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 143

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 143
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 143

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fourteen years of age young Johnson attended the schools of Sweden. He then started out for him- self. coming to the United States, and in 1883 set- tled on the north fork of the Skagit river, going to work on the farms of that section, among them that of Peter Oleson on Brown's slough. Mr. Johnson remained in that part of the county for fifteen years and saw its development from a few little tracts on which some were doing such farming as could be done between stumps, to a country with large areas of cultivated land which form one of the best agri- cultural districts in the Pacific Northwest. In those days there were no roads, the river was the high- way and canoes the means of transportation. Since then fine highways have been built and gasoline launches have come to ply the waters of the river and sound. The man of the early eighties who made his shack with axe and saw. now directs his agricultural operations from a modern and princely home. In 1899 Fritz Johnson and Ole Jolinson leased the W. E. Schricker farm near Burlington and together they worked it for the next three years. At that time Fritz Johnson and his nephew, Albert Olson, bought their present place of ninety- seven acres on the outskirts of Belleville, which they have converted into a splendid farm. It was for- merly the property of W. E. Harbert. In frater- nal affiliation Mr. Johnson is an Odd Fellow, in church membership a Lutheran, and in politics a Republican. While Messrs. Johnson and Olson raise large quantities of oats and hay. their live stock business is considerable. They take especial pride in their graded stock, which consists of short- horn cattle, Berkshire and Poland China hogs. Their facilities for conducting an up-to-date dairy business are excellent, and in this they are meeting with splendid success. The house and barns on the place are large and of modern construction. Mr. Johnson is a genial man, one of good sense, ener- getic and thrifty. Since coming to Skagit county he has supplemented his education acquired in Swe- cien by a course in the normal school at Lynden, Whatcom county, and by diligent reading he has ever since kept well abreast of the times. His intel- lectual attainments, coupled with his excellent per- sonal traits of character, make of him a man of in- fluence and win for him the confidence of his asso- ciates in business and social life.

WILLIAM J. McKENNA. A veteran of more than six decades, almost all of which were passed on the Pacific coast, a pioneer of the pioneers, and a man of great activity always, the subject of this review has stamped his impress upon the history of more than one of our Western communities, ex- erting his influence always on the side of progress, ever taking a leading part in the ushering in of better conditions. In mercantile life, as a real estate dealer, in the service of the public and in all his

SKAGIT COUNTY

relations with his fellow-men, he has maintained a high reputation for integrity and uprightness, and now, in the early evening of his life. he has the satisfaction of realizing that the ideals of his youth have been kept unsullied. He also has the further satisfaction of knowing that in the great industrial development he has witnessed he himself has borne no sluggard's part, but that on the contrary he has been in some measure a leader in pushing on the work.

The father of our subjejet, William McKenna. was a native of Belfast, Ireland, but some time in the thirties he sailed to far-away Australia, and it was there that William J. was born, the date of his birthi being 1843. The family came to California a few years later. and in 1849 the elder McKenna en- tered the federal service in Benicia, that state, as master mechanic. He had learned the trade of a carpenter in his native land. Our subject received an unsually good education, taking the course of- fered by the public schools of the Golden state and one in the university at Eureka, also one in the cele- brated Heald's business college of San Francisco. At the age of twenty-six he began clerking in a general store in Eureka, and after two years had been spent in that occupation, he went to Hoopa, Humboldt county, to assume charge of a mercan- tile establishment for Greenbaum & Chapman. He managed their business at that point successfully for a period of two years, then was promoted to the charge of their wholesale trade at Arcata, Hum- boldt county, where two years more were spent. Mr. McKenna then engaged in the mercantile busi- ness in Arcata on his own account, going into part- nership with a man named Harpst for that purpose, but he soon after sold out to his partner and re- tired from that line of business for a time. In 1874 he was elected to the county clerkship of Humboldt county, an office which at that time carried with it the duties of auditor, clerk of supervisors and clerk of the court, but so efficient was his discharge of them all that he was twice elected by the people and kept in the office until he was ready to leave the country. In 1880 he was drawn to Washington by the excitement over mining in the Ruby Creek district. Upon arriving in Skagit county he opened the second store in the now thriving town of Mount Vernon, and he continued in business there a couple of years, going thence to Bay View, where in com- pany with W. A. Jennings, a wholesale merchant of Seattle, he embarked in another mercantile ven- ture. This, however, unfortunately failed, owing to the failure of the Seattle house with which Mr. Jennings was connected.

