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 154

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 154
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 154

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lar in Snohomish as well as in other parts of the county, so much so that the Republicans decided he would add strength to their county ticket, and gave him the nomination for county treasurer. He was elected and reelected in 1890 and 1892. His friends wished him to accept other positions but he refused during the next six years to take political office. He was devoting his energies at this time to various pursuits, including mining and farming ; also oper- ating a gents' furnishing store in Snohomish. In June, 1898, he went to Klondyke and for a year mined with fair success. In 1900 he was again in- duced to accept a nomination for county treasurer. His previous record had been so clean and his man- agement of the county business so capable that he was elected easily and reelected in 1902. He showed himself a financier of considerable ability and to- wards the end of his teri assisted in the organiza- tion of the Monroe State bank, becoming its cash- ier, a position for which his long experience in the treasurer's office had eminently fitted him.

Mr. Lawry and Miss Zellah Getchell were mar- ried February 11, 1882. She is the daughter of Mar- tin and Olif Getchell, both natives of Maine, now re- siding in Lowell, Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Lawry have two children, Charles A. and Ethel B. Mr. Lawry is a popular and prominent member of two orders, the Masonic and the Knights of Pythias. One of the most honored and highly esteemed citi- zens of the county. lle is quite unassuming, a true pioneer of the West, who has seen his own county grow and prosper and who has materially assisted in this growth and prosperity.

TAMLIN ELWELL, retail lumberman of Sno- homish, is one of the men who have had intimate acquaintance with the lumber industry on both sides of the American continent. His first introduction to the business came as a lad in the pine trees of his native Maine and there has hardly been a day since early boyhood when he has not been in close contact with either standing timber or the manufactured product. Mr. Elwell was one of the trail finders in the early days of the timber business in Snohom- ish county and an unimpeachable authority on facts regarding the forests of the western slopes of the Cascades. He was born in Northfield. Washing- ton county. Maine, in the first days of 1839, the son of John and Eliza ( Crosby) Elwell, natives of the Pine Tree state in the second decade of the last century. The elder Elwell was a logger and lum- berman all his life. He came to the Puget sound forests in 1858 and returned to his native state after a year and a half of life here. He remained in Maine until 1822, when he came to Snohomish county and passed the remainder of his days. Mrs. Elwell also died in Snohomish. Tamlin Elwell, after receiving his education, became associated

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with his father in the logging business. In 1858 he accompanied the elder Elwell to the Puget sound country and returned to his native state. becoriing a partner with his father upon attaining his ma- jority. Upon his marriage in 1863 young Elwell decided to return to Washington and the forests of Snohomish. He sold out his interests in Maine to his father and crossed the continent again. His first work here was as logging contractor for the Puget Sound Mill Company at Port Gamble. Those were the days when there were no tug boats on the waters of the sound to haul rafts or boomed iogs to their destination, but Mr. Elwell successfully carried out his contract within eighteen months. He then returned again to his native state and en- tered the employ of a lumber company, becoming master driver on the river, which position he held until in 1875 he came once more to Snohomish county, this time to make his home permanently on the Pacific slope. Mr. Elwell's first venture was the purchase of a small piece of land up the Sho- homish river. He erected a house, placed the land under cultivation, set out an orchard and then re- turned to the logging business. In the spring of the Centennial year he commenced to log off the land on which a part of the present town of Mon- roe stands. After two years of logging operations near Monroe Mr. Elwell purchased the business of Ross Bros., who were engaged with teams at different points along the river placing the logs into rafts preparatory to towing by tug to different mills. For five years Mr. Elwell carried on this business, selling out in 1882 to establish a logging camp on the Pilchuck in partnership with Henry F. Jackson. The partners continued operations on the Pilchuck for three years and then moved to the Squamish harbor near Port Gamble, where they carried on logging business for three years. Mukil- teo was the next scene of the operations of Mr. Elwell and his partner. In 1889 Mr. Elwell bought out Mr. Jackson and at once commenced logging operations on Lake Washington, near Seattle, where he removed the logs from 500 acres of the Puget Sound Mill Company's land. During this period Mr. Elwell operated three camps and was recognized as having one of the most extensive logging ventures in the state. He sold a half in- terest in his logging business to Elmer Stinson, with whom he continued in business until his re- tirement from the logging industry in 1895. Dur- ing the years following 1884 Mr. Elwell had taken a deep interest in the breeding of horses and had opened a stable for breeding purposes. It was he who brought the first buggy to this part of the county. He commenced to raise fine horses and in 1888 by reason of money he had loaned to a iivery- man was compelled to engage for a time in the livery business, in connection with which he car- ried out his plan of producing fine horse flesh. In

