An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 125

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 125
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 125
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 125

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child, Archie Earl, thirteen years old. Mr. Dickey holds membership in the Knights of Pvthias and in the Maccabees. Husband and wife are members of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Dickey has always taken an active part in the councils of the Republican party. He has been successful in a business way and owns one of the best farms in the valley. He is known as one of the most successful educators in central Washington, and is highly esteemed throughout Yakima county, where his sterling qualities as a man and his professional capabilities are well- known and thoroughly appreciated.

HENRY GREEN, M. D. One of the most successful practicing physicians and surgeons of North Yakima is Doctor Henry Green, who was born in Dover, England, in 1823. His parents were John Kester and Sarah (McLaugh- lin) Green, both natives of Ireland. His father was a physician and a professor. He was edu- cated in Glasgow, Scotland, and was a man of prominence and of scholarly attainments. After coming to the United States he occupied a chair in the medical school of the Washington uni- versity in Baltimore, Maryland. Doctor Green was born while his parents were visiting in England, they having resided in the United States for a number of years prior to his birth. Returning to this country with his parents when but a few months old, his early life was spent on a plantation owned by his father near Richmond, Virginia. His early education was obtained in a select school at home. He afterwards attended the Christian Brothers' college at Richmond, and continued. his studies in the university at Balti- more, being graduated from the law department. He eventually decided, however, to follow his father's profession, and in 1847 entered the Orian Medical School at Cape Town, Africa, from which he was graduated. He continued his studies later in Port Elizabeth, afterwards spend- ing some time in study and travel in England. Entering the English navy, he served two years as assistant under Surgeon Sage, in the mean- while visiting the ports of China and other for- eign countries. In 1859 he returned to the United States, and for a time traveled over the Southern states. He was at Charleston, South Carolina, when the first shot of the Rebellion was fired at Fort Sumter, and from this time until the close of the war served as a surgeon in the Southern army. He was twice wounded and twice taken prisoner. After the war he practiced his profes- sion in St. Louis, Missouri; Oakland, California; Corvallis, Oregon ; Goldendale, Tacoma and Cen- tralia, Washington. He was elected to the Ore- gon legislature from Benton county, where he re- sided six years. He first visited North Yakima as a delegate from Thurston county to the state

Democratic convention and was so pleased with the city that he determined to locate here, and became a permanent resident in 1895. Doctor Green was married in Iowa in 1866 to Miss Lodency Whitcomb, a native of Indiana and the daughter of A. J. Whitcomb, a merchant and a native of Wales. One son, Rev. Leon D. Green, is a Christian minister of Eugene, Oregon. The second son, Earl, resides with his parents. The wife and younger son commune with the Baptist church. Fraternally, the Doctor is connected with the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a Democrat and takes a keen interest in the suc- cess of his party. He owns a grain ranch in the valley and a twenty-acre tract near the city. Doctor Green is a man of generous impulses and is possessed of those sterling qualities that in- evitably lead to success.

HONORABLE ANDREW JACKSON SPLAWN. Prominent among those who have been actively associated with the political and in- dustrial development of central Washington is Andrew Jackson Splawn, a pioneer of 1862. His birthplace was Holt county, Missouri, and the year, 1845. He is the son of John and Nancy (McHaney) Splawn; his father a native of Ken- tucky and his mother of Virginia. John Splawn removed from Kentucky early in the century to become a pioneer of northwest Missouri, where he died in 1848, in his thirty-eighth year. The mother, Nancy Splawn, who still lives, in her ninetieth year, at Ellensburg, Washington, has led an exceptionally useful and busy life, most of her years having been spent on the frontier. A pioneer of Missouri, three years after the death of her husband, or in 1851, she started across the Plains with ox teams, accompanied only by her five sons, Charles, George, William, Moses and Andrew Jackson, the oldest being but twenty and the youngest, the subject of this biography, being in his sixth year. After having courageously en- dured the severe trials and fortunately escaped the many dangers of this long journey, she even- tually settled with her family in Linn county, Oregon, where a homestead was taken up, which, for a number of years, remained the family home. Here, during his youth and early manhood, Mr. Splawn was variously occupied, in farming and caring for stock, and, in the schools of his home i county and those of Corvallis, receiving his edu- cation. Leaving Oregon in 1860, he assisted his brother Charles in driving a band of cattle into Klickitat county, Washington, and in 1861 came over the divide into the Yakima valley. In the fall of the same year he started with Major John Thorp to British Columbia, driving cattle to the Thompson river, where they spent the winter. In 1862 the cattle were driven to the Cariboo

