. Among other works executed by him was the construction in 1866 of a wire bridge across the Susquehanna river at Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Montgomery was also one of the owners of the charter of the Baltimore & Potomac railroad, and in connection with Thomas A. Scott, George W. Cass, Joseph D. Potts and J. Donald Cameron, bore an active part in securing construction and completion of this most important highway between the city of Baltimore and the National Capital. He was also interested in the completion of 400 miles of the Kansas Pacific, extending into Denver. His career as a contractor and builder was very active throughout this whole period, and very successful. His natural energy brushed aside all obstacles and led him directly to the fulfillment of his objects.
In 1870 he came to the Pacific Coast, and in 1871 to Oregon. Upon his arrival he offered to build the first portion of the Pacific Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and the contract was awarded him against fifteen other bidders. He built over 100 miles of this road, and also erected the drawbridge over the Willamette River, at Harrisburg, in this State, for the Oregon & California Railroad.
In 1879, Mr. Montgomery went to Scotland for the purpose of organizing a corpora- tion which subsequently built or acquired 163 miles of railroad in the Willamette Valley. Of this road Mr. Montgomery himself built 78 miles. Arriving in Scotland, he brought about the organization of the company, then contracted for rails at Stockton-on-the-Tees, and proceeded to London, where he chartered the ships St. Louis and Childers to bring them out. On his way across the Atlantic he had made the acquaintance on the steamer of a Captain Gilmore, who informed him that he was on his way to Cardiff to bring out the ship Edwin Reed, with a cargo of rails for a line in the Willamette Valley, to be constructed by a company organizing in Great Britain for the purpose; but Mr. Montgomery, by the celerity of his movements, not only was first in getting a company organized, but had his rails at Portland six weeks before Captain Gilmore arrived with the Edwin Reed.
Since coming to Oregon Mr. Montgomery has been full of work of many kinds. He has executed for the government of the United States large contracts on the channels of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, requiring the removal of vast masses of rock, particularly at John Day Rapids. He has built and operated large steam saw mills at Skamokawa, on the Columbia River, in the State of Washington, known as the Columbia River Lumber and Manufacturing Company's Mills, and has con- structed for himself, on the river front at Albina, just below Portland, large docks and warehouses.
545
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Though always an active man of business, Mr. Montgomery has taken a constant interest in politics. In his earlier years he acted with the Democratic party, but differing with it on the question of slavery, he joined the Republican party in 1860, and voted for Abraham Lincoln. Since then he has acted steadily with the Repub- lican party. He was a delegate from his county, (Lycoming), in Pennsylvania, to the Republican Conventions in that State, in 1866, 1867 and 1868, and in the conven- tion of 1866 was on the Committee on Resolutions with Thaddeus Stevens, Wayne McVeagh and others, which committee reported a resolution recommending the nomination of General Grant for the Presidency. This was the first State Conven- tion to present the name of Grant to the country as a Presidential candidate. The same committee also formulated resolutions urging, substantially, the policy of reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion, that was subsequently adopted. It was the policy of that courageous statesman, Thaddeus Stevens, and was maintained persistently against the views of Andrew Johnson, who argued that the old slave States should be re-admitted with their ante-bellum constitutions unchanged, except to have recognition of the abolition of slavery.
Though Mr. Montgomery has always felt a deep interest in politics, he had never till the present year (1890), been a candidate for any office. By the Republican County Convention of Multnomah County, he was this year named as a candidate for the Legislature. As these sheets go to press the election is a month distant.
In the year 1861, he was married to Miss Rachel Anthony, daughter of Hon. Joseph B. Anthony, of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. This lady died in 1863, leaving one son; he was again married in 1866 to Miss Mary Phelps, only daughter of Gov. Jolın S. Phelps, of Missouri.