fact, Mr. Elwell has always been a lover of good horses and has produced some of the finest animals seen in the Pacific northwest. The most of his horses have descended from a Hambletonian ani- mal whose qualities as a dam of speedy get have not been surpassed in Snohomish county. AAmong the record horses raised by Mr. Elwell are: Mary L., 2:22; Snohomish Boy, 2:15; Montana Boy, 2:20; Stanwood Boy, 2:18; as well as a number of others in the 2:30 class, among which is Central Hood, sold a year ago for $500. The pride of Mr. El- well's stable at the present time is Prince B., with a record of 2:28, one of the finest driving horses in the country.

In 1862, while living in Maine, Mr. Elwell mar- ried Miss Sarah A. Watts, daughter of Greenleaf and Ruth ( Marston) Watts, natives of the Pine Tree state, who passed their lives entirely within its borders. Mrs. Elwell was born in 1839 and re- ceived her education in Maine. She had been teach- ing school for five years when married. She has vocal attainments of a high order, and is one of the cultured women of Snohomish. To. Mr. and Mrs. Elwell have been born nine children: Mrs. Delia H. Deering, now a resident of Alaska; Alice, who died during young womanhood in California ; Mrs. Bertha Crossman, wife of a Snohomish mer- chant; Mrs. Ruth Allen, a resident of Whatcom during her husband's stay in Alaska; William T., living in Seattle ; an insurance man with offices in the Alaska building; Mrs. Susie M. Woodman, a resident of British Columbia; Sherman, who died when a mere lad; Sherman, now living at home, and Arthur, a resident of Tacoma. In politics Mr. Elwell is a Republican. In fraternal affiliations he is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the uniform rank of that order, and also of the An- cient Order of United Workmen and the Degree of Honor. Among the property holdings of Mr. El- well are the 120 acres comprising the T. Elwell addition to the city of Everett, other lots in that city and some properties in Snohomish. Mr. El- well's life has been one of unusual activity, but he has been successful in all his business engagements. The character and attainments of this pioneer are best reflected in a simple recital and narrative of the events of his life.

DR. CHARLES MILTON BUCHANAN, though a physician by profession, is also the super- intendent of the Tulalip Indian schools, the acting United States Indian Agent in charge of the reser- vations of the Tulalip agency, a special bonded dis- bursing agent of the United States Government, and is also the physician to the Tulalip Indian Training School, this last being a boarding school maintained by the Government at the Tulalip agency. Dr. Buchanan was born in the historic old colonial town of Alexandria, Virginia, on the 11th

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day of October, in the year 1868. Close by the place of his birth stands the famous house where Washington and Braddock had their famous con- ference, in 1255, preliminary to the disastrous cam- paign against Fort Du Quesne. Equally close by was the house where Ellsworth was shot early in the Civil War. In the time of his birth the Doctor is, in a sense, the child of the renaissance, being born when the Civil War was becoming a matter of history. His father, J. Milton Buchanan, came of well-known Virginian stock of strong Southern sympathies. His mother, Frances Eldred, came of well-known Northern stock whose sympathies were strongly Northern; the Eldreds came to Maryland originally from Massachusetts though many of the family are scattered in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. Frances Eldred was a great-niece of Peter Cooper, the famous millionaire philanthro- pist who founded Cooper Institute in New York City and so richly endowed it. The carly boyhood of Dr. Buchanan was spent and his education be- gun in the old town of Alexandria. It was here that his religious training began in the famous old Christ Church built by George Washington in 1963. The old church yet contains the pew of the illus- trious Washington, and two marble, memorial, mural tablets, one on each side of the chancel, to the memories, respectively, of two famous vestrymen of the historic old church-namely, George Wash- ington and Robert E. Lee. Patriotism and gen- tility dwell in the very atmosphere of the old church, and it is singular to note, in passing, that its every brick was brought from England, as was not un- usual in those days.

