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 146

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 146
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 146

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In 1903, on Christmas Day, at Mount Vernon, Mr. Larson married Mrs. Eldre Schrondahl, widow of Andrew Schrondahl of Fir. She was the daugh- ter of Christopher Vike, a native of Norway. There were five children in the Vike family, and those liv- ing are: John, Mrs. E. Bransted, Mrs. Larson and Gunder. Mrs. Larson was born in Michigan in 1858, and obtained her education there, residing at home until her marriage. Mr. Schrondahl was drowned in the Skagit river in 1889. Mr. Larson is a Republican in politics and in church affiliations a Lutheran. He owns forty acres, all under cultiva- tion and well tilled, in his home place ; and has also 160 acres of valuable timber land in Oregon. In his dairy barn Mr. Larson keeps eleven cows, but he also has thirty-five head of other cattle. as well as sheep and hogs. "Mr. Larson's farm is in its present fine shape solely through the efforts of its

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owner, for he cleared it himself and built his own dike. Mr. Larson is very popular in the commun- ity ; he is a man of energy and industry and keeps abreast of the times. For almost a quarter of a cen- tury he has been an active participant in the work of developing the industrial resources of this section, and during this long period of activity has won for himself a reputation in which any citizen may well take commendable pride.

LAFAYETTE S. STEVENS is one of the men who have unbounded faith in Skagit county as a mining district, and his experience as a prospector should enable him to recognize a good mining coun- try when he travels over it. He was born in Illi- nois August 22, 1847, the son of Alfred and Esther (Kellogg) Stevens, natives of Pennsylvania. The elder Stevens early in life owned 320 acres of the site where Chicago now stands, but left it for Ra- cine, Wisconsin. He died in Illinois in 1874. In early life Mrs. Stevens was a school teacher, but she relinquished the profession when she married. She died in Wisconsin in 1892, the mother of nine chil- dren. Young Stevens lived at home and attended school until he was nineteen, then farmed in Illinois for a time, whence in 1870 he went to California. He put in one year ranching at Chico, then went to Nevada and took up the life of a prospector, and during the two and one-half years he was in that state he located a number of good paying claims that cleaned up well. In 1873 he came to the Skagit river, and for the ensuing fifteen years he prospect- cd up and down the entire valley, discovering many indications of minerals. It was the successful opera- tion of placers on Ruby creek, by Mr. Stevens, in conjunction with Otto Clement, Charles Von Pres- sentin and John Rowley, which caused the Ruby creek excitement some years ago. The story of the yield of twenty-five cents to the pan attracted many to the diggings. In 1878 Mr. Stevens located the coal mines of Cokedale, northeast of Sedro-Wool- ley, and he still believes that the Skagit coal is rich- est in carbon of any coal in the United States. Mr. Stevens at the present time has four claims on Table Mountain which are supposed to be valuable, as the ore assays $16 to the ton, appearing principally as gold quartz. This Table Mountain property is in well defined ledges, cased with slate and greenstone, a formation which in Mr. Stevens' mind insures per- maneney of the deposits. He has planned to carry on the development of this property at once. Mr. Stevens has put in more years in the Skagit county mountains than any other prospector and he has great confidence in their future as a mining region. In 1898 Mr. Stevens left prospecting in Skagit tem- porarily and went to the Dawson fields, where he spent two years, prospecting and mining, being one of a company of seven men who, as employees, took out $50,000 from a single claim. On his return to

Skagit county he located in Clear Lake and opened the hotel which he still conducts. At one time Mr. Stevens owned 320 acres of farm land near Bur- lington, of which 100 were cleared. At the opening of one spring during that period he selected twenty acres and planted garden seed on contract at an agreed price of one dollar per pound for the prod- uct : but, unfortunately, the first big spring freshet for fifteen years came down the Skagit valley that season and swept away all of his planting.

Mrs. Stevens, who formerly was Miss Florence Drown, is a native of Wisconsin who came to Skagit county and, December 2, 1888, was married to Mr. Stevens at Burlington. Of this union there have been five children, of whom a daughter, Esther, is dead. The living are : Fred, Laura, Mabel and Ralph. Mr. Stevens is a Republican in politics. While fortune has been against him in the matter of winning financial success, he is very hopeful that his mining properties will soon begin rewarding him for all his labor and faith and at any rate he enjoys the satisfaction of having contributed much to the mining development of the country.

