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 149

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 149
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 149

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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SKAGIT COUNTY

sufficient for his plans, and he returned home and opened up the liquor business at Hamilton, which he still conducts.

In 1897 Mr. Baldridge married Miss Nellie Hilt, a native of Wisconsin, daughter of E. W. Hilt, a large tanner of the Badger state, now deceased. In fraternal affiliations Mr. Baldridge is a member of the Improved Order of Red Men ; in politics an ac- tive Republican, at present serving as central . com- mitteeman. He has also been a member of the eity council. Mr. Baldridge has an interest in consider- able town property, has money on interest, and is, to use a western expression, "well fixed." He also is interested in the development of Hamilton coal and believes it is the best coke coal in the country, though it has not yet obtained the recognition it surely will in the future. Mr. Baldridge has been very successful in business, and is recognized as one of the prominent and substantial citizens of Hamilton.

VALENTINE ADAM, veteran of the Franco- Prussian War, left Germany soon after the great triumph of his country, in which he participated. and in 1877 came to Skagit county. He is one of the pioneers of the upper Skagit valley and now a well- to-do farmer and stock raiser living two miles west of Hamilton. He was born in Rhenish Bavaria, August 24, 1845, sixth of a family of seven children, of whom but one besides himself survives. His father, Michael Adam, was forest overseer in his native country, being employed by several towns, which league together to protect the woods. The mother, Margaret (Yost) Adam, who died in Ger- many at the age of seventy-seven, often has told her boys about the Napoleonic wars, which she dis- tinctly remembered. Valentine Adam received an education in the German schools, then learned the trade of stone cutter. After the death of his father, he contributed to the support of his mother. At the age of twenty-one he entered the German infantry, and he served his country bravely through the war with France. Coming to the United States in 1872. he worked two years as a stone mason in New York, spent a year in Pennsylvania, then went to California, where he resided until 1877, when he came to Hamilton. He took up the townsite of Ly- man and proved up on it, then traded it to Henry Cooper for his present place. This was a wild coun- try in those early days. There were no roads and all elearing had to be done by hand, there being neither horses nor oxen in the country until later. The first roads were built along the river, but much of the time they were impassable because of the floods. Not until 1885 was a road put through to Mount Vernon. When Mr. Adam settled near Hamilton, the chief white man in the neighborhood was R. H. Williamson, who came from Puyallup in 1872, to trade with the Indians, and later established a twenty acre hop farm. Mr. Adam worked some-

times for Mr. Williamson and sometimes farmed for himself. He went through the Indian scare of 1878, when 300 Yakimas came over the mountains and urged the Indians of the Skagit valley to clear that part of the country of all white settlers. There was danger enough, but cool heads quieted the sav- ages.

In 1885 Mr. Adam married Miss Margaret Bruns, who was born in Hanover, Germany, April 12, 1858, daughter of Dietrich and Margaret (Hin- kin) Bruns, both Hanoverians. Mr. and Mrs. Adam have six children, Maggie. Valentine, Walter, Em- ma, Ralph and Herman. Mr. Adam is a member of the German Reform church, and his wife is a Lu- theran. In polities he is a Republican. For a num- ber of years he was road supervisor, and he has served on the school board and otherwise manifest- ed his keen interest in the cause of popular educa- tion. He has 240 acres of land, one of the largest farms in the district, and gives much attention to the raising of cattle and hogs, keeping always a fine dairy. Mr. Adam is one of the highly respected men of the community, an intelligent and courteous gentleman.

JAMES COCHRANE, a general farmer resid- ing a short distance east of Hamilton, was one of the men who arrived early in Skagit county. Those who realize the great work which he and his asso- ciates did when they cut a channel through the mighty log jam at Mount Vernon, consider them the lasting benefactors of the hustling communities which since have gathered along the Skagit. These pioneers, without capital and with their own hands, removed this historic dam, which a government agent had estimated could not be taken out for less than $100,000. Mr. Cochrane, Donald Mc- Donald, John Minnick, Joe Wilson, John Quirk, Dan Hines, Fritz Gibbons and Dennis Storrs un- dertook to free the river of this gigantic obstrue- tion, which had been gathering for a hundred years before the first white man entered the valley. It was a tremendous undertaking, but these strong young men succeeded, in spite of the ridicule of the settlers, who said it could not be done. Mr. Wilson mortgaged some lots in Seattle and purchased flour for the men when they commenced work. They hoped to sell the logs for enough to pay them handsomely for their work, but in this they were disappointed. The jam was composed of big trees which had floated down the river in high water and had become interlocked in a solid mass some places fourteen feet high and extending more than a mile up the stream. Some places trees a foot in diam- eter grew on top of the jam. The men, with their saws, cut a channel 150 feet wide and about a mile long through the jam. The obstructions were re- moved by the peavey and the saw. there being no donkey engines in those days. Mr. Cochrane worked thirty-two months in this enterprise and Mr. Me- Donald just three years.

