USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > Spokane and the Spokane country : pictorial and biographical : deluxe supplement, Volume I > Part 7
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Colonel delilliam R. Abercrombie
military road. From 1899 until 1901 he was engaged as constructing engineer of the trans-Alaskan military road from Valdez to the Yukon river, covering four hundred and eighty miles, and in 1902 he was acting engineering officer of the department of the Columbia at Vancouver Barracks, Washington. In 1903 he was in service in the Philippine islands and in 1905-6 was on recruiting duty in the northern part of the state of New Jersey. In 1907 he was commander at Fort Reno, Oklahoma, and in 1908 was on foreign service in the Philippine Islands, while in 1910 he was commander at Fort Wright, at which point he retired from active service and came to Spokane to make his home. He continued in active military duty for thirty-three years, spending ten years, summer and winter, in tents. He is now con- nected with mining projects, having owned mining property since 1884. This is located at Cornucopia, Oregon, and he is also chief en- gineer of the development in the Willapa Harbor, in Pacific county. He has gold and silver bearing properties and the company is now operating a twenty stamp mill. Colonel Abercrombie is also inter- ested in the Willapa-Pacific Townsite Company, the town site being located in Willapa county, at the mouth of the Willapa river about two miles south of South Bend. His long and varied experience in engineering work during his connection with the army well qualifies him for important duties that are now devolving upon him in this con- nection.
Colonel Abercrombie was the first soldier that came into the town of Spokane and the first man he met in the settlement was James Glover. The Indians had been dancing and making merry for a week before his arrival. Being a good fisherman he obtained promise from the commanding officer, General Wheaton, allowing him to go ahead of the command so he could fish. At that time there were only about three houses in the town and these mere shacks. In front of one was sitting a big, handsome fellow who called to the colonel as the latter went by, and he noticed that the man did not look very happy. His ex- pression changed, however, to one of joy when in response to his question as to how many soldiers were behind the Colonel he was informed that there were about seven hundred. The man was Mr. Glover and Colonel Abercrombie afterward learned that he had not slept for several nights and it was a question when the sun went down whether he would ever see it rise again, for the Indians were getting excited and were showing marked signs of hostility. Colonel Aber- crombie became well acquainted with the early settlers including James Monaghan, Cowley, Dumheller, Gray, Yetson, Post and a
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host of others, and it was this that induced him finally to settle in Spokane. As he said he "learned to know these men as one only can in days when their worldly possessions were represented by a sack of flour and a slab of bacon." It is in such days when privations are great and hardships are many that the real nature of the individual is seen and in those pioneer times men learned to know each other for what they were really worth in character and ability. It was be- cause of the strong friendships which he formed in those early days that Colonel Abercrombie returned to Spokane to make this city his home.
It was on the 13th of October, 1886, in New York city, that Colonel Abercrombie was married to Miss Lillian Kimball, a daugh- ter of General A. S. Kimball, of the United States army, under whom he had served as department quartermaster at Vancouver Bar- racks, Washington, when the General was chief quartermaster of the department of the Columbia. Mrs. Abercrombie is a Daughter of the American Revolution. By her marriage she has become the mother of two daughters, Frances K. and Clara De Normandy, both of whom are now students at Brunot Hall.
Colonel Abercrombie's club relations are extensive and indicate his high standing in the different localities where he has resided for any length of time. They are also indicative of the nature of his interests. He belongs to the National Geographic Society, the Geo- graphic Society of Philadelphia and the Explorers Club of New York, of which he is a charter member. He is likewise a charter member of the Army and Navy Club of New York, is a member of the Arctic Brotherhood of Alaska, the Army and Navy Club of Manila, the Spokane Club, the Spokane Country Club, the Officers Club of Fort Wright, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Tillicum Club of Valdez and the Wanderers Club of Hong Kong, China. His have been thrilling experiences which can never come to one whose interests are confined to a single locality or whose efforts are concentrated along a single line of business. In fact, in purpose and in activity he has reached out over constantly broadening fields, meeting with such experiences as have caused him to place a correct valuation upon life and its contacts. He has preserved a splendid balance between the physical, mental and moral development and his friendships are largely with those whom experience and ability have raised above the ordinary level of life.