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

mines, British Columbia, and in the fall of this year Mr. Splawn returned to the Yakima valley, wintering on the Moxee. Returning to Oregon, he operated pack-trains between The Dalles and Canyon City, from The Dalles to Boise basin, and from The Dalles to Rock Island, near the present site of Wenatchee. He also made one trip with a pack-train of forty horses from The Dalles to the Cariboo mines, a distance of 1,000 miles. In 1865, with Captain Barnes, he drove cattle from the Yakima valley, via Lewiston and the Salmon river country, into Boise basin, re- turning to winter again in the Moxee valley. An- other drive was made from Klickitat county to "Warren's diggings," Idaho, and still another, with Leonard Thorp, in 1866; this time from Klickitat county via Spokane to the Kootenay (British Columbia) mines; thence to the mines of Blackfoot mountain, Montana. In 1868 Mr. Splawn bought cattle in the Yakima valley and drove them to the mining regions of Thompson river, British Columbia. The years 1867-68-69 were spent in the Yakima valley, buying and sell- ing cattle ; as a rule the sales being made to pur- chasers who were driving to the Puget Sound country. In 1870 a store or trading post was established by Mr. Splawn on the present site of Ellensburg, Kittitas county, the same being sold in 1872 to John A. Shoudy. From that date to the present time he has continued in the stock business, and, although he has experienced re- verses, having lost at one time, in the severe win- ter of 1880-81, his entire band of seven hundred cattle, he is one of the most successful stockmen in the county. He is widely known as a breeder of Herefords, and in the fall of 1903 took first and second prizes at the Washington State fair held at North Yakima, the Oregon State fair at Salem, and the Inland Empire fair at Spokane. He has for several years been president of the state fair association. Although his interests are largely in stock, he has invested heavily in other directions. In addition to some undeveloped mining property, he owns three thousand acres of land, eight hundred acres under irrigation, sown largely to alfalfa, timothy and clover ; the balance pasture lands.

Mr. Splawn was married in the Moxee valley in 1872 to Miss Mary A., daughter of Martin and Bridget (Downs) Daverin, the father a native of Ireland, who came to Washington in 1872. Mrs. Splawn was a native of Wisconsin, where she was educated. She died in 1894. One child born to this union died in infancy. Mr. Splawn was again married in Ellensburg in 1897 to Miss Mar- garet Larson, daughter of John H. and Hettie (Tilton) Larson. Mr. Larson came to Oregon in the seventies and located in Tillamook county. He was afterwards engaged in business for some time in The Dalles, coming from there in 1880 and taking up a claim in the Yakima valley. He

eventually returned to The Dalles. Mrs. Splawn was born in Kansas in 1873, came west with her parents and was educated in a convent school in The Dalles. For six years she taught school in Yakima county. Mrs. Splawn has brothers and sisters as follows : William Larson, of North Yakima; Lawrence and Bert B., living in the Cowiche valley, and Minnie B., a teacher in the schools of North Yakima. Mr. and Mrs. Splawn have one son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., born in 1899. Mr. Splawn is an active and an influential Demo- crat, a leader both in local and state politics. He is at present state senator from Yakima county, elected in 1902. In political and business circles, he is one of the best known of the pioneers of the Yakima valley and of central Washington. No one has been more closely or more actively asso- ciated with the political history and the indus- trial development of this portion of the North- west than has Senator Splawn, and in the record of events which constitute the history of central Washington he must ever be accorded the promi- nence to which long years of active participation in the progress of this section entitles him.

LEONARD LUTHER THORP, a pioneer of 1858 in Klickitat county and a pioneer of 1860 in the valley of the Yakima, was born in Polk county, Oregon, near the town of Independence, October 16, 1845. He is the son of Fielding Mortimer and Margaret (Bounds) Thorp. His father was born in Kentucky in 1822 and during a life of seventy- two years was always to be found among the fore- most of the trail blazers along the ever receding frontier. His mother was a native of Tennessee and was born near the old home of General Jack- son. She died at the home in Kittitas valley in 1888. The parents of Leonard L. Thorp were pioneers of Oregon as well as of Washington, having crossed the Plains and settled in Polk county, Oregon, in 1844, nine years before Washington became a ter- ritory. In 1858, the family, consisting of father, mother and nine children, removed from Oregon and settled in the Klickitat valley, on the lands that afterwards became the site of Goldendale. A por- tion of this townsite was used for some time as a calf pasture by Mr. Thorp. During his residence in this country the old pioneer was successful in securing the formation of Klickitat county, becom- ing its first probate judge. But the march of civil- ization drove him onward and, in 1861, he left the Klickitat home and settled in the Moxee valley, near what is now known as the "Old Moxee" house, at the edge of the bluff near the big spring, becoming the first permanent settler in Yakima county and also its political father. The household reached this destination February 15, 1861, but previously, in the fall of 1860, the father and two of his sons drove two hundred and fifty-nine cattle and sixty horses into the valley and wintered there. In the spring