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Mr. Cochrane was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1846, the son of Francis Cochrane, foreman of a dve establishment in Paisley, and later one of the first men to go to the diamond fields of South Af- rica. Mrs. Catherine (Campbell) Cochrane, the mother, was a native of Scotland who immigrated to the United States : she died at her son's place on the Skagit in 1897. Mr. Cochrane as a lad lived in both Scotland and England. but at the age of twelve years started out for himself, working on steamers plying between Scottish and English ports for four years. He then came to the United States during the days of the Civil War and was on the Orient. engaged in traffic for the North, when she was chased by a Southern privateer. Mr. Cochrane made several trips between New York and Liver- pool in the interests of Northern merchants during the war. He continued to follow the sea until 1869. traveling to South Africa in 1867 on a vessel loaded with troops and wool. He also was quartermaster on an English vessel in the expedition to Abyssinia. In 1869 he landed in San Francisco and a year later came to Seattle, then only a small place. He passed some time on Whidby Island, but came to Skagit county in the winter of 1871-2, and engaged in log- ging with J. F. Dwelley of La Conner on the flats where now are located some of the richest farms in the country. He passed some time in Snohomish county and it was there that he fell in with the prop- osition to clear the Skagit river of its famous jam. After that work was completed, he went to logging on Freshwater slough, below Mount Vernon, be- coming one of the first to put logs into the Skagit river. He later started a camp above Mount Ver- non and was with Harry Clothier when that town was started, helping build the first structure there, Mr. Bryson's dwelling house. Mr. Cochrane fol- lowed logging on the Skagit for nine years. At one time he took up script land near the city of Mount Vernon, but later he sold this and in 1883 he located his present place as a homestead. Upon it he has ever since resided.

In 1885 Mr. Cochrane married Miss Mary J. Carey, a native of Indiana, daughter of Alfred and Dorcas (Wood) Carey, who came to this county in 1815, having been preceded, by their sons, Aaron, Freeman and Jesse, in 1874. Mr. and Mrs. Coch- rane have seven children : Colin C., studying prac- tical engineering in electrical shops in Seattle ; Rob- ert C., Charles A., Anna. Janet. Dewey and Fran- ces. Mr. Cochrane is a member of the Foresters ; also of the Red Men, and in politics he is a Repub- lican, active in the work of the party, attending conventions and participating in their deliberations. Ile has been a member of the school board for many years and was one of the prime movers in behalf of the high school for Hamilton, also was on the board when the school house was built, lending his influ- ence toward making it one of the best equipped houses of its kind in the country. Mr. Cochrane has a farm of sixty-five acres in his home place,

and has twenty-four acres of farm land in addition, also 110 acres of timber land in Snohomish county and houses and lots in Hamilton. At one time of his life he was interested in mining and in the Ruby Creek excitement took the first pack train into the camp. He and his partners were the only ones to develop their prospect openings to bedrock ; mineral in paying quantities was not uncovered, and hence the venture proved a failure. Mr. Cochrane then went to the Fraser river gold fields, where he spent one year operating a tug boat. He has ever been an aggressive character, and is one of the staunch pioneers to whom the present residents of Skagit county are greatly indebted. Without such men to "blaze the trails" and surmount the prodigious obstacles placed in the way of progress by the forces of nature and the savage aborigine, condi- tions in the Northwest would not be what they are today, and the boundaries of civilization could never be extended with the rapidity characteristic of the last quarter of a century.