GEORGE W. PHELPS is a product of the de- velopment period of the country west of the plains and prairies of the United States, and like most of the men born in the west in the days when the land was being turned from wild nature to the uses of mankind, is a self-made man. He was born at St. George, Utah, August 22, 1863. His father, John Phelps, a native of Ohio, followed the stream of gold seekers to California in the fifties, whence sometime during the decade following he went to Utah, where he resided until his death in 1814. He used to relate an incident which illustrates the feel- ing entertained by the Indians toward the whites in the days when the country was being settled. Mr. Phelps prepared some flour for cooking and hap- pened to find that it had been well doctored with strychnine. A supposedly friendly redskin was dis- covered later who confessed that he had added the strychnine to the flour, but blandly assured Mr. Phelps that he had no ill feeling against him, al- leging that he simply was experimenting to see if strychnine would kill. Mrs. Phelps, the inother of George, whose maiden name was Phoche M. Dart, was a native of New York, but raised in Bridge- port, Connecticut. Of her three children, only the subject of this writing still lives. George Phelps lived with his parents until 1875, when he was at- tracted to the Snake river country of Idaho, where he lived with a bachelor for more than a twelve- month. The year 1827 found him in California, where he passed a year, and at a later date he en- gaged in caring for stage horses in Nevada. He continued in that country until 1886, when he went to Idaho for his mother and took her to the Skagit valley, settling at Clear Lake. The years between

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1894 and 1902 he passed in British Columbia, em- ployed in various lines 'of work, but since then he has lived on the shores of Clear Lake, successfully conducting the business of a dairy farmer.

In October, 1896, while living at Clinton, Brit- ish Columbia, Mr. Phelps married Miss Mary J. Kennedy, daughter of Donald Kennedy, the latter a native of Scotland who had been brought to Can- ada by his parents while an infant. He learned the blacksmith trade when a young man in Canada. Mr. Kennedy was in Michigan for a time. On coming to Puget Sound he located at Arlington in the hotel business, later going to British Columbia, where he died in 1902. Mrs. Kennedy, the mother of Mrs. Phelps, who is also of Canadian birth, still lives, now a resident of Cariboo, British Columbia. Mrs. Phelps was born in Ontario in 1811, and remained with her parents until two years prior to her mar- riage, when she secured employment away from home. Mr. and Mrs. Phelps have no children. In politics he is a Socialist, though at one period of his life he was a Republican. Mr. Phelps has ninety-five acres of land bordering on Clear Lake, milks six- teen cows and has a number of young cattle. In his young days Mr. Phelps was so situated that he had no opportunity to secure an education, but in later years he pursued studies by himself and has picked up a great fund of information along scientific and sociological lines. In Skagit county he has served as school director and takes a deep interest in school matters, believing the public schools to be funda- mental to the best American citizenship. He also has been road supervisor at Clear Lake. He has been compelled to do much work reclaiming his land, but now has a portion of it in shape for culti- vation. Straightforward in all business transac- tions, he holds, for this and other worthy traits of character, the respect of his fellows.

GEORGE W. DUNN, though a resident of Skagit county but a short time, already has won a reputation for himself in the community near Clear Lake as an energetic and progressive man. His ancestry and his own previous career were of sub- stantial character. He was born in Licking county, Ohio, of the sturdy stock of Virginians who poured through Pittsburg and settled in the Ohio basin in the years following the Revolution. His father. born at Charlestown, Virginia, in 1802, first fol- lowed the trade of a carder. When twenty-one years old he took up pioneer farm life in Ohio, where he died in 1872. Mrs. Mary A. (Evans ) Dunn, moth- er of our subject, was born in the Buckeye state and remained there all her life, living with her par- ents until she married. She was the mother of six- teen children, of whom seven are living: Caroline, Alfred, James W., Rebecca, Milligan, George W., and Leonard B. George W. was born May 26, 1846. He remained at home until the outbreak of the war, then enlisted in the One Hundred and

Thirty-fifth Ohio Volunteers. He was captured by the Confederates July 3, 1864, and languished at Andersonville, Charleston and Florence for five months and seven days thereafter, but was given his parole in December, 1864, and received his dis- charge in January of the following year. He at once commenced planning his future under the Union to be reconstructed, and in the winter of 1865-6 went to Missouri, thence in the spring to Kansas, where he remained three years. He then went back to Missouri and operated a farm in that state for eight years, after which he returned to Ohio, and passed nine more years in farming, then spending an additional two years in the same pur- suit in Indiana. Mr. Dunn thereupon took up his abode in Nebraska, where he resided from 1885 to the last days of 1904, engaged in the sheep and cat- tle industry, a line in which he was quite successful. On coming to Skagit county he bought a tract of land on the Skagit river for $4,500, upon which are three million feet of merchantable timber. He has cleared eight acres and erected a handsome house and ample barns, and expects to pass the remainder of his days here.

