Portrait and biographical record of Portland and vicinity, Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present, Part 97

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 946

USA > Oregon > Multnomah County > Portland > Portrait and biographical record of Portland and vicinity, Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present > Part 97

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June 10, 1858, Daniel Webster Burke, then seventeen years and three months old, enlisted in the United States army, Second United States Infantry, and was sent to Minnesota and Nebraska, in the latter state being located prin- cipally at Fort Kearney. According to the rec- ords of the Loyal Legion, General Burke was appointed corporal in 1859, sergeant and first sergeant in 1861, second lieutenant July 18, 1862, first lieutenant July 2, 1863, captain of the Forty-fifth Infantry January 22, 1867, was transferred to the Fourteenth Infantry July 22, 1869, was made major of the Twenty-third In- fantry August 13, 1894, lieutenant-colonel of the Eleventh Infantry December 2, 1897, colonel of the Seventeenth Infantry September 8, 1899, brigadier-general October 20, 1899, and was re- tired from the service October 21, 1899. He was brevetted captain, major and lieutenant- colonel for gallant and meritorious service, and was awarded the medal of honor for gallant and distinguished service at Shephardstown Ford. September 20, 1862.

General Burke was wounded in the battles of Wilson's Creek, Mo., August 10, 1861: at this battle he was taken prisoner and subsequently was exchanged. He was also wounded at Gaines

Mills, Va., June 26, 1862, and at Gettysburg, Pa., July 2, 1863. He participated in the battles of Malvern Hill, Va .; Antietam, Md .; and the Second Bull Run; and in all battles and en- gagements has been officially mentioned. At the battle of Fredericksburg, Va., he commanded a company of the Second United States In- fantry, also at Chancellorsville, Va., and Get- tysburg, during which latter engagement he was severely wounded and placed on mustering duty in Philadelphia. The general has received offi- cia! thanks from Generals Thomas and Duncan for meritorious services in Tennessee during the reconstruction period, during which time he dis- played great tact and sagacity in bringing about order and maintaining discipline.

In the Sioux war of 1876, General Burke commanded a battalion of the Fourteenth In- fantry. For his services in this campaign he received the official thanks of the commanding officer, General Crook. In the Spanish-Amer- ican war he participated in the engagement at Hormigueros and at Las Marias in Porto Rico, in August, 1898, and was commander at the latter battle. In the annual report of General Miles to the secretary of war in 1898, Gen. Theodore Schwan's report of the battles of Hor- migueros and Las Marias has the following to say of General Burke:

"I wish to bear testimony to the excellent conduct of this reconnoissance (preceding the battle of Las Marias) by Lieutenant-Colonel Burke, an officer of large experience and ripe judgment, well fitted by his sterling qualities and fine professional equipment for high com- mand, and I cordially join in commending the officers he specially mentions as worthy of praise."

General Burke was elected a companion of the first class of the Loyal Legion Commandery of the state of Pennsylvania September 19, 1866, and was transferred to the Commandery of the state of Oregon August 6, 1900. In the No- vember following his retirement from the serv- ice General Burke removed to New York City, where he spent the winter, but owing to im- paired health, came to Portland in April, 1900, where he has erected a beautiful residence near the corner of Twentieth and White streets.

In Georgetown, D. C., General Burke married Sarah J. McBride, a native of Baltimore, Md., and of this union there has been born a daugh- ter, Margaret R. In addition to his identifica- tion with the Loval Legion General Burke is also a member of Winfield S. Hancock Post No. 259, G. A. R., of New York City. Re- ligiously he is a member of the Catholic Church. For forty-two years General Burke was a soldier in the United States army, and no more gallant defender of the flag ever slept under a blanket

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or led a battalion to victory. He is a splendid disciplinarian, and though stern in demeanor, and unyielding as adamant in times of stress and danger, has a heart of gold, and personal char- acteristics which retain indefinitely his closest friends.