GEORGE W. PATTERSON, stock and dairy farmer across the Skagit five miles southwest of Hamilton, is one of the later comers to Skagit coun- ty who brings with him a great fund of experience gleaned in the turmoil of a long life of activity. He is a native of Illinois, born in Edgar county, Febru- ary 22, 1839, the son of Jonathan Patterson, who crossed the plains in 1846 with California as his destination, but the hand of death touched him as he reached the crest of the Sierra Nevadas, leaving the family in a most distressing position. Though he was a native of Illinois, his forefathers came originally from Virginia and Kentucky. William, his oldest son, was but fourteen years of age at the time of his demise. The family was not well pro- visioned, and its members had to be put on allow- ance for many days before relief reached them. At the time their company gained the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the celebrated Donner party was at their foot, ready to begin the ascent, The misfortunes of this ill-starred company are well known to readers of California history, who will re- member that its members were reduced to the most terrible extremity, being compelled to devonr the bodies of their deceased companions before succor reached them. A number of our subject's cousins were in the rescuing expedition and one of the un- fortunate survivors was sheltered at his family home for some time. During this period of California history, some of the Indians were hostile. but the misfortunes of immigrants arose out of the rigors of mountain travel in winter, not from the ravages of Indians. Mrs. Christina ( Foster) Patterson, mother of George W., was a native of Missouri. After the death of her husband en route to Califor- nia, she was placed in a very trying position as the head of a family of ten children, but the latter helped in every way they could and the family was

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kept together as long as possible. Mrs. Patterson died in 1895 at the age of eighty-four years.

George W. Patterson, of this article, was about seven years okl at the time of his father's death. California afforded no schools in the 'forties, and the lad had to do without educational advantages, but he made the best of the situation, and as the years passed worked with a will in the mines and at stock raising. When old enough to exercise his rights as an American citizen, he moved to Oregon, took a homestead and a pre-emption claim, and commenced farming and stock raising on his own account. In the early 'sixties he went to the Boise basin in Idaho and mined there for a time, eventu- ally, however, returning to Oregon, where he fol- lowed farming and freighting for thirty years. He had a farm near The Dalles, and assisted in build- ing the Canyon City road. Coming eventually to Skagit county, lie located first at Avon and later higher up the river, buying his present place in 1900. He has an excellent farm, well improved, and with evidences of the thrift and good management of its owner visible on every hand.

In 1868, at The Dalles, Oregon, Mr. Patterson married Miss Leviaette Hawn, a native of Yamhil county, Oregon, born December 19, 1849, daughter of Jacob and Harriet (Pearson) Hawn, the former of whom was born in Germany in 1804, the latter in Newark, New Jersey, in 1818. They were mar- ried in Newark in 1833, and later coming west, started from St. Louis, Missouri, for Oregon, in 1842. Being diverted to Texas, they spent a year in the Lone Star state, then they set out for Oregon, joining a wagon train of sixty teams. On settling at Oregon City, Mr. Hawn, a millwright by trade, built the first mill at that point. Later, moving to Lafayette, he erected the first hotel in that place. In 1849 he went to California during the gold ex- citement, and he died there ten years later, though he was back in Oregon in the meantime and he and his two oldest brothers served as volunteers from Lafayette under Captain Hembree in subduing the hostile Indians, during the uprising of 1855-6, and were with the captain when he was killed and scalped by the hostiles. The volunteers were so put to it for provisions that they had to live on horse meat for two weeks. Of Mrs. Patterson's brothers and sisters, the oldest, a girl, was born September 1, 1835, at Green Bay, Wisconsin ; Alonzo P. Hawn was born in Caldwell County, Missouri, in 1836; Jasper C., in Texas, February 8, 1840: Newton WV., in Missouri, April 20, 1843; and the rest in Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson have had seven children : Mrs. Henrietta Harding. Mrs. May Harris, Mrs. Myrtle Kerns, Mrs. Ida Horsey, Les- ter, Fred and Chester, the last mentioned of whom died December 13, 1905. In politics Mr. Patterson has been a Democrat, but of late years has voted independently. He has given a very large share of his attention to cattle raising, but recently has sold a large part of his herd in preparation for re-

moval to another section. He is a man highly re- spected in the county, honored and esteemed by the pioneers as well as by the later arrivals.

