USA > Oregon > Portrait and biographical record of western Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present.. > Part 28
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ELBERT D. FOUDRAY.
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Jones county, Iowa, in December, 1847, and in 1865 crossed the plains with horse-teams, taking four months for the journey. Locating on a farm near Albany, Linn county, he removed the following year to a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Tillamook county, and about the same time bought his present dairy farm of fifty acres in the vicinity of the city of Tillamook. He is engaged in the dairy business, and is a fairly successful man. Through his marriage with Pauline F. Daniels, a native of Missouri, whom he met after coming to Oregon, five sons have been born.
George B. Lamb attended the public schools while living on the farm, and in 1896 entered the normal school at Monmouth, from which he was graduated in 1898 with the degree of B. S. D. In the meantime, from 1894 until 1896, he had tanght school in this county, and it was the pro- ceeds of his labor in this direction which par- tially covered his expenses at the normal. Mr. Lamb has taken a keen interest in politics ever since attaining his majority, and his rational ap- preciation of the duties and obligations of the politician, as well as of the educator, made his election to the public school superintendency a natural and eminently fitting one. Various fra- ternal organizations profit by the membership of Mr. Lamb, among them being the Tillamook Lodge No. 57. A. F. & A. M., the Eastern Star, Ancient Order United Workmen, and the Wood- men of the World. The superintendent of the Tillamook county schools is a young man of high moral character and lofty ideals, and his life inspires a disposition to wise endeavor in all with whom he is brought in contact. He finds a religious home in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he is a trustee, and for the best interests of which he is a zealous and earnest worker.
ELBERT D. FOUDRAY. When he had reached the advanced age of nearly eighty-three years of age Elbert D. Fondray passed from the scenes of earth, at his home in Phoenix, Novem- ber 5, 1903. He was one of the early pioneers whose brave shouldering of responsibility on the frontier will always inspire gratitude and admira- tion. and many incidents in his life might serve as the foundation of an interesting and historical- ly correct story. As a young and energetic man he left his home in Hillsboro, Ky., where he was born January 6, 1821, and went to Charles- ton, Va., where he clerked in a store for a couple of years. For six years he kept a hotel in the southern city, and afterwards engaged in a mer- cantile business until 1848. He reached New Orleans when the gold excitement was disturb- ing the peace of the majority of the inhabitants,
and in March, 1849, he set sail on the schooner St. Mary, a merchant vessel. Various adventures befell the stanch craft in the Gulf of Mexico, and it barely escaped total wreckage, but the damage was not considered serious enough to re- turn to port and soon the gold seekers were adrift in the great ocean, dependent upon the will of wind, tide and calm. Cape Horn presented many obstacles to their progress and for seventy- four days they were driven back and forth by the unruly elements, always in danger and always uncertain of their fate. It was a happy day when the vessel turned its bow towards the north, but many days were passed before it pulled into the port of San Francisco in January, 1850.
Mr. Foudray's first business experience in the west was as a clerk in a grocery store in San Francisco. Afterward he engaged in mining on the Feather river in Trinity county, and in the summer of 1851 he and Benjamin T. Davis purchased thirty mules and started a pack train to the mines of Yreka. In the fall of 1851 he became a clerk in a hotel at Marysville, and his partner in the pack-train business went on to the Willamette valley for a load of flour. This ex- pedition proved disastrous in the extreme, for twenty-five of the mules were drowned in the Umpqua river and the freighting business was practically destroyed. In the fall of 1852 Mr. Fondray went to Jacksonville, but subsequently mined at Yreka for a few months. After re- turning to Jacksonville he had charge of the soldiers' pack train until the capture of the famous Indian John and his tribe. Afterward he was employed as bookkeeper until 1854, when he filled a clerkship in Jacksonville until 1860. During the latter year Mr. Fondray, Mr. Ander- son and Jonas T. Glynn leased the flour mill at Phoenix, and three years later Mr. Foundray be- came sole owner of the mill, operating it inde- pendently until disposing of it in 1869. Upon again locating in Jacksonville he was made deputy sheriff, serving two years, and during that time he encountered many of the rough characters which terrorized the county at that time. Almost the last official act of his life was a journey to Salt Lake City for the purpose of arresting Sam May, former secretary of state.