GEN. HENRY MELDRUM, surveyor gen- eral of Oregon, and typical representative of western energy and resourcefulness, was born in Pacific county, Wash., then Ore- gon territory, November 5, 1852, and comes of a family established in Kentucky by his paternal grandfather, John, who came from the North of Ireland. John Meldrum, Jr., the father of Henry, was born in Kentucky in 1808, and in his youth learned the stone cutter's trade. In his native state he married Susan Cox, who was born in Tennessee in 1817, and who is now living in Oregon City at the age of eighty-five, hale and hearty, and with vivid memories of her jaunt across the plains with her husband and four children in 1845. John Meldrum settled in Waldo Hills, Marion county, and at that time, in 1845, there had been no survey of the country, and the wildness and desolation were marked indeed. Leaving his family in the new home, now some- what organized, he departed for the mines of California in '49, experiencing there many ad- ventures and hardships, among which was a fight with the Indians at Rocky Point, in which contest ten or twelve well armed men lost their lives, and the whole party were robbed. Notwithstand- ing this calamity Mr. Meldrum was fairly suc- cessful as a miner, and when, one year later, in 1850, he returned to his waiting wife and children in Waldo Hills, he had something with which to console them for the loneliness during his absence. In 1851 he located on a donation claim of six hundred and forty acres in Pacific county, Wash., and in 1856 removed to Oregon City, where he worked at his trade of stone cutter and contractor up to the time of his death in 1889, at the age of over four score and two years. He was a Whig in the old days, but after the war cast his vote for Republican candidates. There are now living two sons and three daughters of the children born to himself and wife, and of these, John W., a civil engineer since 1866, is located on a farm near Oregon City, and is surveyor of Clackamas county ; Octavia is now Mrs. Moore of Portland ; Mary R. is the wife of D. P. Thomp- son of Portland ; and Sarah is Mrs. McCowan of Oregon City.

General Meldrum was reared in Oregon City, attended the schools of that town, and the Pacific University of Forest Grove, after which he ap- plied himself to surveying under the instruction of D. P. Thompson. At the age of nineteen he

was a practical surveyor, and in 1872 took his first government contract continuing thereat until 1900. During this time he was engaged in gen- eral and mining surveying in Oregon and north- ern California, and during 1897-98 was govern- ment inspector of surveying in Minnesota and Dakota. Early in 1897 he ran the Blackfoot Indian boundary line in Montana, and during 1899 was again in Montana. From 1894 until 1896 he was county surveyor of Clackamas county. In July, 1901, Mr. Meldrum was appointed surveyor-general of the district of Oregon by President Mckinley, and after the death of this greatly beloved executive was re- appointed by his successor, President Roosevelt, his headquarters being in the federal building.

In McMinnville, Ore., Mr. Meldrum was united in marriage with Mary Eugene LaForest, a native of Oregon City, and daughter of Eugene LaForest, a pioneer merchant of Clackamas county, at Oregon City, but formerly engaged in mercantile affairs for the Hudson Bay Company. Mr. La Forest was a successful man, and died in Oregon City at the age of forty-nine years. His wife was a graduate of the Oregon City high- school, and was for many years a prominent educator in Clackamas county. She was a member of the Eastern Star, and of the Woman's Relief Corps. Five children have been born to General and Mrs. Meldrum: Pearl, now Mrs. Stevens of New York City ; Don E., government surveyor of Oregon City; Henry La Forest ; Jack; and Mary. General Meldrum is an un- compromising Republican, is ex-chairman of the Clackamas county central committee, and has been a state delegate for more than twenty years. He is identified with many of the foremost fra- ternal associations in the west, including the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks; the Red Men of Oregon City; the Ancient Order of United Workmen of Oregon City ; and the Mac- cabees. He is past great senior sagamore of Oregon, and is a charter member of McLough- lin Cabin Native Sons of Oregon, of which he is past treasurer.

J. T. BUXTON, owner and manager of one of the largest blacksmith enterprises in Forest Grove, and one of the most popular and suc- cessful business men of the town, was born on the old farm two miles west of Forest Grove March 16, 1854. and lived there until his nine- teenth year. He was educated in the public schools and at Tualatin Academy, and in 1873 removed to San Diego county, Cal .. where he served an apprenticeship of three years to Hadel- berg, a blacksmith. In 1877 he returned to For- est Grove and started in business with A. Lee, and soon after bought a half interest in the black-

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smithi business of A. Lee, on the hill, and a year later became sole owner of this large and paying business. Since 1892 he has conducted the enter- prise independently, and his shop is one of the most popular and well patronized of any in the county. Mr. Buxton is a thorough master of his trade, and his excellent workmanship, manifest desire to please, and personal agreeableness, have combined to secure an enviable business and so- cial position in the community.

