Portrait and biographical record of western Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present.., Part 98

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman publishing company
Number of Pages: 1064

USA > Oregon > Portrait and biographical record of western Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present.. > Part 98

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Mr. Bursell is a Republican in politics, and while interested in local and country political un-

dertakings has never worked for the local offices to which he has been elected by his fellow towns- men. The family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Bursell and three children, Ellen, Victor and Arved, who is a student in the University of Oregon, are members of the Church of God, of which Mr. Bursell is a deacon, and toward the support of which he is a generous contributor.

ELI K. ANDERSON. Fast disappearing are the men whose pick-axes awoke the Cali- fornia echoes in 1849, and who subsequently lingered in the wake of the gold miners, and led stich lives of peculiar hardship and adventure as will never again be possible in this great coun- try of ours. Jackson county has its representa- tives whose courage seems almost incredible in the light of subsequent events, and it is safe to say that among them none is more truly typical than Eli K. Anderson, now engaged in farming, stock-raising and mining a mile west of Talent. Mr. Anderson arrived in California in the fall of 1849, at that time being twenty-three years old, an age particularly impressionable, ready to give hearty co-operation to new and promising schemes. He was born in Monroe county, near Bloomington, Ind., December 20, 1826, and when thirteen years old removed with his parents to Putnam county, Ind., where he lived on a farm until twenty years old. He then prepared for the future by learning the carpenter's trade, and was thus fitted to follow a useful occupa- tion when the fever of unrest canie to his neigh- borhood and made the slower occupations of farming and carpentering pale before the splen- did promise of gold in the west.

With two companions Mr. Anderson made the start in the spring of 1849, their equipment con- sisting of a wagon and three yoke of oxen, pro- visions and the necessary clothing. The outfit represented about all that the fortune seekers had in the world, and all went well until they reached the Sweet river. There one of Mr.Ander- son's companions succumbed to cholera. Arriv- ing in California Mr. Anderson went directly to the mines at Redding Springs. About Christ- mas he and three companions cut timber and paid $75 for a saw with which to whipsaw lum- ber. They then huilt a little skiff, with which they proceeded down the Sacramento river to the mouth of the Cottonwood, and there met Ben Wright and Nathan Olney, with some Ore- gon Indians. The men in question were no- torious Indian fighters and were on the trail of other Indians encamped on the east side of the river. With the assistance of the new arrivals the capture was effected with little difficulty, every Indian with the exception of a squaw being killed by the steady, aim of the white men.

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At this time the Sacramento was very high and the town was entirely under water, so that Mr. Anderson and his companions had little difficulty in disposing of their skiff, which netted them $500. They then proceeded to San Francisco, where they purchased a whaling boat, and after loading it with flour, took it to Marysville. This proved a remunerative undertaking, for they received fifty cents a pound for the flour and had no trouble in disposing of the entire lot. For six weeks Mr. Anderson hired out to build houses in Marysville, receiving $16 a day for his services. He and his friend, Mr. Templeton, next went to Clear creek to put in a dam to pros- pect the bed of the river, but their project proved a failure, and they soon made their way to Trin- ity river, where they made $16 a day in the mines. In July a party of twenty joined them on the Trinity in a prospecting tour on the North Salmon river. Not finding what they were look- ing for, they started northward and discovered the Scott river digging. The Ist of September they went back to Shasta and spent the winter and in March, 1851, Mr. Anderson raised a company of twenty men and went to Scott river. On their arrival they found the mine overrun with miners, and turned to the North Salmon. About the middle of the month a heavy snow fell on the mountains, covering the trails. Pro- visions became scarce, and in the extremity of facing starvation they were obliged to eat their mutles or anything they 'could find to sustain life. Although grouse abounded in great num- bers, they were shy and hard to get. There was but one trading-post at this place, kept by a man named Bess. The miners believing he had flour stored away, they appointed a committee to search his building, but found nothing. Bess went over the mountain to the South Salmon and there found a Spanish pack-train loaded with flour. He secured the full amount and made a contract with the packers to deliver small quantities, for which he realized $3 per pound, limiting three pounds to each person.

At Yreka, during the fall of 1851, an organ- ized gang of horse-thieves made the lives of the miners wretched, for they could never tell when they would wake up and find their trusted ani- mals gone. Mr. Anderson became one of a band of twenty to follow and apprehend the men, among whom were three white men and two Indians. When the scouting party reached the head of the Des Chutes river they found the Indians had killed the white men and taken the Indian trail down the Des Chutes to the Columbia river. The vigilance committee were successful in their quest, finding sixty head of horses in an Indian camp. twenty-five miles above The Dalles on the Des Chutes river, and at The Dalles they also found one of the Indians for

whom they had been searching. The other Indian was captured on the Yakima river.