His term of deputy sheriff having expired, Mr. Foudray engaged in the mercantile business in Jacksonville until the outbreak of the Modoc war, in 1873, when the governor appointed him aid to General Ross. The war ended, he re- turned to the store, but left the same in June, 1874, after his election as county clerk. He served in this capacity two terms, or four years, afterward serving as justice of the peace for six years. In partnership with Thomas Mc- Kenzie he built and operated the flouring mills
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at Jacksonville, and in 1890 came to Phoenix, where he was living retired at the time of his death. Many improvements in county affairs were traceable to the support and assistance of Mr. Foudray, and it was principally through his influence in the legislature in 1866 that the bill was introduced advocating the building of the railroad through Phoenix.
Mrs. Foudray, who was formerly Sarah A. Colver, was born in Marion county, Ohio. Her father, Hiram Colver, was born in Ohio in 1821. and was a legal practitioner, having graduated from the law department of Plymouth College, in Indiana. He married Maria Ward, a native daughter of Ohio, and in the spring of 1850 started across the plains with ox-teams, and at the end of six months located on a claim of one hundred and sixty acres near Eugene, Ore. In the spring of 1852 he removed to a section of land in Jackson county, his brother Samuel locat- ing a claim where Phoenix has since been built. The Indians were very troublesome soon after his arrival, and the brothers had their share of fighting, and for six months were obliged to live at the fort at Talent for safety. Upon return- ing to their farms they protected themselves with stockades, and when the Redmen had been brought under subjection, the work of clearing the land and putting in crops was begun in earnest. Mr. Colver did not long survive the rigors of pioneership, for his death occurred in 1858, his wife, however, surviving him until 1891, dying at the age of seventy years. Mrs. Foudray is the second in a family of seven chil- dren, of whom Martha became the wife of Lewis Sisley; Donna M .; Hiram; Solon and Quincy are deceased; and Mary is the wife of E. J. Farlow, of Ashland.
GEORGE W. GRUBBE. Until the last half of the past century, Oregon, with its vast re- sources, was practically unknown to the civiliza- tion of the east. But as Father Time passed by, taking with him the adventuresome travelers who settled on the Oregon frontier, the hand was not found wanting which could draw aside the veil and reveal the value and worth of the land, and the opportunities waiting for those who would make the most of them. While many of the citizens of the state have flourished as ag- riculturists and stockmen, others have been equally successful in raising fruit or hops or op- crating other interests especially adapted to the country. The fruit orchards in Oregon are of exceptional value, notably the prune orchards. which are classed as the finest in the world, and the subject of this writing, George W. Grubbe, owns ten acres which he devotes entirely to the cultivation of the Italian prunes, having over
seven hundred trees at the present writing. While the greater part of his attention is given to these, he also attends to raising hops and live stock to some extent.
George W. Grubbe was born in Harrison county, Mo., April 22, 1844, a son of Benjamin J. and Eliza (Liggett) Grubbe, who were pio- neers of Douglas county, Ore. Benjamin J. Grubbe was a West Virginian by birth, but came west to Missouri, where he afterwards married Eliza Liggett and where he resided until 1850. During that year he determined to locate in the west, and, with thirteen yoke of oxen, three wagons, and some extra cattle and horses, he and his wife and seven children made the trip to Ore- gon in six months. Mr. Grubbe left his family in Polk county, Ore., that fall, while he, in com- pany with a Mr. Burns, went on horseback to Douglas county. He was so well pleased with the land in that section of the country that he staked a donation claim of six hundred and forty acres in the north end of Garden valley, twelve miles northwest of Roseburg. For a time he left a man on this claim until improvements were begun, when he brought his family to Garden valley and therc engaged in general agriculture and stock-raising. At the end of four years, he bought another tract of six hundred and forty acres near Wilbur, and resided there with his family until 1880, when he retired from the ranch and moved into town. He has now reached his eighty-eighth year and still resides in Wil- bur. He has been a prominent and useful citi- zen, helping to lay out roads and organize schools, earning a place of esteem and eminence among his fellow-citizens, who honor and revere him for his kindly advice and services. Mr. Grubbe lost his beloved wife in 1861, but some time later married Mrs. Rachel Reed, who is still living with him in Wilbur.