Mr. Dunn, in 1868, while in Missouri, married Miss Mary Deffenbaugh. daughter of John Deffen- baugh, a native of Pennsylvania who had moved west and engaged in farming. Mrs. Dunn's mother, a native of Indiana, gave to the world ten children, two of whom have died. The living are George W., Mathias A., Carrie L., Nettie M., Rolly O., Leslie E., Charles A. and Mrs. Dunn. George W. Dunn is a Republican in politics, and in fraternal connec- tion a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He also belongs to the Methodist church. As a man and citizen his standing in the community in which he lives is a highly enviable one.

XAVER BARTL is one of the very earliest set- tlers in Skagit county, commencing his residence when there were only seven white men living on the river and when it was necessary to go to Whid- by Island to get a day's work. He built the first house in Mount Vernon, and recalls that while liv- ing in this house at one time he was out of bread for days because the river was frozen and he could not go to the island. He has lived to see wondrous changes in the Skagit valley. Mr. Bartl was born in Germany in 1846, the son of Franz Bartl, a na- tive of Germany, who came to the United States when thirty years of age, settling first in Wiscon- sin, then in Missouri, and coming to Skagit county in 1872. The father located at Mount Vernon and operated a farm until his death in 1889. The moth- er died in Germany when Xaver was six years old. Of this union two sons survive, Frank Bartl and the subject of this sketch, both of whom reside in Skagit county. After continuing with his father until eighteen young Bartl commenced the life of

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a farmer on his own account in Missouri in 1864. Three years were spent in Missouri and one in Illi- nois, then Mr. Bartl located on Whidby Island, Washington, where one year later he moved to Mount Vernon. He chose the land which has since been converted into the fair grounds and lived there until 1884, when he moved to his present farm north of Clear Lake.

Xaver Bartl in 1865, while a resident of Mis- souri, married Miss Mary Bozarth, daughter of Ir- vin and Elizabeth ( Rice) Bozarth, who were natives of Missouri. Mrs. Bozarth died in her native state, but her husband lived to come to Whidby Island, where he died thirty-five years ago. Mrs. Bartl was born in Holt county, Missouri, in 1847, and af- ter her mother's death lived with her grandfather until her marriage. She is the mother of twelve children, eight of whom are living, namely, Jacob, James, Frances, Eliza Jane, Viola, Lavanchie, Phoebe and David. The deceased are: William, David, accidentally shot, Margaret and Dora. Mr. Bartl's home place consists of fifty-five acres, and he also has a farm of 155 acres west of Clear Lake. His live stock numbers twelve cows, four horses, sixty sheep and a number of hogs. Mr. Bartl is a Democrat in politics and in religion a member of the Methodist church. While his life has been an active one, with many vicissitudes in the earlier days. he is now in a position to enjoy the comforts which his activity has brought to his later and fuller years.

R. H. PUTNAM, a veteran of the Civil War and an honored pioneer of Skagit county, residing a little over a mile by the wagon road from Clear Lake, was born in Essex county. New York, in Oc- tober, 1846. His father, Daniel P. Putnam, a na- tive of Newberry, in the Connecticut valley, born in 180%, spent most of his life in New York, engaged in carpenter work, and he passed away in that state a number of years ago. The mother of our subject. Mary (Sheldon) Putnam, was a native of Essex county. New York, where her forbears settled be- fore the Revolutionary War, and she used to re- peat stories told her by her parents of the stirring events which took place in the Lake Champlain dis- trict during that struggle. The family had their stock killed and sustained other losses on account of the depredations of the British soldiers. R. H. Put- nam, of this article, after completing his education in the common schools, began working on the neighboring farms, and continued to be employed thus until lic reached the age of eighteen, when he enlisted in the Ninety-first New York, for service in the Civil War. The great fratricidal struggle was nearing its close at the time, but he did what he could in the final conflicts, though he was unfor- tunately too sick to participate in the battle of Pet- ersburg, although within hearing of the guns.