In January, 1852, Mr. Anderson and his brother, James F., came to Jackson county and took up adjoining claims, Eli K. Anderson set- tling on the farm which has since been his home. The brothers built a cabin which both occu- pied, and which was so constructed that each half rested on a different claim. The brothers went to the Willamette valley for garden seeds and grain, and that fall sowed some wheat and oats, which they brought on pack-horses from Yamhill county. In the season of 1853 they had twelve acres under wheat, which brought theni $8 a bushel. This wheat was tramped out with cattle, and fanned with a sheet. Mr. Anderson and his brother bought an interest in the flour- ing-mill at Ashland. This proved a losing ven- ture, for they were at a great expense refitting the mill. They paid $5 a bushel for wheat to convert into flour, which was sold for fifteen cents a pound. It is worthy of mention that this was the first flouring-mill erected in the Rogue river valley.

In 1856 Mr. Anderson married Miss Elizabeth Myer, and about this time built a more preten- tious house on his claim, this being in time suc- ceeded by the present comfortable farm house in which the family live. Improvements were made as the harvests increased and met a more ready sale, and for a number of years they had the largest orchard and finest apples, peaches and pears in southern Oregon; and Mr. Ander- son's farin gives evidence of the years of faith- ful devotion to its cultivation. He is engaged in general farming and stock-raising, and has also engaged quite extensively in both placer and quartz mining, and at present owns the Forty-nine mine, and what is known as the Dav- enport and Fairview mines. Since 1860 he has been extensively engaged in building water- ditches and now owns the Anderson ditch, which takes water from Ashland creek, three miles above the town of that name. Mr. Anderson was engaged in the merchandise business for a num- ber of years in Ashland, with J. M. McCall, Wil- shire and Atkinson, and also in the Ashland Woolen Mills, which were the only mills of the kind in this part of the country. He and his son, George N., owned the mills at the time they were destroyed by fire in 1896.

Mr. Anderson cast his first vote for Zachary Taylor and has ever since been a stanch Repub- lican. He has filled many of the local offices and serves as commissioner from Jackson county. He is a member of the Masonic lodge at Ashland. Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. An- derson, six of whom are living. Though ap- proaching the age when retirement is considered by many men who have labored so zealously to

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acquire a fortune, Mr. Anderson still enjoys the best of health and has entire supervision of his farm. No man in his neighborhood bears a more honored name nor has any reached suc- cess through the exercise of finer personal traits.

EDWARD GLENN AMENT was born in the state of New York September 18, 1806, and died November 22, 1888. When a babe his pa- rents removed from Olean, N. Y., to Hardin county, Ky., where they resided about ten years, when they moved to Sullivan county, Ind., and there in the woods, E. G. Ament helped to clear up a small farm. In 1823 or thereabouts he journeyed overland with a neighbor in a "prairie schooner" to Peru, Ill. While young he re- solved never to taste liquor and he never did. His face was set like a flint against these and other like evils and he succeeded in preventing all his boys from using liquor and tobacco. From Peru he went to Chicago in company with the surveyors of the Illinois and Michigan canal and was there two years, from about 1824 to 1826. For one year he was with a Mr. Clybourn and with a Mr. Kinzie one year. There he studied arithmetic evenings and some of the other com- mon English branches, and at the end of his sojourn there, with $200 in silver in a mitten in a trunk in a dugout canoe, the product of his own handiwork, he returned to Pern via the Desplaines and Illinois rivers without mishap except that he was occasionally overhauled by an Indian who hoped to find liquor aboard. His parents then lived at Peru. His father, John Ament, was a cabinet maker. His mother was a stanch Methodist. She with the six sons and one daughter left Kentucky and came to Indiana where they were under the guardianship of her- self and Charles Clark, her brother, both staunch Methodists, which accounts for at least four of the boys being enthusiastic Methodists. The sons were named as follows: Edward, Hiram, Justus, Calvin, John and Anson, the latter dying in the army. Calvin was a minister and the others followed farming.

After certain experiments at the Galena lead mines and subsequent experiments at farming in Bureau county, E. G. Ament located per- manently in 1830 in Kendall county, Ill., about fifty miics south of Chicago. His first marriage united him with Emily Ann Harris, by whom he had two children, and he later married Mary Luce, who bore him eight children. Mary Luce was a Baptist, born in the state of New York in the vicinity of Martinsburg, a sincere, conscien- tions Christian woman. Soon after marrying his first wife there was an Indian uprising, and the settlement being warned by Shabbona, he with his wife and with other settlers fled to

Plainfield, where there was a stockade, and thence went to Fort Dearborn, Chicago. He received a land warrant for one hundred and sixty acres of land for his services in the Black Hawk war. The earliest preserved list of voters in Chicago appears to contain thirty-seven names, E. G. Ament being one.