George W. Grubbe was but six years old when his parents decided to locate in the west and moved to Douglas county, Ore. He gave all the assistance in his power, and when twenty years old started for himself, renting his father's farm for three years. At the end of that time he en- gaged in raising cattle in eastern Oregon, but continued in the business only two years, when he went to Wilbur and engaged in business as a merchant. There he was successful, and for twenty-six years remained actively employed not only as a merchant but also as express agent, station agent, telegraph operator, and postmaster of Wilbur. These positions of trust were filled with care by Mr. Grubbe for many years. His store was always well stocked with all kinds of articles of a general class, and his patronage was of the best until he sold out in 1900. While in the mercantile business he purchased his home place of fifty-five acres, and now devotes his time
Pretaye
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to his prune orchards. He now has seven hun- dred prune trees on the homestead ranch. Be- sides this ranch, he owns one hundred and ninety acres of land adjoining the town of Wilbur, ten aeres of which he has planted in hops, while the balance is devoted to pasture and general farm- ing.
In 1865 Miss Mildred C. Burdick became the wife of Mr. Grubbe, and after her demise Mr. Grubbe married, in 1879, Frances Chapman. They support the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which Mr. Grubbe is a member. Politically he is a supporter of the Democratic party, and fraternally for the past thirty years has been a member of the Masonic order. Such a life of industry and thrift has but one result, and today Mr. Grubbe is one of the best and most favorably known citizens of Wilbur.
WILLIAM SMITH HAYS. Occupying an assured position among the veteran agricultur- ists of Tillamook is William Smith Hays, who has been quite successful as a general farmer and dairyman. He is a typical representative of the self-made men of the county, having acquired a competency chiefly through his own exertions, his sturdy industry, wise perseverance and ju- dicious management bringing him a due reward. A native of Washington county, Pa., he was born December 29, 1831, being the oldest son, and third child, of Robert Hays.
A native of Pennsylvania, Robert Hays re- moved to Ohio in 1838, settling first in Butler county, and afterwards in Logan county, near Bellefontaine, where he resided a number of years. Migrating to Dewitt county, Ill., in 1854, he engaged in farming, during the harvesting seasons running a threshing machine in connec- tion with his other labors. He continued his resi- dence on the farm that he there improved until his death, in 1872, at the age of sixty-six years. He married Maria Smith, who was born in Pennsylvania, and died, about three weeks be- fore he did, in Dewitt county, Ill. Of the eight children born of their union, two died in infancy, and three sons and three daughters grew to years of maturity, although only two are now liv- ing, W. S. Hays and Julia Ann Turner.
Reared and educated in the suburbs of Belle- fontaine, Ohio, William Smith Hays was there trained to agricultural pursuits under the ju- dicious instruction of his father. At the age of twenty-two years he embarked in farming with his father, and met with excellent sue- cess. In 1875 he left the Prairie state, com- ing to Oregon. Locating in Clackamas county, he lived for eight or nine months
in Milwaukee, and then went to Collinsville, Cal., where he spent about five years, a large part of the time running a threshing machine in that vicinity. Returning to Oregon in 1881, he had a billiard hall and tobacco stand in East Portland, for four years, being located on Fourth street. Becoming a resident of the city of Tillamook in 1885, Mr. Hays engaged in farming and dairy- ing, in which he met with signal success. He also purchased land within the city limits, buy- ing a tract of thirty acres, which he and his son, Robert R. Hays, laid out as the Hays addition to the city, ten acres of which is already built up, being used for resident and business purposes. Politically Mr. Hays is a steadfast Republican, but has persistently refused all official honors. Fraternally he is a prominent member of the Masonic Order, belonging to Tillamook Lodge, No. 57, of which he is treasurer.
Mr. Hays married, while living in Illinois, Angeline Ross, who was born in Ohio. Their only child, Robert Ross Hays, was born June 3, 1856. He learned the surveyor's trade when young, and worked at it for some time. He was a very bright, active young man, and his death, which occurred at his home in Tillamook, in 1897, was deeply lamented. True to the political faith in which he was reared, Robert R. Hays was a stanch Republican, and served one term as county clerk, and for two terms was clerk of the House of Representatives. He was a delegate to the National Republican Convention, which met in Minneapolis, Minn., in 1892, and was the only member of the Oregon delegation who voted for Harrison for president. He was a member and master of Tillamook Lodge, No. 57, A. F. & A. M., and member and presiding officer of Johnson Chapter, R. A. M., Council and K. T. of Portland. He left a widow, Mrs. Ella (Ross) Hays, and four children, namely: R. Blaine, Ella J., Helen H. and Robert R.