Mr. Montgomery is known as a man of great activity and energy; his mind is fertile in resources; he is a man of business and affairs, possesses great force of character, allows no obstacles to intimidate him, and has been uniformly successful in his undertakings. Few men throughout the Nortliwest are so well known for the intelligent energy that accomplishes whatever it proposes.
EKUM, FRANK. For many years the subject of this sketch has occupied a D commanding position in the commercial and financial history of Portland. His career and achievements forcibly illustrate what inay be accomplished hy one who pursues earnest purposes and makes right use of his opportunities. Coming to Portland before it had outgrown the limits of an insignificant hamlet, he has grown with its growth until to-day he is one of the leading men of finance in the metrop- olis of Oregon.
He was born in Bavaria, Germany, November 5, 1829. At the age of eight years he accompanied his parents to America, the family consisting of seven children. They settled on a farm in St. Clair county, Illinois. Here the boyhood of young Dekum was passed, and during this period, owing to the humble circumstances of his parents, he can hardly be said to have received any educational advantages, as but one winter in a log school house completed his opportunities in this direction. What he has since acquired in the way of an education has been gained by self application and in the great school of experience. He remained with his father assisting him in the management of the farm until he reached the age of sixteen, when desiring
546
HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
to engage in some work which offered greater opportunities for advancement, he left home and went to St. Louis. Here he secured a position in a confectionery store as an apprentice to learn the trade of a confectioner. Having acquired a trade he deter- mined to seek his fortune in the West. He had at this time read of the far away Territory of Oregon and was so much impressed by the story that he determined to visit the region. With only enough money to pay his passage by water, he left St. Louis on February 2, 1852, on a steamer via New Orleans, bound for the Isthmus of Panama. After a voyage of some four months he arrived in San Francisco, and being without funds he immediately went to work in the California mines where he continued until the spring of 1853 when he came to Portland. For a short time after his arival he worked in a bakery, but in July, 1853, with Frederick Bickel, established the first fruit and confectionery store in Portland, under the well remem- bered firm of Dekum & Bickel. They had limited means at the start but both had practical experience in the business, and their trade soon grew to large proportions. Money gained in this enterprise the partners judiciously invested in real estate, and from this small beginning has grown the large fortune each possesses to-day. The firm was dissolved in 1878 after a continuance of a quarter of a century.
In 1880 Mr. Dekum became one of the incorporators of the Portland Savings Bank, an institution which has had a most successful career. He also took a leading part in securing the establishment of the Commercial National Bank of Portland, which was incorporated Jannary 4, 1886. He was elected president of the Portland Savings Bank in 1886, and at the same time vice-president of the Commercial National Bank, both of which positions he still holds. Though his connections with these two financial establishments consume the greater portion of his time, he is also interested in several other enterprises of important character.
In all of his business enterprises, Mr.Dekun has exhibited rare judgment, and has accumulated a large fortune. Progressive and public spirited he has borne a leading part in nearly every enterprise which has aided the upbuilding of Portland. In business and financial management, he has proved himself to be a force in this community, while the integrity of his course both public and private, command respect and esteem. He is charitable, and generously contributes to aid worthy objects. He is a charter member of the German Aid Society, which was established twenty years ago to render financial assistance to all of German birth who might be in need. He has always taken a warm interest in the establishment and maintenance of educational institutions, and was especially active in securing the organization of the present free school system.
Among the first of the citizens of Portland to foresee the destiny of the city, Mr. Dekum, at an early day, began the erection of large and solid buildings, putting in money in advance of the general growth of the city and leading the way to the development that has since followed.
Mr. Dekum bore a leading part in carrying out the novel idea of introducing into Oregon the song birds of Germany. In fact the idea originated with him, and in June, 1888, he secured the organization of a society for the introduction of these birds into Oregon. Mainly through his efforts a fund of $1,700 was raised by contribution of German, American and English citizens, aud a contract was made with a resident of the famous IIerz Monntains to capture and deliver to the society all of the song-birds specified that were natives of that district.
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