The subject of this sketch received his educa- tion through the various and usual channels, pri- vate tuition, public school, high school, private school, tutor, university, all but the earliest portion being received in Washington, D. C., to which city he removed with his parents at the age of ten years.

Prior to pursuing the study of medicine and surgery, the Doctor gave his serious thought to chemical research and practice, having been lab- oratory instructor in chemistry in the Washington City high school and later a chemist in the U. S. Patent Office chemical laboratory, and later still the consulting chemist of the Wortman Manifold Company, all of Washington, D. C. Subsequent to this he became engaged in teaching chemistry and mineralogy in the Central High School, Washing- ton, D. C., at which time he was editor-in-chief of the High School Review, a magazine devoted to the interests of the five high schools of Wash- ington City. He was graduated in medicine May 13, 1890, from the National University of Wash- ington City, now the George Washington Univer- sity of the same city. In 1891 he was placed in charge of the department of Physical Science of

the Capitol Hill Iligh School of Washington City, and was also elected to the major chairs of chemis- try, toxicology, and metallurgy in the medical and dental departments of his alma mater, having pre- viously served her as prosector of anatomy. In October, 1894, Dr. Edwin Buchanan resigned as physician, after nearly six years of service, to the Tulalip Indian Agency, and established himself in practice in his profession in Seattle, where he died in October, 1895. He was succeeded at Tulalip by his nephew, Dr. Charles Milton Buchanan, the subject of this sketch, in October, 1894.

From November 1, 1894, to July 1, 1901, Dr. Charles Milton Buchanan served the Government continuously at Tulalip as agency physician and surgeon. He was promoted to his present position in charge of Tulalip, July 1, 1901. 1Ie is therefore in his twelfth year of continuous service at Tulalip at the present writing, 1906. It is entirely during his incumbency and under his superintendency that the present Government institution at Tulalip has been erected and developed.

Both of Doctor Buchanan's parents have de- ceased. His brother and sisters are as follows : Dr. Robert Edward Buchanan, Mrs. Ella Kemp Buchanan Jones, and Miss Katherine Elizabeth Buchanan, all of Washington, D. C., and Mrs. Grace Eldred Milburn of Chicago, Illinois.

On June 30, 1892, at Epiphany Church, Wash- ington, D. C., Doctor Buchanan was married by the Rev. Dr. Randolph McKim to Miss Anne Re- becca Meade Randolph Lea of Richmond, Virginia, but then residing in Washington City. Mrs. Bu- chanan was born in Richmond, Va., of the stock from which sprang the Lees or Leas, the Meades including Bishop Meade, and the famous old John Randolph of Roanoke. Mrs. Buchanan's father was William Gabriel Randolph Lea, and her mother was Miss Louise Longstreet Nash, a sister of the dashing Confederate cavalryman, Major Joseph Van Holt Nash who served through the War as adjutant on the staff of General J. E. B. Stuart. Mrs. Buchanan had no sisters and has but two brothers living-Iloward Fairfax Lea, an attorney of Kansas City, Missouri, and Robert Edward Lea, who is interested in the publishing business in Den- ver, Colorado.

Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan have but one child, a daughter, Louise Eldred, born in Washington City August 31, 1894, who is at present a student in Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma, Washington.

In politics Doctor Buchanan has always cast the Republican ticket. His fraternal affiliations are limited to the Masonic and the Pythian orders. Hc sustains membership in and relation with many scientific, learned, and professional associations.

JOSEPHI E. GETCHELL is one of the oldest pioneers of Snohomish, having first come here in