After the war Mr. Putnam moved, in the fall of

1865, to Missouri, and clerked in a store there un- til 1866, but inasmuch as he did not have good health there, he returned the next year to the Em- pire state. There he worked with his father at the carpenter's trade until the spring of 1868, when he moved to Minnesota, and for a number of years thereafter he was employed at farm work in various parts of that state, also in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and California. Finally, in 1876, he came to Puget sound and located on the Skagit river near Bur- lington, where his home was until 1880. After par- ticipating in the Ruby creek rush, he went east of the mountains. He farmed in the Wenatchee val- ley and in Moses coulee for a time, but in 1883 re- turned to the Sound and located on his present place ncar Clear Lake. Here he has a farm of 130 acres, of which about eighty acres are hill land, the re- mainder bottom land of excellent quality. About thirty-five acres have been cleared and put in culti- vation, from a part of which the stumps have been removed. Although Mr. Putnam has an excellent orchard, he has given most of his attention to stock raising and dairying, keeping until recently quite a herd of milch cows, but he is now selling out with intent very soon to try the effect of a southern cli- mate upon his health. Mr. Putnam has never mar- ried. but his sister keeps house for him in their pleasant home near the banks of Clear Lake.

JOHN R. SMITH, one of the respected citizens and successful dairy farmers of the Clear Lake re- gion of Skagit county, was born in Nova Scotia, August 28, 1858, the son of Robert W. Smith. The elder Smith left Nova Scotia for New Brunswick in 1865 and continued there as a farmer until 1886, after which he passed two years in Maine. He crossed the continent in 1888, settling in La Con- ner, and he was a successful restaurant keeper there and in Fairhaven until his death in 1891. Mrs. Saralı L. ( Brewster) Smith, a native of New Brunswick, died in 1902 at the home of her son, John R. Smith, leaving six other children. John R. attended school until twelve years old and then worked on the parental farm until twenty-two, at that time securing employment with a neighboring farmer. Later he bought a farm of his own. After successfully operating it for three years, he sold out, and came to La Conner, Skagit county, arriving in 1888. Here he bought a forty-acre farm and con- ducted it for two years, at the end of which time he entered the dairy business at Sedro-Woolley. In 1895 he went to Fredonia. the following year mov- ing to a place a mile and a half north of Clear Lake, where he has ever since resided.

June 28, 1882, Mr. Smith married Miss Mary E. Downing, daughter of Thomas and Eliza ( Fitzger- ald) Downing, who lived the life of New Bruns- wick farmers until recent years, closing their labors only with death. To Mr. and Mrs. Smith have been born six children, of whom Annie, Perey D., Jen-

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nie and Thomas C. are living. The Smith home is a pleasant one, and its maintenance, and the prepa- ration of his children for the duties of life, are Mr. Smith's chief care. He owns nearly 170 acres of rich bottom land, ample for the support of his cat- tie and for the general farming he does. His dairy herd numbers twenty-eight cows and twenty head of young cattle, and while he devotes most of his attention to these, he also keeps other live stock, horses and hogs. Mr. Smith has made two trips out of the state since his arrival within its borders in 1888. September 8, 1894, he left on a reconnois- sance of the Alberta country for a satisfactory homestead location, and he had a pleasant trip of twenty-one days, pleasant except for one memor- able snow storm. He failed, however, to discover anything more promising than the prospects which Skagit county offered. January 19, 1897, he started on a gold hunting expedition to Alaska, and he re- mained in the far north until the ensuing June, en- gaged for the most part in work on the White Pass wagon road. This trip was a profitable one finan- cially, but nowhere has Mr. Smith found opportuni- ties better than in Skagit county, where he is doing well and expects to continue doing well. In poli- tics. Mr. Smith is a Republican. As a man and citizen his standing in the community is a highly enviable one, the esteem and confidence of his neighbors being his in abundant measure.