A Republican in politics, Mr. Buxton has on many occasions left his forge to assist in the elec- tion of a friend, although he has never sought official recognition for himself. Nevertheless he has been a useful and progressive member of the city council on several occasions, and his service has always been characterized by excellent judg- ment and disinterested devotion to the welfare of his fellow townsmen. In Forest Grove he was united in marriage with Phariba Bailey, who was born in Ohio, and who has borne him two chil- dren, Rena and Maud.

In his paternal connections Mr. Buxton is iden- tified with the pioneership of Oregon, his father, Hon. Henry Buxton, claiming distinguished con- nection with the first work of the Hudson Bay Fur Company in the northwest. His grand- father, another Henry, was born in England. There were a large number of children born to the father and mother of J. T. Buxton, of whom seven sons and five daughters attained maturity, six sons and one daughter of whom are living : Edward is a manufacturer of Corvallis; Henry T. is a farmer near Forest Grove; J. T. is a black- smith in Forest Grove; Jacob S. is a resident of Forest Grove; and A. T. is a farmer of this sec- tion.

Henry Buxton, one of the earliest and most prominent of the sound region pioneers, was born in Manitoba, in October, 1829. His father, also Henry, was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1792, and in 1821 went to Manitoba in the employ of the Hudson Bay Fur Company. In 1841 the officials of the company, fearing a collapse of their power from American encroachments, deter- mined to found a settlement of their own, the result being the founding of the Red River col- ony. Mr. Buxton became a member of this com- pany, but instead of accompanying it to Puget Sound, according to the original intention, he removed to Tualatin Plains in 1842, bringing with him his son, Henry, then thirteen years of age. In 1850 the family removed to what is now known as Spring Brook Farm, where the father clied in 1870, and where the son continued to live for the remainder of his life, or until his death in January, 1899.

Henry Buxton. Jr., filled many positions of trust and responsibility in the community, and his name was honored by every man, woman and

child to whom his pleasing and interesting per- sonality became known. He was identified with many of the earliest developments of this county, and he worked on the first wagon road between Portland and Tualatin Plains in 1846. Over this primitive thoroughfare he hauled the first load of produce ever brought to Portland on wheels, the wagon being drawn by three yoke of oxen, and containing nine slaughtered hogs and twenty- three bushels of beans. He was a Republican in politics, and held many offices in the state, reflect- ing distinct credit upon one and all. For two terms, or between '76-'78 and between '80-'82, he was commissioner : town trustee of Forest Grove for three years ; and during the nearly forty years of his residence here was on some one of the school committees. The farm upon which so many years of his life was spent was unsurpassed for beauty of adornment or fertility, and the success- ful owner spent his time in experimenting in fruit. stock and other departments open to the intelligence and resource of latter day agricul- turists. He married, in 1846, Rosanna Wooley, member of a pioneer farmily of 1845. and who died in 1898. Mr. Buxton was a Mason frater- nally, and variously associated with the social and business associations in which the county abounded at that time.

MARTIN WHITE, assessor of Columbia county since 1895. and one of the broad-minded, reliable politicians of this section of the state, was born in Lafayette county, Wis., August 15, 1855, and was reared on a farm owned and man- aged by his parents. When he was eleven years of age the family fortunes were shifted to Cloud county, Kans., where the father homesteaded a claim, and where the son assisted in the general support until his eighteenth year. He then sev- ered the family ties and started out to make his own living as a farm hand in Missouri and Kan- sas, and in 1881 came to Oregon, where he found employment in a sawmill on the Columbia river.

After eight months of milling Mr. White took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres near Quincy, where he lived for seven years, and where he experinced considerable suc- cess. In 1896 he came to St. Helens the better to fulfill his duties as county assessor. to which responsibility he had been elected on the Repub- lican ticket in 1895. and to which he has been re- elected up to the present time, at present serving his fourth term. His administration has been well received. and Mr. White is credited with sound judgment, unquestioned integrity and a pronounced desire to serve the best interests of those who have honored him with their support.

In 1881 Mr. White was united in marriage with Rose Lillich, but they have no children.

