An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 139

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 139
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 139

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soil in his new home, while the boy went to school, helped on the farm and grew to manhood. Both parents now are dead. The young man was en- gaged in railroad work for a year in Minnesota and Dakota and came west in 1886. He came direct to Skagit county, which has since been his home. In 1890 he filed on a homestead near Birdsview and lived there five years, during which period he was engaged quite extensively in logging. He next spent several years in and around La Conner, work- ing four years for J. O. Rudene. In 1900 he bought a place on Beaver marsh which he held five years and sold to P. Person. Mr. Spaulding purchased his present farm in June, 1905. This tract is ex- ceedingly fertile and is said to be one of the finest farms in that part of the county. Mr. Spaulding is a Democrat in politics. He never has married. He is well to do, amiable by nature and popular in his community, one of the county's stalwart citizen farmers.

WILLIAM GEESAMAN, a farmer one mile east and four miles south of Edison, is a man who within the past few years has literally chopped a home for himself and family out of the virgin forest. Where once the monarchs of the woods stood in their solitude has arisen one of the cozy small farms of which Skagit county boasts, and the transforma- tion has been effected by Mr. Geesaman since 1895. He was born in Allen county, Indiana, of Penn- sylvania Dutch stock February 1, 1864, the youngest of the thirteen children of Henry and Mary ( Work) Geesaman. The elder Geesaman was born in the Keystone state in 1815, and in 1833 began clearing up a home for himself in Ohio. He later went to Indiana and still later to Iowa, where he died in 1882. Mrs. Geesaman, the mother, was a native of Ohio.

William Geesaman of this review received his education in the schools of Cedar county, Iowa. He remained on his father's farm until he was eighteen years of age, then went to Kansas and spent a year in nursery work. Subsequent years were passed at different lines of employment, in- cluding farming, until in 1890 he came to Washing- ton and located on the Samish flats. His first year in this state was passed as a laborer, but in 1892 he leased the Nick Beaser place for one year. Two years were then spent as lessee and operator of the Mike Myers farm, after which Mr. Geesaman went to Samish island for a year and a half. In 1895 he bought his present place of forty acres, which at that time was covered with heavy timber and dense brush. The thirty-two acres of it which are cleared are considered equal to the best land on the marsh -land which in 1904 produced an average of one hundred and thirty bushels of oats to the acre.

At Eureka, Kansas, in 1888, Mr. Geesaman married Miss Annie Mckibben, daughter of Joseph

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Mckibbin, a native of Ireland who came to the United States when nine years of age. Ile served in the Civil war as a member of the Eleventh Iowa volunteers. The mother of Mrs. Geesaman, Mrs. Eliza (Chase) Mckibbin. was born in Illinois. Mrs. Geesaman is the second of five children. She was born in Cedar county, Iowa, in 1868 and edu- cated in the lowa schools, but when nineteen years of age went to Kansas, where she met and married Mr. Geesaman. Mr. and Mrs. Geesaman have two children: Pearl E., born in Kansas in 1889, and Florence E., born in Skagit county in 1890. In fraternal circles Mr. Geesaman is an Odd Fellow and his wife is a Rebekah ; in politics he is a Repub- lican. He has manifested his public-spirited interest in the cause of education by serving as a member of the school board. Mr. Geesaman is a hard worker, thrifty. energetic, public spirited and suc- cessful in all the walks of life. His home is one of the pleasantest places in Skagit county.

JOHN HUSTON WILSON is one of the pros- perous farmers of the Edison country of Skagit county. As a young man he took charge of his father's interests in this county and is showing his energy and good management, his ability to make a success of the business he is now pursuing. He was born in Marysville, Tennessee, in the spring of 1815, the son of Samuel C. Wilson, a native of Ten- nessee, born in 1850, who later became a farmer in Illinois and ultimately moved to Skagit county, Washington, settling on La Conner flats in 1887. He is now in business in Bellingham. Mrs. Annie (Martin) Wilson, also a native of Tennessee, is the mother of three children, of whom the subject of this sketch is the oldest. John H. Wilson at- tended school in Hlinois, from which state he came to Washington with his parents when he was twelve years of age. He passed his life in work for his father until he was twenty-six, when he took charge of the place on the Samish flats and commenced to make a specialty of raising hay and oats, the latter yielding not less than one hundred bushels to the acre. For the seven years of his stewardship he has been successful as a grower and marketer and in everything relating to the business.

