USA > Washington > Douglas County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 2 > Part 47
USA > Washington > Adams County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 2 > Part 47
USA > Washington > Franklin County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 2 > Part 47
USA > Washington > Lincoln County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 2 > Part 47
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82
The present conditions of the schools of Adams county are taken from the 1904 report of the superintendent :
Children 5 to 21 years of age in county 3,095
Enrolled in public schools 2,652
Average daily Attendance 1,726
Average months of school maintained 6.4
Number of districts maintained in county 93
Number of teachers employed
90
Average monthly salary-
Males $52.74
Females $49.90
Pupils in first year's course
645
Pupils in second year's course
Pupils in third year's course 362
Pupils in fourth year's course 383
347
Pupils in fifth year's course 339
Pupils in sixth year's course 223
Pupils in seventh year's course 175
Pupils in eighth year's course IOI
Pupils in ninth year's course 65.
Pupils in tenth year's course 13
Pupils in eleventh year's course I9
Pupils in twelfth year's course O
Graduated from common schools during year
36
School houses in county-
Brick 2
Frame 73
Total seating capacity 3,108
Estimated value of all school property $86,972
Number of school districts in county 78
Elementary certificates from State Normal 2
Advanced course State Normal 4
First grade certificates
13
Second grade certificates
37
Third grade certificate 25
Graded schools are at Washtucna, two teachers; Paha, two teachers; Cunningham, two teachers; Lind, five; Hatton, two; Ritz- ville, eleven; High schools are at Ritzville and Lind. Ritzville has a four and Lind a two years' course.
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WILLIAM E CUNNINGHAM.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES ADAMS COUNTY
WILLIAM R. CUNNINGHAM, a real estate dealer and negotiator of loans, is a native of Paris, Bourbon county, Kentucky, born April 14, 1834. It has fallen to the lot of but few men to have been associated, directly and indirectly, with so many of the great men of his time as was the subject of this sketch. His father, John Cunningham, was a native Vir- ginian, born in Hardy county, whose ancestry included some of the original settlers of the Old Dominion State. John Cunningham was a member of General Shelby's cavalry during the War of 1812, was in at the death of the brave and crafty Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, and after the war served as joint state senator for Bath and Bourbon counties, Ken- tucky. He was in the senate at the time of Henry Clay's death, and it was through his political manipulation that John J. Crittenden was elected to succeed that great statesman in the senate of the nation. As a breeder of thoroughbred race horses and Durham cattle, he was a son of whom Kentucky might well be proud. One horse he owned, Woodpecker, sire of Gray Eagle, cost him the sum of five thousand dollars, which at that time was the highest price ever paid for a horse. He passed away on his farm near Paris, during August, 1864, aged sixty-nine years.
Our subject's mother was Mary (Bean) Cunningham, born near Winchester, Virginia, which was also the native state of her parents, who were of German descent. Upon the out- break of the Revolution her ancestors living at that time became so intensely American as to cease speaking the German tongue, and to assist in every possible manner the colonial
patriots in their struggle for freedom. The mother's parents were pioneers at Strode Sta- tion, Clark county, Kentucky, but a few miles from the home of Daniel Boone. The male members of the family were all farmers, and her father, John Bean, was a major in the army during the War of 1812. She died at the old home, aged ninety-three, in the year 1888.
William R. Cunningham lived in his native state until twenty-three. At the age of twelve he was placed in a subscription school, where he remained a student thirty-six consecutive months without a vacation, after which period he was placed under the tutorage of Professor John Lutz, the professor of mathematics in the Transylvania University at Lexington, Ken- tucky. Thus young Cunningham learned the profession of civil engineering, and for more than a year practiced under Professor Lutz. Professor Lutz then advised the elder Cunning- ham to place the boy in the Kentucky Military Institute, then located at Blue Licks, with a view to preparing him for West Point, there to educate him to be a topographical engineer. James G. Blaine was then occupying the chair of mathematics at the Kentucky Military In- stitute, and owing to a ruction in the school, in which Mr. Blaine was involved, it was re- moved to the vicinity of Frankfort, and Blaine resigned. This trouble dissolved the Cunning- ham plans, caused the father to conclude that the son should never receive a college education, and thus altered the entire trend of his life, at least for the time being. However, the young man determined to act independently, accum- ulate sufficient funds to carry him through, go out into the world alone and give himself a
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HISTORY OF THE BIG BEND COUNTRY.