In 1884 Mr. McKenna was nominated on the Republican ticket for the office of county assessor. and so completely had he won the confidence of the people in the few years of his residence in the country that he was easily elected. He served with efficiency and in 1886 the electors signified

their satisfaction with his administration of the office by giving him a second term. This completed, he engaged in the real estate business with T. B. Elliott. One of the most noteworthy things accom- plished by the firm was the foundation and promo- tion of the town of Bay View, a splendid monument to their enterprise, but the story of its inception and growth is told elsewhere in these pages. In 1890. during the boom days at Anacortes, he moved to that city, and being possessed of good judgment, plenty of experience and a sharp eye for opportuni- ties, he naturally did well during the two years of his operations there. His residence in the town of Bay View was renewed in 1900, in which year he was appointed United States census enumerator for that part of Skagit county. He has been in the service of the government almost ever since, becom- ing postmaster soon after the work on his census returns was completed. He is also engaged in the mercantile business (that line in which he has been so well qualified by long experience to succeed), the stock of the former postmaster having been pur- chased by him. He devotes his spare time to look- ing after his property interests in the town, and more especially at present to the improvement of a sixteen-acre tract near by. for he is still ambitious to do his full share toward the subjugation and im- provement of the section in which he makes his home.

In 1872, while in Humboldt County. California, Mr. McKenna married Miss Mary E. Campton, whose father, a physician, had crossed the plains from Wisconsin in 1855. She was born in the Badger state in 1844, but acquired her education in the public schools of California and in the univer- sity at Eureka. She and Mr. McKenna have had five children, namely: William A., a resident of Mount Vernon, who owns a logging camp on Fidal- go island ; Mrs. Louise Risbell, a resident of Mount Vernon; Mlrs. May Gilmore, wife of a merchant of Edison ; Puget, living at home, and Margery, who died at the age of eight years. Mr. McKenna has been a loyal Republican during all the years of that party's existence, and takes not a little pride in the fact that his first vote helped to swell Abra- ham Lincoln's majority. For forty years he has been identified with the splendid Odd Fellows' fra- ternity, which has frequently honored him with a seat in one of its chairs and in which he is a past grand. In politics, in fraternal relations and in all the associations of private and business life he has invariably proved himself a loyal, "true blue" man, and he has the full confidence and respect of every community in which he has lived.

OTTO KLINGENMAIER. a well-known citizen of the Bay View district of Skagit county, is one of the members of a highly esteemed family of pio- neers which came from Nebraska to Washington in

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BIOGRAPHICAL

18:5 and settled near Bay View a few years later. The father, John Klingenmaier, was a native of Wittenberg, Germany, and in the old country fol- lowed farming until his emigration from Europe to the United States. He was married while still a resident of Germany, his wife, Mrs. Anna Klingen- maier, becoming one of Skagit's earliest pioncer women. Reaching America, the husband settled in Pennsylvania. Two years later he removed to Omaha, Nebraska, and there followed dairying with fair success. Thence he came direct to Puget sound, obtaining employment here in the newly opened coal mines at Newcastle, King county. Ilis family joined him at Newcastle the following year, and a year and a half later he abandoned mining for the heatlhier, pleasanter occupation of farming. At that time what is now Skagit county contained only a few hundred people, being in a frontier con- dition. With commendable courage and energy. however, he filed on a homestead a half mile north of the present town of Bay View, and later on a pre-emption claim adjoining the town site. This last claim he took in 1812 and for the next twenty years, or until his death, followed farming and log- ging with substantial results. He came into that region as one of its earliest pioneers and to him and his family Skagit's future generations will owe a heavy debt for the part they have taken in laying the foundations for the broader civilization that is following in their wake.

Otto Klingenmaier received the rudiments of his education in Skagit county, but, as is the lot of the young pioneer, his opportunities have been lim- ited, though he has made the most of them. His attention has been chiefly occupied by logging and farming operations, principally the former. In this work. however, Mr. Klingenmaier has attained suc- cess and is especially favorably known among the lumbermen of his section. One brother, Henry, who came to Skagit as a lad of nine, lives near Bay View, engaged in farming, while three sisters have found homes elsewhere. Mrs. Anna Butters and Miss Bertha Klingenmaier reside at Clear Lake, Skagit county, the latter with the former; the re- maining sister, Miss Victoria Klingenmaier, lives in Tacoma. The family reputation for integrity, industry and ability to perform whatever work they undertake, is still zealously maintained by the younger generation. One hundred and ten aeres constitute the family estate near Bay View, which is counted a valuable holding.