The district school house was located on the Ament farm in Kendall county, and campmeet- ings were held in their woods. The prairie was twenty miles wide at that point between the Fox and Illinois rivers. Log houses were scattered along the skirts of the timber; deer, wild geese, prairie chickens and other wild game were plen- tiful in those days. The residence was about a mile from Fox river, on the south side, on the old Chicago and Ottawa stage road. When the California gold fever broke out in 1849, E. G. Ament fitted out an expedition headed by Hiram Ament to invade the gold fields, going by way of the isthmus.

There appears to be two tribes or families of Aments in the United States; one north, the other south; the former being chiefly located in the state of New York, the latter in Tennessee. The one south claims that their ancestors came from Holland near the borders of France. The nativity of the ancestors of the former is not stated, but all are supposed to be of French descent. E. G. Ament died on the 22d of No- vember, 1888, at the age of eighty-two, and is interred at Pavilion, about four miles south of the old homestead in Kendall county.

C. G. AMENT, president of the Golden Drift Mining Company, was born November 5, 1851, at the old homestead in Kendall county, Ill. His occupation has been varied, from reclaiming large tracts of arid lands, to developing the virgin prairies into high priced productive farm lands. He was educated in high schools and in- stitutes of learning, and is a gentleman of re- tiring manners and is a worthy citizen of high moral character and Christian integrity. His marriage united him with Miss Emma Simms, a highly cultured lady, and they are blessed with three children, two of whom are boys.

Mr. Ament is a firm believer in irrigation, and was instrumental in obtaining signatures to the project which was to convert many thousand acres of otherwise worthless land into rich, pro- ductive farms which today are teeming in wealth in fat growing kine. He left his rich pastures and beautiful meadows in Colorado, all under a double water right, to superintend the irrigat- ing proposition of the beautiful and productive valley of Grants Pass, Ore., of which he is the leading factor. The Aments are all hustlers and have a happy faculty of succeeding.

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C. W. AMENT, the general manager of the Golden Drift Mining Company, is a brother of C. G. Ament, whose father, E. G. Ament, now deceased, came to Chicago in 1824, when there were but three houses in the town. This was before the Indian war of the white settlers with the Sacs, Foxes and the Black Hawks and in the days when the plow was drawn by the faith- ful ox-team. in the perilous period when the trusty rifle was always a factor of the plowman's safety; as the swish of an Indian's arrow or the flash of an old flint lock from ambush was not an uncommon occurrence. It was during these early days that Shabbona, the old Indian chief, advised all of the white families of the Fox River valley of the pending massacre by the coming redskin warriors ; a fact which made old Shabbona's name revered and was ever after a shibboleth of good cheer and great reverence. Shabbona often camped by the "old spring" at the Ament home, always being the modest re- cipient of fat mince and apple pies from the hot bake-oven of the ever faithful wife and mother Ament, as well as a heaping milkpan of dough- nuts done to a brown.

C. W. Ament was born in Kendall county, Ill., September 17, 1842, and started on the road of life by taking up the common school branches m an old log school house situated on the farm ; after which he attended high school at Plainfield and later attended Fowler Institute. He mar- ried Miss Lucy J. Preston by whom two children were born, Marion C. and Winifred L. Ament, both of whom are living. Later in life he became a large rancher in New Mexico and finally took up mining, and after years of experience he de- cided to purchase a placer property with a great future, if such could be found, and finally se- lected the Dry Diggings. Having conceived the idea of installing large hydraulic pumps for mining purposes after a most careful investiga- tion of all possibilities, he decided to construct a dam across Rogue river, which he regards as the crowning effort of his life.

M. C. AMENT, superintendent of the Golden Drift Mining Company, was born in Livingston county. Ill., in 1869 and is the eldest child of C. W. and Lucy J. ( Preston) Ament. His child- hood days were spent near Chicago, Ill., and in Topeka. Kans .. and his education was obtained principally in Washburn College and the To- peka Business College. He married Miss Edith Cavell, an English lady, by whom he has two children. A close application for years in the Santa Fe shops and many other mechanical and electrical undertakings gave him his broad

initiation into the occupation of which he is now an acknowledged expert.

