USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 23
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BROWNE, HON. J. J., was born in Greenville, Stark County, O., April 28th, 1843, and at an early age removed to Columbia City, Ind. His father was a farmer and blacksmith. His mother died before he was two years old, and he was reared by his grandparents. He attended the common schools of Columbia City, but desiring the advantages of a more liberal education, at the age of eighteen he entered Wabash College, working nights and mornings to pay his
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board and tuition. During his summer vacations he worked to earn means to · purchase books and clothing.
These early hardships and necessities but fitted him the better for filling the position that later years were to bring to him. After leaving college he took a course in law at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, graduating from the Law Department of that institution in the class of 1868. He immediately began the practice of his chosen profession at Oswego, Kan., remaining there until 1874. In that year he removed to Portland, Ore., and practised in that city for the next four years. While there he served as School Superintendent of Mult- nomah County in 1876-78, having been elected to tnat office as a Democrat by more than one hundred majority when the county on the general ticket was car- ried by the Republicans by more than eight hundred majority. In 1878 he set- tled at Spokane, and here engaged in the practice of law, his business extending over Eastern Washington and Idaho, and was very remunerative for so new a country, he realizing about $5000 a year.
Appreciating the peculiar advantage of the place for a city site-the tremen- dous water-power, the timber and mines north, and the rich agricultural lands to the south-Mr. Browne at once set about to help build a city. After informing himself thoroughly as to the surrounding country, he purchased a one-fourth interest in the town, which then contained but fifty-four inhabitants, and located a homestead claim where his home now stands. This is now in the heart of the best part of the city. His private interests in a few years became so large that he was obliged to relinquish his extensive law practice and to devote his whole time to his business affairs. Together with Mr. A. M. Cannon he built the Audi- torium Theatre Block, the handsomest structure in the city and one of the finest in the State. In politics Mr. Browne is a stanch Democrat, and has served his party in various capacities with distinction and ability. He was delegate from Kansas to the National Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1872, and was also a delegate to the National Convention at St. Louis in 1888, serving there as a member of the Committee on Platform and Notification. He is President of the Browne National Bank, President of the Spokane Investment Company, ex- President of the Spokane Mill Company, and editor and proprietor of the Spo- kane Chronicle.
Mr. Browne is a man of close observation and broad experience, eminently practical, and of unimpeachable integrity. While engaging most actively in commercial affairs, he has at the same time shown a deep interest in public mat- ters, and has done much to advance the causes of education and good govern- ment, serving for many years as a School Director, and he has been chiefly instru- mental in building up at Spokane a system of public schools equal to the best in the country. He is also Chancellor of the Washington State University, located at Seattle, in which institution he takes a deep interest, as he does in all matters appertaining to education.
After Washington was admitted as a State, although Mr. Browne was in the East at the time the convention was held, without his knowledge or consent he was nominated as a member of the Constitutional Convention and elected. He was a prominent member and leader in that body, which was composed of the ablest men in the State. He was Chairman of the Committee on State, County,
Marshall nes nel
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and Municipal Indebtedness, and the article under this caption in the State Con- stitution was adopted, almost word for word, as originally written by him ; and it is safe to say that no State in the Union has a constitutional provision upon this subject better calculated to protect the interest of the people against extrava- gant or dishonest officials, and at the same time sufficiently elastic and liberal to meet the growing needs of a progressive people and a great State.
Mr. Browne was raised upon a farm, and his early attachment to agriculture and country life still clings to him. He owns a farm of about two thousand acres 'some five miles from town, where he spends all the time he can spare from his other enterprises. He gives it personal supervision, and derives a great deal of pleasure from his farming operations-perhaps more pleasure than profit, as he is frequently heard to say, when talking to his friends, " I am farming for pleasure rather than profit."