WILLIAM T. RAINS, a stockman whose ranch is three miles northwest of Clear Lake, has spent fifty years of ups and downs on the Pacific coast. He has experienced the trials and fortunes of the gold hunters of California, Idaho and British Co- lumbia ; has cultivated the rich farming land and cut the heavy timber of the Willamette valley in Ore- gon, and of the Skagit country in Washington : has seen his logs go into the mills and come out as lum- ber, and at other times has placed his logs in booms only to see them lost by freshet and flood; has farmed in the arid country of the Yakima valley and in the moisture of the Puget Sound district. With all these experiences, Mr. Rains is a hale, hearty, strong souled man who has the esteem of all who know him, a man not soured by misfortune. He was born in Illinois in 1836, the son of Thomas Rains, a Tennesseean, born in 1799, who lived the life of a farmer in Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois until his death in 1852. The mother. Matilda (Boyd) Rains, lived to a ripe old age, passing away while residing with her son on the sunset slope of the continent. Of her nine children, but four are living.

William T. Rains, of this article, lived with his parents until eighteen. Six years after the argo- nauts of '49 uncovered the riches of California he commenced to look for fortune in the mountains of the Pacific coast. During the four years from 1854 to 1859 he mined in California; from 1859 to 1862

he was on the Willamette farming the rich soil of that valley, but the hidden secrets of the mountains attracted him and he went to Florence, Idaho, in the days of the first gold excitement in that terri- tory ; a year later he went to Warrens in the same district and remained there until he found a good quartz prospect which he sold in 1868; then he left the country, which has since seen the Buffalo Hump and Thunder Mountain excitements, returned to the Willamette and ran a sawmill for three years. Idaho still called him, and in 1871 he went to a ranch on the Salmon river, a year later going to Warrens and still later to a farm on Camas prairie, where he remained until coming to the Puget Sound country, in 1874. Here he turned logger. but for six months in 1878 he tried the mines of British Columbia. He followed farming near Ta- coma, again near North Yakima and once more in the Snoqualmie valley, before he settled down near Clear Lake in 1904. Here he is still residing.

In 1868 Mr. Rains married Miss Vina Frances Boyd, daughter of Rev. J. M. Boyd, a Methodist clergyman of Oregon, and Lavina (Goodrich) Boyd. Mrs. Rains was born in the famous Grand Ronde valley of northeastern Oregon while her par- ents were crossing the divide from the plains to the coast. Her life until marriage was passed in the home of her parents.' She is the mother of twelve children, of whom Thomas, Ida, Joseph, Mary, Martha and Hannah still are living. Mr. Rains owns his home place of sixty-five acres three miles northwest of Clear Lake, and upon it he has sixty head of sheep, twenty-six head of cattle, numerous hogs and other livestock, but keeps only as many horses as are necessary for the farm work. In poli- tics he takes little part, preferring to use his energy developing his holdings. His neighbors know him as a man of wide information, doubtless obtained by his extended travels, and as a man possessing many commendable traits of character.

ALEXANDER K. SMITH is a raiser of vege- tables for market, his ranch being on the northeast outskirts of Clear Lake. He was born in Scotland in March, 1835, and during his long life has had an active. varied and useful career. His father was David Smith, whose life spanned the period from the days when the American Revolution was in its throes to those when the nation was deep in the war for the preservation of the Union. David Smith was a fisherman and died in his native Scotland in 1864. Alexander's mother, Mrs. Christina (Clark) Smith, passed away in Scotland full of honor and years. Alexander Smith lived with his parents in the old home until he was twenty-two, obtaining an education and becoming skillful in the carpenter's trade. Until 1857 he worked at the bench in Lon- don, Dundee and Edinburgh and then came to the provinces of Canada, whence at a later date he crossed the St. Lawrence to New York. Learning

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of the great country across the Rockies, he fol- lowed the tide of immigration to the Pacific and reached San Francisco via the Panama route in 1858. He spent some time mining in Shasta Coun- ty, California, then dropped back to the valley of the Sacramento for several months' stay. He re- turned at length to San Francisco and worked at his trade there until the spring of 1861, when he went to the Fraser river country in British Colum- bia during the days of the mining excitement. Here for several years, he combined mining with carpen- ter work, but eventually went to the San Jose coun- try, California. In 1886 he came to the Skagit and located at Clear Lake, where he has since made his home, engaged in farming and in carpenter work as demand has come for his services.

In 1867, while a resident of Santa Clara County, California, Mr. Smith married Miss Mary Calahan, and the fruit of their union was two children, Charles and Mrs. Christina Bartl. Mr. Smith is the owner of ninety acres of land and divides his time between operating so much of it as is cleared and working at his trade. In politics he is a Republi- can. His judgment on political matters is consid- ered good, and he is well esteemed by his friends and associates as a substantial member of the com- munity.

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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 146

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