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AhHhwelling
Albert Laurance Flewelling
LBERT LAURANCE FLEWELLING was born A in a log house on a small farm near the town of Han- over, Michigan, October 26, 1861. His father, Abram P. Flewelling, was of sturdy Welsh stock, tracing his ancestry back to the last king of Wales. His mother, whose maiden name was Rosana Sprague, was of Scotch-Irish parentage dating back to the early set- tlement of America before the Revolution.
The early life of A. L. Flewelling was spent on a farm near Lans- ing, Michigan. He was educated in the public schools, and at an early age he began school teaching. At the same time he began read- ing law, spending his vacations and spare time in a law office. He was admitted to the bar in open court in the month of November, 1886, and the next spring he began the active practice of law at Crystal Falls, Michigan, in the heart of the great Lake Superior iron district. During his early practice he became identified with a num- ber of the strongest mining companies of the district and later was associated with Corrigan-McKinney & Company of Cleveland, Ohio, who at that time were the largest independent producers of iron ore in America, and for fifteen years immediately preceding the year 1906 he was General Counsel for that concern and acquired for himself through training he received by reason of his affiliations a large amount of mineral lands in Michigan, which he still owns.
In March, 1906, Mr. Flewelling came to Spokane as general man- ager of the Monarch Timber Company of Idaho and the Continental Timber Company of Washington and purchased the home which he now occupies at 2120 Riverside avenue. Under his management these companies purchased very large tracts of timber land in the Panhandle of Idaho and in northwestern Washington and when the holdings of these companies were purchased by the Milwaukee Land Company Mr. Flewelling became and still is the vice president and general manager of the last named company, with its principal west- ern office in the Old National Bank Building in Spokane.
Mr. Flewelling is a republican in politics and a thirty-second de- gree Mason, a member of the Spokane Club and the Spokane Coun-
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try Club and also the Ranier Club and the Arctic Club of Seattle. He is director in the Spokane & Eastern Trust Company and the Union Trust & Savings Bank of Spokane.
On May 10, 1887, Mr. Flewelling was married to Lottie A. Weatherwax, who is also an attorney, and for many years was asso- ciated with her husband in active legal work. They have only one child, a daughter, born in 1888, Eethel F. Sanderson, wife of C. B. Sanderson, now living in Spokane.
Rodinu T. Coman
Edwin Truman Coman
HE position of Edwin Truman Coman in banking T circles in Washington is indicated in the fact that he is the youngest man ever elected to the presidency of the State Bankers Association, which honor came to him in 1905. His active connection with banking interests is now broad and includes the presidency of the Exchange National Bank of Spokane, in which city he is now making his home. He came to the coast from the middle west, his birth having occurred in Kankakee, Illinois, May 25, 1869. His father, Daniel Franklin Coman, was a representative of one of the old families of Massachusetts and wedded Rosilla J. Thresher, whose ancestors were among the early settlers of New Hampshire.
Edwin T. Coman pursued his early education in the public schools of his native town and afterward attended the Michigan State Uni- versity at Ann Arbor and also the Washington and Lee University at Lexington, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and later in Illinois and Washington. He then continued in active practice until twenty-seven years of age and in the meantime he had removed westward to Washington having, in 1894, settled in Colfax, Whitman county. In 1897 he was chosen cashier of the First National Bank of Colfax, whose business was developed from a deposit of less than one hundred thousand dollars to a half million in a few years. In 1905 the First National Bank and the Colfax National Bank were consolidated and of the new in- stitution Mr. Coman became the vice president and manager. His ability in banking was becoming widely recognized in financial circles, and in 1907 he was elected as vice president and manager of the Ex- change National Bank of Spokane and removed to this city, where he has since made his home. In the intervening period he has been elected to the presidency of the bank and his connections also include the presidency of the First Savings & Trust Bank of Whitman county, of the Bank of Endicott, the Bank of Rosalia, Plum- mer State Bank of Plummer, Idaho, and the vice presidency of the National Bank of Palouse. Mr. Coman has made many public ad- dresses principally on financial subjects. He has spoken before the
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Bankers Association of Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and three times before the association of Washington. In 1908 he was elected trus- tee of the Chamber of Commerce, which position he held until 1911, when he was elected president. He is also president of the council of Spokane College.