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a cabin was built of cottonwood and a garden made in the bottom lands. At this time, the open lands being covered with rye-grass from four to six feet tall, they were of little value except for grazing pur- poses, as the pioneer, with his crude implements, could accomplish but little in converting the prime- val plains into grain fields and orchards. But here the live stock thrived and each year there were ad- ditions to the acreage devoted to farming purposes. This valley remained the home of Mortimer Thorp until 1868, when he again moved toward the frontier, taking up land on Tanum creek, Kittitas county, improving the same and making it his home until his death in 1894. Leonard Thorp received his edu- cation in the common schools of his native county in Oregon and also received instruction from a pri- vate tutor in both Kittitas and Yakima counties. After reaching his majority he engaged in ranching for himself, taking up land in the Selah valley in 1870.

He was married on the Moxee, in 1869, to Miss Philena Henson, daughter of Alfred and Martha (Bounds ) Henson, also among the earliest of Yaki- ma's pioneers, having first come to the Yakima val- ley in 1861. Their children are: Mrs. Eva Brown, born in the valley in 1872, now living in Tacoma ; Dale Owen, born in Selah valley, 1874, and Mar- garet, born in Selah valley, 1880. One daughter, Mrs. Martha Young, was born in 1870, and died during October, 1900. Mr. Thorp has one brother, Willis W., of Seattle, and three sisters: Melissa F., wife of Charles Splawn, of Thorp; Mrs. Julia Olive Smith, a resident of King county, Washington, and Adelia E. Thorp, of Alberta, British Columbia. His life has been spent in ranching and stock raising. Since coming to the Yakima country he has lived successively in the Moxee, Selah and Yakima valleys, removing to North Yakima only in recent years. He is one of the successful and highly esteemed pioneers of the county, has been closely identified with its industrial development and has always been active in its general progress. Although he has never been an office seeker in the general acceptation of that term, he served the county as assessor from 1871 to 1873 and also served an unexpired term of Charles P. Cooke, in the auditor's office. He is now vice- president of the Yakima National Bank, of North Yakima. Mr. Thorp is one of the best known and most reliable pioneers of Yakima county, and indeed of central Washington.

CAPTAIN ROBERT DUNN, a pioneer of 1876 in Yakima county, residing in Parker Bottom, five miles north and three east of Toppenish, is a native of Scotland, born near Glasgow in 1837. He is the son of Robert and Isabel (Shanks) Dunn, who died in Scotland, the land of their nativity. The father was a farmer and stockman; the mother, who lived to be eighty-seven years old, died within two miles of the place of her birth; she was the mother

of thirteen children. The son Robert remained in his native country until his eighteenth year, attend- ing school and working on his father's farm. In 1854 he left Scotland to seek his fortune on the western continent, going first to Canada, where his grandmother was living, and remaining there for three months. Thence he went to St. Louis, Mis- souri, where he was variously occupied for about one year, when he enlisted (1855) in the Second United States regular cavalry, with which regiment he served for five years, being discharged at Ring- gold, Texas, in 1860. Going to New Orleans on his way North, he was there made the victim of con- scription by the Confederate authorities and forced into the Southern army. He managed to escape, however, taking passage on the steamer J. C. Swon, the last boat to leave the South for Northern points before the beginning of hostilities, and went to St. Louis. Here he again enlisted, this time in Battery H, Fifth United States artillery with which he served for two years, participating in the battles of Corinth, Stone River, Shiloh, the siege of Vicks- burg, and others. In the last named engagement he was severely wounded. He was afterwards transferred to a colored regiment and made cap- tain of Company E, Eighth United States colored artillery, serving with this command until the close of the war, campaigning principally in the states of Kentucky, Virginia and Texas. He was mustered out of the service at Louisville, Ken- tucky.