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1864. Earlier by only fifteen years had been the historic rush of the excited people of the Atlantic coast and middle west to the golden prospects of California. Earlier by scarcely more than a decade had been the formation of any government in what is now the state of Washington. Mr. Getchell antedates in his life in Snohomish county most other living men now within her borders. He was born in Maine in June of 1843, the son of G. S. and Taphene ( Longfellow) Getchell, natives of the Pine Tree state in which they passed their entire lives as farmer folk and lumbering people. The grandfather of the subject of this biography. Joseph Getchell, was a native of Scarboro and served in the continental army in its war with the mother country. The grandson obtained his education in the schools of Maine and remained at home until he had attained his majority, assisting his father on the old Pine Tree state farm. On the 20th day of June, 1864, young Getchell bade farewell to his friends and relatives and started for the Pacific coast, via the Isthmus of Panama. The voyage was without particular incident and he remained in San Francisco, then the mecca of all Atlantic coast travelers, but a short time before coming to the Puget Sound country. He was directed here be- cause of the presence of a brother located where Lowell now stands. The first few years which fol- lowed his advent on the coast were passed at lum- bering and logging in the woods of Snohomish county. The five years intervening between 1872 and 1877 were spent on the Atlantic coast, but in the year last named Mr. Getchell again faced west- ward. On his arrival he located at Snohomish. then a hamlet of but few houses, and again engaged in lumbering, adding also the business of freight- ing, in which he has continued to the present day. He has seen the entire Puget Sound country de- velop from a wooded wilderness to its present con- dition of a rich farming and commercial country. He has done his share of pioneer work, has taken his portion of pioneer hardship and privation and has faced his allotment of obstacles.

While on his trip to the East in 1877 Mr. Get- chell married Miss Pherlissa Smith, a native of Maine, the daughter of Wilbur and Ursula (Foss) Smith, farmers of that state. Mrs. Getchell ac- companied her husband on his return to the Puget Sound country and has been one of the pioneer women in the winning of the woods of Snohomish county to the uses of the white race. In politics Mr. Getchell is a Republican and has always been active in his party, though not an office seeker. In fraternal circles he is a Mason and a member of the Knights of the Maccabees. He owns a commodious house in the business section of the town, which has grown up around his original location. He is widely known, reliable in business and the recipient of the respect and confidence of the people of the city.

DOCTOR A. C. FOLSOM (deceased) was the first practitioner in Snohomish county to devote himself entirely to his profession, and no record of this county would be complete without presenting a sketch of the life and attainments of this remark- able pioneer physician and embodying a tribute to the deep interest he displayed in behalf of his fel- low men in the carly days of the settlement. The life record of Dr. Folsom in its details does not exist in the Pacific northwest. and the facts ob- tainable about the career of the physician are for the most part from the recollection of his fellow pioneer. Eldridge Morse, Snohomish county's first practising attorney. Dr. Folsom obtained his early education at Phillips-Exeter Academy, the famous training school in New Hampshire, and then studied at Harvard university, in those days known as Harvard college. During his student days at the Cambridge institution the young man came in con- tact with Professor Louis Agassiz, the famous Swiss naturalist, and the bent of young Folsom's mind was by him turned into the channels of scien- tific research. This was in the early days of the connection of the great scientist with Harvard and his zeal and interest in solving problems was in- fectious with his students. In no instance was a greater stimulus given than to the mind of young Folsom, with the result that he made great strides along all lines of science, though especially with reference to the problems confronting a physician. Soon after graduating from Harvard school of medicine Dr. Folsom received an appointment as surgeon in the United States army and reported to Robert E. Lee, then an army engineer with head- quarters at New Orleans in the closing days of the Mexican War. A little later Dr. Folsom was trans- ferred to the Pacific coast and saw seven years service in the army in California and Arizona. Re- signing his commission he returned to the Atlantic coast and pursued post graduate studies in medicine at his old alma mater, receiving at the conclusion of his work the "diploma ad cundem," the highest honors conferred by the great Cambridge institu- tion and indicative of having completed with honor and attainment no less than three courses of medical investigation and research. Dr. Folsom then passed some time in Europe, traveling extensively in Ger- many and other parts of the continent. On his return he practiced his profession for a time in Wisconsin, but ultimately came to California, the scene of his former labors as army surgeon. For a number of years he was connected with the gov- ernment secret service, running on the steamers be- tween San Francisco and Panama. During the Civil War Dr. Folsom served with the California volunteers as medical inspector, a line of work for which his previous service in the regular army eminently fitted him.