In politics Mr. Ament has always been a pro- nounced Republican, but not a partisan nor an office seeker, preferring to devote himself wholly to his business interests. Since coming to Grants Pass in December, 1901, he has been a member of the board of trade and is identified with other organizations for the upbuilding of the place.

As superintendent of the construction of the Golden Drift dam, Mr. Ament has had abundant opportunity to utilize his inventive and mechan- ical genins. This gigantic dam, which is seven hundred feet over all, is twenty and one-half feet high and one hundred and twenty feet wide at the bottom, with a converging thirty-degree slope, to fourteen feet wide at the top of the dam. The other dimensions are as follows: Four hundred feet across the river; an eighty-foot abutment ; a raceway one hundred and twenty feet in width ; and a wing dam three hundred and fifty feet in length (the latter being for the pur- pose of protecting the power house). The total possible power output is forty-one thousand horse-power, of which six thousand horse-power will be used for hydraulicing at the mines and the balance for irrigation and for sale to out- lying industries. In the near future, large elec- tric generators will be put in and other improve- ments made for transmission purposes.

The company owns eleven hundred acres of auriferous or gold bearing gravel, forming one of the largest and richest placers in the entire state of Oregon, the banks running from twenty to ninety feet in depth. The plant will be ready for operation by 1904, and will then be operated night and day, power being thereby secured suf- ficient for the removal of six thousand yards of gravel per day. Under the supervision of M. C. Ament, sawmills were installed for the company and a sufficient amount of lumber (about two million, five hundred thousand feet) sawed for the completion of the plant. The steam shovel used for excavating the raceway was built under his personal supervision and its signal success voices the wisdom of this under- taking. Mr. Ament's ability along mechanical lines has been of great assistance to him in the trying duties assigned him, and his services as a skilled mechanic have been of the greatest value to the company and have enabled its directors (of whom he is one) to place the plant upon a solid financial and practical working basis. This great enterprise will prove a giant stride in the mining world that will prove the true value of force with which to uncover the upper granite bed rock and disclose the vast age-hidden treasure of incalculable value in the silent mountain peaks.

Bhas Eckhoff

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CHARLES ECKHOFF. It is proverbial that the sailor rarely returns and permanently tarries at the port from which he originally sailed. As he becomes toughened and courageous through constant buffeting with old Neptune, his ideas undergo a change, and some distant harbor seems infinitely more interesting and promising. Dis- content also usually drives him to adopt a life before the mast, and it is to this fact that America owes many of her successful and hon- ored citizens. Charles Eckhoff, a large land owner and prominent business man of North Bend and Marshfield, typifies the class of men who have stepped from the slippery deck of a rolling ship and have readily adapted themselves to the activities of a more stable foundation. Born in Holstein, Germany, July 21, 1831, he is the only living representative of a family of three sons and three daughters born to John and Mar- garet (Dittmar) Eckhoff, the former of whom was a laborer and died in 1838, at the age of forty-five, and the latter at the age of eighty-four.

In 1847 Mr. Eckhoff, then sixteen years of age, shipped in the Louise as a cabin boy, re- maining with the ship named after Germany's idolized queen for a year. In 1851 he went to Mecklenburg and shipped on a sailer bound for Odessa, in the Black sea, being duly discharged at Antwerp, Belgium, eighteen months later. He then boarded a vessel bound for Rio Janeiro, South America, returning afterward to the Black sea, from where he sailed to Antwerp, and then to New York. He made a trip on the ship Celestial to Melbourne, Australia, from there to Shanghai, China, thence back to New York, tak- ing ten months for the voyage. On the Danube he sailed to France and from there to China, re- turning by way of the Horn to New York. In 1856 he came to San Francisco as able seaman, having served previously as mate. As able sea- man he received $10 a month. From San Fran- cisco he shipped as second mate to Coos bay on the Arago, the first vessel built at Coos bay, but before that had made two trips to the same waters on the Cyclops. So well pleased was he with the hay that he decided to make the region there- abouts his permanent home, and in 1858 engaged as raftsman and fisherman there, and at the same time tilled a small piece of land. His first land purchase consisted of fifty-three acres and was formerly the property of C. H. Merchant, who sold it in 1864. In 1866 he bought seventy- seven acres of the Whitney tract upon which New North Bend has since sprung into activity, and in 1868 bought two hundred and seventy acres of the same tract, all of which was placed under a high state of cultivation. The good work ac- complished by Mr. Eckhoff brought ample re- turns when he decided to dispose of some of his property in 1890, when he received $16,000 for

three hundred acres from Captain Symans, and $15,000 for another part of his land. Since then he has engaged in buying and selling land botlı in the towns and country, among others purchas- ing two hundred and thirty acres of government school land, which he sold to the Central Land Company in 1901 for $20,000.