Mr. Browne is pre-eminently a self-made man. His parents and grandparents were poor and unable to give him many advantages, and yet he has been success- ful to a degree very seldom reached. He obtained an education in the face of difficulties that but few boys in a generation have the courage or ability to over- come. Without means or influential friends, he has moved forward and upward step by step until he has become one of the leading business men and financiers of the Northwest, and at the same time stands high as a writer and public speaker. He is classed to-day as one of the wealthiest men in the State, as he certainly is one of the most influential. His love of learning and his literary taste may be inferred from the fact that he possesses the largest private library west of St. Paul, in which he spends all of his leisure time.
CATHCART, ISAAC .- Among the citizens of Snohomish who have won a high place in the estimation of their fellow-men, and who by their exemplary lives and energy and ability for business have made themselves a part of the history of the State, Isaac Cathcart deserves especial mention. Coming to the Sound Country twenty-five years ago with no other capital than a rugged constitution and a de- termination to succeed, he has, by the exercise of economy, industry, sound business judgment, and financial ability, gained a prominent place among the most successful business men of the Pacific Northwest. At the founding of Sno- homish he became identified with and a recognized leader and important factor in the development and growth of the city, and his interest in her material wel- fare has never lagged.
Mr. Cathcart was born in Fermanagh County, Ireland, October 13th, 1845, and is the son of Isaac F. and Charlotte (Bushfield) Cathcart. He resided at his birthplace until nineteen years of age, acquiring his early education in the church schools. Believing that the best chance for a young man would be found in a newer country, he came to America in 1864. From New York he went to Patrolia, Canada, where he spent two years in the lumber woods. He then went into the lumber region of Michigan, where he was employed for eighteen months. At the end of this period he determined to try his fortune in the then compara- tively unknown Northwest. Ascending the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Mon., he set out from that place on foot, and finally reached Wallula Junc- tion, Wash., having walked six hundred and forty miles. He at once proceeded
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down the Columbia to Portland, Ore., where he took passage on the steamer Active for Port Townsend, arriving at the latter place in September, 1868, and soon after settled at Snohomish. For the next four years he was employed in the lumber woods along the Snohomish River. In 1872 he built the well-known and popular Exchange Hotel in Snohomish city, which he still owns, and a few years later he erected the Cathcart Opera House. After operating the hotel for sixteen years he leased it to other parties and engaged in the general merchandise busi- ness, which he still continues. Besides his extensive mercantile business, he owns and operates one of the largest saw-mills in the county, with a capacity of thirty thousand feet per day, and is one of the best-known lumber men on the river, owning six thousand acres of choice timber and farming lands. He also has extensive real estate holdings in the city.
In politics Mr. Cathcart is a zealous Republican. He was elected County Treasurer in 1882, serving four years, and has been a member of the City Council one term. He was married August 9th, 1876, to Miss Julia J. Johns, of Seattle, a native of the State of Ohio. They have had four children -- Isaac C., Lizzie M., William, and Amy (deceased).
COLE, GEORGE E .- There is probably no man in the entire State who has ex- perienced a more varied and interesting career than that covered by the life of ex-Governor George E. Cole, of Spokane. The period was one full of the dan- gers and excitement of frontier life, and in its variable and changeable situations extending through a period of nearly forty-three years in Oregon as it formerly existed-now comprising Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and that part of Montana lying west of the Rocky Mountains. Upon his advent into this vast region ten thousand white persons and many times that number of Indians, divided into numerous tribes, many of whom were warlike and troublesome, constituted its inhabitants.
Governor Cole was born in Trenton, Oneida County, N. Y., December 23d, 1826. His father, Nathan Cole, was a well known character throughont the coun- ty, serving the public as a Justice of the Peace for many years. Young Cole's early youth was spent on a farm, attending the district school during the winter months, and putting in the summer in active out-of-door life. After attending the district schools, he was a student at Hobart Hall Institute, at the village of Holland Patent, during which he taught school in winter and attended school during the rest of the year. In the spring of 1846 he moved to Fulton, Oswego County, N. Y., where he clerked in a store for six months, after which he taught school for a year and a half. In 1848 he went to the village of Corning, Steuben County, N. Y., where he accepted the position of Principal of the Union School. This position he held until March, 1849, when he started overland for California. The trip at that time, to one in this age of railroads and electricity, would seem primitive, going down the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers on a raft to Colum- bia, Pa., thence by packet via the Juniata Canal to Hollidaysburg, and thence over the Alleghany Mountains via the Inclined Plane Transit to Johnstown, from there to Pittsburg by packet boat, and thence by steamer to St. Louis, arriving there during the cholera epidemic of 1849. Here he took the cholera, and was detained until too late to cross the plains that season. Determined not to turn
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back, he went up the Mississippi River to Muscatine, Ia., by steamboat, thence walking to Iowa City, the capital of the State. Here he taught school and did copying in the office of the Secretary of State.