college education. While putting this resolu- tion into practice he came in contact with Selucius Garfield, cousin to the martyred presi- dent, who was then canvassing the state in the Buchanan-Breckenridge presidential campaign, in 1856, in behalf of Buchanan. After Buchanan's election Garfield was appointed receiver of the land office at Olympia, Wash- ington Territory, and Young Cunningham was appointed his assistant. He arrived at Olym- pia in May, 1857, remained one year then re- turned to the national capital, recommended by Fayette McMullin, then governor of the terri- tory, S. Garfield and all other leading officials of the territory, for the post of superintendent of Indian affairs of this territory and Oregon, which post was then held by James W. Nosmith, father-in-law of Senator Levi Ankeny. Then Oregon and Washington were under one superintendent. Isaac I. Stevens was elected to congress in 1857 with the understanding that the Washington and Oregon superintend- encies were to be divided, and our subject ap- pointed to the Washington position. But the necessary Congressional bill failed in passing and the plan fell through. It was then that William R. Cunningham entered Bethany col- lege, Brook county, Virginia. He entered in 1858 and remained until December 19, 1860, a. which time, on account of the intensity of the war spirit, forty-three of the Southern students withdrew. While in this school he organized, with six fellows, the Greek fraternity, "Delta Tau Delta," which still exists. When war finally broke out, Mr. Cunningham, on account of having worked for the election of Brecken- ridge for the presidency, was naturally com- pelled to join the confederate army, which he did in June, 1862. When George W. Johnson was made provincial governor of the state of Kentucky, our subject became one of the rev- enue commissioners of that government, with military rank of captain. After General A. S. Johnson abandoned the state to the Federal troops and fell back into Tennessee, Captain Cunningham co-operated with the cavalry com- mand of General John H. Morgan, was with him through his famous raid, and with his command was captured after being wounded at the battle of Buffington Island, July 19, 1863. He was then confined in the military prison at Columbus, Ohio. After being in the prison for
eight and one-half months he was released, took the oath of allegiance, and returned to civil life in Ohio.
On January 4, 1865, he was married to Rebecca W. James, daughter of George James. Her father was a native of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and of English parentage. He read law with Chief Justice Marshall, uncle of Thos. F. Marshall, the famous Kentucky orator, was admitted to the bar, and went to Zanesville, Ohio, where he practiced forty-two years, and where he died in 1872. Mrs. Cunningham's mother was Martha ( Abbott) James, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and died in 1858. She was descended from the famous old Abbott family, of which J. S. C. Abbott, the historian, was a member.
Mrs. Cunningham had two brothers : George A., a Harvard law graduate, who mar- ried a sister of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge; and Richard F., a hardware merchant, of Nebraska. She has one sister living, Hattie, widow of John Bancroft, who was the son of George Bancroft, the noted historian.
Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham went to Ken- tucky in 1865, and to Missouri in 1866, where the subject farmed and practiced law until May, 1870, when he became a preacher in the Church of Christ, which profession he has followed to some extent ever since. He came to Ritzville in 1889, and took a homestead and timber culture near Scott's Station, since changed to .Cunningham Station, the townsite of which he owns. He has always been a domi- nant factor in the political aspect of the county since coming here, is a forceful speaker and in- domitable worker for the best interests of the community at large. Especially has he been actively concerned with his fellow citizens in their fight against the railroads for a reduction in freight tolls. He has two brothers and one sister : John, George, and Omie.
Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham have three chil- dren : Alice, wife of F. P. French; William R., Jr., and Elizabeth C. The first named was the only woman who ever became United States court commissioner in Washington, she having been appointed to succeed her husband, who is mentioned elsewhere in this volume.
Mr. Cunningham is a member of the A. F. and A. M., and of the Democratic party. He is now secretary of the Adams county central
807
HISTORY OF THE BIG BEND COUNTRY.
committee of that party, and has frequently been a delegate to its state and county con- ventions.
Mr. Cunningham, with his wife, son, Will- iam R., Jr., and daughter, owns thirty-five hundred acres of grain land in Adams county, nearly all of which is under cultivation, and he owns in addition one of the best residence properties in the city of Ritzville.
On August 5, 1902, Mr. Cunningham was appointed by the county commissioners the only delegate from Adams county to meet the rail- road presidents, J. J. Hill, C. S. Mellen, and A. L. Mohler, of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Oregon Railroad and Navigation Companies, respectively. It is an admitted fact that Mr. Cunningham delivered the speech which made the "hit" that caused the reduction of freight rates, which was the object of the assemblage.