P. C. Beach

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Mr. White is well known fraternally, and is as- sociated with the Knights of Pythias of St. Hel- ens, of which he is past chancellor, and he repre- sented the lodge at the grand lodge in 1901-02. With his wife Mr. White is a member and ardent worker of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

JOHN CALVIN BEACH. One of the larg- est land owners of Washington county is J. C. Beach, whose home farm is located five miles north of Hillsboro, and whose general farming enterprises are characterized by scientific ad- vancement and large financial results. Mr. Beach was born in the state of Virginia July 27, 1849, and comes of ancestors who farmed profit- ably and were invariably a credit to their respec- tive neighborhoods.

Calvin Beach, the father of John Calvin, was also born in Virginia, and in his native state married Margaret Ann Dobbins, also born in the Old Dominion. With his wife and only child, the subject of this sketch, he started across the plains in 1850, intent upon acquiring a new home and perhaps fortune in the far west. It was not his fate to realize his happy expectations, for, arriving at the Platte river, he was stricken with illness and died, leaving his wife and child with the former's parents, who also accompanied the expedition to the west. Mr. and Mrs. Dob- bins took up a donation claim in Washington county on the north Tualatin Plains, or rather bought out the right of Harry Hall, and here Mrs. Beach made her home until her marriage, in 1854, with Charles Conklin. Thereafter her son continued to live with her up to the time of his marriage, and while working on his step- father's farm attended the district schools of Forest Grove.

The wife of Mr. Beach was formerly Lucy Johnson, born and reared in Oregon, and daugh- ter of John Johnson, who came to the state in 1847. After his marriage Mr. Beach engaged in horse and sheep raising in eastern Oregon for about nine years, and still owns the land which represents his first investment in the west. The farm upon which he at present lives consists of two hundred and fifty acres in the valley, and two hundred and forty acres of timber land. In all he has under cultivation about two hundred and sixty acres, and only those who have taken up timber land in Oregon know what an amount or arduous labor this large area represents. In 1876 Mr. Beach was identified with another part of the state, and for seven years lived on a dairy farm of one hundred and sixty acres on Sauvie's Island. In politics Mr. Beach is an old-line Dem- ocrat, and has served as a member of the school board for six years, and as road supervisor for

four terms. In 1873 he was appointed by Gov- ernor Slater a member of the commission to lo- cate and construct a state road from Cornelius, in Washington county, to Astoria, in Clatsop county, the first state road to be constructed in Oregon. An appropriation of $20,000 had been made for this purpose, and the work of locating the road continued about three months. The work of construction was begun the year fol- lowing and occupied practically all of the dry season1. Mr. Beach and his co-laborers found many obstacles to the undertaking, as the country was comparatively new and sparsely settled, but the original road, for the most part, is maintained as constructed, though some changes in its course have since been made by petition to the counties controlling it. The opening of this road was of untold benefit in developing the resources of this part of Oregon, and the fact that so few changes have been made, illustrate the care and thought bestowed upon the work by Mr. Beach and his associates, James Walker, of Clatsop county, and William E. Smith, of Washington county.

To Mr. and Mrs. Beach were born three chil- dren, Henry, Fred and Frank, all of whom are living with their parents. Mr. Beach enjoys to an exceptional degree the confidence and good will of his fellow-townsmen, and his agricultural and stock-raising attainments have materially ad- vanced the prestige of this part of Washington county.

FRANK M. TOMPKINS. From the midst of many friends and pleasant and prosperous sur- roundings Frank M. Tompkins has recently passed away, his death occurring January 8, 1903, at the age of sixty-eight years, ten months and twenty-seven days. For the greater part of a comparatively long life Mr. Tompkins had been a resident of Oregon, in the course of which he passed through an experience which would have embittered and discouraged a less optimistic and broad nature, and the manner in which he bore an almost overwhelming misfortune won for him the admiration and esteem of the entire com- munity. His death was a loss felt by many, as was evidenced by the large number who attended the interment, which took place in Fairview cem- etery, Scappoose.

Mr. Tompkins was born in Hardin county, Ky., February 12. 1834, and the year of his birth was taken by his parents to the state of Illinois. His father, John, and his mother, Nancy ( Burris) Tompkins, were natives respectively of Virginia and Kentucky, and the former was a farmer dur- ing the greater part of his active life. From their home in Illinois the Tompkins family prepared in 1852 to cross the plains to Oregon, their worldly

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wealth embodied in eight yoke of oxen and the possessions which the wagons held, and after six months traveling they reached their destina- tion. They settled at The Dalles, where the father opened the first hotel in the place and conducted the same with fair success for four or five years. He then removed to California, and passed the rest of his life on a farm in Shasta valley, both himself and wife living to an ad- vanced age. Of their seven children but one is now living, William, a resident of Tillamook county.