In January of 1901 on the Swinomish flats Mr. Wilson married Miss Pearl Sisson, daughter of E. A. and Ida L. Sisson, of whom mention is made elsewhere in this volume. Mrs. Wilson was born in Bayview in the summer of 1812, and received her education in the schools of Skagit county and in the Baptist seminary in Seattle. She and Mr. Wilson have one child, Carroll S., born in April of 1902. The family belongs to the Baptist church and in pol- itics Mr. Wilson is a Republican, though of the in- dependent type, which considers the qualification of the candidate and is not bound always by party bias. Mr. Wilson keeps six horses and a few cows. but is

not a stock raiser, preferring to confine his energies to cereal production. He has some interests as a stockholder in coal mines in Alaska.

In the cultivation and management of his excel- lent eighty-acre farm, he has been very successful, applying his abundant energy in a way to achieve the best results; and in all the relations of life he demeanors himself in a manner calculated to win and retain the esteem and confidence of his fellow citizens.

FREDERICK C. KUNZMANN, whose place lies some two miles west of Edison, has been in Skagit county since 1882, and has been steadily in- creasing in worldly possessions and the esteem of the community since his arrival. He is now the pro- prietor of an excellent farming business. Mr. Kunz- mann was born in Germany in the spring of 1853, the son of Jacob and Caroline ( Kleiber) Kunzmann, farmer folk who never left their fatherland. Fred- erick Kunzmann, fifth of their eight children, re- ceived his education in the German schools, which he attended until he was fifteen years of age. At that time he commenced to learn the trade of brick- layer and continued at the same until at the age of eighteen he was considered to have mastered the craft. The next nine years were passed in brick- laying in Germany, then, in 1880, he came to the United States and settled in Wisconsin. After fol- lowing his trade for one summer in the Badger state, he came to California and passed a summer there on a farm, then came to Whatcom county and worked one winter in the woods. In the spring of 1882 he came to the Samish flats, where he worked for wages on a farm for the ensuing six years, at the end of which period he purchased a place two iniles south of Edison, consisting of eighty acres, which he cleared, and on which he lived until 1904, when he leased the H. S. Conner place. He farmed there two years, but at present is living on the George Hoffman ranch.

In 1889 Mr. Kunzmann married Miss Anna G. Wieber. daughter of Conrad and Elizabeth (Isa- riel) Wieber, both of whom lived and died in the old country. Mrs. Kunzmann was born in Ger- many in the summer of 1863 and received her edu- cation in the schools of the old country. She and Mr. Kunzmann have three children: William H., born in 1890; Caroline E., in 1892, and Carl F., in 1894, all of whom are natives of the Samish flats. In fraternal affiliation Mr. Kunzmann is a member of the Fraternal Union of America ; in church mem- bership he is a Lutheran, and in politics a Demo- crat. For nine years he has been a member of the school board, and he has also served the public as dike commissioner. Cattle sufficient to supply the home with dairy commodities and ten head of horses are maintained on his farm.

Manifesting abundantly the thrift which is so

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prominent a characteristic of the sons of Germany, and possessed of an enviable reputation for integ- rity of character. Mr. Kunzmann maintains a high standing among his neighbors and fellow-citizens as a worthy and forceful member of society.

NELSON B. RICHARDS, one of the sturdy agriculturists of the valley in the vicinity of Edison, came to Skagit county when the country was new and has carved his fortune out of the then wilder- ness of woods. His farm, located four miles south- west of Edison, is one of the prosperous places of Skagit county. Mr. Richards was born in Fulton county, Illinois, in September of 1839. His father, John V. Richards, a native of Pennsylvania and a farmer by occupation, became a resident of Illinois in the early fifties. Mrs. Sarah (Crowley) Rich- ards, mother of our subject, was a native of Ohio. Of her seven children, Nelson B. was the sixth, and he was but six years old at the time of her death. Young Richards received his educational discipline in the Illinois schools. At the age of thirteen he was sent to his uncle's stock ranch in Texas, where he remained three years. Returning then to his native state, he put in three years as a farmhand, then went to Kansas City, where for two years he worked in a packing house. He spent the next

year in railroad work in Arizona, then spent seven months in California. In the fall of 1884 he came to Washington and entered the employ of R. E. Whitney, with whom he stayed three years. In 1881 his present home place was bought, then all raw land, now all in cultivation and with excellent buildings erected upon it. Mr. Richards has made this his home ever since, except for three years, when he leased the place.