JOHN M. ANGELL, who, with his brother, Adam W., conducts a livery business in Ritzville under the firm name of Angell Brothers, was born in Boone county, Missouri, September 21, 1863. However, he has been reared in the West, for at the age of two years his parents crossed the plains by ox wagon to the Willamette valley, Oregon, in which state the principal part of his life has been spent. Their journey across the plains was an unus- ually hazardous one, owing to the hostility of the Indians, who at different times made de- termined efforts to capture the stock of the emi- grants, but were as often foiled in the attempt. When about four years of age John Angell was taken by his parents to the Walla Walla counry, whre they remained two years, after which they lived ten years near Echo, Uma- tilla county, Oregon. Here our subject at- tended district school and managed to acquire no small amount of education. From Echo the family removed to Four Mile, near Palouse, Washington, where they lived twenty-one years, engaged in farming and stock-raising, in which business our subject was associated with his father. In 1900 Mr. Angell went to the vicinity of Colfax, leased a half section of school land and farmed for two years, then came to Ritzville and erected a saloon and livery barn in partnership with his brother. The brothers own two lots, fifty by one hun-
dred feet, upon which their business is located, and are in a prosperous condition. Their prin- cipal business formerly was the buying and selling of horses, but of recent years they have given their attention more fully to their livery business. They have now about twenty-five head of horses in their barns, and eight rigs. They recently sold three sections of pasture land in Adams and Whitman counties. Mr. Angell owns, besides his business property, a residence and two lots in Ritzville. He has one brother besides his partner, and four sisters. Willis H .; Joella, wife of Alonzo Risley; Orvilla, wife of Alonzo Jeffries; Jessie, wife of Tin Ringer; and Lucy, wife of George Gebart.
John M. Angell was married January 9, 1887, to Alice Childers, a native of the Willa- mette valley, Oregon, the marriage taking place at Palouse. Mrs. Angell is the daughter of Henry Childers, of Elgin, Oregon, who crossed the plains in an early day. The mother is de- ceased. She has one sister and one brother : Mary, widow of John Kincaid; and Thomas Childers.
To this union have been born four children, Reta, Gladys, John M. and Radford M., all liv- ing at home.
In politics Mr. Angell is a Democrat, but is not an active party man.
Mr. Angell's parents were Radford M. and Sarah M. (Nye) Angell, natives, respectively, of Missouri and South Carolina. The father's father was a native of Virginia, and a veteran of the War of 1812, and of the early Indian wars. Radford M. Angell was a Mason of thirty years' standing, and upon his death at Ritzville, July 10, 1902, he was buried by that order in Palouse. Mr. Angell's mother is now living in Ritzville.
HON. JOHN D. BASSETT, one of the most widely known bankers in the State of Washington, now living in Ritzville, was born in Plainfield, Connecticut, January 6, 1858, and is descended from an old English family, which came to Connecticut and settled in Guilford in 1660. His father. William E. Bassett, a Con- gregational minister, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and his mother, Mary (Dowd) Bassett, was also a native of the "Wooden Nutmeg State," and came of one of the old
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HISTORY OF THE BIG BEND COUNTRY.
New England families. The father died in 1881 and the mother five years later in Nor- folk, Connecticut.
For forty years Mr. Bassett lived in the state of his birth, and was educated in the pub- lic schools, Williston seminary, the seminary of East Hampton, Massachusetts, and one year in Yale. In Norfolk he was engaged for sev- eral years in the mercantile business and silk manufacturing, being at the time and is yet secretary and treasurer of the Aetna Silk Com- pany. In 1891 he came to Washington and established the Snohomish National Bank, Snohomish, and the Adams County Bank, which in 1901 was converted into a national bank at Ritzville, of which he is president. He also at this time organized the First National Bank of Waterville, of which he was cashier some months. He is now president of the First National Bank of Ritzville, the Odessa State Bank, the Bank of Lind, the Prosser State Bank and the Farmers' Bank at Hatton, Wash- ington. He is treasurer of the Sprague Mer- cantile Company, Sprague, Washington ; presi- dent of the Ritzville Library and Improvement Association ; and president of the Chamber of Commerce.