HENRY WILD, a farmer three miles west of Hamilton, early went up the Skagit river to Birds- view and with his wife endured the hardships and experienced the loneliness of the pioneer. He was born at Unadilla, Otsego county, New York, April 10, 1838, the son of Lewis Wild, a farmer, who died when his son was fourteen years of age. The father of the elder Wild served in the War of 1812. lle was of English descent. Mrs. Lucretia (Kid- ney) Wild, a native of New York, died in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1890, the mother of nine chil- dren, only one of whom was younger than Henry. Between the ages of ten and fourteen young Wild worked in a cotton factory, but on the death of his father he started out for himself, going first to Ohio for a year and then to Iowa. He remained in the latter state until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he enlisted in Company A, Thirtieth Iowa In- fantry, and he served until the close of hostilities. Though Mr. Wild's command saw much of the hard fighting in the South, participating in the siege of Vicksburg and the operations around At- lanta, closing with the march to the sea, he was neither wounded nor captured, but the exposures and hardships greatly undermined his constitution. He returned to Iowa for a short time and then went back to New York for two years. Mr. Wild then decided to go to Minnesota and located on a farm in Wabaska county. continuing for ten years. His next move was to Dakota, where, in Spink county, he took up land and lived until 1888, when he came to the Puget Sound country. He passed one year in Seattle, then came to Skagit county, taking up land on the upper river near Birdsview. There he cleared off some of the timber and made a home for himself and wife. Neighbors were few and Mrs. Wild's nearest woman friend was the Indian wife of a pioneer, but the dusky lady proved excel- lent company during the times when Mr. Wild was forced to be absent from home a week at a time. In 1900 Mr. Wild sold out his Birdsview land and moved to Hamilton. Recently he has taken up his abode at Richmond Beach, in King county, where he has a nice little farm of ten acres.

In 1867 while living in New York, Mr. Wild married Miss Anna M. Coziear, born in 1848, the daughter of Azias and Melissa (White) Coziear, New Yorkers of English and Irish descent. Mrs. Wild has one sister, Mary E. Coziear. Mr. and Mrs. Wild have no children, but have an adopted son, Ernest L. Wild. Mr. Wild in politics is a Democrat and has served as road supervisor. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Sedro-Woolley post. Mr. and Mrs. Wild were among the highly respected people of the Skagit valley, and are rapidly winning for themselves a

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place in the esteem and confidence of the people of Richmond Beach, where they now dwell.

DAVID RUSSELL, stock raiser and farmer near Birdsview and postmaster of the town, is one of the men who have within fifteen years demon- strated what can be accomplished in Skagit county. Mr. Russell was born in Jackson county, Ohio, December 28, 1854, the son of William Russell, a native of New Orleans, who became a farmer of Jackson county, Wisconsin, in the pioneer days of that state. Mrs. Margaret (Hildebrand) Russell, a native of Ohio, of Dutch descent, died in 1870, the mother of seven children, of whom the subject hereof is third in order of birth. David Russell was raised on the farm in Wisconsin and attended the common schools there, leaving home to do for him- self at the age of eighteen years. His first work was in the pineries of Wisconsin, which work he continued until 1885, when he went to Nebraska and became one of the pioneers of Scott's Bluff county. The oldest son of Mr. Russell was the first white child born in that county. Mr. Russell raised stock and continued farming for five years, but in August of 1891 came west and he settled in Skagit county in February of the year following on a ranch in the vicinity of Birdsview. Shortly afterwards he entered into partnership with Henry Thompson for bridge building and the two secured the contract for constructing seventeen bridges in the county. In connection with this contract work they operated a sawmill which turned out the lum- ber and timber requisite for their bridge building operations. Mr. and Mrs. Russell have both taken timber claims, which have proven of great value, and Mr. Russell has also purchased land in various parts of the county. He has been road supervisor for three years, in charge of the road between Ly- man and the Baker river. Mr. Russell was made postmaster at Birdsview in April of 1905.

In 1884 at Fort Sidney, Nebraska, Mr. Russell married Miss Maggie Conner, a native of Ireland, born in 1861, who was brought to this country by her mother when but six years of age. She is sec- ond of the five children of James and Nora ( Ford) Conner, the latter of whom is still living in Wiscon- sin.