JOHN PURCELL, for thirty-five years past identified with the development of Puget sound and for a quarter of a century one of the well-known citizens of Skagit county, is well worthy of a place among these biographical records. His career as a lumberman on the sound covers a period of thirty years, with the exception of five spent in British Columbia, he having retired five years ago to the

more peaceful pursuit of farming, his place lying just south of Bay View. A native of New Bruns- wick, born in 1844, John Purcell comes of Irish parentage, the son of pioncers of the Gulf province. William and Catherine ( Burke ) Purcell came to New Brunswick when young people, where the hus- band followed the carpenter's trade until his death at the age of seventy-eight. Mrs. Purcell, also de- ceased, was the mother of twelve children. John passed his youth attending school and working with his father, leaving home at the age of twenty to seek his fortune. Going to Wisconsin, he first spent six years with a lumber firm, then went across the plains to Colorado. The same fall he pushed on across the Rockies and later across the snowy Cas- cades to the territory of Washington, reaching here late in 1810. Here he worked at Utsalady two years, then crossed the sound to Hood's canal and was there engaged in logging until 1875. The next five years he spent at pile driving in Seattle, during its transformation from a town into a little city. At the close of that period he came north to what is now Skagit county and in the Skagit valley spent the first four years of his residence in that section in the logging industry. From there he went on the Samish, then alternated for several years be- tween that river and Skagit, finally taking a pre- emption claim in 1891. A year later he left that, residing at various points in the county until 1896, when he accepted the position of foreman of the Hastings Mill Company's camp in British Colum- bia, with which he remained five years. Upon reach- ing the end of this engagement, Mr. Purcell, wea- ried with the hard life which is the logger's lot, returned to the beautiful Swinomish flats and bought his present place of thirty-two acres, lying a mile south of Bay View, which he has brought under a high state of cultivation and improvement.

At Seattle, in 1875, Mr. Purcell and Miss Alice McGroaty were united in marriage. Her father, Patrick MeGroaty, was born in Ireland and by trade was a shoemaker. He settled in Wisconsin in an early day and at the outbreak of the Civil War gallantly joined the boys in blue and upon a South- ern battlefield nobly sacrificed himself upon the altar of his adopted country. llis widow, Mrs. Catherine (Rock) Lloyd, is still living, residing with her husband near Fir, Washington. Mrs. Purcell was born in Wisconsin in 1858, receiving her educational instruction within the borders of the Badger state. Mr. and Mrs. Purcell are the parents of four children: Mrs. Eliza Tholstrup of Wenatchee; Mrs. Catherine Tholstrup of Seattle ; Edward W., and Leonard J. The family are adher- ents of the Catholic faith. Politically Mr. Purcell is a Democrat. His well stocked, neatly improved farm bears the same marks of thoroughness and industry which brought him success in the lumber business, and his personality has won him a host of warm friends.

SKAGIT COUNTY

EDWARD CRUMRINE, a young man of Skagit county birth, has already assured success for himself in the management of a farm, and he enjoys a reputation for executive ability of a high order. He was born in 1880, the son of Thomas and Minnie ( Kalso) Crumrine. The elder Crum- rine was born of Irish and Dutch descent in Indi- ana, and after a few years in South Dakota came to Washington, in 1875. locating at Blaine, in Whatcom county, in 1878, and later coming to the Bay View country. Mrs. Crumrine was born in Wisconsin in 1862, receiving her early education in that state and coming to Washington with her parents when fifteen years old. The younger Crum- rine received his education in the Skagit county schools and has been at home all his life, in late years operating his mother's farm, a mile and a half south of Bay View, and in the neighborhood of his mother's people, the well-known Kalso fam- ily, sketches of whom appear also in this volume.