At the age of twenty Frank M. Tompkins un- dertook the responsibility of self support, and after working out as a farm hand for a time went down into California in 1854. After five years of varying success as a miner and prospector he returned to Oregon, and took the first pack train into Canyon City. June 18, 1863, he was united in marriage with Mary J. Smith, of Holmes county, Ohio, and thereafter lived in The Dalles until 1865, during the two years conducting a pack train. He then removed to eastern Oregon and went into the stock business, residing on his ranch until 1872. About this time Mr. Tomp- kins became the victim of a political plot, and a net was woven around him conjured up by in- genious enemies, from which at the time there seemed no way of escape. He was arrested and found guilty by the court, in August of 1872, of mail robbery, in connection with The Dalles and Canyon City stage holdup, and was incarcerated in the state prison for life. The mental torture undergone during his time in the penitentiary would have been terrible to a guilty person; to one absolutely guiltless it was something inde- scribable. Perhaps the hope that his innocence would be some time declared buoyed him up and made life bearable. At any rate, after four years of life behind the prison walls the guilty parties confessed to the robbery, and Mr. Tompkins walked forth a free man, November 20, 1876, with an unconditional pardon in his pocket.

In 1877 Mr. Tompkins settled on Sauvie's Island and engaged in the dairy business, and at the expiration of two years purchased the three hundred and twenty acres of land, near Scap- poose, upon which he spent the remainder of his life, employed in general farming and an ex- tensive dairy business. With the vigor of re- newed courage he gave his time to the cultivation of the land and to the improvement of the farm in every way, erecting good buildings, purchasing modern farm implements, and bringing his stock to a high grade. Of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins John G. is located in Rainier ; Minerva makes her home in Portland ; Hattie E. also lives in that city; Frank S. is in Seattle, Wash. : Mary E., Minnie A. and William C. make their home with their widowed mother :

and Joseph M., Rufus M. and Inez C. are all de- ceased. Christian Smith, the father of Mrs. Tompkins, and who makes his home with her, crossed the plains in 1862, and is now eighty- eight years old.

ANTON GIEBISCH. The most extensive grading operations in and around the city of Portland have been accomplished by the firm of Giebisch & Joplin, outfitted for the most ambi- tious and important work of this kind, and re- ceivers of a liberal and appreciative patronage by no means local in its extent.

Anton Giebisch, the organizer of the company, behind whom are many years' experience in all matters pertaining to grading, was born in Min- nesota. December 31, 1868, and is third oldest of the four children born to Joseph and Annie Gie- bisch, the former of whom was born in Germany and became a farmer in Minnesota. When twelve years of age the boy, Anton, was taken by his par- ents to Lyon county, Iowa, and at the age of six- teen removed to Aurora county, S. Dak. There, as in Iowa, he worked on the home farm, and when twenty years of age he located on a farm of his own, upon which he lived and worked until 1892. During that year he removed to Oregon and settled in Tillamook county, and at Bay City became interested in the occupation to which he has since devoted his life. The town was at that time in an embryonic condition, and Mr. Giebisch graded it and became responsible for the impetus which inspired the work of its later residents. In 1894 he located in Portland, and from then on this city was his headquarters. He built all of the grading and performed the excavation of Port Wilson, one mile from Townsend, and per- formed the government grading at Fort Flagler. After contracting to do the hauling for the Elec- tric company, he took their poles to many parts of the northwest, and besides hauled all of the ma- chinery for the company to White River Falls above The Dalles. This constituted 700,000 tons, and the machinery had to be carried thirty-five miles up a mountain road. the wagons having four to eight head of horses. In Portland Mr. Gichisch subsequently graded and sidewalked the Hange tract, and besides has graded all over the city, both for the railroad and the municipality. For four years he has been in partnership with Mr. Joplin, and the fine business ability, and amicable association of the two men, has resulted in large financial returns for both. The firm also deals in cedar poles, and other commodities re- quired in their work.

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Portrait and biographical record of Portland and vicinity, Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present, Part 97

Author: Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 946

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 946