In March, 1850, just one year from the time he left New York, he started overland for California. His trip to California was made with what was known as the Iowa City Company. On May 6th they crossed the Missouri River at Trader's Point, eight miles below what is now Council Bluffs, camping about five miles from the river. Here he had his first experience in standing guard, the Indians being troublesome. They reached Salt Lake City on June 26th, then a city of about five thousand inhabitants, and camped near by for a week for rest and supplies, starting again on their journey and arriving in Sacramento City, Cal., on August 13tlı.
After his arrival Mr. Cole went to mining, operating on the American River. About this time the war between the squatters and the city authorities occurred, in which Mr. Cole experienced his first taste of Western martial law. Not suc- ceeding in his mining venture, he went to San Francisco, and on October 24th, 1850, took passage on the brig Reindeer, bound for the Columbia River and Port- land, touching at Umpqua River, at which place he disembarked. He and four other passengers clubbed together and bought a canoe of the Indians and pro- ceeded to Scottsburg, then consisting of two tents and a log house with no roof. Cole, with a companion, started on foot to go to Old Fort Umpqua, the Hudson's Bay trading post, then commanded by Captain Garnier, a Frenchman. There his companion remained, Cole going on up Elk Creek to Yoncella Valley, the home of the three brothers, Jesse, Charles, and Lindsay Applegate, Oregon pioneers of 1843. From there he went on to Corvallis, known then as Marysville, arriving November 14th, 1850. It then consisted of two houses and a log school- house. About six miles from this point he took up a donation claim, and in the following June was elected to the Oregon Legislature. He was re-elected the following year. A portion of the time he engaged in placer mining in Southern Oregon in the Rogue River valley.
On the first Sunday in June, 1853, he, with Major Lupton, rode into an Indian ambush a few miles above Table Rock, which proved to be Cut-Face Jack's wild band of Upper Rogue Rivers. Having met the redoubtable chief on a former occasion, by dint of good talking-i.e., by satisfying Jack that they were not the " Bostons" he wanted-they were permitted to continue on their journey to Jack- sonville, their point of destination.
In 1863 he married Miss Mary E. Cardwell, of Corvallis, who had crossed the plains from Illinois with her parents the year previous. After this Mr. Cole en- gaged in the steamboat business on the Willamette River, operating a boat from Canema, above the Oregon City Falls, to Corvallis. Subsequently he engaged in the mercantile business until 1858, at which time he removed to Portland, and was appointed First United States District Clerk for Oregon upon its admission as a State in 1859. In September, 1860, he removed with a stock of goods to Walla Walla, then a small trading point in the Walla Walla valley. In the spring of 1861, upon the discovery of the Oro Fino mines, he established a store there and also at Pierce City. In 1862 he was actively engaged in the commission and forwarding business at Lewiston.
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In 1863 he was elected Delegate to Congress from Washington Territory. In the Thirty-eighth Congress he made the acquaintance of James G. Blaine, Samuel J. Randall, George H. Pendleton, and many others, with whom the acquaintance was kept up for many years. He was the first Delegate to Con- gress from Eastern Washington. In 1866 he was commissioned by Andrew Johnson as Governor of the Territory of Washington, serving until March 4th, 1867. During that year he returned to Portland, and in 1868 became actively engaged in the construction of the Oregon and California Railroad, then being built from Portland to Roseburg, serving there in different capacities until 1873, at which time he was appointed Postmaster at Portland by President Grant. He was reappointed by President Hayes, and served in that office for eight years and three months.