In 1864 Mr. Eckhoff married Charlotte Rhoda, a native of Baltimore, Md., who became the mother of thirteen children, of whom we mention the following: Margarite, Charlotte, Mary Hen- rietta, Caroline, Ida, Anna, Isabella, Charles, Lillian, Elsie and Fraderica. Mr. Eckhoff has also given a home and education to an adopted son, John. Politically Mr. Eckhoff is a stanch Republican and has served in the council one term, but has always been reluctant as far as office holding is concerned. Mr. Eckhoff has one of the fine homes of North Bend, and besides has erected another residence and one of the finest stores in the town. He is a man of temperate habits, never touches liquor of any kind, and while liberal with his family, and solicitous for their comforts, understands the art of economy, which is the surest road to wealth. Public spir- ited in every sense of the word, he is a supporter of all public enterprises that advance the interest of his town and its people.

CHARLES S. HILBORN, a highly esteemed citizen of Coos county, has practically retired from active labor, and is now living on his farm, three miles east of Marshfield, Ore. He was born in Oxford county, Me., January 16, 1820, and is one of a family of nine children. His father, Thomas Hilborn, was a farmer by occu- pation. His grandfather, Robert Hilborn, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Charles S. Hilborn received his early education in the dis- trict schools, and when eighteen years old left his father's home and became a sailor. For three years he shipped before the mast, rising to the position of first mate, in which capacity he was serving when he withdrew from the calling Sailing round Cape Horn to San Francisco in 1852, he engaged in mining and prospecting for a period of four years. In 1856 he went to Cur ry county, Ore., and followed lightering and teaming at Port Orford for three years.

February 19, 1860, Mr. Hilborn was married to Emma A. Dyer, who was born October 15. 1836, at Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1859 came to Oregon with her parents by way of the Isthmus of Panama and settled in Curry county. Mrs. Hilborn had a sister Theresa Dyer, who was the first wife of Joaquin Miller. Mr. and Mrs. Hil- born began house-keeping in Curry county, where they lived four years, and in 1864 removed to Canyon City, residing there for one year, then

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moved to The Dalles, and finally came to Coos county. Here they took up a homestead claim of one hundred and sixty acres, which has been their home ever since. A Democrat in political opinion, Mr. Hilborn served as county commis- sioner for one term, but is not an active poli- tician. Fraternally he is a member of Blanco Lodge, No. 48, A. F. & A. M. Respected by all he is rounding out a life that has been well lived and useful to all who have come within its in- Iluence.

JOSEPH ALLEN COLLIER. In the pio- neer days of Coos county no braver sportsman or surer shot shouldered a gun than Joseph Allen Collier. If there was anyone in the timber-lands less deserving of popularity among the bear and elk and deer population he has not been heard from. Under the unerring aim of this enthusiast many a slow-going and contented bear has been stopped in his wandering career, and the demise of himself and kind have furnished post-mortem stories of hair-raising and thrilling interest. Mr. Collier's unquestioned veracity has always re- moved him from the shadow of doubt as to the authenticity of his narratives, and he is therefore regarded as one of the best authorities as re- gards this former splendid hunter's paradise. Even today, when the march of civilization has claimed the haunts of the noblest of the four- footed denizens of the forests, and when this hunter is absorbed in the management of a large and productive farm, he often saunters forth upon his old quest, and rarely returns without some trophy to mark his day's outing. However much he may be interested in one of the best of sports, the reputation of Mr. Collier is by no means based upon his excellent command of a prize-winning weapon. He is one of the prac- tical and energetic farmers and builders of Coos county, and as such has worked his way into popular regard and fortune. He was born in Buchanan county, Iowa, November 8, 1848, his father. Joseph, having been born in Ohio. Jo- seph Collier came to lowa at the age of twenty, and worked at carpentering, building and farm- ing. His wife, Hannah Hathaway, a native daughter of Iowa, is living at Coquille at the present time, and in spite of the fact that seventy- eight years have passed over her head, is hale and hearty. Joseph Collier brought his family to Oregon in 1860, crossing the plains with ox and horse-teams, and located in Jackson county, Ore., for the first year. In the latter part of 1861, and during a part of 1862, he engaged in mining in Butte county, Cal., but not realizing his expectations he returned to Jackson county and worked at placer mining at Willow Springs with fair success. In 1865 he came to Coos coun-

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Portrait and biographical record of western Oregon, containing original sketches of many well known citizens of the past and present.., Part 98

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman publishing company Number of Pages: 1064

Author: Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman publishing company
Number of Pages: 1064