After leaving school in 1879 Mr. Bassett was for eighteen months employed in the bank- ing house of Cowles & Eldridge, in Norfolk, and in 1881 he went to Minnesota, where he studied law with C. M. Start, now a member of the Minnesota supreme court. He was never admitted to practice, however, but went from Minnesota to Kansas, where he remained two months and returned to the state of his birth. Here he became secretary of the Norfolk Shear Company, and on January 1, 1883, he engaged in the general merchandise business with the firm of Clark & Bassett, in which he was ex- tremely prosperous. In 1890 he sold his inter- est in business to his partner, and spent the following year in organizing banks at Harting- ton and Ogalala, Nebraska, and at Dunlap, Iowa.
John D. Bassett has no brothers, but has one sister, Rebecca B., wife of Dr. Plumb- Brown, Springfield, Massachusetts.
On September 30. 1896, John D. Bassett was married to Alice W. Case, a native of Barkhamstead, Connecticut. He father also was born in that state. This union has been
blessed with three children, Joseph E., Mary D. and Emma S.
In fraternity circles Mr. Bassett is affiliated with the Western Star lodge, No. 37, Norfolk, Connecticut, A. F. and A. M., and both he and his wife are ,members of the Eastern Star. They are also prominent spirits in the local Congregational church, of which our subject is a deacon.
Mr. John D. Bassett has been unusually prominent and active in political circles, both in his native state and the state of his adoption. He represented his district in the Connecticut State legislature in 1886-87, and was active in all educational measures and clerk of the tem- perance committee. He was superintendent of schools and town treasurer for several years; and was registrar of voters ten years. He has been a Republican all his life, and in addition to the above offices was chairman of the Re- publican central committee from the eight- eenth senatorial district of his native state.
WILLIS S. SWENSON, of Pettijohn & Swenson, proprietors of the Ritsville Times, has had a varied and interesting newspaper career. Born in Iowa, September 27, 1875, his father is Hanson Swenson, a native of Christiana, Norway, who came to the United States in 1863, and who now lives in Dawson, Minnesota, carrying on the boot and shoe busi- ness there. His mother, Mary (Johnson) Swenson, also a native of Norway, died in Ne- braska, August 18, 1894.
Willis S. Swenson's boyhood was spent in the states of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Da- kota, and his education acquired in a number of different schools. The foundation of his education was laid in the district school and was continued in the state university at Ver- million, South Dakota, the Northwestern Business college, Sioux City, Iowa, and the state Methodist college at Lincoln, Nebraska, he paying his expenses from his own earnings. At the age of twelve he began to learn the printer's trade; at sixteen he published the Randolph Reporter, at Randolph, Nebraska, which he continued two years and sold. At the expiration of this time he went to Colo- rado and published the Daily Sun at Flor- ence. This endured but a short time, however,
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HISTORY OF THE BIG BEND COUNTRY.
and he returned to Nebraska and founded an- other paper at Randolph and one at Emerson. At the expiration of one year he sold these, re- turned to Colorado and worked on various papers in Denver and other places, as reporter and compositor. In the fall of 1897 he enlisted in Company C, National Guard of Colorado, at Pueblo, but being discharged on account of illness, he came to Oregon, where he worked on papers at Baker City and Lagrande. Two years later he came to Ritzville, 1899, where he obtained a position with Editor Gilson both on his paper and as his deputy in the court house, Mr. Gilson then being county clerk. In March, 1901, he entered into his present partnership with D. W. Pettijohn who had bought out the interest of Mr. Gibson a short time before.
Willis S. Swenson has two brothers, Harry S., of Newport, Washington, who publishes the Miner, and Albert E., of Minneapolis, Minnesota, publisher of the Mascot; and two sisters : Dora, wife of J. F. Valleau, a Metho- dist minster, at Foss, Oklahoma Territory, and Josephine, wife of R. R. Heineman, a mining man of Colorado.
Politically, Mr. Swenson is a Democrat, and his paper is a recognized power in the Democratic cause in Adams county.
FRED B. SHEPLEY, of the mercantile firm of Myers & Shepley, of Ritzville, Wash- ington, came to this city with his parents in the year 1887, and in June of that year he, in partnership with his father, opened a store. This partnership continued until the father's death in 1901, when our subject assumed the entire business. He continued alone until January, 1903, when he consolidated with I. W. Myers under the present firm name. The company has the largest department store in the county and their stock will ordinarly invoice about fifty thousand dollars. The store is fully equipped and conducted along the most modern business lines.