In the latter part of 1881 and during the entire year of 1882 he was engaged as contractor in the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad along Pend d'Oreille Lake and Clark's Fork. In 1883 he located in Spokane County, having purchased a section of land lying between Cheney and Medical Lake, upon which he resides. In 1888 he was elected Treasurer of Spokane County, and re-elected in 1890, which office he held until January 9th, 1893. He contemplates spend- ing the remainder of his days on his farm as a practical farmer, an occupation in which his boyhood days were spent, and to which more than any other he has been attached. Though in his sixty-seventh year, he is by no means an old man, but is strong and active, and capable as ever of laborious work both physical and mental.
WHITMAN, MARCUS, M.D .*- A volume might be written in regard to the life and death of this man. Hence, in the brief space here given to him, only a synopsis of his life can be given. He was born at Rushville, N. Y., September 4th, 1802, and was the son of Beza and Alice (Green) Whitman. His father having died in 1810, he was brought up by his paternal grandfather, at Plain- field, Mass. There he was converted in 1819; and in January, 1824, he joined the Congregational Church at his native place, of which he remained a member until 1833, when he united with the Presbyterian Church at Wheeler, N. Y., of which he was elected a ruling elder. In 1838 he was one of the original members of and the elder in the Presbyterian church at Walla Walla, the first church of that denomination on the Pacific coast.
He studied medicine under Dr. Ira Bryant, of Rushville, receiving his diploma in 1824. He practiced four years in Canada, and afterward in Wheeler, where, in the winter of 1834-35, he became interested in Oregon, through Rev. Samuel Parker. He started the next spring with Mr. Parker, and went as far as the rendezvous of the American Fur Company on Green River, when it was thought best for the doctor to return for more missionaries, while Mr. Parker should pro- ceed and explore. On his journey he performed some very important surgical operations on some of the mountain men, which gave him a reputation that was of great service to him afterward. On his return he took with him two Indian boys, who went to school that winter, and returned to Oregon with him the next
* From " History of Pacific Northwest."
POST FALLS-UPPER CHANNEL, NOR. PAC. R. R.
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year. That winter he was married to Miss Narcissa Prentiss, a daughter of Judge S. Prentiss. She was born at Prattsburg, N. Y., March 14th, 1808.
Having procured Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife and Mr. W. H. Gray, as colaborers, in 1836 he again started for Oregon. Mrs. Whitman, with Mrs. Spalding, made this journey mainly on horseback, the first white women to cross the continent, an event which proved to be of very great importance to Oregon, as far as homes and settlements were concerned. The doctor, with great diffi- culty and with no little opposition fror. others, but with great perseverance, took a wagon as far as Fort Boise, an event which likewise greatly affected the destinies of Oregon.
On September 2d they reached Fort Walla Walla, one day in advance of Mr. Spalding, and were received with great demonstrations of joy. Having visited Fort Vancouver, in order to consult with Dr. McLoughlin, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, he returned to Walla Walla and settled among the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu, on the Walla Walla River, six miles from the present city of Walla Walla.
There Alice Clarissa Whitman, the only child they ever had, was born, March 4th, 1837, believed to be the first white child born on the Northwest coast ; but she lived to be but little more than two years old, when, June 23d, 1839, she was accidentally drowned in the Walla Walla River.
That was their home until the time of their death. They labored earnestly and faithfully to teach agriculture, civilization, morals, and the Christian re- ligion ; and although but few if any of the Indians united with the Church, and some of them helped in the massacre, yet subsequent events have shown that some of those Cayuses were true Christians ; and the seed then sown is still growing in the Protestant Church on the Umatilla Reservation.