In 1893, at Victoria, B. C., Mr. Richards mar- ried Miss Lydia Price, daughter of Thomas Price, a merchant, native of Wales, who came around the Horn in the early sixties in a sailing vessel to Vic- toria, in the employ of the British government, in whose service he helped blaze the first trail into the Cariboo mining district. Mr. Price died in Skagit county. Mrs. Jane ( Howells) Price, mother of Mrs. Richards, was also a native of Wales. She died in Bayview in 1893. Mrs. Richards was born in Westminster, British Columbia, in August of 1865, and received her education in a Victoria con- vent. She came to Skagit county with her mother in 188 ;. In fraternal circles Mr. Richards is an Odd Fellow, in church membership a Presbyterian and in politics a Republican. At presnt he is serv- ing as clerk of the school board. Mrs. Richards adheres to the Episcopalan faith. The Richards home is on two hundred acres of land, one hundred and twenty of which are under cultivation, the re- mainder being excellent timber land. In live stock Mir. Richards has twenty head of cattle, ten horses, a number of sheep, etc. He is considered one of

the strong men of the county, a farmer of ability and skill and in all the relations of life a man of unquestioned integrity.

LINUS ABBOTT is one of the men of pure Yankee stock who have helped in the work of turn- ing Skagit county from a wilderness into a com- munity of agriculture and farm homes. His life has been one of travel, yet for more than a quarter of a century he has been a successful farmer in the Puget sound country. Mr. Abbott was born in Windsor county, Vermont, in 1813, the son of Flam Abbott, whose father, Daniel, settled at Stock- bridge, Vermont, among the very first settlers, and there founded the Stockbridge branch of the Abbott family. Elam Abbott was born at Stockbridge Feb- ruary 26, 1805, died June 22, 1895, and was buried in the Sunnyside cemetery, Coupeville. The mother, Mrs. Roxey ( Ellison ) Abbott, born February 24, 1806, was likewise of Vermont nativity; she died February 11. 1885, the mother of nine children, of whom Linus was next to the youngest. At nine- teen years of age, after attending school, Linus Ab- bott sailed from New York, bound for San Fran- cisco, via the Panama route. The trip occupied forty-nine and one-half days. The first year and a half of young Abbott's life in California was spent in farming and dairying at Bloomfield. In the fall of 1863 he came north to Victoria, spending but a short time there before going to Seattle. The following year Mr. Abbott returned to Victoria, and he followed the carpenter trade there for a twelvemonth, or until he went to Coupeville, Whid- by island, where he passed three years at farming. The year 1868 found him first at St. Helens, Ore- gon, and later working at the carpenter's bench in San Francisco. Again coming north, he located at Napton, on the Columbia river, in Washington, and helped build a saw-mill, remaining there eight months. At this time he decided to go back to the Green Mountain state, and there for a number of years followed agriculture. But the sound still at- tracted him, and in March of 18:9 he returned to Coupeville, where he leased a farm and was en- graged in tilling the soil for seven years. Early in 1886 Mr. Abbott came to Skagit county and rented a farm, also purchased eighty acres of wild brush land from R. H. Ball. Sixty acres of this were cleared and brought under cultivation when Mr. Abbott also bought the relinquishment of C. Dicks, filed on it as a pre-emption and later moved there. On his acquisition of this land it was largely in brush and had only a cabin in the way of improve- ments. After clearing sixty acres of it, he pur- chased forty more lying west, which had been part of the E. S. Jones homestead.

March 30, 1821, while residing in Vermont, Mr. Abbott married Miss Lucy S. Putnam, born Octo- ber 5, 1849, of good old Yankee stock. Her father

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was Ezra N. Putnam, whose father was a soldier of the War of 1812, and a relative of General Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame. Mrs. Lucy (Wash- burn) Putnam, her mother, was a native of Ver- mont, springing from old pioneer stock of the Green Mountain state. Mrs. Abbott received her educa- tion in Vermont, eventually graduating from the State Normal school at Randolph, then following the teaching profession until her marriage. She died in Skagit county, October 6, 1889, and was buried in the Sunnyside cemetery near Coupeville. She was the mother of five children: Mrs. Mary L. Callahan, who lives near Fredonia; Hollis R., Nelson S., Hattie R. and George W., the last named dying in infancy. July 30, 1891, Mr. Abbott mar- ried Miss Harriet L. Underwood, the daughter of Jonas Ralph Underwood, who was born in Susque- hanna county, Pennsylvania, October 4, 1828. He was a pioneer in Kansas prior to the Civil War. At the beginning of hostilities he enlisted in Company F, Thirty-second Iowa Volunteers, and died Octo- ber 12, 1863, after serving a little over one year. The mother, Harriet Louisa (Lewis) Underwood, was also born in Susquehanna county, the date be- ing September 22, 1836, and is now a resident of Skagit county. After the death of Mr. Underwood she became Mrs. Waters. Mrs. Abbott was born in DeKalb county, Illinois, May 17, 1863, received her education in Kansas, graduated from Gould college and followed teaching for several years, un- til her marriage. She died June 15, 1903, and was buried in Sunnyside cemetery. Two children sur- vive, Lucy A. and Louisa R.