April 6, 1865, he was married in Paducah, Kentucky, to Miss Annie M. Curry, daughter of James Curry, a native of Pennsylvania. Miss Curry was born in Pennsylvania. Both parents died when she was an infant, and she was adopted and raised by an uncle who lived in Ken- tucky, where she was educated in the common schools, and where she met and married Captain Dunn at the age of twenty-one. In 1866 Mr. and Mrs. Dunn left Kentucky for Missouri, where Mr. Dunn farmed for ten years. At the end of this time, 1876, they made the overland trip across the Plains to Washington, the journey at the time being extremely hazardous on account of the activity of the hostile Indians of the West and Northwest; they were in the midst of their jour- ney with their six children at the time of the Cus- ter massacre. Arriving in Washington, they set- tled in Parker Bottom, taking up first a soldier's homestead, then a timber claim and a desert claim and later purchasing some adjoining lands. Mr. Dunn is now farming four hundred acres, of which two hundred acres are in alfalfa, fifty-two acres in hops, ten acres in orchard and the bal- ance in pasture. He also raises blooded stock ; has thirteen registered Shorthorn cattle, one hun- dred and ten graded cattle, fourteen head of horses and two hundred hogs. In 1903 he raised fifty-two and one-half tons of hops. Excellent business ability, perseverance and progressive

DANIEL A. McDONALD.

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BIOGRAPHICAL.

methods have enabled him to transform this tract of primitive arid land into an ideal home and one of the most valuable farms in the Yakima valley. In 1889 Mr. Dunn was appointed postmaster at North Yakima; he moved his family there, bought property and built a home and conducted the office in a most satisfactory manner for five years, at the end of this period moving back to the farm, where he has since continued to reside. Seven children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dunn; their names follow: Ella, the wife of Daniel McDonald, of Parker Bottom, born in Kentucky, 1866; Isabel (deceased), formerly the wife of Thomas Redmon, born in 1868; Annie, wife of W. F. Morgan, living on Knob Hill, four miles west of North Yakima, born in 1870; Mag- gie, wife of Charles McAllister, of North Yakinia. born in 1872; Thisia, wife of C. A. Peters, of Rossland, British Columbia, born in 1874; Mrs. Lulu McKee, of Parker Bottom, born in 1876. The five daughters last named were born in Mis- souri. The eldest son, Adam D. Dunn, born in 1878, was the first white child born in Parker Bottom, where he still resides, engaged in thor- oughbred stock raising; he is a graduate of the Agricultural college at Pullman. The youngest son, George Dunn, now engaged in hop growing in Parker Bottom, was born in Yakima county in 1880; he has also taken a course in the Pullman college. Mrs. Dunn is a member of the Presby- terian church. Mr. Dunn is a prominent fra- ternity man, being connected with the Grand Army of the Republic, the Royal Arch Masons, the Elks and the Loyal Legion. Politically, he is a stanch Republican ; has served as justice of the peace in Parker Bottom for the past ten years, and in 1902 was elected to the state legis- lature as the candidate of the Republican party. He has discharged the duties of legislator to the entire satisfaction of his constituents. As a pio- neer of the county, as one of its most successful farmers, as a man of strictest integrity, honored and esteemed by all who know him, no one is more justly entitled to a place of honor in a work of this character than is Captain Robert Dunn.

DANIEL A. McDONALD, the well-known and successful hop raiser, farmer and stockman residing in Parker Bottom, is a pioneer of Wash- ington, having come to Yakima county in the year 1883. Grasping the rich opportunities pre- sented by the frontier region into which he came, he utilized them with a strong, capable hand, at- taining results which are indeed creditable to the man himself and encouraging to others. Born on Prince Edward's Island in the year 1861, he is the son of Scotch parents, Alexander and Isa- bella McDonald, who crossed the Atlantic and settled in Canada early in the last century. The elder McDonald was a successful farmer, follow-

ing that occupation until his death. Daniel A. lived at home until he was twenty years old, as- sisting his father in the farm work and attending the public schools. But in 1881, like thousands of other young Canadians, he came to the States to seek his fortune, going first to Boston, Massa- chusetts. There he worked three months in a rattan factory. This short experience in a manu- factory satisfied his ambitions in this direction, and he decided to go west. Accordingly he was soon in Montana Territory in the service of the Northern Pacific. From Montana he came west with the Cascade division construction force in 1883, that year marking his advent into Yakima county. After working for the railroad company a short time in Washington, Mr. McDonald re- signed, and in 1885 filed a pre-emption claim to a tract of land lying near the site of North Yakima. This property, now known as the Alderson farm, he sold to a man named Alderson, in 1888. The energetic young Scotchman then, in 1889, re- moved to Parker Bottom, buying a quarter sec- tion there, upon which he has since lived. Dur- ing the past sixteen years he has improved two farms in the county. In 1888 he entered the stock raising industry, and has been as successful in this line of business as in farming. He has one brother, Malcolm, at the old home; and sisters, Flora, Catherine, Jessie and Alex.