ROBERT HANEY is an esteemed resident of Elkton, Douglas county, Ore., and has served four years as deputy postmaster of that place. He was born in Chester county, Pa., and when he was still small his parents removed to the vicinity of Pittsburg, locating on a farm, and it was there that Robert grew to manhood and at- tended the district schools. In 1855 he went to Carroll county, Iowa, and for the next three years followed teaching in the winter and farm- ing in the summer. August 11, 1862, he en- listed as a private in the Union army in Company E, Thirty-ninth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer In- fantry. He served in the Sixteenth Army Corps, afterward the fourth division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, in the Army of the Tennessee
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under General Logan. He participated in the battles of Corinth, Stone River, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain ; was all through the siege of Atlanta, and that campaign; was with Sherman on his famous march to the sea. Starting at Sa- vannah they marched through the Carolinas, cap- tured Goldsboro, and proceeded on to Raleigh, and witnessed Johnston's surrender at Durham Station. Mr. Haney served until the close of the war and was never sick a day, nor injured in battle. Of the original company in which he enlisted, only sixteen came back. He witnessed the grand review of the army in Washington, and although he went in as a private, he was act- ing sergeant during the latter part of the war. After the war, Mr. Haney returned to Carroll, Iowa, and continued to farm there until 1874, and then came to Oregon. He purchased a two hundred and forty acre ranch in Douglas county, along the Umpqua river, four miles from Elkton. He engaged in the cultivation of this farm until 1892, when he retired from farm life and moved to Elkton.
August 27, 1857, Mr. Haney was united in marriage with Mary A. Davis, and their union was blessed with nine children, four of whom are now deceased. Mr. Haney is a stanch Re- publican and a zealous supporter of the party, and has served as school director in Elkton for several ycars. He affiliates with Masonic Lodge No. 63 of Elkton and is one of the most valued members of the Grand Army of the Republic.
EMIL PEIL has the distinction of being an expert mechanic, and for many years has suc- cessfully followed his trade as a blacksmith in various localities. Since 1893 he has been a citi- zen of Ashland, where he now has one of the finest and best equipped wagon, buggy and im- plement stores in the city. Mr. Peil began deal- ing in agricultural implements in 1900 and re- cently built a fine three-story store building, 60x70 feet, to accommodate his increasing trade. He deals in all kinds of farm implements and carries the largest and most complete stock of its kind in Ashland. He makes a specialty of han- (lling Benicia Hancock Disc plows, Canton plows, Buckeye & Hodges harvesters and mow- ers, Bain wagons and Racine buggies.
Emil Peil was born October 6, 1858, in Lin- koping, Sweden, a son of Carl and Ulla (Carl- son) Peil, who never left their native land, Sweden. The beloved mother died at the age of forty-eight years, and the father's death occurred in 1900, he being then in his eighty-fourth year. Ile served in the Swedish army and after return- ing to civil life took up the occupation of a farmer for a livelihood. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Peil. Three of these are
living, all being residents of America. They are Frank, of Medford, Ore .; Emil, and August, a farmer in Idaho. Emil was reared to farm life in his native land and in 1873 he came to Amer- ica, where his brothers were already located. He joined them at Calumet, Mich., and attended school there seven months, also taking a course in a night school. Subsequently he became ap- prenticed to the blacksmith's trade, and for eight years he worked at his trade in that locality. In 1881 he went to Denver and did similar work in the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad shops for a couple of years. While there he was a diligent student at St. John's Hall night school, from which he derived great benefit. In 1883 he went to Salt Lake City and entered the railroad shops of the same road there, but remained only four months, afterward proceeding to Oregon. His first work in this state was in Medford, where he established a blacksmith shop, which was also the first building to be erected in that place. He conducted this shop until the following spring, and then purchased a ranch on Antelope creek, and like nine out of every ten who went to that section, lie engaged in stock-raising. He still owns this ranch and has added to his original purchase until he now has five hundred and thirty-seven acres in one tract. He followed ranching for three years and in 1887 re-engaged at his trade as blacksmith during the building of the big tunnel through the Siskiyou mountains on the Southern Pacific Railroad. When that difficult piece of engineering was successfully ac- complished Mr. Peil accepted a position with the company and for two years worked in their shops at Sacramento.