Fred B. Shepley was born at Eddington, near Bangor, Maine, November 13, 1863. His father was Frank Shepley, a native of Maine and came of an old New England family. He was for a number of years a dealer in marble at Bangor, and died aged seventy-four, at Ritz- ville, as stated above. Our subject's mother
was Anne L. (Johnson) Shepley, also born in Maine and coming of one of the old American families. Many of her ancestors were prom- inent in colonial and Revolutionary times, some of whom were members of the famous "Boston Tea Party."
The Shepley family removed to Minne- apolis when our subject was only two years old, and the father engaged in the lumbering busi- ness, combined with stock raising, for ten years, then removed to Avoca, Iowa, where he followed farming and the grocery business. Their next migration was to Ritzville, where they started in the grocery business.
Mr. Shepley's education was obtained in the graded schools of Minneapolis and Iowa. He has no brothers, and only one sister, Nellie, widow of John G. Fassett, formerly of Min- neapolis. She is now living in Ritzville with her mother.
At Laclede, Missouri, October 15, 1893, occurred the marriage of Fred B. Shepley to Carrie S. Baker, daughter of Eugene F. Baker, of Spokane, and a native of West Virginia. Her mother also was a native of West Virginia. Mrs. Shepley has three brothers and two sis- ters: Edward; Samuel; Lewis; Clara, widow of William Coons, Spokane; and Josephine, who lives in Spokane.
To Mr. and Mrs. Shepley one child has been born, Eugene F., aged nine years.
Mr. Shepley is a member and past grand of the Ritzville lodge, I. O. O. F., is a member of the city council, in which office he is serving his second term, and is a prominent man in the Democratic party. He has been a delegate to both state and county conventions, and is as active in his party as his business will allow him to be. He is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Ritzville.
HON. WILLIAM K. KENNEDY, than whom probably no man has been more closely identified with the political and business affairs of Ritzville and Adams county during the past twenty years, is the police judge and justice of the peace of Ritzville, though he is living prac- tically a retired life from business. Born in Chicago. September 2 .. 1851, he was the only son of Alexander and Mary ( McKee) Ken- nedy, the former a native of Alabama and the
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HISTORY OF THE BIG BEND COUNTRY.
latter of Ireland. Mr. Kennedy's paternal grandfather was born in Ireland, but in early life came to Alabama, and from there, on ac- count of his abhorrence of slavery, he came to Chicago. He engaged in the hardware busi- ness near Fort Dearborn, where he prospered, and where he, his wife and our subject's mother fell victims of the cholera in 1851. Alexander Kennedy succeeded his father in business upon the latter's death, and himself died in 1859. Mr. Kennedy's mother was mar- ried in Wisconsin. She was sister to Judge Samuel B. McKee, of Oakland, California.
Until eighteen years of age William K. Kennedy was reared in the city of his birth and educated in the grammar and high schools, from which he was graduated, and in 1869 went to Southwestern Iowa, where he engaged in farming. While a resident of Page county, of that state, he was married, on September 22, 1872, at College Springs, to Aimee B. Tweedy, a native of Iowa, and daughter of Robert and Mary (Kinnear ) Tweedy.
In 1886 Mr. Kennedy came to Ritzville from Iowa, filed a homestead on a quarter sec- tion of land and purchased two sections of rail- road land near town. He farmed this tract until 1901, when he sold five hundred acres at twenty-five dollars an acre and erected a hand- some home on Knob Hill, in Ritzville. His residence contains eleven rooms, richly fur- nished and strictly modern, and was built at a cost of six thousand dollars. It is one of the finest homes in the city.
In 1889-90 William K. Kennedy served as a representative from Adams county in the lower house of the state legislature, having been elected on the Republican ticket, and was re-elected at the following election. For twelve consecutive years he was chairman of the Adams county Republican central committee and a member of the state central committee, and in 1896 he was one of the four presidential electors from this state, and had the honor of casting his vote for the martyred Mckinley. In 1895 and again in 1899 he was elected alter- nate state delegate to the national Republican convention. He has been police judge since September, 1903.
Although, as has been stated, he is prac- tically retired from business, he has considera- ble money invested in city realty.
Mrs. Kennedy has three brothers and two
sisters : Columbus, William, Milton, Idaho farmers; Mrs. Emma Axtell, of Idaho; and Mrs. Maggie Van Buren of Ritzville.
The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy has been blessed by five children : George A., a bank cashier at Odessa, Washington ; Robert C., whose life is sketched elsewhere in this book. cashier of the First National Bank of Ritzville: William R., a member of the Ritz- ville firm of Myers, Shepley Company ; Lizzie, wife of Isaac W. Myers, of the firm just named; and one who died in infancy.
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