When in November, 1872. Dr. Folsom came to Snohomish there was need for an efficient physician

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and surgeon. Dr. H. A. Smith, who had a tide land ranch near the mouth of the Snohomish river, was the nearest practitioner in the county, and many of the afflicted ones were accommodated and treated at his ranch. He was recognized as a man of more than ordinary skill in attending to the needs of the sick. At once Dr. Folsom's services were in demand and the benefit of his entire fund of ex- perience and all of his skillful training was to be had for the asking. He was actuated more from a desire to alleviate the sufferings of the pioneers than to build up a fortune for himself. Much of his work was for gratuity, and because of this he is remembered with keen thankfulness by many of the old settlers. Dr. Folsom was more than a practising physician-he was a man of thoroughly trained and cultured mind, a recognized writer on topics scien- tific and a literary man of merit. When he might have turned to his financial benefit these stores of information and experience, he was lavish in be- stowing them upon his neighbors and fellows with- out stint. Little is recalled at this time of the fam- ily of Dr. Folsom, except that he was a nephew of Salmon P. Chase, United States senator from Ohio, member of Lincoln's cabinet and later chief justice of the United States supreme court. He was also relative of Captain Folsom of the regular army, well known in California and the man for whom Folsom street in San Francisco was named. Of kindly disposition, of keen intellectual powers, of remarkable skill as a physician and of warm heart for his fellow men, Dr. Folsom's figure looms up in the early history of Snohomish county as that of a man always ready to give of his benefi- cence to the needy and suffering. He died about 1884, as nearly as can be recalled, and was buried by the Masonic fraternity, of which he was a men- ber.

JOSEPHI DUBOISE WOOD, mechanic, car- penter and constructor residing in Snohomish, is a self made man whose position in life has been reached by gradual ascent and after demonstration of his ability to dispose of the work laid upon him. He was born in the province of Quebec, Lower Canada, carly in 1862, the eighth of the seventeen children of Flavian Duboise and Nathalie ( Be- lange) Wood, natives of Quebec of French ancestry which may be traced back nine generations. The elder Wood was a well known ship builder and carpenter of the lower St. Lawrence who died in 1904 at the advanced age of seventy-eight years, having outlived his wife by sixteen years. To pro- vide for the many children of Mr. Wood taxed his resources to the utmost and as the sons attained an age where they could add to the income of the family they left school and went to work. In this way Joseph D. Wood began to do for himself when but thirteen years of age, his formal education

having been received in the Catholic school at St. Romuald, Quebec. Until 1881 young Wood was occupied principally in the logging and lumber business of Quebec, but at that time he went to Michigan where he worked at the carpenter trade and on the railroads. While loading logs one time he was severely injured and as a result was unable to do any kind of work for an entire year. In 1883 Mr. Wood went to Wisconsin, where he worked for a number of years in the lumber busi- ness and as railroad brakeman. Five years later he was in Butte, Montana, conducting a business which he subsequently sold to accept a position as carpenter and bridge builder for the Great Northern railway. In 1892 he came to Snohomish and en- gaged in carpenter work and the lumber business. In 1898 he joined in the rush to the Klondike, with Circle City as his objective point, and the hardships of the overland trail were undergone by him in common with others. Notwithstanding his unpre- pared physical condition, Mr. Wood hauled a sledge loaded with 200 pounds of provisions over seventy miles of glacier trail, while seemingly stronger men than he dropped by the wayside. This trip was made four times, resulting in handsome profit to the adventurer. Since his return from Alaska Mr. Wood has been in business at Snohomish.

In October of 1895 Mr. Wood married Miss Lizzie Plante, a native of Canada, and three chil- dren have been born to their union; Joseph S., Alexander D. and Albertha. In politics, Mr. Wood is aligned with the Socialists; in fraternal circles he is a member of the Modern Woodmen of Ameri- ca, in which order he is venerable consul at this writing ; in religious belief he is a Catholic. Mr. Wood owns a fine residence on the south bank of the Snohomish river, one of the pleasant places in that section of the city. He is a man of force of character. highly respected in the community in which he lives.

MYRON W. PACKARD, now living a retired life, has been a pioneer merchant of Snohomish county and in his business has advanced with the settling up of the country from the trading post of the carlier days to the pretentious store of the last decade. Mr. Packard is a native of St. Lawrence county, New York, his birth taking place on Christ- mas Eve, of 1830. Ile is the second of three chil- dren of Daniel and Amanda ( Levings) Packard, natives of Vermont who removed to the St. Law- rence valley soon after their marriage. His ances- tors were among the very first settlers in Vermont. Daniel Packard met death April 1, 1835, through the kick of a horse when Myron W. Packard was but. four years old. Young Packard attended schools of his native place and remained at home until, at twenty years of age, he entered the employ of a merchant in Madrid, New York, as clerk. After

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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 154

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