Politically Mr. Abbott affiliates with the Demo- cratic party. In addition to the pursuit of the other forms of agriculture, he devotes much time to stock raising, making a specialty of hogs, of which he has at present one hundred and fifty head; but he also has a fine herd of cattle and a number of good horses. His one hundred and twenty acres of land are all under cultivation and are so systematically farmed as to reflect great credit upon the worthy owner. Mr. Abbott has the energy and push neces- sary to win success in a business way, and also is possessed of that affable, sociable turn which wins and maintains for its possessor a high place in the regard and esteem of his fellow-citizens.

GEORGE HOFFMAN, a farmer residing southwest of Edison, is one of the men who have deserted the shoemaker's last and hammer for the farmer's plow and harrow. His experiences since coming to the United States cover numerous states, at last to become those of a pioneer in the woods of Skagit county. Mr. Hoffman was born in Germany in the summer of 1835, the son of John and Mar- garet (Decker) Hoffman, who passed all their lives in the old country. They were parents of two chil- dren, George and a girl, who died in infancy.

George Hoffman received his education in the old country, then served a three-year apprentice to the shoemaker's trade, commencing when but fourteen years of age. On the completion of this term he came to the United States, and he spent the first two years of his residence here at work at his trade in New York city. In 1864 he began pursuing his calling in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, remaining there for the next two years. At Wheeling, West Vir- ginia, he remained four years, and in Chattanooga two years; then, in 1872, he came West to Dayton, Washington. After remaining in the Columbia county town two years, he came on to Seattle, where he spent the next twelvemonth. He then went to eastern Oregon, and remained a year, thereupon coming to La Conner. Soon after arriving in that town, he came over on the Samish flats and filed on a homestead, upon which he has resided since 1879. At that time the land was covered with brush, but he went to work with energy and in due time got it ready for the crops of the farmer. Mr. Hoffman has never married. In church membership he is a Catholic; in political faith a Democrat, believing that in that party is more independence than in any other political organization. Mr. Hoffman, while leading a very quiet life, is one of the respected and esteemed citizens of his community.

BENGT JOHNSON, living a half mile south- east of Milltown, is one of the prominent men of that section of Skagit county, and he has amassed his present property only after much discourage- ment and in the face of many obstacles. His life has been a useful one and in his carrer he has given his attention to many lines of work and activity. Mr. Johnson was born in Sweden December 21, 1844, the son of John and Hannah (Knudson) Johnson, who have passed their entire lives in the old country. Mr. Johnson had few educational ad- vantages as a boy, but his native qualities have stood him well in hand. At the age of twenty-three years he left Sweden for the United States, landing in New York May 16, 1868. He went to Penn- sylvania and worked a short time in a tannery, then went to Omaha, Nebraska, where he worked on a gravel train for the construction department of the Union Pacific. He remained at this work for some time and was present at Ogden, Utah, when the golden spike was driven in commemoration of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in America. Mr. Johnson returned to Omaha, then went to Iowa and worked at hauling ties for a time ; later he moved to Missouri and did railroad work. This he relinquished for farming in Kansas, where he resided until 1876. There grasshoppers and cinch bugs ruined his crops, and he sold out his farm and stock, coming to the Puget sound country via San Francisco. He worked seventy-six days at $1 per day, but had the misfortune to lose the very