On the 10th of March, 1897, Mr. Coman was married to Miss Ruth Martin, a daughter of Robert and Catherine (Tull) Martin, of Carrollton, Missouri, the former of whom was a pioneer banker. They now have three children, Edwin Truman, born May 18, 1903; Robert Martin, born December 31, 1905; and Catherine, born July 11, 1909. Mr. Coman holds membership in St. Paul's Cathedral of Spokane and he is a member of its vestry. Fraternally he is identi- fied with the Masons and has attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite, also holding degrees as Knight Templar and in the Mystic Shrine. From his college days he holds membership in the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Virginia Beta Chapter. His social na- ture finds expression in his membership in the Spokane, Spo- kane Athletic, Spokane Country, Inland and University Clubs.
Bustab Luellwitz
HROUGHOUT his entire life, since making his T initial step in the business world, Gustav Luellwitz has been connected with the lumber trade and is now at the head of the Shaw-Wells Lumber Company, in which connection he is active in control of one of the most important enterprises of this character in the northwest. He was born at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, November 30, 1870, and is an adopted son of Mr. and Mrs. F. Luellwitz, of Mil- waukee. The father, who was an officer in the German army, died in 1903, but the mother is still living in Milwaukee. Her father was Professor Witte, prominent in the field of college education and an old friend of Bismarck.
In the public schools of his native city Gustav Luellwitz pursued his education to the age of thirteen years. He first engaged in the sawmill manufacturing business in the northern part of Wisconsin at the age of eighteen years and there remained until 1897, selling lumber from 1890 until 1897 on the road. On the 1st of January, 1900, he left the middle west and made his way to Montana, where he was employed by the Big Blackfoot Milling Company of the Amalgamated Company, with which he continued for six months as a salesman. He was afterward in business on his own account at Salt Lake City until the fall of 1901.
Mr. Luellwitz was there married on the 17th of December, 1901, to Miss Emma Lewis McMillan, a daughter of H. G. McMillan, a prominent resident of Salt Lake City, who held a government posi- tion for many years during the Mormon difficulties. His grandfather was for one term governor of Tennessee, and a brother of Mrs. Mc- Millan has been judge of the supreme court of Wyoming for a num- ber of years. She was a representative of one of the old and promi- nent Kentucky families. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Luellwitz was blessed with one son, Henry McMillan, who was born February 14, 1903.
In the fall of 1901 Mr. Luellwitz came to Spokane and organized the McClain Lumber Company, under which name he operated for a year. The business was then reincorporated under the name of the
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William Musser Lumber & Manufacturing Company, in which Mr. Luellwitz was interested, retaining the management of the business until 1903, when he severed his connection therewith. He next en- tered business on his own account under the name of Gustav Luell- witz & Company and in the spring of 1904 papers of incorporation were taken out under the name of the Jenkins-Luellwitz Lumber Company for the conduct of a general lumber business. In 1905 the Luellwitz Lumber Company was incorporated to take over the retail department of the business and the same year the name of the Jenkins-Luellwitz Company was changed to the Day-Luellwitz Com- pany, at which time Harry L. Day became a partner in the under- taking. The two companies were operated independently, the Day- Luellwitz Company carrying on the wholesale and lumber manu- facturing business. His last notable step in the business world has been in connection with the consolidation of the Shaw-Wells and Luellwitz interests, which occurred March 2, 1912. Operations are still to be continued under the name of the Shaw-Wells Company, with Mr. Luellwitz as president, Frank H. Shaw, former president of the Shaw-Wells Company, as the vice president and manager of the new company, and E. MacCuaig, formerly of the Luellwitz Com- pany, as treasurer. The board of directors is composed of these of- ficers together with George R. Dodson, Herbert Witherspoon, E. F. C. Van Dissel, J. P. Langley and C. E. Wells, the last named a resi- dent of Racine, Wisconsin. The new corporation has been capitalized for one million, two hundred thousand dollars, and plans have been made for the erection, on the Luellwitz property along the railroad tracks on the north side, of a modern three-story semi-fireproof ware- house at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The pur- chase of about two blocks of ground at the junction of Marietta street and the railroad tracks has also been consummated, and con- stituted the largest real-estate deal on the north side in the present year. The new warehouse will be supplied with excellent shipping facilities and eventually the salesroom and offices of the Company will be located there. The merger of the Shaw-Wells and the Luellwitz Companies is a notable step in the enlargement of the business of the big mail order house. By this combination the firm plans to handle lumber and mill work through mail orders on a plan used by the leading houses of this character in the east. Mr. Luellwitz is also the owner of the Athol Lumber Company and is interested in the Buckeye Lumber Company, the Newman Lake Lumber Company and the Rainier Lumber & Shingle Company of Seattle. He owns