To Mr. and Mrs. Russell have been born six chil- dren, the names of whom with their respective dates of birth are: James R., December 23, 1885 : Joshua, June 14, 1890; Fred, April 30, 1892; Carl, March 1, 1894; Gertrude, July 22, 1896; Lawrence, Au- gust 17, 1900. Mr. Russell is a member of the Foresters and in politics a Democrat, active, influ- ential and usually a delegate to county conventions. Mrs. Russell is a member of the Catholic church. Mr. Russell has now in his dairy nine cows, whose cream products he separates at home and ships to Seattle. He still owns several tracts of good land in the county. At present he is engaged part of the

time in timber cruising and in the real estate busi- ness, combining these lines with the operation of his farm. He is recognized as one of the progres- sive, wide-awake and forceful men of the county.

AUGUST KEMMERICHI, a farmer and stock raiser five miles east of Hamilton, is one of the men who came into the up-river section of the Skagit valley when settlers were few and the for- csts high and deep. He now looks back with pleas- ure on the long years of hard work, for the con- trast between his land as he first saw it and his prosperous farm of today is very great. Mr. Kem- merich was born in Germany February 14, 1845, the son of John and Christina ( Rembold) Kemmerich. August, the oldest of their five children, worked on the farm and attended school when a boy. His first work away from home was in the coal mines at Essen, the home of the famous Krupp iron works. There he learned of advantages offered for work in the United States, and he determined to try his fortune here, coming in 1869 and locating at Bredwood, Illinois, in the coal mines of that vi- cinity. After a time Mr. Kemmerich went to Iowa and tried farming, but grasshoppers and hail took his crops and in 1876 he removed to Port Madison, Washington, and engaged in lumbering. Coming to Birdsview in February, 1878, he took up his pres- ent farm. A few months previous B. D. Minkler had come to Birdsview from Port Madison ; when Mr. Kemmerich came he was accompanied by Mr. Grandy, and the trio made a comfortable commun- ity in the woods, with claims adjoining. The land was covered with large timber. No roads or trails led to it and supplies had to be brought in canoes from Mount Vernon. Some trading was done. however, at Ball's store in Sterling and later Otto Clement put in a store at Lyman. During the pe- riod of the Indian scare following threats against the early settlers up the river, they crossed over and took refuge in Minkler's mill. It was eighteen years after they had settled there that these three men could get down the river with wagons and then the route could hardly be called a road. For three years Mr. Kemmerich paid an annual tax of $20 for road building and also put in considerable work on them himself. In sharp contrast are the fine graveled roads in that district now. Mr. Kem- merich's policy in the early days was not to work out for others but to put in all his time improving his own land. He had hard work and underwent many hardships, but he felt that work done on his own place, in the long run, would prove the best.

In 1884 Mr. Kemmerich went to Chicago and married Miss Barbara Hommerding, a native of that city, who died in 1903, the mother of nine chil- diren : Mary, Joseph, Anna, John, Katic. Julius, Laura, Mark and Alphonse. The family are Cath- olies, and in politics Mr. Kemmerich is a Demo- crat. He has served as road supervisor and as

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member of the school board ,being an advocate of good schools and willing to pay liberally for their support. His farm consists of one hundred and fifty-seven acres, all well improved, with a good orchard thereon. His dairy herd consists of seven cows, whose milk is separated at home and the cream marketed at Burlington. Mr. Kemmerich is a prosperous farmer, wide-awake and a hard work- er, a man who is highly esteemed by all with whom he comes in contact.

WILSON M. ALDRIDGE, successfully en- gaged in the mercantile business at Baker, has, dur- ing the past five years, been closely identified with the progress of that place and the upper Skagit val- ley generally. In these days of prosperity and rap- id settlement, when changes for the better are be- ing rapidly wrought in all sections of Puget sound, the possession by any community of men of broad views and aggressive energy is a matter for con- gratulation. The subject of this review, whose position in the community is self-evident, is of Southern birth, born at Granada, Mississippi, No- vember 28, 1859, to the union of Wilson M. and Susan (Wiggins) Aldridge. The elder Aldridge, a merchant and mill owner, was a native of Ala- bama, whose forbears were also Southerners, for many generations. At the time of the Civil War he was in business at Duck Hill, Mississippi, and had amassed a fortune approximating $50,000, which he subsequently lost through misfortune and rendering aid to the families of Confederate sol- diers. He also incurred a heavy debt, of which, however, before his death he paid the last dollar. Mrs. Aldridge, mother of our subject, was born in Mississippi, a member of families who had been long engaged in the tobacco industry in Virginia and South Carolina ; she died during the cholera scourge of 1865.

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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 149

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