In April of 1905 at Bay View Mr. Crumrine married Miss Anna Jergenson, daughter of James and Mary A. ( Sorenson) Jergenson, natives of Denmark, who came to Washington in 1896. Mr. Jergenson was a tailor by trade and followed tailor- ing at Bay View until his death in 1900. Mrs. Jer- genson is still living at Bay View. Mrs. Crumrine was born in Wisconsin in 1882 and received her education before coming to this state. She was twenty-three years of age when married. The Crumrine farm consists of fifty-seven acres, all of which are under cultivation. The live stock main- tained is for the use of the family, consisting of four head of cattle and five horses. The Cruim- rines attend the Methodist church. In fraternal circles Mr. Crumrine is an Odd Fellow, and is now serving a term as noble grand of Bay View lodge. No. 128. Ilis mother is an ardent member of the Daughters of Rebekah and a woman much esteemed in Odd Fellow circles as well as by the citizens of Bay View generally. The Crumrine place is one of the pleasant ones near Bay View and in its man- agement Edward Crumrine is showing all the fac- ulties essential to success on a modern farm.

EDGAR A. SISSON, proprietor of the Fair- view farm near Padilla, is one of the pioneers of Skagit county who has done as much as any other man to develop the resources of his section of the state. He has been active in the life of the com- munity since 1822, when he was one of the men who inaugurated the plan of reclaiming lands froni the tide water. Mr. Sisson was born in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in 1849, the son of Arnold C. Sisson, a native of Connecticut, and later a mer- chant and farmer of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Isabel (Green) Sisson, mother of our subject, was born in the Keystone state and is now living at Factory- ville. She is the mother of three children. Edgar

A. Sisson received his early education in the com- mon schools, prepared for college in the academic department of the University of Lewisburg, now Bucknell University, and took a course in Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. For two years following his college course Mr. Sisson engaged in market gardening in company with his father. He then came West and in the fall of 1812 joined forces with A. G. Tillinghast and R. E. Whitney in the work of reclaiming and improving tide lands, diking in some five hundred acres, which were put under cultivation. But they did not realize crops of any great consequence until 1826, and in that year the three men dissolved partnership. Of this tract Mr. Sisson pre-empted forty-nine acres, Mr. Whitney one hundred and seventy-four and Mr. Tillinghast one hundred and seventy-one, the balance of the five hundred acres being pur- chased.

In 1876 Mr. Sisson married Miss Ida Leamer, daughter of David Leamer, a Pennsylvania farmer of Holland Dutch descent, who died in Iowa, where he had farmed a number of years previous to his death. Mrs. Eliza J. ( Campbell) Leamer, mother of Mrs. Sisson, was born in Ireland of Scotch parentage in 1818 and died in the Sisson home in 1901 full of good works and beloved by all. Mrs. Leamer was a woman of exceptional culture and tenderest sympathies, and in the early days of the settlements in Skagit county performed many deeds of kindness and self-sacrifice for the less fortunate. She was ever ready to lend her assistance to the needy and often took her boat and crossed the wa- ters to give succor to the distressed. Mrs. Sisson was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1857, and obtained her early education in that state. On coming to the coast country she attended the Seattle high school and took a course in a convent at Salem, Oregon. She commenced teaching school when fifteen years of age, her first school being at Pleas- ant Ridge, in Skagit county. Later she became the first woman teacher in the La Conner schools. She also taught at the town of Stanwood, Snohomish county. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Sisson: Mrs. Pearl Wilson, who is living on the Samish flats, near Edison: Mrs. Nettie E. Wright, living in La Conner, and Grant C. Sisson. Mr. Sisson is a member of the Baptist church and in politics is an active Republican. The land at Fairview farm consists of one hundred and sixty acres, all of which is in a state of high cultivation. Mr. Sisson is not only one of the successful men of Skagit county, but also one of the most popular and most public-spirited of citizens. He and the mem- bers of his household have played a very important part in the work of developing the wooded and wa- tered wilderness of Skagit county into a place of smiling farms and happy homes, which stand to- day as monuments to the courage, industry and thrift of the sturdy pioneers.