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large timber tracts in British Columbia and is likewise interested in the Yardley townsite. The Day-Luellwitz Company is incorporated for two hundred thousand dollars and the Luellwitz Lumber Com- pany for one hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Luellwitz turns aside from business to cast his ballot in favor of the men and measures of the republican party but has never sought nor desired office. He is prominent in Masonry, holding member- ship in the blue lodge and chapter of Phillips, Wisconsin, and in the commandery, consistory and Mystic Shrine at Spokane. He belongs also to the Spokane Club, the Spokane Country Club, the Spokane Athletic Club and the Hoo Hoos, an organization of lumbermen, with which he has been identified since its inception. He is likewise a member of the Chamber of Commerce and his active aid can be counted upon to further its interests and its projects. His early bus- iness experience laid the foundation for his success, bringing him a knowledge of the lumber trade which has constituted a basic element in his subsequent advancement in this line. As the years have gone by he has more and more largely gained a knowledge of the different phases of the business and is today an acknowledged authority on lum- ber in the northwest and a prominent representative of the trade. The story of his life is the story of honest industry and thrift. He has been aptly termed a man of policy. To build up rather than to destroy has ever been his plan and he attacks everything with a contagious en- thusiasm, his business ever balancing up with the principles of truth and honor.
Arth Stones
Arthur D. Jones
RTHUR D. JONES is the president of Arthur D. A Jones & Company, the oldest as well as the largest real-estate firm in Spokane. He has been at the head of this institution continuously since 1887 and has built it up from one desk to one of the strong in- stitutions of the city, occupying half of the ground floor space of the Arthur D. Jones building with an office entirely finished and furnished in imported mahogany. Mr. Jones was born in Michigan, September 25, 1859, and was educated in the common schools and at the State College at Iowa City, Iowa. After a short experience as a school teacher and solicitor for a magazine, he took a position with the advertising department of the Chicago Morning News, where he remained for five years until failing health brought him to Spokane.
Since 1887 he has been closely identified with the development of the city and country both in conjunction with general public en- terprises and through his own initiative. Conspicuous among the records of his work in Spokane are the development of Hillyard, Richland Park, The Hill, Cannon Hill Park and a number of other additions in Spokane as well as suburban properties. His company is local agent for the United States Mortgage & Trust Company and The Mortgage Bond Company, of New York, and also loaning agents for two of the great New York life insurance companies. The business includes real-estate, rental, loan and bond departments, banks, etc. He is manager of numerous land companies in which he is financially interested and is a stockholder in four Spokane banks and in other enterprises.
Mr. Jones married December 25, 1887, to Miss Ada M. Stinson, and has two sons and one daughter. In politics he is a liberal re- publican, and, although he has been keenly interested in political af- fairs, the only office he ever held or tried for was that of city council- man for a three-year term.
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Mr. Jones literally grew up with Spokane. When he started in business in this city, his capital consisted of very little money and the city contained only a few thousand people. For over a quarter of a century he has watched the city grow and assisted in its growing, and his own fortunes have prospered with it.
Elp P. Spalding
LY P. SPALDING, president of the Pacific Timber E Preservative Company, was born in Chicago, Illi- nois, April 18, 1862, his parents being William and Maria (Sedgwick) Spalding, the former a Board of Trade operator of Chicago for many years. The son entered the public schools at the usual age, continu- ing his studies through successive grades until he left the high school to enter business life, and for four years he was employed in his na- tive city. He then resolved to seek opportunities elsewhere and went to San Pedro, New Mexico, where he worked in the smelter of San Pedro & Canon del Agua Copper Company of that place. During the three years there passed he thoroughly acquainted himself with all branches of mining and assaying. He then returned to New York city and devoted the next ten years to the brokerage business.