LINUS ABBOTT

GEORGE HOFFMAN

BENGT JOHNSON

CHARLES ALSTRAND

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, FENOX L'APITIONS

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BIOGRAPHICAL

first money he made in this part of the country. Mr. Johnson then went to Stanwood and worked at diking for Mr. Hancock. In company with two other men he built four hundred rods of dike. He also diked the town of Stanwood, accomplishing the work in six months. He pre-empted his present place in the fall of 18:7, built a cabin, diked the ad- joining place and lived in his cabin until 1880 ; then put up a dwelling near where his present house stands, and where he has cleared and diked one hundred and twenty acres. Litigation with the Puget Sound Mill Company lasted three years and cost Mr. Johnson $150, but he had the satisfaction of winning and keeping his place. It seems that the company proved up on the place on which he had lived and upon certain allegations received the pat- ent. Mr. Johnson carried the case up and ultimate- ly the decision of the land office was reversed. The one hundred and twenty acres of Mr. Johnson's bottom land are all under cultivation and are very fertile. He has sowed two hundred acres of higher land to timothy and clover and uses it for pasture, and he has yet another hill tract of one hundred and sixty acres which is not sown. At present Mr. Johnson has eighty head of good cattle. He is a Republican in politics. One of his ventures in the carly eighties was a partnership with William and Jefferson Sill and Mr. Forsyth in the butcher and meat business at Stanwood. The firm fattened two hundred and fifty head of cattle and three hundred and fifty hogs and Mr. Johnson went to Seattle to sell them. On his return trip the steamer Jose- phine blew up and killed ten men, also breaking one of Mr. Johnson's legs. He was laid up for five weeks, then sold out to his partners. Mr. Johnson has been in other accidents and has had some nar- row escapes. When he was running on the gravel train on the Union Pacific, a wreck mixed up twen- ty-four carloads of telegraph poles and killed ten men, Mr. Johnson having a narrow escape. When he was working in the Pennsylvania tannery he was nearly drowned in one of the tanning tanks. Since coming to the sound country he narrowly escaped drowning in the Skagit river, being unable to swim, and only by chance getting a foothold on the bottom sufficient to permit him to crawl to shore. Mr. Johnson has never married. He is well esteemed in the community, a man possessing sterling char- acteristics, but one who, in his daily intercourse with his associates, is unpretentious and straightforward. The degree of prosperity that has come to him is the direct result of perseverance, of honest endeavor and of square dealing with his fellow-citizens.

CHARLES ALSTRAND, farmer, stock raiser and dairyman, living a short distance northeast of Belleville, after a few years of hard work and struggle with nature, is now well on the road to

prosperity and is already enjoying a competence. During the past few years he has labored well, and now the results of his efforts are taking material form and bringing substantial returns. He is a na- tive of Sweden, born July 8, 1867, the son of Knute Benson Alstrand, a farmer of the old country, who died in 1875. Mrs. Johanna ( Martinsen) Knutsen, the mother of the young man of whom this is written, was born in Sweden, but came to this country in 1898, when seventy years old, and made her home with her son Charles until her death last fall. She was the mother of ten children, two of whom are now dead. Besides Charles the living are Johan and Alexander, in the old country ; John and Mrs. Bettie Hughes, southwest of Seattle ; Mrs. Christina Holmberg, in Kansas; Mrs. Jose- phine Alstrander, in Seattle ; and Mrs. Bena Swan- son, in Skagit county. Charles Alstrand grew to manhood on the farm in Sweden, attending school in the winter and herding sheep in the summer, un- til fifteen years old, when he started for himself. Hle first hired out to a widow by the year, then did blacksmithing for awhile. When nineteen he de- cided to try his fortunes in the new world, so came to the United States with his older sisters, Bettie and Christina, and located at Osage City, Kansas, where for two years he found employment in the mines. He then came to Washington and worked on a White river hop farm south of Seattle for a time, then for seven years rented land in that sec- tion. In 1896 he came to Skagit county and with his brother John bought the place where he now lives, eighty acres, of which only three acres were cleared at the time of the purchase. All the other improvements on the place have been made by the brothers. Charles borrowed money and laid the foundation of his present dairy business by buying one cow, also worked in shingle bolt camps at in- tervals to obtain money with which to make im- provements on the farm and to buy calves. During the first year his residence here began, his aged mother came over from Sweden and became his housekeeper. She died September 16, 1903, aged seventy-seven years. Little by little the stock has been increased and improvements made until early in 1905 Charles Alstrand was in a position to buy his brother's interest in the farm, and he has since been sole owner. He raises hay and oats princi- pally, but keeps thirty head of shorthorn and Dur- ham cattle, also forty head of Poland China and Berkshire hogs. He is a Republican in politics, but consistently refuses office, recently declining to serve as road overseer. Mr. Alstrand is a thrifty, hard worker, progressive, strong willed and deter- mined to attain a position of independence. He has a nice house, good barns and is now approaching the full realization of the hopes of the past, the goal of his ambitions. He is persevering and in all things honorable, and must ever command the respect and confidence of his fellows.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 139

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172