Mr. McDonald was married at North Yakima in 1889 to Miss Ella F. Dunn, the eldest daugh- ter of Captain Robert and Annie M. (Curry) Dunn. Captain Dunn was born near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1837, came to Canada in 1854, later enlisted in the United States army, was a veteran of the Civil war, in which he obtained his rank as captain, lived in Missouri for several years, and finally, in 1876, immigrated to Washington, becoming a resident of Parker Bottom and con- sequently a pioneer of Yakima county. Mrs. Dunn was born in Pennsylvania in 1844, and was united in marriage to Captain Dunn at Paducah, Kentucky, April 6, 1865. Both parents are still esteemed residents of Yakima county, their home being in Parker Bottom. Ella (Dunn) McDon- ald was born in Kentucky in January, 1866, crossed the Plains with her parents and received her education in the schools of Yakima county. She was married at the age of twenty-one. Mr. and Mrs. McDonald have five children, all born in Yakima county : Edith, born August 25, 1890; Isabella, September 15, 1891; Robert, Septem- ber 8, 1894; Clara, August 3, 1897; and Daniel, November 30, 1900. Mrs. McDonald had five sis- ters: Isabella Redmon, deceased; Mrs. Annie Morgan, Mrs. Maggie McAllister, Mrs. Thisia Peters and Mrs. Lulu McKee ; also two brothers, Adam D. and George R. Mr. McDonald is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife are connected with the Presbyterian church. He takes an active interest in politics, being an

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influential Republican. Four hundred acres of land in Parker Bottom constitute his property in- terests, one hundred and fifty acres being in al- falfa, twenty-five in a hop yard, several acres in an orchard, twenty-five in plow land and the bal- ance in pasture. Last year his hop yard pro- duced approximately thirty tons of hops, which netted the fortunate owner between twelve thou- sand and thirteen thousand dollars-a small for- tune in itself. His stock interests consist of two hundred and fifty head of cattle and fifty head of fine horses, placing him among the leading stock- men of the country. Mr. McDonald has labored faithfully and perseveringly and is now reaping the just rewards offered to honest, energetic, capable men ; his friends are numbered by the score, and all who know him have a good word to say for Dan McDonald.

MAX JACKSON, farmer, stockman and one of the most successful hop growers in the state, resides at North Yakima and has been a resident of Yakima county since June 20, 1879, when he came to central Washington with his parents. He was born in Texas, October 12, 1862, and with his parents, John and Mary (Bowman) Jackson, natives of Missouri and Kentucky re- spectively, went to California when a child. There he passed his boyhood, working with his father and attending school, and remained until the family came to Washington Territory. Here he first rode the range for various parties, work- ing as an employee for the first eight years. Then, with the money and stock he had been gradually accumulating, he entered business on his own account, taking a homestead a little later. Upon his father's ranch he first gained an insight into the hop industry and studied it so persist- ently that he at last became recognized as an ex- pert grower. Mr. Jackson increased his stock interests from time to time, until now the Jack- son-Cline Company feed fully nine hundred head of stock cattle, which are shipped and replaced continually. Mr. Jackson was placed in charge of the Hiscock hop ranch in the Moxee valley ten years ago, and in his ten years of management of that large yard has brought it into prominence as one of the leading hop ranches of the state. This yard lies only a few miles from North Yakima and is one of the sights of the county. December 5, 1886, Mr. Jackson and Miss Hattie Buffington, daughter of George and Emily (Butt- ler) Buffington, were united in marriage. She was born in California and came to Yakima county in pioneer days. To this marriage have been born six children, all of whom are living: Harry R., Reba, Bessie, Donna, Hazel and Gladys. Fraternally, Mr. Jackson is connected with the Masons; politically, he is a Republican. As a pioneer and a progressive agriculturast

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 125

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146