Leaving Oregon Mr. Peil secured a lucrative position in the shipyard at Seattle, Wash., and worked there until the spring of 1892, when he went to Douglas Island, Alaska, in the interest of the Treadwell Mining Company. He made a second trip to that section for the same company the following year, but before its close he re- turned to Oregon, locating in Ashland, again taking up his favorite occupation. In the spring of 1894 he opened a shop near the depot, but the following year rented a shop opposite the Hotel Oregon. Two years later he bought the Matison blacksmith shop on the plaza and carried on a successful business at that point until 1903, when he leased the shop and devoted his entire time to the wagon and implement business. Since then Mr. Peil has given the latter business his undi- vided attention and his patronage is steadily on the increase. As a business man he is shrewd and methodical and has few equals among his countrymen. While a resident of Michigan, he united with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows, and now affiliates with the local lodge, of which he is a past noble grand. He also belongs
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to the Rebekah lodge; Woodmen of the World, and is a valued member of the Board of Trade in Ashland. In his political convictions he is ever on the side of the Republicans, and both his vote and influence are used in advancing the cause of that party.
DANIEL CHAPMAN. In their struggle to make a livelihood in the early days of Oregon many of the settlers developed qualities. which place them in the ranks of heroes. All under- went deprivation and suffering, and many found death awaiting them in the land toward which they had struggled for so many weary months. To talk to the survivors of the Indian-infested days is like reading a book in which the interest never flags, for the majority who battled in order to preserve their homes and families had their experiences indelibly impressed upon their ter- ror-stricken minds. Few can exceed Daniel Chapman in interesting accounts of experiences which can never be repeated in any land, for tribal decay has laid its heavy hand upon the red man, and his picturesque lineaments and garb will henceforth live only upon the canvas of the painter and in the story of the novelist.
Looking back over his varied life, Mr. Chap- man likes to remember that he is an English- man, with an Englishman's determination and bravery and persistence. He was born in Eng- land May 5, 1832, and was only two years old when his father Samuel left behind him a suc- cessful stock-trading business and set sail with his family from London. Naturally he wended liis way to the center of stock activity in Ken- tucky, where he duplicated the success which had attended his shipping of fine stock from England to Scotland. While buying and selling cattle in Kentucky lie also maintained a butcher- shop, and in 1843 changed his home to near Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived on a farm four years. Near Bonaparte, Van Buren county, Iowa, he engaged in stock enterprises, and con- tinued to live there for the balance of his life. His sons inherited his spirit of push and pro- gressiveness, and Daniel and Henry, strong and rugged youths, the former then twenty-one years old, awaited but an opportunity to step forth into a life of activity and self-support. As is the case with all who work while waiting, they did not expect in vain, for in 1853 they had a chance to assist in driving cattle across the plains, and in return secured their board for the journey, thus reaching the west with practically no outlay of money on their part. They were five months on the way, and the brothers located in Jackson county, but soon after went to the mines at Yreka, Cal., remaining there until the spring of 1854. Returning to Jackson county,
they took up one hundred and sixty acres of land 011 Emigrant creek, six miles east of Ashland, where they erected a crude cabin, and put out ten acres of barley. This was the beginning of a series of encounters with the Indians, who were particularly persistent in refusing the right of invasion to the pale faces. That summer, however, the Indians robbed them of everything they had in their cabins, including blankets, pro- visions and utensils, and it became apparent that the farm was a pretty dangerous place to inhabit, even by brave men heavily armed. About 1857 an organized band of Indians in the mountains terrorized the inhabitants of the valley, and when they had stolen about all of the settlers' horses and cattle, and reduced them almost to beggary, it was time that radical measures were adopted. A band of thirteen started out, leaving one man in charge of the farm and remaining horses, and after a time separated into two parties, each going in a different direction in search of the In- dians. They were found encamped on Keene creek, so named for a member of their party killed, and here the Indians were victorious in a battle for which the settlers were illy prepared. Two of the whites were wounded, and when, the next day, they went in search of Keene, who had disappeared, they found as cruel and merciless a manifestation of Indian depravity as the annals of Indian lore contain. Keene, who had been shot to death, had been cut open, his heart taken out, and a stone placed in the cavity. Mr. Chap- man also had many exciting experiences in 1859, while going with a party to serve as protectors to a band of emigrants coming from the east.
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