In 1890 Mr. Spalding again came to the west, this time settling in the Coeur d'Alene country, where he was connected with the old Sierra Nevada Mining Company first as assistant assayer and then as assayer for the company. From the Coeur d'Alene district he went to Portland, Oregon, and engaged in handling mining proper- ties in that state for about three years. After a year spent in Alaska he returned to the United States and was for some years an exam- ining mining engineer, examining and reporting on properties all the way from Mexico to Alaska. In 1901 he took a bond on the Monarch mine of Monarch, Idaho, of which he is president. He is also president of the Coeur d'Alene-Norfolk Mining & Smelting Company and thus continues in close connection with mining inter- ests, with which he has so long been identified in one capacity or another.
His efforts, too, have been extended to other lines, all of which have constituted features in the general development as well as in individual success. He built the Idaho Northern Railroad, which is now a branch of the Oregon & Washington Railway & Navigation Company and of which he was vice president and general manager up to the time of its sale. He was also vice president and general manager of the Big Bend Water Power Company which is now a
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part of the Washington Water Power Company system and known as the Long Lake project. It was sold about two years ago and Mr. Spalding is now concentrating his energies largely upon his executive and administrative duties as president of the Pacific Timber Pre- servative Company, of which A. M. P. Spalding, his wife, is the secretary and treasurer. This company treats railroad ties at a lower expense than any other process that has been developed and there is every indication that the business will grow to be an extensive one. They have portable plants which they can put on cars and take to the place where the ties are found, thus saving the expense of having a large central plant and hauling the ties to and from that plant. In this business Mr. Spalding has an enterprise which is of a most promising character and undoubtedly he will reap the success which has usually attended his efforts.
On the 5th of December, 1906, Mr. Spalding was married to Mrs. Anna M. Phillips, and they reside at the Spokane Hotel. He holds membership in the Spokane Club, the Spokane Country Club and the Inland Club and is also a member of the Elks Lodge, No. 331, at Wallace, Idaho. The salient points in his character have been close application, unfaltering industry and intelligent investigation of every subject that has come under his control in connection with busi- ness interests. His opinions are regarded as expert authority upon questions relating to the mining interests of the west and he has an extensive acquaintance in mining circles. Wherever known he com- mands the good-will and confidence of those with whom he has come in contact and is now accorded a most creditable position in the busi- ness circles of this city.
Альна А.усачович
Wilbur Simpson Dearsley
ILBUR SIMPSON YEARSLEY, vice president of W the firm of Ham, Yearsley & Ryrie, has been a resi- dent of Washington for the past nineteen years' dur- ing the greater portion of which time he has been identified with the business interests of Spokane. He is a native of Pennsylvania, his birth having occurred in Westtown township, Chester county, on the 22d of April, 1866, his parents being Washington and Jane (Lewis) Yearsley. In both lines he is of Quaker extraction, his father's family having emigrated to America in 1684, as members of William Penn's colony, while his maternal ancestors came to this country from Wales during the early colonial days. His mother, who celebrated the seventy-ninth anni- versary of her birth on the 10th of September, 1911, is now a resident of Spokane and makes her home with her son at 2017 Mallon street.
Wilbur Simpson Yearsley was educated in the public schools of his native town and later for a time studied at Woralls Academy at West Chester, Pennsylvania. He then took a course in the Pierce Business College at Philadelphia, from which he was graduated in 1886. He began his business career in a general merchandise store at Westtown and while there he devoted his spare hours to reading · law under the direction of Alfred P. Reid, of West Chester. For six years he was identified with various occupations but still continued his law studies, being admitted to the Chester county bar in June, 1892. On the 1st of the following July he came to Spokane as ex- aminer for the Pennsylvania Mortgage Investment Company, being retained here in that capacity until 1905. When this company re- trenched, following the panic of 1893 and 1894, he was located at Colfax, this state, where he had charge of the business in Whitman and Garfield counties and also that of Latah and Nez Perce coun- ties, Idaho. Two years later, in 1897, his duties were increased by the addition of the business of Yakima, Kittitas, Adams and Frank- lin counties, Washington, all of which he cleared up in 1899 and turned it over to the Spokane office. For two years thereafter he engaged in the land and loan business on his own responsibility but in 1901 he became associated with D. T. Ham and C. L. Hoffman
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