In the winter of 1842-43 Dr. Whitman made his famous winter journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern States, with Hon. A. L. Lovejoy, amid great suffering and hardships. There has been much discussion in regard to his reasons for doing so, the editor-in-chief of this work, Colonel Elwood Evans, taking one view and the writer another. This is not the place for much discus- sion of the subject ; but perhaps the writer may be permitted to say that to his mind, and to that of many others, the evidence is such as to induce the belief that he had at least four objects in view :
1. To induce the American Board to rescind the order which they had given in 1842 to abandon the stations of Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding. 2. To induce Christian lay families to come and settle in the regions of the missions, as a nucleus for further settlements, and as a support to the missions. 3. To induce emigrants of all kinds to come to Oregon. 4. And to do what he could to convey such information to the authorities at Washington, that they should know of the value of Oregon, and not trade off any part of it to Great Britain.
In the first of these objects he succeeded ; in the second he failed. According to almost universal testimony, he did very much to aid the immigration of 1843, the first with wagons to come successfully through ; and, in regard to the fourth, opinions differ.
After his return his work went on until suddenly, November 29th, 1847, at his station, the massacre occurred, in which he and his wife were killed by the
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Indians. On that day, and a little later, twelve others lost their lives ; and the missions of the American Board in Oregon were broken up.
A wide discussion has taken place as to the causes of this massacre ; but this is not the place to consider thiem. They fell at their post, died a martyr's death, have been honored with a martyr's memory in this world, and a martyr's crown in heaven.
COLMAN, JAMES MURRAY. - In a summary of the forces and agencies which have made the city of Seattle, within the last two decades, take such rapid strides in material greatness, the part borne by the subject of this sketch should not be omitted. For more than twenty years he has been a conceded power for good in the commercial, intellectual, and moral progress of the city, and has left in many places and on many things the impress of his individuality. Every step of his career has been one that shows the innate strength of his character-an iron will that no difficulties could daunt, and that failure only served to strengthen.
Mr. Colman was born in Dumferline, Fifeshire, Scotland, June 17th, 1832. He received a thorough technical education as a machinist and engineer in his native country, and in 1854 came to the United States. After a brief sojourn at Paterson, N. J., he removed to Milwaukee, Wis., in the same year. Obtaining employment in a large machine shop in Milwaukee, in six months' time he was promoted to the superintendency of the shop, and continued to fill that position until 1861. In the latter year he came to the Sound Country, and was offered and accepted the management of a large saw-mill at Port Madison. In the spring of 1864 he left Port Madison to assume charge of the Port Orchard Mill, which he had purchased from Renton & Howard. In 1868 he tore down and entirely rebuilt this mill. In the following year the property was entirely de- stroyed by fire, leaving him bankrupt and penniless. His reputation as the most skilful machinist and millwright in the locality being thoroughly established, he readily found employment. Hanson, Ackerman & Co., owners of the largest saw-mill in Tacoma, were desirous of rebuilding their mill, and engaged Mr. Colman to superintend the work, which he did to their entire satisfaction, build- ing for them one of the largest and best equipped mills on the Sound. On its completion Mr. Colman was retained as Superintendent of the mill, and remained in that capacity until June, 1872. He then removed to Seattle and leased the old Yesler mill for three years from Preston, Mckinnon & Co., of San Francisco, and took charge of the mill. On July 23d, 1873, the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad Company was organized, Mr. Colman being one of the trustees and prin- cipal stockholders. On May 1st, 1874, ground was broken and the grading of the road was begun. Some five or six miles were graded that year, but here the enterprise languished. Capital was lacking, and the future of the road looked dark. At this crisis Mr. Colman was urgently requested to take charge of the road and endeavor to complete it. This was in the spring of 1875. Mr. Colman's private business interests required all his time, but at a great personal sacrifice he was induced to take charge of the affairs of the company. By risking every dollar of his own savings and straining his resources to their very utmost, lie was enabled to complete and equip the first fifteen miles of the road by March, 1877.
" In the building of the railroad he did such work as no other man ever did in
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this country. He was time-keeper, book-keeper, superintendent of construction, and master mechanic. Not a dollar was ever paid out except for a good dollar's worth of work, and every item of expenditure was as closely watched as in the most carefully and economically conducted private business. Every detail of the construction was under the close personal attention of Mr. Colman, who, in addi- tion to his work on the railroad, retained the management of his own mill."
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