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THOMAS H. TAIT, residing near Padilla, in one of the richest farming sections of the state, is to be truly ranked as an industrious, persevering. capable agriculturist, for within a comparatively few years he has wrested a goodly competence from the soil and become the owner of a large and valuable tract of its broad, fertile acres. Such thrift is worthy of the Scottish blood that flows within his veins and of the substantial qualities which he inherits from his Pennsylvania-Dutch an- cestry on the maternal side. Born April 25, 1866, at Joliet, Illinois, he is the fourth child in the fam- ily of Thomas and Katherine ( Shutts) Tait, the former born in Scotland, the latter in New York state. When the elder Tait was but nine years old. however, his parents brought him to the United States, settling in Illinois, where he followed farm- ing until his death. His wife is still living near Joliet, at an advanced age; she is the mother of eight children. In the common schools of his na- tive state young Tait received his educational train- ing, remaining at home until he was twenty-two. Then he set out to make his own way in life, going at a bound to where the waters of the Pacific wash the shores of California. The Golden state could not hold him, however, for that fall, the fall of 1888, he came north to Whatcom, and after a short stay there entered the precincts of the section which was to become his permanent home. On the Swi- nomish flats he entered the employ of Peter Dow- ney, for whom he worked steadily nine years, gain- ing a most profitable experience, forming friend- ships and accumulating enough to obtain a start for himself. Thus equipped, in 1892, he rented a place on the flats, operated it two years, then bought ninety-seven acres. This tract he is rapidly devel- oping into a fine farm and in the meanwhile is leas- ing another place of one hundred and sixteen acres from Mr. Downey, upon which he makes his home and has lived since 1900. He owns two hundred and forty acres on the flats and sixty acres on Fidalgo island.

Elsie Layton, a daughter of Olaf and Anna (Johnson ) Osland, natives of Norway, became the wife of Thomas Il. Tait in 1903, the marriage tak- ing place in Seattle. Olaf Osland came to Michigan direct from Norway in 1879, engaging in the pur- snit of his trade, carpentering. From Michigan he shortly went to Chicago, thence to Minneapolis, from there down into Wisconsin, then to Montana, and from Montana removed to Anacortes, Wash- ington, in 1890. lle is at present residing at Brighton Beach, near Seattle. Mrs. Osland is also living, now in her fifty-fourth year. Mrs. Tait was born in 18:3, November 14th, in Norway, but re- ceived her education and rearing in the United States. After leaving school she learned the milli- ner's trade and followed it six months before her marriage in 1891 to Frederick Layton. Three chil-

dren came of this union, Hazel, Harold and Freda, the second of whom is dead.

In politics Mr. Tait is an active Republican and known as a liberal believer as, first of all, an advo- cate of good government. Most of his large farm is under cultivation and producing the usual heavy crops of oats and hay characteristic of the Swinom- ish country, besides being well stocked with horses and cattle. He is a wide-awake farmer of high abilities and endowed with those substantial, ster- ling qualities which invariably bring success and esteeil1.

DAVID FULK, an early pioneer of two states and the scion of two well-known pioneer families of the Ohio valley, is prominently identified with the history of Skagit county, both as a pioneer and as a latter-day citizen, progressive and active in its affairs. He has won his success out of the soil and his position among his fellows by reason of his strong individuality. Born in Noble County, In- chiana, in 1843, Mr. Fulk is a son of Adam Fulk, a descendant of the Virginians who filed through the passes of the Alleghanies in the early part of the last century and peopled the great Ohio valley after George Rogers Clark had blazed the path with colonial militia. The mother, Eliza ( Bonar) Fulk, was also of frontier stock, born in the Ohio coun- try. She passed away in 1901, while residing in Skagit county, the mother of twelve children, of whom David is the second child. After attending the Indiana schools and working at home on the farm, David Fulk, at the age of twenty-three, com- menced farming for himself, leasing land for eight years in the Hoosier state. During the centennial year, when so many were attracted by the prospects of Washington territory. Mr. Fulk joined the pro- cession of immigrants to the sound country and lo- cated a homestead on Fidalgo island. There he re- mained seven years, clearing a large portion of his hollings and incidentally becoming thoroughly ac- quainted with methods of farming the famous flat lands across the bay on the mainland. Then he came to the flats and rented the Purdy place five years, going at the end of that period across the mountains to the Palouse for a change. Upon his return a year later, he rented the O'Loughlin farm for three years, thence farming along the Skagit. At present he is operating the Kalso place, half a mile west of Padilla, one of the highly improved farms on the flats, and one demanding the closest attention and keenest abilities on the part of him who would be most successful and maintain its high standard.

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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 143

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